Rolling for Ravenloft

Dice. Dice are so integral to the roleplaying game hobby that everyone has their own set. Probably more than one set. Whether they are the very first set that the roleplayer had when he started playing, the set that he pulls out from the many in his dice bag or his All Rolled Up, or a set that is specific to the roleplaying game he is currently playing—either because the roleplaying game in question requires its own special dice set or the dice are aesthetically designed to match the game—dice are a fundamental part of a roleplayer’s kit. Some roleplayers have traditions about their dice. They pick a dice set for each game, they do not like other players touching or rolling their dice, they will punish dice that roll badly by placing them in a ‘dice gaol’, they dump a set entirely because of the bad rolls, and they collect dice. They will peruse dice sellers looking for the perfect set or the most pleasing set, but that is not the only way in which roleplayers collect dice sets. They buy dice in blind packs, each containing a complete dice set, but which the roleplayer has no idea what the set will look like. This is much like a traditional trading card game with its booster packs. The difference is that instead of opening booster packs in search of better cards to enhance and improve the game play of the trading card game, dice blind packs are opened in search of finding prettier, rarer dice sets and in the hope that all of the sets can be collected. This is how the Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs work.

Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs are official, licensed Dungeons & Dragons dice, manufactured by Sirius Dice, and themed around the Ravenloft campaign setting inspired by Gothic horror and its supernatural monsters—vampires, werewolves, mummies, and more, but most obviously by Count von Zarovich, the Darklord of Barovia, who originally appeared in I6 Ravenloft. So, what do you get in a Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Pack? Rip open the pack and inside you will find an embroidered dice bag containing a full polyhedral dice set and a collectible metal ability coin. The complete set consists of fifty-five unique dice sets, thirty-one ability coins, and seven dice bags. The latter come in seven, different designs that in turn depict the famous Dungeons & Dragons ampersand, a raven on a skull, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind (sacred to the Good-aligned Barovians), bats flying against the backdrop of the Moon, and more. Each is roughly four-by-three-and-a-half inches and done in soft material, with a strong draw tie that has Dungeons & Dragons embroidered on it and enough room to comfortably hold the ability coin and the dice set. The dice bags are not big, but will hold two dice sets. The ability coins are double-sided and depict a variety of images. They can also be round, square, or octagonal; bronze, gold, or silver. So, one might depict a ‘Werewolf’ on one side and the werewolf undergoing the ‘Shapeshift’ on the other side; a young or an aged Rudolph Von Richten on one side and ‘Monster Hunter’ with a stake on the other; ‘Dragon Flight’ and a Dragonborn on one side and the Dungeons & Dragons ampersand on the other; and others. The rarest is a replica of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and a colour coin depicting Count von Zarovich himself. The coins themselves grant no in game bonus, but they can be used to indicate whether a Player Character has Inspiration, is suffering a particular condition, has activated an ability, and so on.

The dice vary in look and feel, but are all standard polyhedral dice with an extra ten-sided die to use as the ‘tens’ die for percentile rolls. Some of the sets are standard sets in solid colours or clear gem style, whilst others moulded as if made from stone or brickwork. The latter style is not inked, so although they have a different tactile feel to them, they are not as easy to read. The rarity of the dice runs from common and uncommon through rare to super rare and legendary. The rarer dice have their top values marked with a symbol and there is also the legendary Ravenloft metal dice set. The Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs do not include any indication as to the rarity of the contents and complete range.

The Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs are nice. The embroidered dice bags are fetching and well made, the ability coins solid as you would expect, and the dice ranging from good to decent. Not all of the dice are as easy to read as they could be, but they all roll well, and it will come down to whether or not the look and feel of the dice is something that you find attractive. Ultimately, it is a matter of taste.

It is also a matter of age. Whilst many gamers and roleplayers of a certain age will be familiar with the pulling of cards from booster packs for trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, they will be less familiar with blind dice packs. They are more used to buying their dice—when they need to—off the shelf. In fact, the idea of blind dice packs, feels weird. Yet not to younger players, so there is a market for the blind dice pack, such as the Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs. As an older gamer, it is easy to dismiss these as for the youth, but given that as a roleplayer you are always imagining yourself being someone else, it is not difficult to imagine the roles reversed. As seeing the dice packs as perfectly normal and the attitude of older gamers being small-minded. Further, it feels appropriate for a dice and accessory range inspired by a Gothic horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons to have a sense of mystery and the unknown like the one imparted by the blind nature of these dice packs. Opening Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs is actually more fun than you might think and you might get lucky.

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A video of opening Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs can be found here.

Friday Fantasy: The Count, the Castle, & the Curse

The Player Characters awake, their minds fuzzy, but their bodies cold and damp, and in pain. They each hang by one arm fettered over stagnant water. The water sloshes and the air is rank with the smell of decay, but there is the sound of snoring too. Light flickers and bobs up and down from below, a candle all but burnt down to the nub floats on the water. In the cells around them, the Player Characters can see each other. They are dressed, but have neither arms or armour, or indeed any of the equipment they brought with them earlier that day. For it was only today that they reached the castle, its tall spire jutting from the landscape, having travelled at the behest of its count, a noble who pleaded for their help in lifting a curse. He promised a great reward in return, yet he did not welcome the visitors kindly. First proclaiming them to be the answer to curse that he could no longer bare to suffer alone, and then pouncing upon the Player Characters.

This is the set-up to The Count, the Castle, & the Curse. Published by Deficient Games, it is a scenario for ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. It is designed for a party of Player Characters of First to Third Level, and is intended to be played through in roughly four or five hours. Thus, it is possible to play through the scenario in a single session, but definitely no more than two.

The Count, the Castle, & the Curse is not only a Gothic horror scenario, but very clearly a retelling of the myths around vampires and Dracula. Further, it is possible to see The Count, the Castle, & the Curse as the retelling of the story of Count Strahd von Zarovich and events in Castle Ravenloft as originally appeared in 1983 in I6 Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition, but reimagined for Old School Renaissance. It has a Count, who is unnamed, away at war who returns to his lonely wife to discover that she has been unfaithful with his brother and in his jealousy cuts a bloody swathe through the castle.

As the scenario opens, the Player Characters have already arrived at the castle and find themselves trapped within its confines. In a situation in roleplaying that goes all the way back to Escape from Astigar’s Lair from Judges Guild (and beyond), they begin play imprisoned, chained up, and stripped of their equipment. Freeing themselves and recovering their equipment is the first of their goals, for their true aim—set by the Count—is to escape the castle. To that end, he is going to give them every opportunity to do so, all whilst taunting them, stalking them, yet not attacking them. He will only do that when the clock strikes Midnight, and he comes for them. This does not apply to his minions within the castle who will haunt and haunt the halls of the castle in search of their prey, that is, the Player Characters. Until Midnight though, the Player Characters have free reign to explore the limits of the castle and in the process discover its secrets and its past, including how the Count came to be cursed with vampirism and how his wife and brother died, and the ways out. There are multiple ways out of the castle, none of them easy, of course. The simplest are probably the most physically challenging, whilst others require crisscrossing the castle and up and down its tower to obtain the right items to activate an exit. Effectively, The Count, the Castle, & the Curse is a puzzle dungeon, but pleasingly, one with multiple solutions.

