Peril in Punjar

“Murder!” is the cry as death stalks the squalid and stinking streets of Spittle-Fields. As fog swirls around what light they carry in the dark and dingy alleys of the district abutting the Plague Gate, the Player Characters discover what will be the first of several bodies of women, accosted on the streets, their bodies slashed open far from where eyes can see, and internal organs cut free before the culprit flees back into the night. It is one hundred years since there were last such killings, a spate of brutal deaths called the ‘Autumn of Terror’, also of women, attributed to a killer never caught, but known only as the ‘Ripper’! Has he returned once again to strike fear into the good folk of some of the grimiest and grimmest quarters of the city of Punjar—Spittle-Fields Market Quarter, bustling by day, abandoned by night, the narrow alleys of Tenements Quarter, the sinister strangeness of White Chapel Quarter, and the bleakness of the Benevolent Craftsmen’s Quarter—or is some manic killing in his name? Can the Player Characters track down the killer down before he strikes again? Can the Player Characters uncover his motives and what they mean for the future of the city? Can the Player Character survive the horror revealed as they discover more? This the set-up for Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3.

Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 is a mini-campaign published by Strange Quark Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game from Goodman Games. It is also a curious beast. It takes place in Punjar, a city that has been the setting for multiple scenarios in the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, but has not been detailed as a setting apart from Punjar: The Tarnished Jewel. It is a homage to the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics #24: Legend of the Ripper with which it shares the same theme. It is also inspired by and a prequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics #75: The Sea Queen Escapes! in that its events can lead into the events described in ‘The Sunken Kingdom of Ru’ in the scenario.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Return of the Ripper is that it is inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian London in the late 1880s and it avoids all of the dangers of such adaptations such as giving a rationale behind the killings, such as the Cthulhu Mythos. Its primary method of doing so is by shifting the story to another genre and another city, although one heavily inspired by the London of the Ripper murders and the Victorian era. Its secondary method is to shift the story forward by a century, so what the Player Characters are investigating are murders inspired by Jack the Ripper rather than the murders that he committed. That said, Return of the Ripper is heavily inspired by two deeply connected works. One is Alan Moore’s comic strip, From Hell, and the other is Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor. These are not the only influences upon Return of the Ripper, but together they underpin is cosmology and its architecture. All those influences from Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana to ‘Talon of Weng Chiang’ for Doctor Who are listed in the campaign’s own and extensive ‘Appendix N’. What is clear from this is that the author is fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders, Ripperology, and its associated conspiracy theories.

The campaign opens with the Player Characters discovering the body of the Ripper’s first victim, Marianne Nickel. They have the chance to examine her corpse and talk to the crowd who have gathered around in the midst of Spittle-Fields Market and gain their first clues. This will give them a name and the details of a witness, which will lead them through Spittle-Fields Market and in and out of the other quarters as they trace Marianne’s movement and history. From there, the trail runs, if not cold, then at least cooler. The problem is not that it is designed as a free-form investigation with the Player Characters free to go where they will in pursuit of clues and further information, but it is written like a free-form urban sandcrawl rather than a dedicated investigation. What this means is that the murder mystery lacks structure that the Judge can easily navigate and follow the clues to reveal more of the mystery behind the murder. The plot and the motivation for the murders are both explained well and there is ‘The Murder Map’ which links the clues. Unfortunately, it is placed at the back of the book and it is not as clear is could have been.

The consequences of this are that the Judge is going to have to study Return of the Ripper quite closely in order to grasp the ins and outs of its plot, do some deconstruction of her own, and put it back together to get the best out of it. Besides ‘The Murder Map’ and the breakdown of the plot, the Judge is given three more victims whose deaths can be used to push the plot further long and a big table of rumours (for which she will need a thirty-sided die) that can be learned from NPCs (named and unnamed) and used as prompts to give the characters and their players a little nudge here and there. Plus, there is another agent with a deep interest in the murders, who may be a help or a hindrance, but is ultimately, a victim.

The investigation will ultimately reveals the culprits behind the deaths, a misogynist cult with grand plans that harness the geometric magic of the architecture of Spittle-Fields and its four quarters. From there, the campaign takes a strange turn, less Victorian urban sandcrawl, first above ground and then below, but a literal sandcrawl across a dimension beyond before delving deep into a pyramid that links to the events of Dungeon Crawl Classics #75: The Sea Queen Escapes!. Here is where the Player Characters will confront the survivors of the cult and its leader and hopefully bring the murderous reign of the Ripper to an end.

If Return of the Ripper is challenging to digest and so present to the players and their characters, it is not a challenge when comes to either detail or flavour. The people and places of this grimy, grotty quarter of Punjar are lovingly and engagingly detailed. There are places described in the write-ups for each of the quarters, such as Value Second-Hand Goods, the Ratcatcher, The Blackguard’s Bar, and others that could appear in future adventures without any changes. This is not to say that Return of the Ripper is the definite guide to Punjar’s streets, but it is a start. Perhaps the oddest addition though, is that of the Butcher of Brisbane from the Fifty-First Century, Magnus Creel, along with his murderous homunculus, Mister Sin! One other aspect of the campaign to note that it is humancentric. All of the NPCs are human, making you wish that there was the Victorian era setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics which would work with the campaign rather than playing in the fantasy genre.

Mechanically, Return of the Ripper details some thirty diseases, from the inconvenient to incurable, that the Player Characters might encounter, or worse, catch and suffer whilst in Punjar. They include Cholera, Dropsy, Typhus, Small Pox, Great Pox, Black Plague, and Bubonic Plague. This is in addition to the minor ailments like Beggar’s Boils, Gout, and Soot Lung listed earlier in the book and which the Commoners might suffer. Given the horrific and bloody nature of the campaign, it also adds rules for both Fright and Nausea. These come into play when the Player Characters encounter something horrifying or revolting, for example, being in an ominously dread place like a fog-swirled graveyard or discovering an eviscerated corpse or viewing disgusting disease symptoms such as maggot infested wounds or being doused in foul liquids like tanning fluids or sewage. This triggers a Difficulty Check and if failed, the player rolls a die equal to the value of Difficulty Check to determine the effect, making full use of the dice range in Dungeon Crawl Classics. This gives a wide variety of checks, from bring anxious for a number of rounds to actually mad (the Judge is recommended to consult The Cthulhu Alphabet for further details) for Fright and from being queasy for a few rounds to catching disease for Nausea. Nausea has an area-of-effect and does not stack, whereas Fright is time-based and does stack, so if a Player Characters is already affected, both the Difficulty Check for the next situation and the associated die rolled for the effect if failed are increased. There is a nice escalation to the effects from Fright so that a Player Character can go from jittery and unnerved to hair turning white and going mad with a lot of different effects in between rather than foisting madness immediately upon them, saving that possibility for towards the end of the campaign.

