Big Apple Apparitions

To cut to the chase, Spirits of Manhattan is a scenario which lets you play in an alternate universe not dissimilar to that of the 1984 film, Ghostbusters, or indeed, the 1986 roleplaying game based on it and published by West End Games. In the scenario, the Player Characters are members of Ghostbreakers, who in a previous incarnation, in 1984, prevented the opening of dimensional gate to hell as an outbreak of ghosts, spirits, and other nasties haunted the streets of Manhattan. Once they get the call and are alerted to a supernatural occurrence, they will race from their headquarters in their Ghostmobile—actually a disused Range Rover Popemobile used for Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United Kingdom in 1982, so not only right-hand drive, but also blessed and holy—and confront the ghostly happening. They will be able to detect the ghosts and other apparitions with their ElectroMagnetic Field Detectors, see them with their Spirit-Spectacles Goggles, perhaps consult their copy of Tobias’ Guide to Ghosts, Spooks, and Specters, then blast them into immobility with their ‘Spirit Stopper’’ Anti-Plasm Particle Thrower, and capture them using an Anti-Plasm Binder, all before returning to their headquarters to safely store the captured ghost! Sound a whole lot like Ghostbusters? Well, it does and it actually isn’t the Ghostbusters roleplaying game either because that has long been out of print. Instead, Spirits of Manhattan will do the job just fine until you have either saved up enough money to buy a copy of the original roleplaying game—keep saving if you want the dice too, or someone with deeper pockets than you gets the rights and brings it back into print.

Spirits of Manhattan is a scenario for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, the scenario is, of course, set in New York. With a few adjustments it could be set in the city of the Game Master’s choice. the background to the scenario is quite light, explaining a very little of the history of the Ghostbreakers, their equipment and how ideally it works, and the nature of ghosts and ghoulies. A ghost is measured by its EMF Class, from Class I and a nuisance all the way up to the dangerous Class VIII and the demons, demigods, and worse of Class X and beyond. The Class factor is a measure of its Power stat and the scenario includes a glossary of ghostly terms as well as sample entities, from the Class III Demonkin and Ghostly Creeps up the Class X Gozarr the Devourer. There is even a ghost called Slime Bucket, which, of course, likes to slime people. In addition, the basic equipment of the Ghostbreakers—the ElectroMagnetic Field Detectors, Spirit-Spectacles Goggles, ‘Spirit Stopper’ Anti-Plasm Particle Thrower, and Anti-Plasm Binder—are described in some detail as well as how they work. Users are warned that this equipment is often held together with duct tape and can be dangerous to use to both people and property. In terms of Player Character options, Spirits of Manhattan gives a list that includes Ghost, Demonologist, Exorcist, Inventor, Scientist, Student, and more, all with occupational abilities. For example, the Ghost cannot suffer any damage (apart from any weird gadgets), but cannot pick things up, the Demonologist knows how to hurt demons, and the Exorcist can hurt or hold off a ghost. Of course, the skills of parapsychology, cryptozoology, and parazoology will be useful too.

The bulk of Spirits of Manhattan is devoted to the scenario itself. The plot, which begins with the Player Characters as would be Ghostbreakers with access to the equipment, but none of the other set-up—so no disused former fire station as a base—and working at New York Columbia University Medical Center, has them receive their first call and go to a ghost emergency. This is at St. Peter’s Chapel, also on the university campus and involves an encounter with a minor ghost. It gives both the players and their characters a nice test run and successfully dealing with it also brings the Ghostbreakers to the attention of the university’s Dean, Richard Anderson (!). At first, the Dean is none too pleased with them, but after a second ghostly outbreak, the Ghostbreakers gain his support and he has the university sponsor their efforts. This is the chance for them to set up a base and begin working properly and for the scenario to really swing into action. This is with a series of tasks, including dealing with a ghostly creep at the fancy Glitzman Hotel, rescue crew trapped in a fire station by ghost gone health and safety mad, and capture a punk shrieker at a punk and new wave hotspot. These are nicely done encounters and really capture the feel of the scenario’s inspiration. Plus, there is plenty of room for the Game Master to add her own if she wants to expand the scenario into a longer scenario or even a mini-campaign.