The Count, the Castle, & the Curse includes a number of stylistic and mechanical changes to both handle and enforce its Gothic genre. The most obvious is not to map the castle. Or rather not map the castle in its entirety, floor by floor, corridor by corridor, room by room, in two dimensions. Instead, it focuses on the important rooms and showing the links between them, presenting the relationship between them in a side or cut away view of the castle. Combined with detailed descriptions presented as a series of bullet points and the scenario focuses on the individual locations rather than on the time spent between them, that space shrouded by shadow into between the bursts of candlelight found elsewhere. Narratively and mechanically, this makes the navigation of the castle relatively easy, and it is further eased for the Game Master by the clear presentation of the rooms at the top of the page above their descriptions.

Mechanically, the scenario does away with Armour Class and some cases, the traditional Saving Throws. Instead, it replaces both with a floating value called Stress Level. This ranges in value between eight and twenty-two, but begins at ten and can go up and down according to the actions of the Player Characters and environmental factors. Witnessing a horrifying event, becoming frightening or paralysed, a player rolling a natural one or a monster a natural twenty, and being in darkness or split apart—do not split the party—will all increase the Stress Level. Sharing a strong drink, a player rolling a natural twenty or a monster a natural one, finding a trinket from home and narrating it into the story, and more will reduce the Stress Level. Stress Level will rise hour by hour of real. The players are kept fully aware of the current Stress Level, so can work to manipulate it, but also react in despair as it rises.

Each Player Character also begins play under the same curse as the Count—or at least partially under the curse. Throughout the exploration of the castle, he will be tempted again and again by the curse. This is ‘Progressive Vampirism’. The temptation is to consume blood and doing so grants vampiric traits and weaknesses as well as increasing the Player Character’s Hit Points. On the plus side, this also decreases the current Stress Level, but the Player Character is also tempted to feed repeatedly, and if he feeds too much, he not only gains more vampiric traits and weaknesses, but imperils his soul. If the Player Characters have not escaped by then, at the climax of the scenario at Midnight, when the Count appears for the final time, any Player Character who has given into his desire for blood and fed once too often may end up joining the Count in fully embracing the curse and becoming one of his minions.

Physically, The Count, the Castle, & the Curse is clearly and simply presented with an excellent layout. Bar the cover, there are no illustrations in the scenario. That said, given the genre, it is easy for the Game Master to base her descriptions on any number of vampire stories and films. The scenario does need an edit in places.

The Count, the Castle, & the Curse is written for use with ShadowDark and the dark and gloomy halls of its Gothic castle setting chime perfectly with the torch and light mechanics of ShadowDark, with the Stress Level mechanics only adding to the fear and horror of the setting and its genre. (Of course, the scenario can be run with the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.) Given its story and its genre, there is much that is familiar in The Count, the Castle, & the Curse, but that makes it easier for the players and their character and the Game Master to engage with it, whilst the Stress Level and vampirism mechanics enforce and encourage the engagement. The Count, the Castle, & the Curse is a well-done retelling of an old story that makes for a classic Gothic horror one-shot.

Mapping Your Gothic

Given the origins of the roleplaying hobby—in wargaming and in the drawing of dungeons that the first player characters, and a great many since, explored and plundered—it should be no surprise just how important maps are to the hobby. They serve as a means to show a tactical situation when using miniatures or tokens and to track the progress of the player characters through the dungeon—by both the players and the Dungeon Master. And since the publication of Dungeon Geomorphs, Set One: Basic Dungeon by TSR, Inc. in 1976, the hobby has found different ways in which to provide us with maps. Games Workshop published several Dungeon Floor Sets in the 1980s, culminating in Dungeon Planner Set 1: Caverns of the Dead and Dungeon Planner Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh; Dwarven Forge has supplied dungeon enthusiasts with highly detailed, three-dimensional modular terrain since 1996; Loke BattleMats publishes them as books; and any number of publishers have sold maps as PDFs via Drivethrurpg.com. 1985 Games does none of these. Instead, as the name suggests it looks back to the eighties and produces its maps in a format similar to the Dungeon Floor Sets from Games Workshop, but designed for use in 2025 not 1985.

Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is a box of terrain geomorphs, some forty-six sheets of them! Each sheet is of light card, covered in plastic so that it works with both wet and dry erase markers, and marked with an eight-by-ten grid of one-inch squares. All of the sheets are depicted in full vibrant colour. Some are also marked in dotted lines which indicate lines where the Game Master can cut and sperate buildings, ruins, trees and flowers, threats and monsters. Some sheets depict single locations, locations, or monsters, such as a shop, a ruined windmill, a coffin makers, homes occupied and unoccupied, a church or temple, taverns and inns, wizards, necromancers, spiders, wraiths, gargoyles, wolves and hounds, black cats, murders of crows, chopping blocks with axes, a great tree hut, flaming skulls, and more. There is a lot of cemetery features, including statues and headstones, ground sections which have skeletal hands reaching up ready to claw at the Player Characters or pull themselves out of the earth, giant skulls and broken gates, and so on. Which sounds all great, but there is more to each of these sheets, and that is because each is double-sided.

Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread does not simply reprint the same locations, objects, and creatures on the other side. In some cases, it reprints the same location or object, but with a change in status. For the most part, this is to show the roofs of buildings, but for other pieces, the other side is very different. For example, the other side of the chopping blocks with axes shows piles chopped wood, the various creatures and monsters and NPCs are shown by day on one side and by night on the other, trees are shown with foliage on one side and without on the other, and so on. Whilst the reverse side of most building tiles show their roofs, others do depict up floors of the same building. Thus simply flipping the counters and locations over doubles usefulness of the Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread as well as helping to keep parts of a location or encounter secret until the Master Master is ready to reveal them.

Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is obviously designed to work with a fantasy setting such as that for Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or any number of retroclones or fantasy roleplaying games. Indeed, Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread would very well with the Curse of Strahd and Vecna: Eve of Ruin campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Of course, the most obvious use for Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is with the Ravenloft setting, which has a particular gloomy, Mitteleuropean feel to it. This does not necessarily limit it to the mediaeval pulp horror of Gothic, since the look and feel of the locations depicted in this map could be any time from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. So not just Ravenloft, but also Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales, as well as any pulp horror adventure where the heroes might encounter vampires and the undead, venture down streets swathed in shadow and passing moonlight, and out into cemeteries to dig up bodies to check to see if they are truly dead! Chill would work very well with Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread, as would any roleplaying game with a Pulp sensibility, whether that is Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos or Achtung! Cthulhu, especially if the Investigators wanted to vampire hunting or the Nazis were recruiting! Lastly, combine with the BattleMap: Turned Earth/Graveyard pack to create the locations of uprisings of the dead and the BattleMap: City/Dungeon pack for town streets where the undead can lurk and prey on random tourists whilst the locals know better than to be abroad at night and lock their doors!

Physically, Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread comes in a sturdy which also contain a single introduction and instructions sheet. Beyond that, the rest of Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is all maps that can be easily adjusted with the addition of the various terrain pieces and marked up and wiped clean as necessary.

Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is an appropriately gloomy and gothic-themed box of maps and geomorphs. In comparison to other Dungeon Craft boxed sets from 1985 Games, Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is not as vibrant (since of course, it is set in the shadows) and it does not include quite as much variety in its pieces. Nevertheless, this is a good box of maps, floor plans, and map tiles, and for the Game Master using miniatures and wanting to take her campaign into the gloom of the gothic where only the moonlight shines and vampires stalk the night, Dungeon Craft: Cursed Lands – Game Pieces of Dread is packed with everything she will need.*

* Stake not included.

Quick-Start Saturday: Dracula’s Empire

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is the quick-start for StokerVerse Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of dark and twisted Gothic horror during the late Victorian era, in which the adventurers and investigators confront Vampire courts, Werewolf clans, Jekyll and Hyde, and even Frankenstein’s Monster whilst Jack the Ripper stalks the fog swathed streets of London.

It is a sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It is designed to be played by five to seven players, plus the Author (as the Game Master is known).

It is a seventy page, full colour book.

The quick-start is very lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent and foreboding. The rules are a slightly stripped down version from the core rulebook, but do include examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game.

The themes and nature of StokerVerse Roleplaying Game and thus the Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, specifically the horror and its bloody nature, the seductive nature of vampires, and the subversion of good society, means that it is best suited to a mature audience.

How long will it take to play?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start and its adventure, ‘Dracula’s Empire’, is designed to be played through in two or three sessions.

What else do you need to play?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start requires six ten-sided dice per player. One of these dice should be a different colour to the rest, ideally, black.

Who do you play?
The seven Player Characters in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start consist of Lord Godalming Arthur ‘Art’ Holmwood, Mister Johnathan Harker, Dr John Seward, Police Sergeant Albert Enshaw, Miss Primrose Hampden, Madame Lisa De Villiers, and Mister Daniel Seagrove. Of these, Lord Godalming Arthur ‘Art’ Holmwood, Mister Johnathan Harker, and Dr John Seward will be familiar from the novel, Dracula, whilst Police Sergeant Albert Enshaw is a London police officer, Miss Primrose Hampden is a sketch artist who has the power of second sight, Madame Lisa De Villiers is a veiled medium, and Mister Daniel Seagrove is a research assistant for Van Helsing. Together, they are all members of, or connected to, The Brotherhood. All seven Player Characters have a full character sheet and

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has six stats—Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge, Concentration, Charisma, and Cool. Stats are rated between zero and six, whilst the skills are rated between one and four. A Player Character can have Traits, such as Club Tie (Polite Society), Natural Aptitude (Profession: Solicitor), Contact (Dr Phillips - Director Purfleet Asylum), Legal Authority, Unconscious talent (Shadow Sight: First Impressions), Occult Secret (Shadow Sight), and Occult Studies (Shadow sight). There is a preponderance of Contact Traits amongst the Player Characters.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start uses the ‘S5S’ System first seen in SLA Industries, Second Edition. This is a dice pool system which uses ten-sided dice. The dice pool consists of one ten-sided die, called the Success Die, and Skill Dice equal to the skill being used, plus one. The Success Die should be of a different colour from the Skill Dice. The results of the dice roll are not added, but counted separately. Thus, to each roll is added the value of the Skill being rolled, plus its associated stat. If the result on the Success Die is equal to or greater than the Target Number, ranging from eight and Challenging to sixteen and Insane, then the Operative has succeeded, but it is a ‘Close Call’ or a ‘Yes, but...’ result. A ‘Solid Success’ is a result of exactly two successes, whilst three or more success is an ‘Extraordinary Success’.

Luck can be spent to Stat by one for a single test, substitute the values of a skill dice for the value of the success die, transfer the damage of a successful attack to themselves, and to gain the initiative.

How does combat work?
Combat in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is designed to be desperate and dangerous. Damage is rolled on five-sided dice, modified by successes rolled.

How does the Occult work?
In Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, two of the pre-generated Player Characters have Occult abilities. Miss Primrose Hampden has ‘Unconscious talent (Shadow Sight: First Impressions)’ and Madame Lisa De Villiers has both ‘Occult Secret (Shadow Sight)’ and ‘Occult Secret (Wards)’. Both require the use of the Occultism skill. Shadow Sight provides the user with intuitive feeling about someone upon first meeting them, whilst ‘Wards’ are used to contain and restrain the forces of evil. This requires the use of a spiritualist’s kit, expending a point of its Ammo, and a two-step process. First, a preliminary barrier is created and if successful, the number of successes determines the Protection Value and Integrity of the barrier. It can be continued to be shored up, but this is emotionally exhausting.

What do you play?
In Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, the scenario is ‘Dracula’s Empire’. This is a detailed investigation set in London after the events of Dracula. Mina Harker has gone missing , after her return to London; there has been a rash of disappearances of children and the morgues are filling up with bodies drained of blood—and there has been a cover up of both; and a mysterious dark-haired woman has been seen traversing the streets of London and attending high society balls. Are they connected? Could the mysterious woman be Mina? Or worse… Lucy returned from the dead? The scenario has multiple avenues of investigation, including tracking down the mysterious woman, attending one of the society balls—held on Mornington Crescent, no less!, digging into the missing children, bloodless bodies, and so on. Each of these is handled in scenes of their own, which are nicely detailed.

Is there anything missing?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is complete and it even comes with advice for the Author on running the game. A map or two in places would have been helpful.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start are relatively easy to prepare. The Author will need to pay closer attention to the plot of ‘Dracula’s Empire’, in part because there is no clear explanation of what the plot is and how its strands tie together. In addition, the backgrounds for the Player Characters and their character sheets are separate, so the Author will need to ensure that they are together for each player.

Is it worth it?
Yes. It needs close preparation to bring the multiple strands of the investigation together, but Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is a meaty, bloody investigation against the background of London’s fogbound streets, official obfuscation, and the heights and lows of society.

Where can you get it?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is available to download here.

Rat Rummage

A rash of strange businesses broken into and odd thefts leads the monstrous investigators in the city of Spireholm to a startling revelation. Under the very streets of the city, indeed under the very cellars and sewer tunnels of the city under those streets, there are tunnels that lead deep into the unknown. Is the rattish nature of the miscreants discovered in the initial investigation a sign that some villain dwells far below like a subterranean Doctor Moreau, sending his rodent servants to the surface for reasons that only he can divulge? Or is there something else in the tunnels and caverns to be found far below the city? This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, a companion campaign to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, which itself is a campaign and setting a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcased how it was possible to run and play SHIVER as a proper campaign, then SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone expands and continues that.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone does two things. First it introduces the new world below the city of Spireholm and its inhabitants and second it presents a campaign that involves both. It can be used in a number of different ways. One is a straight sequel to the campaign given in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. Another is as a secondary plot, essentially a ‘B plot’, that can be run alongside or interwoven with the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. And lastly, it can be used as an alternate plot that can be run whenever a player is unable to play the main campaign. This gives it some flexibility, although the ideal means of use is as the ‘B plot’ so that all of the players and their characters can participate. Another option is for the players to take the roles of members of the rattish race at the heart of SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, although that does mean that many of the mysteries at the heart of the setting and the campaign will have to be revealed to them.