The campaign is ably supported with a lot of back matter. Not just the Appendix N, which details all of the inspirational reading and watching for the campaign, effectively serving as the designer’s notes, but also a ‘Murder Map’ that links the clues to campaign’s mystery, guides to disease in Punjar, the rules for fright and fear, a glossary of architectural terms, the campaign’s handouts, and a list of sobriquets, or first names. Unfortunately, the latter feels half finished without a list of accompanying surnames.

Physically, Return of the Ripper is a good-looking book. The cartography is clear and easy to use and the writing decent, though it needs an edit in places. The main issue with its organisation is a lack of an index.

That Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 needs effort upon the part of the Judge to pull it apart and understand its plot and its various parts is disappointing, but that plot is actually a rather good Ripperology pastiche and the parts do show off the author’s fascination with the subject matter. If not as easy to prepare and run as it should be, Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 has the potential to be a great adventure, a Victorian horror fantasy rife with grit and grime, determination and degradation, and eventually, hope and redemption.

Friday Fantasy: Creep, Skrag, Creep!

Something is really, really wrong. Your last memory was of the dinner to celebrate your good fortune, being selected to leave your isolated island home of Alviz and travel to the coastal town of Lys where you have been promised work in the copper mines and a chance of a better future. Then it was waving goodbye to friend and family aboard the sailing ship the Star of Nostro, captained by Kristene de Keradel. Now you are awake with a headache, a stiff back, and a tongue like the bark of a tree, in the low light and stench of the ship’s hold, your wrist shackled to a pole by a rusty chain. You are not alone. There are other villagers chained to the same pole as you are and then more chained to other poles scattered around the hold, some alive, but others dead and bloated, the source of the stench that is lodged in your nostrils. Then one of your fellow prisoners screams. There is movement coming out of the darkness, black dragons scuttling between those bound to the poles, and then one of them snaps at a prisoner who shrieks in pain as with a crunch the thing bites off his hand!

This is the startling set-up to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep!, a scenario published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It is both a horror and a ‘Character Funnel’. A ‘Character Funnel’ is a signature feature of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which takes Zero Level Player Characters—usually four per player—and pushes them through a Zero Level dungeon. Devoid of the abilities, spells, combat acumen, and Hit Points that a Class and even First Level would grant them, the Player Characters must instead rely upon their previous occupation and whatever equipment that granted them, the few Hit Points they possess, their wits, whatever they can find or scavenge, and above all, luck. The ‘Character Funnel’ has proven to be popular feature Dungeon Crawl Classics, not just to play, but also to design, because each has to present the right mix of death and danger which makes a total party kill a high probability, yet still allow for some of the Player Characters to survive and so ascend to First Level. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is the second Horror ‘Character Funnel’ for Dungeon Crawl Classics after Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red.

The opening scene of the scene drops the Player Characters into the middle of the action, desperately trying to break free of their chains as they fend off the black dragons that want to chomp down on them and their fellow prisoners. Survival is their priority, but they are also going to want answers to questions like ‘Where are the crew?’ and ‘What are those creatures?’ The Player Characters will find an answer to the first question, but finding an answer to the second will take longer. The crew are dead, and whatever those creatures are, they are going to stalk and attack the Player Characters—and worse, there is something much worse somewhere on the ship. The mother! It will attack the Player Characters—wherever they are aboard the vessel—again and again for it wants something from each and every one of them! Can the Player Characters survive long enough to work out what is going on and even longer to find a way out of the horrifying situation they are in?

By now though, the players should have worked out what is going on. The dead and gutted crew, the monsters that scuttle to attack again and again, and a ship adrift… If those clues are not enough for them to work it out, then the name of the ship that the Player Characters marooned aboard should. In fact, the name of ship, the Star of Nostro, should be a dead giveaway. For Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is effectively an adaptation of the film Alien for Dungeon Crawl Classics, if not in deep space where no one can hear you scream, then on the high seas where everyone can!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as much an investigative scenario as it is a horror scenario. It is also very self-contained, limited to the Star of Nostro and its cargo holds, cabins and quarters, rigging, and its three decks. There are plenty of clues to be found as what has happened, but not necessarily enough time to find them all as the creatures and its offspring return to strike again and again. However, determining what has happened aboard the Star of Nostro is only half of the scenario. The second half is all about getting off the ship, because much like the film that inspired it, ultimately, there is no way for the Player Characters to stop the predations of the creature. There are clues on and about the ship that suggest a way for the Player Characters to escape the horrors that they are suffering, and if the scenario does not end in a Total Party Kill, they will have their chance in a big showdown.

There is plenty of advice for the Judge on running the scenario as well as making adjustments to tone down its lethality. Its default lethality works well for a one-shot or convention game, but if run as part of a campaign, the Judge may want to adjust it down a little. In addition, there are tables for ‘Rumors and Personality Quirks’ which add flavour and detail and help bring the Player Characters to life—at least for as long as that lasts—and ‘Sailor Tattoos’, the patterns for which can be found aboard the ship. If applied correctly, these can provide a benefit similar to the star signs that a player rolls for during character creation, working as temporary magical items. Further support is provided in the appendices, which list people, places, and things, full details of the creature, and a means of tracking it movement timing throughout the scenario, all of which makes the scenario easier to run.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as well presented as you would expect for a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The writing, the artwork, the cover in particular, and the cartography are all excellent.

Probably the very last thing that anyone was screaming for is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics or any old School Renaissance retroclone that does Alien on the high seas. Yet Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is going to make the players scream in the opening scene, groan once they work out what is going on, and then scream and scream again as the creature keeps coming back for more. By its very nature and by its very inspiration, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! demands more engagement than the average scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the players do buy into the survival horror of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! and if any of their characters live to tell the tale and make First Level, then they really will have survived a horrifying ordeal!