Eventually, the main plot to Spirits of Manhattan kicks in and will drive the action to the scenario’s climax. This climax starts small, but ends big, with plenty of nods here to the source inspiration, but without copying it directly or exactly. So, no gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but something similar. There can be no doubt that Spirits of Manhattan goes up to that line, but it does not cross it. One addition is that of ‘P.U.RE.’, the Protection of Undead Returned Entities, a rights organisation dedicated to the proper and humane treatment of the ghosts that the Ghostbreakers are capturing. ‘P.U.RE.’ can become a thorn in the Ghostbreakers’ side, especially in the long term if the Game Master develops the suggested sequels.

Rounding out Spirits of Manhattan is a quartet of four hooks for further adventures beyond its pages. These are thumbnail outlines only, but they ape the various sequels to scenario’s source material and although all four require a fair degree of input and development by the Game Master, they are still fun and engaging, and would make the basis of great sequels.

Physically, Spirits of Manhattan is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is excellent, often done in a cartoon style, making the Spirits of Manhattan the equivalent of The Real Ghostbreakers. The maps are decent, but a bit too small to use with any ease. The worst aspect of Spirits of Manhattan is the flavour text, which is written in-character and means characters not mentioned elsewhere in the scenario. The Game Master will need to paraphrase a lot of it to really work.

There is no Ghostbusters roleplaying game anymore. Spirits of Manhattan is not the Ghostbusters roleplaying game, but rather a very knowing tribute to Ghostbusters. It captures the flavour and feel of its source material and this gives it a familiarity that is engaging and really easy to grasp, so that everyone knows what to expect and will be happy to play along. Above all, Spirits of Manhattan is a lot of fun and the Ghostbreakers will enjoy playing with its inspiration.

Friday Faction: The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain

There are plenty of good guides to the weird and wonderful past of Great Britain. The country is rich in folklore, the occult, magic and mysteries, horrors and hauntings, and much, much more, and so has been subject to numerous books and guides. The Readers Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain and The Lore of The Land, backed up with Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, will give anyone with an interest in the myths and legends of the United Kingdom a good grounding in the subject, but both are hefty books. So they are not easily carried on the go, and in the case of both The Readers Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain, several decades old. The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain does a similar job and covers much of the same material, but differs in two important ways. First, it is a more recent treatment of the subject and second, it is smaller and thus infinitely portable. In fact, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is actually designed to be portable for it actually includes the post codes for each of the numerous locations and sites described in its pages—though it is unlikely that all of these sites actually receive anything via Royal Mail (other delivery services may deliver). What this means is that the sites of the various standing stones, ghost sightings, occult personages, and more, are all easy to find. The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain may not be pocket-sized, but digest-sized, it is easy to carry around.

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is published by Hellebore, which collates various essays and pieces devoted to British folk horror—including folklore, myth, history, archaeology, psychogeography, witches, and the occult—into a series of fanzines. It covers the United Kingdom, region by region and country by country, so Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, as well as England—with London as a separate location. It starts in the southwest in Cornwall, and moves steadily east and north. The maps are marked with clear icons, including ‘Witches and Cunning Folk’, ‘The Old Gods’, ‘Magic, Rituals, and the Occult’, ‘Ancient Megaliths’, ‘Ports to the Otherworld’, and more. So in Dorset, Bradbury Rings and Cerne Abbas are the site of ‘The Old Gods’; Avebury and Stonehenge sites of ‘Ancient Megaliths’ in Wiltshire; ‘Witches and Cunning Folk’ of Pendle in Lancashire; and the ‘Curses and Portents’ of Cleopatra’s Needle and the ‘Magic, Rituals, and the Occult’ at both the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert, all in London. This barely touches upon the hundreds and hundreds of entries in The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain.

The various regions across The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain are colour coded, each region’s entries combining a mixture of short descriptions with slightly longer pieces. For example, Worcestershire has short entries on the Fleece Inn with its three white circles inn front of its fireplace to prevent the entry of witches via the chimney and Penda’s Fen, the children’s television series from the seventies, but longer entries on Bredon Hill and Wychbury Hill, the latter the site of an iron age hillfort, several follies, and the mystery of Bella in the Wych Elm. London is an exception to this with numerous entries under several different banners, such as Bloomsbury with the British Museum, Freemason’s Hall, and amusingly, both Treadwell’s Bookshop and The Atlantic Bookshop, and Hawksmoor’s London and Doctor John Dee’s London (Dee will also have entries for Manchester and Oxford).

