The Other OSR: Mythic Bastionland

Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd starts by committing a cardinal sin. It does not tell the reader what it is. It is clearly a roleplaying game and it does at least tell the reader that, but there is no explanation of what the players and their characters do in Mythic Bastionland. There is no explanation of what sets this apart from any other roleplaying game in its genre. Instead, it leaps straight into setting up a game and creating characters and more. Without this context, Mythic Bastionland leaves the reader and the Referee with more work to understand what the roleplaying game is and what it is trying to do. Now there is some commentary at the rear of book which through a combination of examples of play and commentary upon them does provide some of the context that Mythic Bastionland is missing at the very beginning of its book and throughout the presentation of the rules. Yet this comes in the ‘Oddpocrypha’, almost one-hundred-and-seventy pages after the end of the rules presentation, and since there is no introduction to the roleplaying game to tell the reader that it is there and what it does, there is every possibility that the reader is going to be mystified as what he has in hands and the Referee daunted at the prospect of running Mythic Bastionland.

And yet, check online, such as the DriveThruRPG page for Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd and clear and simple explanations as to what this roleplaying game is and what it is trying to do, can be easily found and understood. The fact that such an explanation—or something similar to it—is not given in Mythic Bastionland is both mystifying and profoundly unhelpful.

So, what then is Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd? It is an Arthurian roleplaying game inspired by British folklore, Arthurian legends, and more modern interpretations of both. This includes Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, the films Excalibur and The Green Knight, the roleplaying game Pendragon, and the computer game, Elden Ring. It is published by BastionLand Press following a successful Kickstarter campaign and as its title suggests, it is a roleplaying game set sometime in the past of Into the Odd, an Old School Renaissance adjacent microclone of Dickensian horror and industrialisation. This also means that it is also set in the past of Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd, the roleplaying game of incomparable debt and failed careers amidst a very modern and almost incomprehensible city. Mythic Bastionland even suggests ways in which Player Characters from one roleplaying game can go to another as well as several ways in which they are connected, all of which are true, and it even hints that it may not actually be in the past either…

In Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd, the players take the role of Knights, each different and knighted by a different Seer, seeking Glory, exploring a Realm, and confronting Myths, all having sworn the same oath—‘Seek The Myths, Honour The Seers, Protect The Realm’. Theirs is a world of brutal and bloody medievalism, but by gaining Glory, whether through the resolution of Myths, public duelling or jousting, entering tournaments, and fighting battles that history will remember, they will prove themselves worthy of rank, first of taking a seat in Council or at Court, next of ruling a Holding, and then of ruling a Seat of Power. Ultimately, as a Knight-Radiant, a Knight will prove himself worthy of undertaking the final task, fulfilling the City Quest. This will likely bring a campaign to an end as the Knights confront and deal with a series of omens.

A Knight is very simply detailed. He has a type and a rank, three Virtues, Guard, some property, an Ability, and a Passion. The three Virtues are Vigour, Clarity, and Spirit and they range in between in value between seven and eighteen initially, but can never go above nineteen. Guard is a Knight’s ability to avoid Wounds, whilst property is what a Knight owns, an Ability is a talent unique to the Knight, and the Passion is his means of restoring his Spirit. Both Virtues and Guard are rolled for as standard for all knights, but the property, Ability, and Passion are all defined by what type of Knight he is. This can be chosen or rolled for from amongst the seventy-two knightly types that Mythic Bastionland gives. The process is quick and easy.

Sir Wedell
Type: The Salt Knight
Rank: Knight-Errant
Glory 0

VIRTUES
Vigour 12 Clarity 11 Spirit 10
Guard 4

Property: Spined mace (d8 hefty), javelin (d6), coraline mail (A1), Everflask (contains an endless supply of fresh water), Scaled steed (VIG 12, CLA 8, SPI 5, 3GD), dagger (d6), torches, rope, dry rations, camping gear
Ability: Inspire Ire
Passion: Mettle
Knighted by: The Bright Seer