Inspired by works of fiction such as Neverwhere by Nail Gaiman and Weaveworld by Clive Barker, as well as a whole festival of films, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm takes the players and their characters into the Dregs, home to Scoriath, the kingdom of the Scorians. They are rat folk, twisted into intelligence by the alchemical wastes poured into the sewers and finding a home in the ruins of an ancient sunken settlement. Ruled over by the authoritarian Rat King, Rongeur Halftail, the Scorians are large, but still smaller than Humans, and have tough tails and a strong sense of smell. There is resistance to the Rat King’s rule, and the Delvers, who search for resources far below Scoriath, are divided as to whether they should explore Topside, even though the king has forbidden it. Meanwhile, the Church of the 7 Tails worships the rats’ time as four-leggers, whilst it should be no surprise that Scorians hold alchemy in high regard given their origins. Several Scorian Backgrounds are given for Scorian Player Characters, including Gutters who guard the city; Sneakers are spies and thieves; Alchemists specialises in poisons, concoctions, and bombs; Tail-Tellers are itinerant storytellers; Pale Seers are all but blind, yet have the gift of the foresight; Swarm Wardens can psionically control rat swarms; and Scurriers do all of the physical work in Scoriath. Besides possibly playing Scorians, the options for Player Characters include watch officers, urchins, concerned citizens, private citizens, reporters, monster hunters, and more. The inclusion of the Scorian Backgrounds also facilitates the easy replacement of Player Characters should one somehow die in the course of events of the campaign.

As a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is shorter than SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, consisting of seven parts rather than ten. Its chapters follow the same format though. Each is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. In addition, the campaign supplement adds ‘Doom Tolls’ alongside ‘Doom Events’. These interact with the ‘Doom Calendar’, essentially events that affect the wider world around the Player Characters. Then, between the start and the end is the meat of each scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but will always include key clues and story text, the the key clues given as floating clues that the Game Master can place in the particular chapter where appropriate. In between the chapters are a series of interludes. These expand upon the overview of the Dregs as a setting, such as the background history of Rongeur Halftail, more information about the Church of the 7 Tails, Scorian terminology, and so on. These are not necessarily gameable content, but add detail to the setting.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone begins with the investigation. This leads the Player Characters into the foulness of the city sewers before descending into the tunnels below. Here the Scorians have set up a ‘Mantrap Maze’ to prevent anyone from Topside from trying to get into Rongeur Halftail’s realm. The maze though, is a bit of a problem. It consists of fifteen encounters, not quite linear, but playing through it will definitely feel like it. Although these encounters are inventive and some of them are fun, such as having a giant trashball chase the Player Characters a la Raiders of the Lost Ark and a trap that fills with water as they try to find a way to solve a rat-themed puzzle. Of course, the Game Master need not use all of the encounters here and she could easily save some for a later visit to Scoriath, suggesting perhaps that the Scorians are shifting rooms and traps around their ‘Mantrap Maze’ each time that there is an incursion from Topside?

By the time the Player Characters reach Dregstone, they will have gained the first of many allies they will be able to befriend and recruit in the course of the campaign. She is a human who has long been trapped in the Dregs and long been searching for her sister, and she will be able to put the Player Characters in touch with the Resistance. This sets off the main plot of the campaign, as first the Player Characters have to sneak around the city, poorly disguised as Scorians, undertake a task for the Resistance to gain the trust of its members. This is the first of the campaign’s big set pieces, the disruption of a public execution, the Player Characters having to set up a rescue of several Resistance members being sent to the gallows. This will lead to their arrest, being brought before Rongeur Halftail himself and sentenced to life incarceration in Pipehold Prison. Here the authors get to play with all of the clichés of prison life—as seen on the big and small screen—as the Player Characters are forced to other prisoners for the amusement of the guards, deal with a variety of different prison personalities, and of course, make preparations for, and then carry out a grand escape! All with the strangeness of dealing with anthropomorphic rats rather than human prisoners.

The last part of the campaign sends the Player Characters scurrying below the Dregs, into dark tunnels and into regions where the delvers fear to tread. Here, the Player Characters will discover that the Scorians are not the only anthropomorphic species to have been affected by the alchemical runoff from Topside—and that species has an even worse reputation for being dirty vermin! One minor scene here feels like a cross between Beetlejuice and Dune, set on a great alchemical salt flat, but ultimately the Player Characters will discover the source of the mutations in the subterranean world, a secret that will upend the society of Dregstone, and a very knowing nod to The Fellowship of the Ring. Surprisingly, the interlude ending this discovery does actually have some gameable content, all in readiness with the final showdown with Rongeur Halftail. This is a big battle which brings the campaign to a conclusion, although there are a few options given to help the Game Master play various concluding scenes to the campaign.

Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is presented in a rich array of colours and with plenty of cartoonishly rattish artwork. The campaign does need an edit here and there, and one or two more maps, such as of Dregstone would have been useful too.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is a better campaign than sourcebook. In fact, as a sourcebook for the Dregs, it presents enough information for the Game Master to run the campaign, but not really quite enough to develop her own content beyond that and in mostly confining it to the interludes, not in a fashion that makes it easy to use. That said, as a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is fun, especially if you have a penchant for puns—especially rattish puns—and want a grand cinematic delve into an anthropomorphic world of adventure and mystery for your SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm campaign.

2003: My Life With Master

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—

Twenty years ago, the roleplaying game hobby was very different. There was one dominant roleplaying game—Dungeons & Dragons—and its Open Game Licence enabled its underpinnings to snake out and transform almost every other roleplaying into a reflection of Dungeons & Dragons as publishers harnessed its familiarity and ubiquity. There was also a small, but vocal drive urging the hobby to pull away from this landscape, to set out for pastures new as publisher-creators harnessing the democratisation of design and ready access to self-publishing. How times have changed in 2023. There is one dominant roleplaying game—Dungeons & Dragons—and its Open Game Licence enables creators and publishers alike to harness its familiarity and ubiquity. There was also a small, but vocal drive urging the hobby to pull away from this landscape, but this has fractured into a movement that looks back via the Old School Renaissance and a movement that wants to set out for pastures new. The independent, often small, if not single publisher-creator of this movement is heir to the same one of publisher-creators of 2003 and the rest of noughties. Theirs was the indie role-playing game movement, exploring the boundaries of the roleplaying game as a concept, the types of story that the roleplaying game could tell, and how those stories could be told. Although there were precursors to the indie school movement, such as The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Amber Diceless Role-Playing, and Over the Edge: the Role-playing Game of Surreal Danger, their fervour to discuss, debate, and design would lead to several breakout roleplaying titles, some of which would win awards and a few which are still played today, as well as ideas and concepts that in the next decade would be adopted by the mainstream roleplaying hobby.

My Life with Master was one of the titles to breakout of the indie role-playing game movement. Designed by Paul Czege and published by his Half Meme Press in 2003, it would win the 2004 Diana Jones Award and the 2003 Out of the Box Award for Best Sui Generis RPG and the 2003 Indie Roleplaying Game of the Year, none of them, it should be noted, mainstream rewards. My Life with Master is a roleplaying game—or rather a storytelling game—of villainy, self-loathing, and unrequited love. It is set in an isolated town somewhere in Europe in 1805, over which looms a castle or manse and the monstrous urges of its occupant. This is the Master. The Master is a monster, either intellectually or physically, who has designs on the townsfolk, and they in turn fear him. The Master is served by several Minions, a la Renfield of Dracula or Igor* of Frankenstein. Minions fear their Master and love him too. They also suffer from a self-loathing and a weariness from the monstrous nature of the tasks they commit on the townsfolk on his behalf. These tasks make each Minion see himself as a monster, but there is humanity within him too. They have feelings, even love, for certain townsfolk, and that love might be their salvation, for in asking a Minion to carry out a task too far, the Minion may turn on the Master and kill him, thus releasing the other Minions. The Master will always die at the end, but a Minion killing him is just one possible outcome. Just as likely is the Townsfolk storming the castle. A Minion may also run away, integrate himself into the town, and even establish himself as the new Master in residence. Whatever the outcome, My Life with Master is a gothic tragedy, to be told over several sessions.