Where The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain differs from other books of legend and folklore is its inclusion of sites particular to film, television, and literature. As with the other categories used in the book, these are clearly marked on the maps. For example, Aldeburgh in Suffolk is listed under ‘Film and Television Locations’ for the Martello Tower there, as it was the basis for M.R. James’ ‘A Warning to the Curious’, whilst several locations across southwest Scotland are listed as locations for the classic British folkloric horror film, The Wicker Man. There are not too many of the film, television, and literature locations throughout the volume, but in the case of the film and television entries, they add visual cues in particular for the imagination.

Physically, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is cleanly, if tightly laid out, primarily in black and white with the occasional use of spot colour. If there is an issue with the book it is that the liberal illustrations are not as crisply produced as they could be. The book does include an index and a list of references as well.

For roleplaying purposes, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is a useful book to have to hand. It is a veritable fount of ideas and hooks that the Game Master could turn into roleplaying encounters, scenarios, or mysteries for her gaming group. No more than that though, for the entries are thumbnail-sized and should be considered to be pointers or starters for the Game Master who will then need to conduct a little more research to flesh out the scenario or mystery. Nevertheless, much of the content would work in a wide range of horror roleplaying games, including They came from Beyond the Grave! from Onyx Path Publishing or Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Chaosium, Inc., as well as specifically United Kingdom-based roleplaying games, like Liminal from Wordplay Games, The Dee Sanction: Adventures in Covert Enochian Intelligence from Just Crunch Games, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying from Free League Publishing, or Fearful Symmetries for Trail of Cthulhu from Pelgrane Press.

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is an indispensable travel guide to the legends and folklore of Britain. It is not so much a definite reference guide, but more a reference starter, a point from where the reader (or gamer) can have her interest piqued and from there conduct her own further reading and investigations. Compact, but full of interesting content, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is an excellent little tome to take off the shelf and flip through or even have handy in the bag when you want to find something really interesting to visit nearby.

[Free RPG Day 2022] Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is a scenario fo Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, the version of the Steampunk and high fantasy setting best known for its miniatures combat game, Warmachine: Prime, for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Privateer Press, Iron Kingdoms: Requiem and thus Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks—and Iron Kingdoms: An Echo in the Darkness before it for Free RPG Day 2021 bring the setting and intellectual property full circle, both having been first seen in The Longest Night, Shadow of the Exile, and The Legion of the Lost, the trilogy of scenarios published for use with the d20 System in 2001. The three would later be collected as The Witchfire Trilogy.

The Iron Kingdoms is noted for three things. First, its interesting mix of races—Gobbers, Ogrun, and Trollkin alongside the traditional Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. There are no Halflings or Gnomes, and even the Elves are different to those of more traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy. Second, the prevalence of technology, in particular, the use of firearms and Steamjacks and Warjacks, steam-driven robots with magical brains, used in heavy industry and on the field of battle. Third, the tone of the setting is fairly grim, there being an island to the west, Cryx, where the sorcerers have long experimented with combing the undead with Steamjacks and Warjacks, and have long planned to invade the Iron Kingdoms.

Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is not a quick-start for Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, but a scenario, so the Game Master will need access to a copy of Iron Kingdoms: Requiem as well as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, to run the scenario. It is designed to be played by between three and seven Player Characters of First to Fourth Level, but is optimised for five First Level Player Characters. As the scenario opens, a new branch of

the Strangelight Workshop, the premier organisation in the Iron Kingdoms dedicated to investigating the supernatural, which has opened up a new branch in the city of Merin in the nation of Ord. It is looking for candidates and the Player Characters have decided to apply for whatever reason. Several motivations are provided to that end. A large sign above the door to the new branch reads ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’ and the scenario feels reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal as well as possessing an enormous dollop of Ghostbusters.

The Ghostbusters feel starts with the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned. This includes antispectral ammunition for targeting ghosts, charged gauntlets to deal lightning damage to or grapple with ghosts, a Handheld Lumitype to take ‘spectragraphs’ of ghosts, and Strangelight Goggles and Strangelight Projectors, which gives the scenario a very technological feel.

The scenario is built around a job board on which are pinned three little jobs, each with a little commentary by the branch clerk, Emil Todmann, a constantly scowling if friendly ex-postman. These are quite colourful and should influence the order in which the Player Characters tackle them. They are free to do them in any order, but ideally should be run in the order that they are presented. In the first gig, ‘Branston Gunwerks’, the Player Characters, now newly-minted ‘spectral investigators’, are directed to a manufactory which is beset by gremlins doing all sorts of damage. They need to get into the building and in and amongst the machinery to ferret out the Gremlins who are having way too much fun in the Gunwerks. It is an action orientated opener which should be fun.