—oOo—

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module was the previous scenario in the series •

The next scenario is Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #6: The Web of All-Torment.

Cyber-Dungeon Classics II: Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins?

Deep inside the Dark Web, a notorious programmer called the Electric Goblin has set himself up with a kingdom. Called ‘Uniqorn’, it is a classic fantasy world with a dungeon with traps, monsters, and NPCs. Only some of the NPCs are not digital NPCs, but the avatars who have received an innocent-looking invite to a fantasy-based video game called ‘Warriors of Uniqorn’ which when clicked on and accepted, delivers a technobio-virus direct to their frontal lobe. It causes encephalitis and puts them into coma, which when the Electric Goblin strikes, opening a back door in his victims’ brains and abducting their consciousnesses and using them to populate his personal fiefdom as more ‘life-like’ NPCs. In the real world, the victims’ symptoms have been identified as Aether Blight. The Player Characters are hired by a Fixer to traverse the WorldNet and descend below into the UnderNet to try and stop the Electric Goblin before Aether Blight spreads and becomes an even bigger problem. This is the set-up for Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins?, a scenario for Netcrawl, the cyberspace setting and supplement for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, both published by Goodman Games. Published by Horse Shark Games, it works with other third-party settings such as Cyber Sprawl Classics, Crawljammer, Umerica, Terror of the Stratosfiend, and Star Crawl Classics.

Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? is a scenario for four to six First Level Avatars—as Player Characters are known in Netcrawl—and should take roughly two sessions to complete. The Player Characters, whoever they before they jack into the WorldNet, are hired by a Fixer to stop the Electric Goblin who then gives them the grid co-ordinates for the entrance to ‘Uniqorn’. Upfront , the virtual world is described as looking like “… [B]adly-rendered ‘90s website mixed with some early 16-bit polygon 3D graphics.” As soon they arrive, they are given an introduction to ‘Uniqorn’ by a goblin wizard, effectively meaning that the Player Characters get an introduction and then their Avatars do too. Then they are step straight into Starterton, described as “You are now in a quintessential fantasy village, simultaneously familiar and unsettling due to a retro low-resolution aesthetic. Imagine a town built out of oversized  brightly coloured LEGO bricks, rendered with the limited colour palette of a ‘’90s computer game.” This very much sets the tone the scenario, short of quest-givers with exclamation points above their heads! The Electric Goblin is firmly ensconced in his dungeon at the end of the virtual dungeon and scenario, but the Avatars need to find a way in. This involves picking up and completing various mini-quests in order to find the ‘Golden Dungeon Key’ that will unlock its entrance as well as following up clues dropped by various NPCs in their rather limited dialogue.

Outside of Starterton, the Avatars can explore haunted woods, a giant spider’s lair, a hangman’s tree, and a cemetery before being ready for ‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’. The dungeon is a decent mix of semi-random traps and puzzles, backed up with a decent set of random encounters or events. Individual locations are quite detailed and there are several puzzles that the Avatars will need to solve, echoing the text computer adventures of the previous era as much the ones from the nineties that Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? are inspired by. The dungeon design is not linear, but it is not extensive and there are chokepoints where particular items are required if the Avatars want to progress. The worst of these is a deathtrap. Fortunately, if the Avatars have been thorough earlier, they may have a device which will resurrect one of them if he is killed by the deathtrap.

‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’ is the main part of Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? and it does feel oddly anachronistic. Now part of this is intentional, it is meant to replicate the feel of a computer game dungeon from the nineties. Unfortunately, if ‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’ feels anachronistic, the scenario as a whole feels anachronistic and dissonant. The problem is that there are multiple levels of reality to Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? First of the Player Characters in some unspecified future in which computer games like ‘Warriors of Uniqorn’ were played in the nineties; second of their Avatars entering a virtual world; and third, that virtual world not being a modern contemporary fantasy adventure or dungeon, but one that is decades old in terms of its design; and fourth, that they playing this virtual world/dungeon not as fantasy characters, but as computer avatars. This means that the Avatars are using their abilities, effectively highly advanced software, to overcome the problems of a faux fantasy world. The conceit at the heart of Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? just feels belaboured.

Physically, Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? is decently presented. The artwork, cartography, and writing are all good.

By no means is Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? a bad scenario, either in terms of design or story. It is just that the conceit at the heart of the scenario is layered and the associated levels of unreality demand equal levels of buy-in by the players, their characters, and their Avatars.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

—oOo—

The Rat King Returns! For Free RPG Day 2026, Goodman Games published an adventure that was special in three ways. Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is a scenario that celebrates Goodman Games’ twenty-fifth anniversary by bringing back a villain first seen in 2003 with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King, the first adventure it published for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. Second it celebrates the twenty or so years of Free RPG Day that tells the story of its genesis. Third it celebrates the contributions of Goodman Games to Free Free RPG over the years, with a gallery of every cover of every title donated to Free RPG Day in that time on the inside front and back covers. Sadly, they are presented in black and white, but nevertheless, it is still see them good in one place.

The scenario, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne, is written to be systems neutral, but includes stats and write-ups for its NPCs and monsters for the publisher’s own Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. With the inclusion of the latter, the scenario works well with the recent Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, but with the inclusion of the former, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne marks the first time that the Rat King saga has been written for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It is designed for a party of First and Second Level Player Characters and can primarily be used in one of two ways. The first is as a sequel to the events of Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, taking place a few weeks or months later, using the same Player Characters. The second is as sequel as sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, the saga of as a whole, taking place decades later. Of course, it can also be used as a standalone scenario, but either way the scenario can be played through in a single session.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters once again in the village of Silverton, the site of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’. Of late, there has been no merchant traffic along the road to the north to the city of Soulgrave and the village’s constable has not returned after having gone to investigate. (Oh, how the village has suffered.) A dwarven merchant claims that Lawrence Gannu, the Wererat and Rat King that threatened the village as an act of revenge that played out in ‘Idylls of the Rat King’. There are numerous rumours to gather, but quickly the local miner’s guild offers a reward and the Player Characters are on the road to the Silverton Mines (once again).