* Actually in the original Frankenstein film, he was called Fritz.

Later storytelling games would transcend the need for a Game Master, but My Life with Master is not one of them. Nevertheless, My Life with Master involves far more collaboration between the Game Master and her players than a traditional roleplaying game would. This begins with the players deciding what sort of Master that their Minions serve. A Master, always single, tragically insecure, with a driving passion, and ego to match, has an Aspect, Needs, and Wants, plus a Type. The Aspect can either be Brain or Beast, the former more mannered and genteel, willing to converse, whereas the latter is primal, physical, and driven by baser urges. Either will be influenced by the Master’s Needs and Wants as well as his Type. Needs are what he wants from the Townsfolk and what threatens them, and are what the Minions are driven to obtain for him. Wants are something that he desires from Outsiders, which might be recognition for his scholarly endeavours from the university which expelled him or the respect of his family. The Master’s Type can be Feeder, Breeder, Collector, or Teacher. Here the author adroitly examines figures from the Gothic genre to fit each combination of Type and Aspect, including the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, P.T. Barnum, Thomas Harris’ Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lector, H.G. Wells’ Doctor Moreau, and Charles Dickens’ Miss Haversham. Lastly, the Master is assigned ratings in Fear and Reason.

Richard Drax

Would-be Toymaker

Aspect: Brains Type: Breeder

Needs: For the townsfolk to buy and appreciate his ‘wonderful’ toys

Wants: To be recognised as a master toymaker by the Toymakers Guild of Erzgebirge

Fear: 4 Reason: 4

A Minion is beset by scars, deformities, and afflictions—both physical and mental—each a monster in their own right, but still human at heart. They yearn to be happy even as they suffer under the monstrous yoke of the Master. Each has three stats. Self-loathing represents how much a Minion considers himself a monster. It will make it difficult to resist his Master’s orders, but make it easier for him to be monstrous when acting violently against the townsfolk. Weariness increases the likelihood of the Minion failing and getting hurt when being violent to the townsfolk and of failing to resist the Master’s orders. Three points are divided between Self-loathing and Weariness. A Minion is also More than Human and Less than Human, essentially an advantage and an advantage that always work within a narrowly defined scope, and also divide the Minion from humanity. Lastly, the Minion has a Connection to someone in the town. This is unrequited initially, but through interaction with the Connection, the Minion can gain Love points to invest in that Connection, and possibly other Connections.

Zebedee

Self-loathing: 2 Weariness: 1

More than Human: No lock can stop me, except during the hours of daylight

Less than Human: I am rooted to the spot when spoken to, except when offered comestibles

Connections:

Emilia the seamstress, who makes such pretty clothes (Love: o)

My Life with Master is played as a series of scenes, with the players taking it in turns to frame the scenes that they want to see their Minion in. Within the scene that will be conflict which will be resolved using the roleplaying core mechanic. This consists of opposed rolls of dice pools comprised of four-sided dice. Rolls of four are discarded. The nature of the dice pools will vary according to the situation. If a Minion wants to resist a command, his player rolls a number of dice equal to the Minion’s Love minus Weariness, whilst the Game Master rolls a number of dice equal to the Master’s Fear plus the Minion’s Self-Loathing. If a Minion wants to make an overture to a Connection, his rolls a number of dice equal to his Master’s Reason minus his own Self-loathing, whilst the Game Master rolls a number of dice equal to the Master’s Fear minus his Reason. If a pool is reduced to a negative number, then a single die is rolled. Once the outcome of the roll is determined, it is roleplayed to its conclusion and then the next scene is played out and rolled for, as necessary.

For the most part, the Minions will often fail, and where they do succeed, it is often in doing the worst thing, such as being violent or villainous towards the townsfolk. Consequently, players will find themselves narrating actions that in a normal roleplaying game, they would never contemplate. Within the genre of My Life with Master, it is another matter. One way in which the potential for failure can be offset is through the use of bonus dice. These are earned for dramatically expressive bids of emotion, entirely in keep with the melodrama of My Life with Master’s genre, such as Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity. These gain a Minion a four-sided, six-sided, or eight-sided die respectively to be added to a roll. Intimacy could be sharing food or comfort, Desperation is a show of emotional distress, and Sincerity a baring of the soul or weakness. The Game Master is encouraged to be generous in awarding these bonus dice, though the players should work for them too.

One way in which a Minion can eventually withstand his Master’s commands is by increasing the Love that he has with a Connection. This requires successful Overtures to the Connection to be rolled. If after this happens, the Minion’s Love for a Connection is higher than the total of his Master’s Fear plus his own Weariness, then the endgame is triggered. This is a series of scenes, each aggressively violent, depending upon where the Minions are, though the Minion who triggered the endgame will be involved in a life-or-death struggle with his Master. 

When the Endgame occurs, the Minion who made the roll in question begins a violent struggle with the Master which will probably end in the Master’s death. Meanwhile the others have to deal with their current situations without the benefit of Fear to their rolls. The actual end result for the characters is also constrained by various totals of their stats. For example, if Self-Loathing plus Weariness is greater than Love plus Reason, the Minion is killed, but if Self-Loathing is greater than Weariness plus Reason, the Minion kills himself. This might actually play out over several scenes until the Master is actually dead. Once this happens, each Minion has an epilogue. The nature of the epilogue will vary according to each Minion’s stats. For example, if a Minion’s Weariness is greater than Reason plus Self-loathing, the Minion flees from the town, giving up on the struggle within himself, but if his Self-loathing is greater than his Weariness, he is killed. 

The endgame is not the only condition that can be triggered during play. For example, if his Weariness is greater than his Master’s Reason following an attempt to inflict violence, the Minion can be captured or if his Self-Loathing is greater than the total of his Love and his Master’s Reason, following an act of villainy, then ‘The Horror Revealed’ condition is triggered. In this case, the next scene the player has to describe involves NPCs being exposed to or influenced by the horror pervading the town.

Despite the simplicity of the core mechanic and the simplicity of the set-up, My Life with Master is not an easy game to play or learn. This is because the formulae used in the game are highly conditional and far from being intuitive and not clearly presented for the players and their Minions. When I reviewed My Life with Master in 2003 for Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid e-zine, I said that, “Despite the simplicity of the [game] mechanics ... they are not as clearly written as they need to be ... The GM will need to make a close read of the otherwise well-written text to help grasp how the outcome of a scene will alter a minion's statistics.” (September 3rd, 2003.) This still applies today, even with the benefit of storytelling mechanics being adopted into the mainstream some years later. That said, there is advice for the Game Master on how to adjudicate the game and a good example of play. Both will help the Game Master understand My Life with Master and its concepts, but even still, My Life with Master is not a storytelling game for beginners.