The second gig is ‘210 Aurora Street’ which takes place a few streets away from the branch office. There the occupants of a house have been beset by a spirit known as ‘Headless John’. The Player Characters have a chance to do a little research before he makes an appearance. When he does, they are free to approach however they want, so they can fight ‘Headless John’ or persuade him to move on. The latter is a less bruising option as ‘Headless John’ is quite a tough opponent, but again, this is another decent little encounter.

The third and final gig is ‘The Red Mare of Lime Gate’. A burning figure astride a red horse has been setting warehouses in the dock alight and Emil Todmann warns the Player Characters that this is an unknown entity and needs to be careful of what it might be. This is a slightly more complex scenario and there is plenty of opportunity for the Player Characters to conduct some investigation—interacting with the locals, examining some of the warehouses, and so on, before the spectre strikes! Ideally before then the player Characters will have picked up some clues that something is not right here and so it proves in a rousing finale to the scenario. Its secret is not the only one to be revealed in the scenario, as there is another in the scenario’s epilogue, which is entitled ‘End of Watch’ and has a double meaning. Both the finale and the epilogue can be played out in a few different ways, all of which are covered in the scenario.

Physically, Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks also comes with plain and simple, decent maps of each location for the scenario’s three gigs, as well as ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’, full stats for all of its monsters and NPCs—from Gremlins to Emil Todmann, and full descriptions and stats for all of the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned as newly hired members of the Strangelight Workshop. Many of these are illustrated, as appropriate.

Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks contains three very different ‘gigs’ or encounters and offers players a very different style of play to that of traditional Dungeons & Dragons in Iron Kingdoms. It involves a more investigative and technological mode of play and thus has a more modern feel. Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is an entertaining Ghostbusters-style scenario which is not fun to play, but definitely deserves a sequel.

Leagues of Revenge

Most of the supplements and scenarios for Triple Ace Games’ Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration  and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror (and its expansion, Leagues of Cthulhu) are written by the game’s designer, Paul ‘Wiggy’ Wade-Williams, so it is a pleasing change to see that the latest scenario for the line is penned by a different author. Published by a successful Kickstarter campaign, Ghost Writer is written by Walt Ciechanowski, the author of Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré, the campaign for All For One: Régime Diabolique. This is, as the title suggests, a ghost story, and being a ghost story for Leagues of Gothic Horror is a florid, melodramatic affair, a tale of revenge from beyond the grave.

The scenario has few if any requirements beyond access to Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and Leagues of Gothic Horror. The Game Master may find that having access to Leagues of Gothic Horror: Guide to Apparitions be useful, but it is not necessary in order to run Ghost Writer as full details of the apparition and how to run it are included in its pages. Similarly, Globetrotters’ Guide to London may also be useful, but is not required to run the scenario. Although the globetrotters will have to defend themselves at various times throughout the scenario, Ghost Writer is not a combat-focused affair, instead emphasising investigation and horror and the social attitudes of ‘Mauve Decade’ in late Victorian London. The scenario works best if the globetrotters have a Mentalist or Mystic amongst their number, especially one who has the Second Sight Exotic Talent as that will give them an edge in facing the antagonist at the heart of the scenario.

Ghost Writer is set in London in the middle of 1891. It begins with an invitation, the player characters receiving tickets for the premiere of a new opera, Boudicea, at Richard D’Oyly Carte’s newly opened Royal English Opera House. (Other hooks are included, from a mentalist having a premonition to the globetrotters actually being members of the cast or back stage crew, but the default is the invitation.) The Royal English Opera House’s first opera, Ivanhoe, produced by Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, has been a big success and it is hoped that Boudicea, proudly proclaimed to be based on a lost play by William Shakespeare will be equally as successful. The premiere—a formal, top hat and tails affair—goes off with nary a hitch and the reception prior to the performance is the perfect opportunity for the Globetrotters to meet any interesting or important personage of note that the Game Master wishes. Several of them are already in attendance of course, but there is plenty of room for more. 