What the Player Characters discover is a much changed mine. It is smaller, no longer infested with either Goblins, Wererats, or Goblin-Wererats, let alone a vampire. That vampire though, Serrenna Valuois, who was long buried deep below the Silverton Mine, and who may or may not have been killed at the end of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’, has direct influence upon the mines as they are now and the scenario. Her hatred and her thirst, long left unslaked in the centuries of her imprisonment has been reflected and manifest in the Unslaked, a horror that has instilled occupants of the mines and creatures nearby with increasingly debilitating thirst that can only be quenched by fresh blood. There are several encounters throughout the mine where the Player Characters encounter victims of the Unslaked, who will attack randomly upon sight and several where they will be touched by the Unslaked and influenced by its thirst, as well as the possibility that, they too, might be influenced. Magical healing will definitely lift the effects of the Unslaked, but there are means of resisting the effect, the exact details of which are left to the Dungeon Master or Judge to decide.

The scenario packs a lot into a short space. There are the constable and his colleagues to rescue, plenty of call-backs to ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to discover, and not one showdown, but two! The last one is with the Rat King himself—and that actually might set up a sequel. Of course, there already is a sequel in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, but there is potential for the Rat King to be revisited in future scenarios.

Rounding out Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is ‘The Secret History of Free RPG’. This is a two-page interview conducted by Stu Horvath—author of Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground: A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership—with Joseph Goodman and the Aldo Ghiozzi. It is a pleasing little read that captures the beginnings of an annual fixture of our hobby.

Physically, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is well presented. Both the artwork and the cartography are decent too.

Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is a short, horror scenario that fleshes out more of the Rat King and his saga, whether that is as part of the saga, or as a sequel. Players who have played the previous scenarios will enjoy the call-backs, whilst for those new to it, it could be their introduction to the saga with ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ run as a flashback. Or it could be simply run as a one-shot. In whatever way the Dungeon Master or the Judge decides to run Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne, it shows that there are yet more stories to be told in the fight against the Rat King.

2008: Saga of the Rat King

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

In 2003, Goodman Games launched its long running Dungeon Crawl Classics series, which combined old style play with modern rules, with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King. In that scenario, the Player Characters’ investigations into raids by Goblin bandits on caravans carrying silver ore lead to the nearby Gannu Silver Mine which turned out to be infested by not just Goblins, but rats and Wererats. The final confrontation in the mine is with Lawrence Gannu, cursed by the villagers of Silverton to be a Wererat after they blamed his father for a dangerous discovery in the mines, returned to take his revenge upon the villagers. This scenario was more recently republished as Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In 2006, the publisher released a sequel, Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King. The Player Characters have an opportunity to confront Aaron Gannu, father of Lawrence, in this sequel. However, he has other designs on the Player Characters and they are tested sorely as he lures them into his lair, weakens them and depletes their resources, before capturing them. Fortunately, the Player Characters, only armed with luck and wits, do have the opportunity to escape, find their possessions, and fully arm themselves once again before the final showdown. Both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, rather than the publisher’s own (not yet published) Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition or Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Published in 2008 for sale at Gen Con Indy in 2008, it is instead a special module in more ways than one, First, it is written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, rare in 2008 as it would be for today. second, it combined both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King. Third, it not only compiles the previously published scenarios, but includes a third new part, ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. This connects the two scenarios and it means that together, all three parts can be played as a single campaign taking the Player Characters from First Level all the way up to Sixth Level.

The plot to both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King remain the same. In the former, the Player Characters explored the apparently abandoned Gannu Silver Mine and find it crawling with Goblins and Wererats, one level of the mine being reworked with zombie slaves, and Lawrence Gannu the Wererat overseeing it all as well as something else hidden deep in the bowels of the mine. In the latter, the Player Characters are in the city of Soulgrave tracking down a ring of slavers and are lured in one big dungeon trap by Aaron Gannu, father of Lawrence, who will have his revenge! Divided over three acts, the Player Characters will be tested in each. First, with a series of challenging dungeon encounters designed to wear them down; second by capturing them and stripping them of all their equipment; and third, with dangerous battle against Aaron Gannu’s minions and finally, Aaron Gannu himself. It remains an evil dungeon. However, there are changes to both because, understandably, this is a compilation for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, not Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition.

The most obvious change is from a roleplaying game with intrinsic rules for skills, skill checks, and other activities to a roleplaying game without those. Here we are in classic ‘rulings not rules’ territory, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King leaving it very much up to the Dungeon Master to decide upon the specifics of how resolve a Player Character action. Unfortunately, this is not consistently applied throughout the adventure anthology, giving it slightly unbalanced feel. Without the suggested mechanic solution for each and every situation, it feels authentic to the design and play of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but where they are included, they intrude rather than feel natural.

However, the adaptation from Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition has been less consistently applied to the ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ part of the campaign. One of these is narrative in that as a section of boxed text explains whilst Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King had Goblin Wererats as its main monsters, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition restricts lycanthropy to Humans only. Thus, there are no Goblin Wererats in Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, only Human ones. Neither are there any Goblin Clerics in Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, these also having been changed to Human Clerics, though still devoted to the rat gods Narrimunth and Nimlurun. Similarly, the Goblin Wizard of the original has been changed to Human Wizard, but in this his illustration is that of the Goblin in the original, and whilst the bandit chief and his guards are now described as Human, their illustration still shows them to be Goblins. Lastly, Half-Orc slavers have been added to the scenario. These effectively replace the Goblins who would fight to the death to protect the young Goblins in the tribe’s nursery. So now the Half-Orc slavers will fight to the death to protect their slaves, which though ties in with the slave ring theme found in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, it still does not make sense narratively.

It should be noted that ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ still retains the story element of the Player Characters being captured by the Rat King. As problematic as this in terms of storytelling and player agency, it is very difficult to change this because it is pivotal to the events of the scenario.

In between ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ is ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. This is designed for Player Characters of Third and Fourth Level. It is designed as a short bridging affair between the two scenarios, but it is not a full enough adventure to provide sufficient Experience Points to take the Player Characters from ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, so the Dungeon Master will want to run other content before it as ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is a direct prequel to ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It provides a specific reason for the Player Characters to travel from Silverton to Soulgrave. The scenario draws the Player Characters back to Silverton, which has been restored to its fortunes with the death of Lawrence Gannu and the driving out of his bandits at their hands. Lawrence’s younger half-brother, Marcus, equally as evil, has heard of his brother’s death and working with their father, has concocted a plan to take revenge upon the Player Characters. This will play out in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, but to set this up and draw the Player Characters in, Marcus kidnaps several of the villagers from Silverton and holds them to ransom. The villagers of Silverton ask the Player Characters to deliver the ransom to the Deveraux Silver Mine and ensure the safe return of the hostages.