Physically, My Life with Master is lovely book. It is well written, the artwork captures the grotesque nature of the roleplaying game’s gothic sensibilities, and the book has the feel of a Georgian manuscript.

With its framing of scenes, its relatively simple resolution, and its narrative agency for the players, let alone the emotional engagement, albeit negative emotional engagement for much of its play, My Life with Master looks and feels like a standard non-traditional roleplaying game, an indie roleplaying game, if you will. This looks perfectly normal in 2023, but remember, in 2003, this was radical. This was giving the players agency in telling the story that traditional roleplaying games would never have contemplated. As a power they had never had, it was both exhilarating and liberating, but it was also very, very much a case of players being daunted by the prospect and the possibilities. The player was being asked to make choices he had no idea how to make, and making that adjustment from the restrictive narrative rights of the traditional roleplaying game to the narrative freedoms of storytelling roleplaying games took time as a whole new skill had to be learned. In addition, My Life with Master was asking a player to make emotional adjustment too, as he roleplayed a character who was emotionally damaged, who was put upon, who was called upon to act in grievous ways, to be a monster when deep down, the character was not, and of course, the player was not. This combined with the counter-intuitive formulae made the play of My Life with Master difficult to get right in terms of game flow. However, if the adjustments can be made, if the players accept that their characters are anything other than heroic, then My Life with Master is a sublimely marvellous, yet malevolent exploration of broken relationships in a melodramatic tragedy, a grotesque tale in which their Minions will emulate the worst of the genre with just a glimmer of hope and humanity.

In 2003, My Life with Master was ground-breaking. In 2023, My Life with Master is a near perfect roleplaying game that demands as much from its players and the Game Master as it did in 2003. It is a pity that it is not in print some twenty years after it first amazed the hobby with its emotional complexities.

Crow Recall

With Everyday Heroes, publisher Evil Genius Games did for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202 what d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002. That is, facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It went even further though by doing something not actually included in the rulebook. This is providing access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Each entry in this Cinematic Adventure series draws on the core film it is based upon as well as extra source material, to provide background material for the setting, new options for Player Characters, advice for the Game Master, and a full-length adventure, ready to play.

The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is the first cinematic adventure sourcebook for Everyday Heroes. This draws specifically upon the 1994 film, The Crow, starring Brandon Lee, and the 1989 comic series by James O’Barr, as well as the 1996 sequel, The Crow: City of Angels. The later sequels are lesser source material for the supplement. This does mean that together, the subject for two halves of the book, scenario and sourcebook, does carry a number of subject warnings and like the comic book and film, is intended for a mature audience, dealing as it does with death and loss, drug addiction, torture, suicide, and other adult subjects. The world of The Crow and thus The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is one in which the spirits of the dead are real. Their task is to guide the souls of the recently dead to the afterlife that is the underworld, to guard the gates to the underworld, and also return with messages and omens. Yet there are some spirits who escape the Underworld and find a way back to the world of the living—they are the Reborn. If a Reborn has been returned by a Crow spirit, then he too is called ‘The Crow’, but there are many other spirits of the dead—the Butterfly, the Cat, the Moth, and others. Each type of spirit is drawn to particular types of deaths and brings those who suffer them back as Reborn and even bestows particular types of quests related to both the deaths and the types. Guided by their spirits, Reborn walk the Earth again, not as one of the living, but the living dead, tasked with enacting revenge upon those who caused their death and fulfilling the quests set by the spirit. The Reborn find the world as dark and as tragic as they left it, the strong thea desire for a better world no more than a fleeting hope...

The primary new options given in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are for the Player Characters. These Hero Options include a number of new Backgrounds, such as Abused, Cult Escapee, Near-Death Experience, and Suicide Survivor. Already, these showcase the dark side of the setting. The new Professions include those from the seamier and rougher side of life, including Charity worker, Chop Shop Jockey—someone who cuts up stolen vehicles for their parts, stage Magician, Occultist, and Snitch. Many of these are directly inspired by characters in the film, including the Kid and Pawn Shop Owner. Two Classes after given. The Reborn is a Wise Hero who begins with a Spirit Bond, a Reborn Body, and the ability to Vanish at will. The Reborn also has Powers, such as Death’s Power to substitute the Reborn’s Wisdom bonus for the Strength or Dexterity modifier, Share Experience of his past life with another or Force Experience on another. These require the Reborn’s player to spend Focus to activate. The Reborn also has a Mask of Death associated with his Spirit. The Spirit grants its Reborn with benefits such as skill proficiencies and enhancements to the powers it also grants. For example, the Butterfly Spirit has Charming Presence, which allows a reroll on a failed Charisma check, Glamour to change appearances, Serenity to calm someone, and Sweet Nectar to heal others. All of these powers require the expenditure of Focus and they are the gift of the Spirit that the Reborn can use. In some ways they are also the gift of the Game Master, since the Spirit is not under the control of the Reborn and his player, but is instead an NPC. This allows the Spirit to become a character in its own right rather than just an extension of the Reborn. In addition, each Spirit comes with full stats as a Tiny Monster, and a discussion of its character, the souls it is drawn to, and both the type of quests it gives and some sample quests. Eight Spirits are detailed in this fashion in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, including the Butterfly, the Cat, the Crow, the Mastiff, the Moth, the Owl, the Snake, and the Spider.

The other option is the Soothsayer, a Smart Hero. The Soothsayer has Talents and Plans. The Talents include ‘As Foretold’ which enables the Soothsayer to substitute one of two twenty-sided his player rolls at the start of each adventure, whilst ‘Blessing of Fortune’ lets him grant a four-sided die as a bonus to other Player Heroes. The Soothsayer’s Plans include Bend Fate, Clairvoyance, Read the Omens, Witness Your End, and more, all of which are enhanced as the Soothsayer rises in Level. In addition to the two new Hero types, The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure lists several new Feats, divided between General and Multiclass Feats. The former includes Knife Fighter, Pyro, and Ritual Lore, whilst the latter includes Soothsayer Training and Advanced Soothsayer Training letting a Player Hero with another Class gain its mystical abilities. Similarly, the Spirit Servant Multiclass Feat enables a Player Hero who is not a Reborn to acquire a Spirit companion.

The only new rules in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are for Ritual Magic. Although several sample rituals are included, the rules in the main are narrative-based. Mechanically, Ritual Magic consists of deciding upon the effects of the spell, researching it, learning it, and then casting the spell. The guidelines are nicely supported with a good example. Conversely, where the rules and advice on handling Ritual Magic in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are more than enough for the Game Master to include them in play, the advice for the Game Master for running a scenario or campaign in the style of The Crow comes up short at just two pages. There is advice here on setting the mood, having more than one Reborn—and thus more than one quest—is in play, on playing Spirit allies, and running Ritual Magic (again!), and handling prophetic dreams. However, what the advice does not cover is the setting for scenarios set in the world of The Crow or the types of villains that the Player Heroes might be attempting to enact revenge against. The advice is followed a handful of scenario hooks.