Unfortunately as the evening comes to a close, a strange fog seems to settle in over the streets of the city and by morning there will come the news that the opera’s composer has been pulled from the Thames dead. There is the possibility that the globetrotters will have been nearby when it happened, but if not, they will learn of it the next day. They will also be contacted by Sir Reginald Jellicoe, the producer of Boudica, in the morning to look into the matter for him—initially to locate the missing composer if neither the globetrotters or Sir Reginald are yet aware of his death or to ensure that it does not reflect poorly upon the production when they are.

Once engaged, the globetrotters will find themselves faced by a number of problems. Not just the matter of the increasing desperate ghost who seems to enshroud its victims in a seaborne fog of an unnatural origins, but also a worried, verging on neurotic, Sir Reginald, and an investigating police inspector who is the epitome of ‘Mister Plod’. Inspector Martin Chumley (!) is a by-the-book, the most obvious solution is the correct solution, ‘open and shut’ case type of officer whose brusque approach to each murder will all too soon frustrate the globetrotters. The Game Master though, will probably have a huge amount of fun in portraying Inspector Chumley as pompously as she possibly can. In general though, the investigation, which in the main takes in London’s theatre district, some of its less salubrious areas, and just a few of its more genteel sitting rooms, manages to be reasonably detailed and relatively complex without being too convoluted.

Ghost Writer should not prove too difficult a scenario for the Game Master to run. In fact, it would be relatively easy for the Game Master to adapt its plot to the system of her choice (if not the setting). It is not quite perfect though. The main issue is that it is not quite as obvious as it should be which scenes are optional and which are not. Some are obvious, some not. Another issue, is that in some scenes the players are expected to make tests that do not necessarily add to the play of the scenario. Nor is it helped that the book does not always present the information in the way it claims it does. That though, is primarily a problem with the editing and the organisation, both of which could be better. A last issue is that perhaps to an English eye, the author does not quite get mores of the period quite right, but really that is a very minor issue and few players are likely to spot them anyway.

Physically, Ghost Writer is generally well presented and written. Though some of the artwork is disappointing, much of it is pleasing ghoulishly melodramatic. Thus, these illustrations set the tone for what is a dramaturgic ghost mystery. Ghost Writer delivers what it promises—murder, mystery, a curse, death from beyond the grave, forbidden love, and a plummy, melodramtic gothic tale. It just needs a Game Master to ham it up!

Leagues of Mummies

Leagues of Gothic Horror takes Triple Ace Games’ roleplaying game of globetrotting adventure and mystery, Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do into that melodramatic genre full of legends, ghosts, vampires, dark magic, great evils, sinister villains, and even romance—gothic horror! That supplement is further supported by a number of smaller books, each of which explores various aspects of the gothic horror genre in greater in order to bring them to life. The Guide to Mummies is one such volume, expanding upon the information upon certain monsters and threats presented in the night—and more! And just like other titles in the series, such as the Guide to Apparitions, the fact that it is written for use with the Ubiquity roleplaying system means that its contents works with other roleplaying games and settings which use those mechanics, such as Exile Game Studio’s Hollow Earth Expeditions and Clockwork Publishing’s Space: 1889.

Given that our fascination with the Mummy really stems from the discovery and excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s and Boris Karloff’s portrayal of  Imhotep from the 1932 film, The Mummy—and exacerbated by the more recent 1999 remake—initially it seems slightly out of place to have the Mummy as a monster back in the ‘Mauve Decade’ of the 1890s, which is when Leagues of Adventure and Leagues of Gothic Horror is set. Yet fascination with the Mummy dates to even earlier, with French and British archaeologists finding and excavating tombs throughout the nineteenth century as their nations’ imperial interests extended to Egypt and the recovered artefacts and Mummies being brought back to Europe for display. Further, both Bram Stoker and Conan Doyle wrote stories featuring Mummies—The Jewel of Seven Stars and Lot no. 249 respectively—during or close to this period. So if Leagues of Horror can do vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and more, then why not the not so humble Mummy?

Now from the outset, it should be no surprise that the Guide to Mummies focuses on the Egyptian Mummy, since that monster is essentially what we think of first when it comes to Mummies. It examines their origins in Ancient Egypt, their embalming process, animal Mummies, and the misuse of Mummies for medicinal and other purposes. In terms of game design, it suggests and examines various origins—accidents, curses, magic, and so on—and when you combine this with the list of Mummy motivations such as duty, love, power, and revenge, then the Game Master has a readymade ‘big bad’ generator. They should also provide the basis for the research needed by the globetrotters—the player characters—in order to identify any Mummy antagonist and how to protect themselves from it or destroy it. The various new magical texts given in the supplement, such as Egyptian Magic and The Imhotep Papyrus, may also provide further clues.