The Player Characters have the choice of handing over the ransom or fighting their way into the mine. Either way, they will have a fight to get to the hostages as the situation is not simply a ransom and hostage exchange, but of course, a trap! Marcus has seeded the mine with traps and groups of his men, who will snipe and harass the Player Characters as they work their way to where the hostages are being held. Ultimately, there will be a confrontation with Marcus, but he and his chief henchman will escape the mine in Indiana and the Temple of Doom style in a mine cart with the Player Characters in hot pursuit.

‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is a set-up and also a set-up to a set-up, that of ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It is short and serviceable, playable in a single session or so, and primarily combat focused. The addition of Marcus Gannu is the main addition to the trilogy in terms of its storytelling, but the main problem with ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is that it sets up Marcus Gannu as a villain, but then lets him exit the trilogy of scenarios as he does not appear in the updated version of ‘Revenge of the Rat King’.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is done in the then style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. The artwork is decent, though not always befitting the text, and the cartography varies in style and quality. This is from the very plain, even dull, maps of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to the detailed maps for ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ and ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. Unfortunately, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not let down by its adaptation to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but rather by its lack of consistency when it comes to terminology and phrasing. Errors are strewn throughout the book. Not necessarily to make Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King unplayable, but more than enough to irk the veteran of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and potentially confuse the Dungeon Master who has less experience of playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King provides three different styes of dungeons. ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ is a dungeon crawl; ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is an extended combat encounter, a game of cat-and-mouse through the mines; and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ is a challenging, even evil, obstacle course that will test the players’ lateral thinking and dungeoneering skills perhaps more than those of their characters. This gives it variety that is neatly tied to its theme of revenge that runs through all three parts.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is really a trilogy in two parts because ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is not enough to bridge the gap between the events of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It does, however, provide a reason for the Player Characters to play through ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, so very much a mini-prequel. Which means that Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not really a mini-campaign either, since it has a beginning and an end, but no real middle. The Dungeon Master will have to provide that, and perhaps one way of doing it, is to use Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King as a precursor to the classic campaign, Against the Slave Lords, since there are elements in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ inspired by that campaign.

2006: Revenge of the Rat King

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

This is an evil dungeon. For example, the first room consists of a set of stairs which lead down to a door. Murky water is pooled in front of the door. That is simple enough. However, the door cannot be opened because the passage on the other side has been filled with rubble, which will take several hours to clear and that after the strenuous effort to smash the door down. Whilst the Player Characters are doing that, they are standing in the pool of water which hides several caltrops whose points have been laced with poison called Vein Rot, which does Strength damage and halves movement. Ah, I hear you say, “What about secret doors?” Well, yes, of course. There is a secret door, but you know what? That has been trapped too. Opening the secret door releases clouds of finely powdered glass, which if a Player Character breathes in, causes Constitution damage. Which is evil and just the first room. Then the dungeon proceeds to batter the players and their characters over their heads with another fourteen encounters with different mechanics and different traps and monsters, but in a very similar vein… If it sounds like someone has it in for the players and their characters, that is because someone has—and it is not Harley Stroh.

Obviously, the clue to fact that this is the start of a revenge scenario is in the title, Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King. Designed for a party of between four and six Player Characters of Fourth to Sixth Level, this is the twenty-seventh entry in the original line-up of Dungeon Crawl Classics from Goodman Games. Being published in 2006, it is not written for use with the publisher’s own Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, but for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition published by Wizards of the Coast. It is also a sequel to the very first entry in the series, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King. In that scenario, the Player Characters’ investigations into raids by Goblin bandits on caravans carrying silver ore lead to the nearby Gannu Silver Mine which turned out to be infested by not just Goblins, but rats and Wererats. The final confrontation in the mine is with Lawrence Gannu, cursed by the villagers of Silverton to be a Wererat after they blamed his father for a dangerous discovery in the mines, returned to take his revenge upon the villagers. Now Aaron Gannu, father of Lawrence, has discovered that it was the Player Characters who killed his son and has engineered a plot to snare them in his clutches and their certain deaths. He will have his revenge!

Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King is really a dungeon in three acts. The first part opens with the Player Characters in the city of Soulgrave tracking down a ring of slavers and having found an entrance to one of its staging areas under its streets. Very quickly, the Player Characters will find themselves facing challenging situations, both in terms of traps and foes. Monsters harry the Player Characters, scampering away when they get too close and barely giving them time to recover before the next encounter, whilst a rattish figure taunts them all the way. It is linear, including some nasty traps and an unguided and consequently perilous ride on a skiff down a raging storm sewer, and gruelling. The latter intentionally so. Intentionally because Aaron Gannu wants to capture the Player Characters rather than kill them—at this stage. Ultimately, he will. In the second act, the Player Characters wake up dressed in rags, chained up, and bereft of their equipment. After escaping, they must find their way down another rushing waterway and eventually, their equipment, arming them ready to face their captor at the end of the scenario. The third and final act of the scenario is shorter and just as bruising, but the Player Characters have the benefit of their equipment and so the encounters leading up the finale are almost a relief for the players if not their characters.

The scenario requires some preparation in terms of hooking the Player Characters in. It does suggest several ways to do that, all of them tied into the slave ring hook. Yet the Dungeon Master may still want to develop some background in her campaign involving a slave ring before the Player Characters get to this scenario, whether that is in the city of Soulgrave or one of her own choosing. Ideally though, the Dungeon Master should run Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King as a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King, otherwise the revenge plot at its heart will not just be as significant to either the players or their characters.

If those issues can all be dealt with, the scenario’s primary problem remains insurmountable. This is the fact that it is linear. In fact, each of its three acts is linear. Act one to get the Player Characters captured, act two to get the Player Characters free and to their equipment, and act three to get the Player Characters to the finale and the confrontation with Aaron Gannu. Each is testing in its way, the first act grinding the Player Characters down, the second acting stripping them bare, and the third building them back up again. The designer is telling not just a story of revenge, but a revenge epic! One, of course, starring a variable cast, yet that also means that the scenario’s plot has to run for it to work. That is, the Player Characters have to be captured, they have to lose their equipment, and they have to regain it. In effect, no matter how foolish or clever the players and their characters are in the first act—and clever play, along with lucky aplenty, can curtail the effect of some of the challenges they will face, it does not actually matter. For some Dungeon Masters and some players this may be too much of an imposition upon player agency.