Approximately half of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is dedicated to its adventure, ‘Prayers of the Past’, which even comes with its own soundtrack! The scenario is intended for Player Heroes of Fifth and Sixth Level and can be adjusted to be played with just one player, although the ideal number is five. It can also be run with just the one Reborn Player Hero or multiple Reborn Player Heroes. The set-up involves a Zero Session where the Player Heroes decide upon and play out what happened to the Reborn they are either playing or their Player Heroes know, which can can take a single scene or be developed into a longer session, so that the prequel to the scenario proper plays out as a series of prequels rather the one. Hooks are provided if the players cannot come up their own.

Each of the multiple Session Zeroes takes place in a different city before ‘Prayers of the Past’ draws the Player Heroes back to Detroit and the events of The Crow, coming together at Club Trash in a bloody orgy of revenge and violence. It is a solidly grim affair which works as a one-shot or even a campaign starter, overall, effectively drawing from the source material to create a situation and story which fits within that source material. Safety tools are strongly recommended throughout, if necessary, as the scenario is very much intended for a mature audience. In addition, the staging advice for Game Master is also decent throughout, and in fact, actually better in places than the scant advice given for the Game Master in her own chapter.

Lastly, ‘The Cast’ chapter provides stats and details of a variety of NPCs and more. The NPCs are divided into three categories. The first are general, including ordinary characters as well as spiritual ones, and there are suggestions here too, as to which NPC types to use to portray various characters from both The Crow and The Crow: City of Angels. These NPC types are drawn from both the Everyday Heroes core rulebook and The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure. The second category consists of NPCs for the scenario, ‘Prayers of the Past’, whilst the third consists of protagonists from both The Crow and The Crow: City of Angels. This includes Eric Draven, Darryl Albrecht, Sarah, and others. The more consists of five pre-generated Player Heroes, including a Soothsayer, an Omen of Disaster (a Reborn with a Moth Spirit bond), an Omen of Vengeance (a Reborn with a Snake Spirit bond), an Omen of Love (a Reborn with a Butterfly Spirit bond), and an Omen of Pain (a Reborn with a Crow Spirit bond). These support the scenario being played with multiple Reborn,

Physically, The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is cleanly, tidily presented. Unfortunately, the sourcebook is not illustrated with images from the films, but the artwork in their stead is decent. However, the book does need another edit in places.

The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is not a sourcebook for the world of The Crow—either the comics or the films. There is some background, more sufficient to do what The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is designed to do rather than be exhaustive. What The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is designed to do is present the means and tools for a Game Master to run and her players to roleplay a scenario or campaign in the style of The Crow and within the world of The Crow—and this, bar the underwhelming advice for Game Master—it succeeds at. The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is a solid first entry in the series of Cinematic Adventures for Everyday Heroes, expanding it into the realms of the mystical and with new Player Hero options and a good scenario, bringing world of The Crow to the gaming table.

Universal Hammer Horror

The city of Spireholm stands at the southern tip of Karanthia, a country on the coast of the Balkans known as Europe’s Fang. Its isolation and its surrounding savage landscape has made it a feared target for any would-be conqueror, but that is not the only reason. In an age of modernity, industrialisation, and enlightenment, Spireholm and Karanthia are the last refuge of monsters and horrors, cast out from the rest of the continent. In Spireholm and Karanthia, myth and legend are real, and monsters walk the streets, let alone stalk the night, some welcome, others not. Constructs and creations given form and life. Shapeshifters and werewolves and the invisible. The Mad Genius. Vampires and warriors cursed with immortality. The Lucky fools who have made Faustian pacts and deals with dark patrons. The undead and those who would deal with the undead. The Monster Hunter as well as the biologist more concerned with cataloguing such creatures rather than killing them. Yet there are those in the city who do look to the outside world and trade has begun to flow readily through Spireholm’s harbour as the city’s four great families vie for power, influence, and money, the watch and the militia keep the temporal peace, the Divine Order the ecumenical and moral peace, and the Ragged Lords run crime and protect the poor in the city’s worst districts. All of which takes place behind Mayor Blumquist, who despite his wheedling and grovelling, keeps all of the city’s factions happy. As social and economic change comes to Spireholm, there is another faction, one that dates all the way back to the city’s foundation and has remained hidden since, which plots to reclaim what once belonged to it. If this faction succeeds, it will turn the clock back centuries and unleash monsters the likes of which not even the good folk of Spireholm have seen on their streets!

This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If that seems limiting, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm shows how Shiver can do more—a lot more. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to the Gothic for Shiver, highlighting the subgenre’s sense of isolation, decaying old order versus the new, hidden secrets, and transgressive urges. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to roleplaying the monsters of the Gothic subgenre. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to the city of Spireholm. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a complete campaign within the city of Spireholm. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm introduces a new mechanic that tracks Doom, not in hours, but days. Thus, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides an array of new Player Character archetypes, city where they are accepted—for the most part, and a complete ten-part campaign for them to explore the city, its politics and its secrets.

To be fair, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm does not dwell on the nature of the Gothic for very long and nor does it provide an extensive guide to the city, but it is sufficient in both cases. Arguably then, its main focus is on playing as monsters and the campaign. The idea behind playing as monsters is that it grants the Player Characters access to supernatural powers that they will in turn use to fight the supernatural, but at the same time, they must constantly struggle with the light and the dark within themselves as well as their inner demons, and they must always be societal outcasts. What makes them monsters makes them untrustworthy. This will come into play through role playing rather than a given mechanic. If there is a disappointing aspect to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, it is this lack of mechanical means of handling the monstrous side to roleplaying these monsters. Their inclusion would have at least supported the players’ portrayal of their characters and their characters’ darker side.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides seven Archetypes. These are Construct, the Changed, the Mad Genius, the Immortal, the Lucky Devil, the Oddly Undead, and the Slayer. For example, the Construct has the Paths of Flesh, Machine, and Stone; the Mad Genius, the Paths of the Creator and the Alchemist; and the Immortal, the Paths of the Endless and the Vampyr. Each Archetype also has access to ten abilities, from Tier One to Tier Ten. Some of these are common to each of the Paths within an Archetype, but others are specific to a Path. Then there are over twenty Backgrounds particular to the subgenre, including Sentient Machine, Coach Driver, Regal Beast, Taxidermist, Gourmet, and more. Each provides an Ability and a Flaw. For example, the ‘Person in the Portrait’ has the Ability of Cumulative Inheritance, which provides the Player Character with plenty of wealth and an opulent home that serves as a Sanctuary to hide his secret, whilst the Flaw is ‘The Aging Artifact’, which the Player Character cannot look at, lest he be Slowed, lose Hit Points, and become Cursed. He can recover, but if ‘The Aging Artifact’ is destroyed, the Player Character dies.

With seven Archetypes, fourteen Paths, and twenty-one Backgrounds, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides the players with a wide array of build options and choices enabling them to create some classic monster types. Most of these are reinforced by the Archetypes and Paths, with the Backgrounds being used to emphasise or tweak the combination of Archetype and Path. For example, the Endless Path from the Immortal Archetype would work with the ‘Person in the Portrait’, ‘The Holy Knight’, or ‘The Regal Beast’. The end result is that the players can create characters in the style of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Penny Dreadful, or Hellboy.