Mummies also need tombs. Locating them is also a matter of research, but designing them is the Game Master’s task. The Guide to Mummies gives a guide to their design, including their size, traps—descending stone blocks, pits of spikes, volleys of darts, and so on, and of course, and of course, curses to trigger by a tomb being excavated. So Raiders of the Lost Ark or the Curse of King Tut—take your pick! A selection of Mummy related relics can be used to provide further clues, serve as objects to be found in such tombs or with the Mummies, or serve as MacGuffins.

As to their design, the Guide to Mummies divides Mummies into Greater and Lesser types. The latter are mostly unintelligent servants, the former actually intelligent, whether as supernatural masterminds or servant to some other mastermind. Their form can be skeletal, preserved, incorruptible, or even flesh and blood, but all Mummies have the advantages of not needing to eat, drink, or sleep, not feeling pain, and cannot be stunned. Beyond this, for each Level of the Patron advantage, a Mummy can have an extra Power, such as Body of Dust, Crush, Mesmerise, or Phylactery, to individualise the Mummy.

Of course, the Game Master need not go to such lengths, as the Guide to Mummies provides plenty of examples to use as threats and villains. Although the supplement has mentioned Mummies from South America and Europe—the latter the Bog Bodies, the primary focus of the Guide to Mummies to this point has been the Egyptian Mummy. Here it includes the frozen Mummy as well as the Warrior, the Crusher, the Shambling Corpse, and others. Stats and write-ups for Egyptian threats typical to the genre, animated statues, cobras, are also given, including flesh-eating scarab swarms, for the Game Master who wants to emulate a certain film. To ensure that Mummies do not grow stale, the supplement includes an short essay on making both them and their motivations interesting and thus memorable. The principles are applied to the ten or so major villains and NPCs. These include Aristeides, a former librarian at the Library of Alexandria and fanatical bibliophile who seeks to recover all of the library’s lost works; Rupert Stafford, mediocre archaeologist whose famed discoveries came hand-in-hand with membership of a cult dedicated to He Who Will Arise; and Eztli, an Aztec Mummy released in London who now enjoys a life of frivolity and gaiety, but must feed on a mortal once a month to retain her beauty! These ten or so, in some cases including associated cults, are a ready selection of villains and NPCs around which a Game Master build a scenario or two. After all, Mummies have been known to return!

Physically, the Guide to Mummies is decently written and presented, although some of the artwork is somewhat scratchy. It is short enough to not need an index, although the inclusion of a proper bibliography would not have gone amiss.

Like other entries in this series, the Guide to Mummies feels a little concise in places, but it gets a lot of mileage out of its subject matter and presents ideas and hooks aplenty with which a Game Master can create scenarios and threats. There is content here suitable for any pulp horror roleplaying game, not just the Leagues of Gothic Horror setting, but this greatly expands information about Mummy and enables the Game Master have this monster return again and again to his campaign.

Leagues of Ghosts

Leagues of Gothic Horror takes Triple Ace Games’ roleplaying game of globetrotting adventure and mystery, Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do into that melodramatic genre full of legends, ghosts, vampires, dark magic, great evils, sinister villains, and even romance—gothic horror! That supplement is further supported by a number of smaller books, each of which explores various aspects of the gothic horror genre in greater in order to bring them to life. The Guide to Apparitions is one such volume, expanding upon the information upon things that go bump in the night—and more! And just like other titles in the series, the fact that it is written for use with the Ubiquity roleplaying system means that its contents works with other roleplaying games and settings which use those mechanics, such as Exile Game Studio’s Hollow Earth Expeditions and Clockwork Publishing’s Space: 1889.

The Guide to Apparitions has a lot to get through in its sixty-four pages. This includes the infernal origins of ghosts and their history, the creation, motivations, and lairs of ghosts, the diabolical and other powers of ghosts, and ghosts and apparitions of all shapes and sizes, right up to true villains. This includes some thirty-four ghostly powers, thirty-one sample ghosts, thirteen unique apparitions, two new occult tomes, and one new ritual. All together it gives the Game Master the means to create and modify a veritable host of ghosts with which to do the frighteners on the players and their characters.