Most obviously, Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King is connected to Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King, but there are one or two nods to other roleplaying classics in the book too. One is the cover, a delightful homage to the cover of the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but with a statue of a rat god replacing the demon, larcenous adventurers swarming all over it of course and attempting to prise out the gemstones it has eyes! The Player Characters will discover this very statue towards the end of the dungeon. Inside, the scenario develops the slavers theme by taking inspiration in one or two locations to A1-4, Scourge of the Slave Lords, such as having to run along the tops of walls of cages holding captured slaves as in A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade and the whole sequence to the second part of the scenario in which the Player Characters wake and find themselves clothed, but completely lacking equipment and must rely upon wits and abilities is inspired by A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords.

The scenario includes some new magical items and a new monster too. The latter is the Redtooth Troll, a troll afflicted with wererat lycanthropy. His encounter in the scenario starts with him under a bridge and reaching up and over to knock the Player Characters off.

Penultimately—and notably, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King have something else in common beyond one being the sequel to the other. This is that both have subsequently been adapted for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. These are Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King and Fifth Edition Fantasy #36: Revenge of the Rat King.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King is generally well presented. There is a lot to work through and prepare as many of the NPCs and monsters are highly detailed. The artwork is excellent throughout and there are many images here that the Dungeon Master can show to her players in addition to the handouts at the end of the scenario. One big improvement in Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King is the cartography which more detailed and interesting than in Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King is not quite a death trap dungeon because it is not designed to kill the Player Characters. It is, however, designed to hurt them, scour at their resources, and put them through the wringer and make them as well as their players work really hard. Every encounter in the dungeon is challenging, but the first act is really testing and full of nastily inventive scenes. The Dungeon Master is going to really enjoy running Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King; the players not quite so much—unless they like a challenge.

[Fanzine Focus XLIV] Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 14

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons,RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is the aforementioned Crawling Under A Broken Moon.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 14 was published in in August, 2016 by Shield of Faith Studios. It continued the detailing of post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth which had begun in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, and would be continued in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, which added further Classes, monsters, and weapons, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 3, which provided the means to create Player Characters and gave them a Character Funnel to play, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4, which detailed several Patrons for the setting, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 5 explored one of the inspirations for the setting and fanzine, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 continued that trend with another inspiration, Mad Max. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 continued the technical and vehicular themes of the previous issue, whilst also detailing a major metropolis of the setting. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 9 were both a marked change in terms of content and style, together presenting an A to Z for the post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 10 switched back to more traditional content by focusing on monsters, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 11 examined some of the gods and patrons of Umerica and Urth. Crawling Under A Broken Moon fanzine No. #12 continued the humour of the setting by presenting the dark face of Buddy O’Burger, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 13 focused on adventures and monsters..

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 14 is less focused, but it goes big—really big! So big, it needs the pages of Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 15 to actually be complete. As the editor puts it, the issue can only be summed up with one word—“DINOTASTIC!!!!”. The issue takes the whole of what was once New Mexico and slaps it under a bright green dome and under that dome, it shoves the whole of Jurassic Park! Standing five miles high and two hundred miles in diameter, ‘The Mysterious Glowing Dome’ presents a huge prehistoric theme park gone to seed and haywire as a ‘semi-hex crawl’. This is a combination of hexcrawl with content and encounters already included and empty hexes that have been left up to the Judge to fill, and to that end, the article includes a set of ‘Random Hex Tables’ for creating interesting features, such as buildings, hazards, inhabitants, and resources. Sub-tables enable the Judge to create the details of chemical leaks, mutagenic exposure, park vehicles, and more. The rest of the article describes the details of some thirty-three hexes. For example, Hex #102 contains the overgrown ruins of a hotel and entertainment complex connected by a mix of wide, paved streets and broken down electric trolley cars, where there is a small chance of finding still useful mechanical parts and a single, very well hidden Saurian lookout tower, which has a chance of being manned with guards, whilst in Hex #112 is ‘Kidz Fun Land’, a once-family friendly attraction near the main gate that was previously a petting zoo for docile stunted dinosaurs, but is now ruled over murderous feral-children, who remain oddly youthful and have strange powers and who lay deadly traps for intruders. There is a mix of broad detail and specifics here, that the Judge can develop in addition to the spaces where she can add her own content.

All of this is backed up with a dozen rumours and descriptions of the park’s three factions—the Dinosaurs, the Scale Empire, and the Once-Men. ‘The Mysterious Glowing Dome’ focus on the first two, saving the third and latter for the next issue. The dinosaurs are a mix of what it calls ‘Purebreed’ dinosaurs and dinosaur aberrations as you would expect in a post-apocalyptic future like that described in the fanzine and The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide. The Scale Empire is an empire of Saurians, intelligent humanoid descendants of several species of dinosaurs whose ancestors were subject to gene modification experiments conducted by the park. There are three ‘Saurian Character Classes of the Scale Empire. The ‘Sorceraptor’ is a Lawful caster of unpredictable magic able to imbue his magic claw with even magic energy; the Sky-Sneak is rash, if daring acrobat with bat-like wings, keen-eyed, and capable of feats of trickery including bombardment, sneaking, and backstabbing; and a Battle Chanter is a large, solid herbivore whose bellowing can penalise enemies or give bonus or Rhythm Effects such as ‘Quick-Foot’ or ‘Droning Chant’ that reduces the enemies’ Action die by one step! The Battle Chanter is the Saurian equivalent of a Bard and its Rhythm Effects come in three tiers.

The three Scale Empire Classes are a means to create NPCs and if necessary, a means to provide a source of new Player Characters, whilst ‘The Mysterious Glowing Dome’ could form the basis of any number of campaigns. Player Characters could be dumped into it without having any aware of where they are, they could grow up there with no idea of the outside a la Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship, or be visitors from the outside world, the default set-up given for the setting.