Mechanically, Mythic Bastionland is simple, though more complex than either Into the Odd or Electric Bastionland. To have his Knight undertake an action, a player rolls a Save against the appropriate Virtue. Beyond that, combat adds some complexity. In a turn, a Knight can move and attack—in that strict order, and instead of rolling to attack, a player rolls the damage his Knight will inflict. Combatants can attack the same target and their players roll their dice together. The highest die result counts, while the remaining dice that have rolled four or higher, can be discarded to perform Gambits. These start with ‘Bolster’ to increase the damage inflicted by one, but also enable a combatant to move after the attack, repel a foe, stop a foe from moving, trap an opponent’s shield, dismount a foe, and so on. There are greater Gambits for rolling eight or more. All Knights have access to Feats—‘Smite’, ‘Focus’, and ‘Deny’, which they can use in combat. ‘Smite’ adds an extra, larger die to the combat roll; ‘Focus’ lets a Knight use a Gambit without sacrificing a die; and ‘Deny’ blocks or rebuffs the attack before it lands. All require a Save against a Virtue lest the Knight become fatigued.

Armour worn and shields carried will reduce incoming damage, whilst the ‘Deny’ Feat will enable a Knight to avoid damage all together. A Knight’s Guard is reduced first, and as long it is one or more, a Knight can evade attacks. If his Guard reduced to exactly zero, the Knight gains a scar, but if the damage exceeds a Knight’s Guard, it is deducted from his Vigour and he is Wounded. If a Knight’s Vigour is reduced by half, he is mortally wounded and will die in the hour, but can easily and quickly be given first aid to prevent this. If a Knight’s Vigour is reduced to zero, he is dead. The other Virtues can suffer similar damage, often from Scars, but whilst some are debilitating, other Scars can also increase a Knight’s Guard. The rules for combat also cover unarmed combat, ranged combat, and mounted combat, as well as duels, jousts, shieldwalls, and spearwalls. They scale up quickly to include running warbands, the use of artillery, and handling sieges.

Combat in Mythic Bastionland is thus brutal. However, Knights do have the advantage of having the initiative in combat—unless surprised—and they and their players have the time to plan accordingly. Tactical use of Feats and Gambits will keep a Company of Knights alive longer than if they simply charge into combat.

For the Referee, beyond the basic rules, there is simple guidance on how to set up the game and its scope—how many sessions everyone wants the game to last, goods and trade, descriptions of the people and the realms, and setting up a Realm. This involves creating and populating a hex map, typically a twelve-by-twelve grid, that will mostly consist of wilderness. To this is added four Holdings—castles, walled towns, fortresses, or towers, held by Knights or influential Vassals of the King—one of which is the Realm’s Seat of Power, and six Myth Hexes, each one clearly affected by the presence of their Myth. The details of the various hexes, excluding the Myth Hexes, can be generated using the ‘Spark’ or prompt tables presented later in the book.

In terms of advice, Mythic Bastionland emphasises the ‘Primacy of Action’, that past actions and their consequences supersede content generated by prompts of the Spark Tables (and the bottom of almost all of the pages in the book) and the rules, ensuring that the players and their Knights have enough information to act, and using a simple procedure to determine the outcome of any action. There are also guidelines for improvisation, using prompts, handling luck, and how to end a session. The latter is important because every session should end with a discussion of what the players and their Knights want to do next. This can be to pick up where the current session has ended, but the players can also decide to end the Season or the Age, allowing for months or years to pass or even enough time for a Knight to mature from a young Knight or a mature Knight to become an old knight. There are numerous activities that the Knights can undertake in between—effectively off camera—but the passing of an age forces a player to reroll his Knight’s Virtues and accept the new result, even if lower. The result of which might be that a Knight has learned from his experiences and matured, or he could have been wounded and suffered a debilitating injury or entered his dotage. Further rules cover travel, exploration, and ultimately, dominion and authority. In the case of dominion and authority, a Knight comes to rule a Holding—or even a Seat of Power. At either level, what Knight will be trying to do is maintain and improve his Holding, deal with crises from within his realm, and see to his succession, and also crises from beyond his realm should a Knight hold a Seat of Power. This though is more for long term play than short term play.