The second part of SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is dedicated to the city and its associated campaign. It details the city itself, its history, factions, and districts in broad detail, dedicating roughly a page to each of its twelve districts. It does describe the world beyond the walls of Spireholm, if only a little, revealing that it is an alternative nineteenth century not too dissimilar to the Victorian era. It suggests ways of getting the Player Characters together, whether as members of the city watch or local militia, members or servants to the Four Families, monster hunters, or even ambassadors from abroad! Of course, the Director can just as easily mix and match these too to add further variety to the backgrounds of each of the Player Characters. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm also introduces the Doom Calendar. In Shiver, the Doom Clock starts at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm(!), with events triggered at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’. The Doom Calendar instead tracks this over a month rather than an hour. Each chapter in the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm has its Doom Calendar and as the days pass, the events—or ‘Doom Tolls’—on certain days will be triggered. This though, is on a day-to-day basis, but if in the course of a chapter, the Player Characters trigger the Midnight Doom Event on the Doom Clock, two days pass instead of one, hurrying the Doom Calendar towards the next ‘Doom Toll’. A Doom Calendar can be turned back, though this is challenging and done by performing certain deeds within the story. There are notes too for the Director to create her own Doom Calendar.

Almost three-quarters of SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is dedicated to a ten-part campaign. Each of the ten chapters is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Exploring the Wider Mystery’ which suggests how the Director might expand the campaign and ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. Between the start and the end is the meat of the scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but between the chapters are a series of interludes. Initially, they cover setting up a sanctuary for the Player Characters and dealing with an NPC who can prove to be a useful ally to the Player Characters if they remain on his good side. Later, they explore the backgrounds and details of the numerous factions within the threat facing Spireholm that the Player Characters will fight and investigate.

The opening two chapters of the campaign involve the city’s major families. First, the aristocratic and influential Pontwhistles, whose fortunes are on the decline, and then the extremely wealthy and surprisingly technocratic Silvarri. In ‘A Mournful Howl’, the heir to the Pontwhistle is found dead. Investigating with the help of the city’s leading information broker, the trail leads into an abandoned library and a nest of ghouls before turning back to where it all started. The Player Characters may cheated at its end, but at least learn there are dangerous foes abroad in the city. The head of the Silvarri family, a noted inventor, engages the Player Characters to test the security of ‘The Clockwork Vault’ by breaking into the clockwork maze. This presents the Player Characters with a series of technical puzzles and traps to overcome, but once in the vault gives them access, at least temporarily, to a number of artefacts and devices. In fact, the campaign is littered with these, ready to be found and used by the Player Characters, some of the most fun being suitable for a masked ball that they will attend later in the campaign. However, none of those in the Clockwork Vault can be removed unless the Player Characters are very careful. One is integral to the plot and reveals the first hints as to the nature of the threat the city faces.

The various factions threatening the city make their first moves in ‘On Strange Tides’ when rumours of disappearances and strangers draw the Player Characters to the city’s docks. Investigating one of the ships leads to a confrontation with vampires, but there are too many and the Player Characters are forced to escape from the docks in what should be an exciting carriage chase. A local detective from the Watch guides the Player Characters into the Stacks, the behest of one of the Ragged Lords, the city’s poorest district, which has been beset by a rash of murders and disappearances. Investigating again sends them to the docks, but not the official docks. These are the Smuggler’s Dock and beyond lies the Flooded District where the Player Characters will find themselves chased by pirates, before descending upon a nest, not of vampires or spiders, but spider vampires! This is a big creepy battle with another vampiric faction. It is followed by ‘The House on the Harrowed Hill’ when the Ragged Lords invite the Player Characters to a symposium to reward them and to discuss further action, but when another guest, Archbishop Orcini of the Divine Order, is found dead, they are perfectly placed to investigate. This is the most traditional of the chapters to date, but includes advice on the order of events and how to link the clues together.

The city begins to react in ‘Quarantine’. The Divine Order, in response to the monsters kept at Madame Mordeaux’s Arena being released to run wild in the Stacks, places the city in lockdown. This takes place whilst the Player Characters are solving the murder the house on Harrowed Hill, which of course, sits atop the Stacks. Somehow the Player Characters must get across the district and escape back into the city. Before them lies a district in which monsters are running amok and cultists dedicated to the vampires are moving openly on the streets. The Player Characters may be able to rest and resupply at their sanctuary, but ultimately, they are going to have to fight their way out. More paranoia is sewn in ‘The Reaper’s Letters’ as some of the city’s most powerful figures receive notes and promptly die afterwards. At the bequest of the wheedling Mayor Blumquist, the Player Characters investigate, a process made all the more difficult by the Divine Order’s patrols. Much of the action takes place in one of Spireholm’s few green spaces, first in the woods, then in exotic gardens and wetlands, before climaxing in a poison garden. The different environment is a radical change from the campaign to date, enabling the authors to present the Player Characters with a new range of challenges.

By the end of ‘The Masquerade Falls’, the Player Characters should have learned that every reward comes with two sides, though at least they get to dress up and go to the ball. The highlight is an auction for the benefit of the city’s poor, and the highlight of the auction is another artefact the vampires want. So, the Player Characters are not just going to the ball, they are going to a heist. This chapter switches the action so that the Player Characters are more active than reactive, but whether they succeed or fail, the vampires now make their move to remove what they regard as the real threat to their plans—the Divine Order. They strike in ‘The Divine District’, turning the Divine Order’s sacrament upon itself and thus making part of it a threat rather than an obstacle. Defeating the suborned members of the Divine Order potentially gives the Player Characters access to items that will help them in the final confrontation in ‘The Sunken Spire’. The campaign comes to a climax as the Player Characters descend below, discovering Spireholm’s darkest secrets and hopefully putting an end to the plans that the vampires have for the city.

In addition, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm includes the bonus Spireholm tale, ‘It Lives!’, which can be run early in the campaign. It does not actually relate to the campaign directly, but the scenario’s major NPC is the author of some of the background content given in the interludes. Playing this scenario would introduce her to the Player Characters and thus possibly give them access to this information.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a big pulpy campaign built on a trough of archetypes. It is a horror campaign with vampires, so there are vampires on a ship, there is a masked ball, there is subversion of the blood, there is a murder mystery, there is a poison garden. The setting of Spireholm is a weird clash of archetypes too, that of Transylvania meets the fog-bound streets of London. On paper, it should not work, it is too much. Yet given that the starting point for the Player Characters is archetypal monsters and associated characters—Dorian Gray, Dracula, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, the Invisible Man, the Werewolf, Allan Quartermain—the players will already have accepted the premise for both setting and campaign by the time they have created their characters. However, the campaign is rough around the edges and as much as the players and their characters are expected to accept all of its archetypal elements, they should also expect some clichés when it comes to the storytelling. It is literally the nature of the beast.

Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a decent looking book. The illustrations feel very much like the style of Mike Mignola and Hellboy, much like the core rulebook, so have a comic book look. The book does look busy in places with some pages feeling cluttered with various stats and details which need to be highlighted and placed in boxes of their own. Lastly, the book does need an edit as there is missing text and other errors in places.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcases how Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown can do more than one-shots, that with the introduction of the Doom Calendar, it can do longer stories and campaigns. Which is very welcome. Above all though, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a chance to play out a grand pulpy campaign of Gothic action in a horrifying alternate nineteenth century. It lets the players create characters like those of the Universal Monsters—and others, and then roleplay them in the style of Hammer Horror. Which is a delicious combination.