The setting is filly supported in ‘Twisted Menagerie’, the bestiary for Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 13 provides solid support for the Umerica and Urth. The scenario is serviceable and more traditional in its treatment of its post apocalypse, than the satire and tastelessness of the previous issue. Of course, the content (though its tone may not) will work with other post apocalyptic roleplaying games and not just the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.. These include ‘Once-Men’, the descendants of the park staff and patrons caught in the interdimensional storm that ripped the park from its original home dimension. They are mostly peaceful, idolize the images of the normal humans that still survive within the park, and have their own special mental powers. They are followed by stats for ‘Purebreed Dinosaurs’ and ‘Dinosaur Aberrations’, the latter are just Purebreed Dinosaurs, but with energy cannons, multi-lens eyes, and reinforced skeletons. Lastly, ‘Proto-Saurians’ are the evolutionary ancestors to the Saurians of the Scale Empire that can be domesticated as violent shock troops.

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 14 is as serviceably presented and as a little rough around the edges as the other fanzines in the line. Of course, the problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 14 is that much of its contents have been represented to a more professional standard in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, so it has been superseded by a cleaner, slicker presentation of the material.

Although not fully complete, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 14 packs a lot of gaming content in its pages. The ‘Jurassic park’ setting of ‘The Mysterious Glowing Dome’ delivers all of the gaming potential in thirty pages that the similar The Valley Out of Time fanzine arduously worked to avoid for a whole six issues! It has content that that Judge can use right now, but with room aplenty for her to add her own, and the content can also used in multiple different roleplaying games, not just the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.

Cyber-Dungeon Classics I: Arcolgies

Zapped by a hi-res laser. Take the red pill. Plug in. Within seconds and the Player Characters are no longer in their world, but another. Somewhere in between, a liminal space of data and information, infinite realities and variations, where corporations hold and protect their data in fortresses and millions work, and even more flock to explore worlds that previously they could only imagine. They no longer are Player Characters, but ‘Users’, shifted out of ‘Reality’ and into ‘Cyberspace’ as ‘Avatars’. Inside this virtual world, this WorldNet, they face not I.C.E. or Intrusion Counter Electronics per se, but Intrusion Counter Entities. Their new world is not so much a virtual world as a cyberdungeon. ICE are not the only dangers the Avatars will face. There is a chance of being detected and worse being noticed by the deities that are the A.I.s. This is the setting for Netcrawl, the cyberspace setting and supplement for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, both published by Goodman Games. Published by Horse Shark Games, it works with other third-party settings such as Cyber Sprawl Classics, Crawljammer, Umerica, Terror of the Stratosfiend, and Star Crawl Classics. Plus, of course, it can simply be a roleplaying setting all of its own. Once zapped into this virtual world, what exactly does it look like?

Netcrawl: Arcologies is a supplement that attempts to address the infinite number of possibilities when it comes to what the virtual reality environments of Netcrawl and the WorldNet look like, what might be found there, and what threats that the Avatars might encounter. It is in effect a dungeon generator for a cyberpunk and virtual world setting that the Judge can use as prompts to develop the space into which the Avatars are cast and bring it to (virtual) reality. The first part of Netcrawl: Arcologies looks at its namesake with a set of tables for defining what a particular arcology is like. The generator determines an arcology’s tone and theme, functionality, appearance, and style, plus the primary form of travel to and within the arcology. So its tone might be disorientating or entertaining, its theme lines and vertices or grimy, functionality a beta release or fortified, and its appearance a polygon or shaped like a vehicle, and so on. In style it could be gridded or circuitry and if a polyhedral shape, a cylinder, cone, or rhomboid prism.

Thematically, one area that the supplement does not do is provide a means of determining who built the arcology and who runs it now. In the introduction, it acknowledges that an arcology can be run by numerous organisations, where that is corporate, governmental, or some other body, and that further this will suggest branding, function, and appearance. The inclusion of such details would have added further depth and detail to any arcology and help the Admin in the creation process.

The ‘System Raid’ tables set up a target and thus the basis of an adventure for Netcrawl. It sets the target as a random system building that is then layered into grids of nodes that are populated with agents or random I.C.E. These include connections, firewalls, agents, security portals, systems, and servers. This provides the target environment to be explored and worked through, but the look and feel of this space should be dictated by the previous Arcology Generator tables. Of course, the target can be determined wholly randomly by simply rolling on the tables, but the advice is to combine it with design choices. The process is not easy in part because although it is creating the equivalent of a virtual dungeon, it does not have the structure of a dungeon traditional to Dungeons & Dragons. So, it is harder to visualise.

The Admin can also personalise the A.I.s in charge of the arcology—or parts of it—with plans and personalities, and even give them hobbies to perhaps give them a weakness that can be exploited. Arcologies can further be populated by rolling the I.C.E. Generator that determines type, general appearance, colour, and form, and even allows for the possibility it could manifest in the outside world, from as ordinary a defence as a swarm of nanobots to a synthetic android.

The supplement takes the Admin to the seamier side of the virtual world with the Undernet, the equivalent of the Dark Web, but here treated like the back streets and alleys with a handful of encounters. Further, it is a bestiary of sorts, if the monsters and other threats are digital. There is Malware, virulent code that compromises a victim’s defences and can alter an Avatar’s appearance temporarily and even permanently reduce his stats, depending upon how badly the player fails his Avatar’s saving throw versus. Some of these are quite complex. For example, once installed, the reactive defensive code attack ‘Heartstopper’ automatically activates under certain circumstances and forces constant heart attacks on the victim, whilst ‘JOBE’ or ‘Joyous Omnipotent Brain Evolution’, grants a bonus to program activation checks and Wits check or Wits-based skill checks. However, if an Avatar succeeds by these bonuses only, it reduces his Hack stat and if reduced to zero, the sufferer is turned into a megalomaniac! In many cases, Malware can be removed with reversion control or quarantine.