All of which runs to sixteen pages. In other words, the rules to Mythic Bastionland are concisely presented in sixteen pages for everything! Which begs the question what exactly does the rest of Mythic Bastionland consist of given that that rules take up three-fortieths of the book? Over two thirds of the book is dedicated to two things. One is the Knights and one is the Myths, equally divided, for a grand total of seventy-two entries each. The Knights are what the players choose from, or ideally, roll for, and they include The True Knight, The Trail Knight, The Story Knight, The Rune Knight, The Mask Knight, and The Silk Knight, and every single one of them is different and interesting and will present a different way of playing a Knight.

The Myths are what the Referee uses to populate the Realm. They include The Wurm, The Tower, The Spider, The Toad, The Hole, and The Rock, and every single one of them will present the players and their Knights with a different challenge. Each is simply presented with simple description, a set of omens that trigger as the Knights discover more signs of the Myth, a set of NPCs, and a table of random details that the Referee can use to detail parts of the Myth. For example, ‘The Wall’ is described as “Cutting through the land, a wonder two storms tall Guarding from invasion, or built to cage us all”. Its Omens begin with, “Crumbling outpost. A band of labourers sharing a meal on their way to begin work repairing the Wall. They think Knights are being sent to stop them.” and will escalate to, “Two giant magpies, stealing shiny things. They nest in the trees that root among the Wall’s oldest stones.” The cast includes stats for Wall Wardens, Brin, Catrona, and Elish, a Wall Knight, the giant magpies, and empowered refugees.

So how then, is Mythic Bastionland actually played and what do the Knights do? Quite simply, they explore the wilderness map that the Referee has created, looking for signs of Myths. When they have found them, the Knights will look for the source, root it out, and resolve it. There is no set way to resolve any of these Myths. Ultimately, whether or not a Myth is resolved comes down to whether or not it remains a threat to the Realm. The typical six Myths of a Realm is enough to support a mini-campaign at least, though more can be added to extend the campaign once one set of six is done, whilst the mix of seventy-two different Knights and seventy-two different Myths means that no two campaigns are going to be alike because whilst the Myths provide the adventures to play, they also give and flavour to a Realm. Once the Referee has set up her Realm, Mythic Bastionland is very definitely designed to be played from the page with a minimum of preparation.

The last part of Mythic Bastionland is devoted to the ‘Oddpocrypha’. This consists of thirty pages of examples of ‘Play’ and ‘Thoughts’ upon those examples of play. From ‘Start & Scope’, ‘Character Creation’, and ‘Teaching the Rules’ to ‘Council & Court’, ‘Crises’, and ‘Delving into Tomorrow’, the ‘Oddpocrypha’ explores and examines numerous examples of the rules and their ramifications. In many ways, actually providing much of the context that the rules section at the start of the book lacks. Consequently, it is a lot easier to read, but there is dichotomy to the writing. Essentially, the ‘Play’ examples are written in one tone and the ‘Thoughts’ on the examples are written in another. So, what you have is the author writing the examples of ‘Play’ and then commenting upon them as if he had not written them in the ‘Thoughts’. It is weird. That said, the examples of ‘Play’ really do help the reader and potential Referee understand the rules and how the game is intended to be played and the thoughts‘Thoughts’ do explore what the designer thinks of his game.

Physically,Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is a stunning looking book with every Myth and Knight fully illustrated, meaning that there is a profusion of artwork in the very big middle of the book. The tones are primarily earthy greens and oranges with splashes of red, blue, and purple and the whole look of the Knights and Myths section is as if Mythic Bastionland was not a roleplaying game, but a deck of Tarot cards. The layout of the book is tight in places and bar the ‘Oddpocrypha’ at the back of the book, the writing is very concise, the aim being to fit all of the rules for each aspect of the roleplaying game onto a single page each.