The supplement sets off at a canter with a race through the history of ghosts and apparitions that runs from prehistory and the dawn of civilisation up the modern day—by which the author means the 1890s or ‘mauve decade’ of the Victorian Era. This very quickly highlights the widespread acceptance of the Christian interpretation of ghosts, though other faiths are not ignored. Of course, in the setting of Leagues of Adventure there are clubs galore, each devoted to a particular fascination and when it comes to hauntings and apparitions, there is the Ghost Club. Its studies have formulated and categorised numerous types of ghosts and their means of creation and motivation, and their physical nature, fetters, triggers, and so on. Naturally, these categories are how the supplement classifies its ghosts, so the Guide to Apparitions is both a sourcebook for the Game Master and a reference manual of sorts for members of the Ghost Club. (That said, the Game Master should be careful in what he lets his players read).

These motivations include being cursed—either for their wickedness or the wickedness of another, being driven or duty bound to fulfil a task, or seeking justice or revenge. Such motivations differ from Motivations—that is, what drives a player character and earns them Style Points, including player character ghosts. Although NPC ghosts do not earn Style Points, they do actually possess a Motivation, which is the same for all ghosts and that is, Duty. This Duty is acting in accordance with their motivation, so the Duty of a vengeance-born ghost is carrying out that revenge, whilst a Driven ghost is forced to recreate its actions again and again. Their physical nature is essentially how corporeal they are; a fetter is what ties a ghost to the mortal world and can be a place, a person, or a possession; and triggers are set a ghost to act, usually a time or an event. The Guide to Apparitions also introduces how to use the Resources Talent with ghosts, either as a refuge or equipment, rather than as monies. The first is typically set up as a haunted house, but it can be any haunted location and it works well with ghosts who have fetters. The second allows the Game Master to vary the design of his ghosts to keep his players guessing and work as bonuses towards either atmosphere, energy, potency, or strength of a ghost and its haunting.

Besides discussing the pros and cons of ghosts’ common powers—invisibility and immateriality—the Guide to Apparitions gives some thirty or so other powers. Some of these it reprints from Leagues of Gothic Horror, the aim being to have one reference point for ghosts rather than the Game Master having to flip through two books to create ghostly NPCs and villains. So, nine of the powers are new, including Corporeal Form, Firestarter, Nausea, Possession, Sickness, and Strangulation. All are very straightforward and really work as you would expect given their names.

The contents of the Guide to Apparitions are put into practice in the second half of the supplement with chapters devoted to fiends and villains both ordinary and singular. Most are quite traditional, such as the Banshee, the Hag, and the Will-o’-the-Wisp, but others are quite modern like the Ghost Train and the Miser a la Jacob Marley from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. A lot have a very primal nature, the Chill, the Famine, the Fright, the Hate, and so on. Some are drawn from non-Western cultures, like the Myling and the Siren, but these are few in number. This is a missed opportunity at the very least, if not an opportunity for the author to write up a book of ghosts from around the world. The villainous ghosts include notorious hauntings, such as the Ghost of Berkeley Square, historical figures like Gilles de Rais, and fictional figures, such as Lady Macbeth and even the Piped Piper.

The investigator or ghost hunter is not ignored in all of this. There is advice on how to hunt for and handle ghosts, covering identification, research, categorising and classifying, and protection and destruction. Much of it is common sense, but it works the other way too, allowing the Game Master to set up an adventure with clues and hooks for the ghost hunter to discover and develop. There is also advice for the Game Master on creating and running ghosts and ghost scenarios throughout the book.

If there is an issue with the Guide to Apparitions, it is that it is concise. This does not mean that it is missing anything, indeed, the supplement has everything that the Game Master needs to help him run a scenario or three involving ghosts of one flavour or another. Rather it feels as it should have a little more flesh on its bones, perhaps some ghosts from different cultures or some scenario seeds or suggested further reading? Certainly, there are ideas and hooks for the Game Master to mine throughout the book, especially in the ‘Catalog of Fiends’ and ‘Princes of Darkness’ chapters, but nothing specifically written as a scenario seed. As to further reading, perhaps a bibliography or some more real-world cases could have been included for the Game Master to research himself.

Physically, the Guide to Apparitions is a decent little book. The artwork is suitably dark and grim, the writing to the point, and the contents a handy guide. There is the feeling though that should have been more in the book, but the Guide to Apparitions has everything to help the Game Master bring the macabre and the ghostly to his Leagues of Gothic Horror campaign.