The ‘Code’ rules get under the structure under AI, arcology, and Avatar, whilst ‘Exploits’ are malicious code that can be injected into an Avatar. Again, like the Malware, there are basic and more detailed versions. For example, ‘Couch Pirate 3000 (CP3K) – The Slacker Hacker’ is whispered about in encrypted chatrooms or foreshadowed by icons of a worn-out couch appearing on dead servers, and asks the question, “Why burn the system when you can break it lying down?” Sufferers are forced to lie down on the couch and lose all speed (moving 0#) and suffer a -4 penalty to their Hack. That said, the couch can be moved, so making the Avatar’s allies do yet more hard work! The ‘Zap Generator’ creates Zaps, virtual drug-like experiences that provide temporary boosts, but which can be addictive. They fit the setting, but they do feel like way to get drugs into the WorldNet, whereas ‘Abends’ enforce the weird nature of the setting, all being code written to crash in unusual ways, ending in critical errors and other unexpected ways. For example, ‘nessuna.tmp’ causes intense drowsiness and an hour-long dream state that renders an Avatar vulnerable. Effectively, ‘cybersleep’, it has transcendent effects that make many ciphomorph shamans actually infect themselves and gain prophetic abilities and access to ‘spirit’ realms. Mechanically, after waking up from this state, users are slowed to a zen-like state that means they go last in combat and are slowed to a single action, but do gain access to insight that grants a bonus to an action die, saving throw, or Armour class, which can be changed from round to round. There are only three of these Abends, but these add depth and feel to some of the software to be found in the WorldNet.

Rounding out Netcrawl: Arcologies is a ‘Guide to the WorldNet’ that further develops ideas for its many, many virtual reality environments. This gives tables of rumours, events, and news items to use across various ‘neighbourhoods’ of the WorldNet. They include locations such as ‘The Spine’, the main highway of the WorldNet; the hedonistic, yet upscale VR playgrounds known as ‘Les Loisirs’; and the ‘Nightzone’ is the always-on, always-dark, nightlife district. There are nine such locations, not so much detailed, as brought to reality through the rumours and news in their associated tables. These are full of lots of detail that will help the Admin bring them to life using the tables earlier in the supplement to give structure to her WorldNet.

Physically, Netcrawl: Arcologies is a vibrantly, neon affair. It is not illustrated, but the colours more than make up for it.

Netcrawl: Arcologies starts by selling itself as the equivalent of the dungeon generator for Netcrawl, but it is not as an expansive as traditional dungeon generators are for fantasy roleplaying. It is more focused on limited structures, though these can still be quite large. However, the supplement does not limit itself wholly to that, but adds general details and elements that can be brought easily into play and expand the setting. Ultimately, Netcrawl: Arcologies is more of a companion to NetCrawl providing general support rather just location-building, but that does not mean that it is bad support.

[DCC Day #7] Pestilence at the Peak of Law

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2026’, which took place today on Saturday, July 18th, 2026, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Dungeon Crawl Classics #112: Mother of M0nsters. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ and ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’, appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack. ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ is written for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World, ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’ is for use with Xcrawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which combines Dungeons & Dragons and World Wrestling Entertainment, turns it into a blood sport, televises it, and throws in celebrity culture in an alternate dystopia shot through with a knowing black humour. Lastly, both Dungeon Crawl Classics #112: Mother of M0nsters and DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law are written for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics.

—oOo—

High in the Acherak Mountains there is a Dwarven Monastery that sits above the Dwarven kingdoms far below and under the ground. It is dedicated to Daenthar, but the monks there have a secret purpose in addition to worshipping Daenthar, the Dwarven lord of the mountains as close to his realm as they can get, and that is to protect the world against a servant of Chaos known as the Matron of Pestilence. In years past, as an agent of Nimlurun, the Chaos god of filth and pestilence, Matron of Pestilence unleashed a plague upon the kingdoms of Acherak, but having imprisoned it, the monks have long worked to ensure that it would never be free to unleash its scourge of contagion again. However, what the monks could not do is destroy the Matron of Pestilence, for that requires the Hammer of the Mountaintop. Sadly, that great weapon is long lost and the monks never thought it would be in their possession. Fortunately, it has been found and perhaps the long-hoped for dream of ending the threat of the Matron of Pestilence will come to pass… Unfortunately, agents of Nimlurun have found a way to infiltrate the monastery and work to free the Chaos god’s servant. They have not managed to do so yet, but it is only a matter of time.

This is the set-up for DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law, the offering for DCC Day 2026 for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It is designed for group of four to six Player Characters of Second level, one of which should be a Cleric and another should preferably be a Dwarf. The ability to read Dwarven will be very useful in the scenario and either the Dwarf or the Cleric should be an adherent of Law rather than Chaos. The scenario can be played through in a single session and includes different hooks for the various Classes in Dungeon Crawl Classics.

In true Dwarven fashion, the Acherak Monastery is an austere place, with polished floors and bas reliefs on the walls. Equally, it appears to be quite a simple place, with a single archive, dormitory, sacristy, and so on. However, there is more to the monastery than meets the eye. As well as worshipping Daenthar, the monks are known for the brewing of a very fine mead and there are signs of it throughout the monastery, including some broken and empty casks. There is also a black slime that coats the walls and floors of the monastery. The oily, viscous substance adheres to everything it touches, can soak through clothing and leather, and worse, seeks new victims to infect. The scenario includes a ‘Rotting Corruption’ table to determine its effects upon any poor Player Character so infected and this adds a sickly, putrefying feel to the scenario. Make no mistake, this back slime is unholy, but DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law does discuss numerous ways of treating the symptoms and ultimately, of finding a cure, but in the meantime, the Player Characters are in for a sweaty, virulent experience.

Ultimately, there is a puzzle at the heart of DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law—one poisoned by agents of Nimlurun before they arrive—that the Player Characters will have to solve in order to defeat the Matron of Pestilence, save the Acherak Monastery, and save themselves. Given the timeframe for the scenario, it is not too challenging a puzzle and there are clues to be found that will reveal what has happened and what needs to be done next. This should lead to a climatic confrontation with the Matron of Pestilence and her servants in her secret prison. It will be a tough fight—especially if one or more of the Player Characters is infected with the corruption—but again, several means of slaying her given.

Physically, the DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law is as well done as you would expect for a release from Goodman Games. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork nicely captures the foulness that the Player Characters will be facing in the scenario. The cartography is perhaps a little plain, but is serviceable enough.

DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law should have the feel of cleanliness and sharpness of the air of high mountain peaks, but instead, it has a vile, smeary, fungal, and viscous feel, which also contrasts with the austerity of the monastery. There are some enjoyably oozy, oily, odious encounters along the way to overcoming a great evil in DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law and this is a deliciously repulsive scenario.