It is debateable how Arthurian a roleplaying game Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is. There is no doubt that it is inspired by Arthurian legend and it certainly lists numerous Arthurian inspirations. In play though, the Knights are not engaging in the Arthurian legend and they are not going on quests such as the Quest of the White Hart or the Quest for the Holy Grail. Instead, they are going on their own quests, perhaps hunting down ‘The Wyvern’ or delving into ‘The Forest’ in search of a lost, but beloved Seer, only to discover darker, primordial secrets. The Knights are questing knights, ultimately if they prove to be glorious enough worthy to undertake the ‘Quest of the City’, but they quest more for their Realm than a mythical figure such as King Arthur and theirs is a world that is more one of bloody brutalism rather than one of romance and chivalry.

Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is not an introductory roleplaying game. The rules are too concisely written, there is a lack of context to the roleplaying game, and play relies a great deal on improvisation, whether that is working from the prompts from the ‘Spark Tables’ or working the Myths and the Knights’ reactions to those Myths into the world of the Realm. However, armed with some context and Mythic Bastionland begins to hint at its possibilities with simple, clear rules that emphasise the brutality of the world that the Knights live in, before charging the reader and the Referee down with its gloriously fantastical Knights and Myths that demand their stories to be told. Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is the film Jabberwocky with a seventies Prog Rock soundtrack, built not so much on rules light mechanics, but rules intense mechanics.

The Other OSR: Omega City

In the far future of broken landscapes, stretched landscapes, and lost landscapes there is often only the appearance of the Gunslinger and the power of his Gun to bring order to the mouldering settlements and ruins of the uncertain past, to drive back the strange creatures, lurking, ready to pounce and rend the unwary, and to stop the ambitious and the foolish attracted to the power of magic which threatens what remains. The Gunslinger is a wanderer, a member of a brotherly order, arriving unbidden one day, dispensing justice and order, stopping the monster, perhaps engendering a little hope, all before finding the next Slip Door and the next world. Their peripatetic existence is the only constant and perhaps the only certainty they know. This is the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in a post-apocalyptic dark and weird west that combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is the first supplement for We Deal in Lead and presents something very different, almost a point of permanence, even though, like much of the Drifted World, it is subject to decay and decline. It arose out of the Dungeon23 challenge, the aim of which was to design a mega dungeon in one year, one room per day, over twelve levels. Each day creators would add something to their dungeons, but creators also switched format, one of which was ‘City23’. Omega City was born of this switch, a city inspired by two things. One was the city of Lud from The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, part of the series that inspired we We Deal in Lead, and the other was the author’s home city of Edmonton, Canada. This being the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, the universe is still breaking down and so this supplement mixes more than it matches its various locations, drawing on a wide variety of locations, situations, and creatures from different time periods and genres. In this instance, the actual setting and its disparate nature means that the designer had more freedom of design than his counterparts working on a more traditional Dungeon23 creation.

Omega City does not so much detail individual locations within a city, but provide small regions—a total of twelve—each with five or six buildings, locations, and landmarks. These are presented over a two-page spread, with the places listed on the left-hand page and a corresponding map on the opposite side. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. For example, Region 9 has five locations, a ‘Shanty Town’, a ‘Cracked Riverbed’, a ‘Lumber Mill’, a ‘Colossal Skeleton’, and a ‘Writhing Mass Grave’. The Shanty Town is described as a “Collection of lost souls and broken travellers”, being home to “Residents from different worlds and times, the languages spoken number in thousands”, and the inhabitants suffer as “More and more victims vanish each night, lost to the red claws in the sands”. Meanwhile, the Lumber Mill is “Overgrown with pungent thorns that ooze vicious orange liquid”, as “Flies swarm constantly, adding to the ooze”, and “Great grey swarms cover the dead trees of the nearby woods”. All of the entries are like this, a clash of the old and new, of the ordinary and the outré.

However, amidst the ‘Burned Out gas Station’, ‘Pitted Gibbet’, ‘Spiral Slough’, ‘Corpse-Corrupted Reservoir’, ‘Flesh-Warping Runoff Pond’, and ‘Partially Phased Office Building’, there is no room for the individual. There are groups of people, such as at the ‘Shanty Town’, but no individuals, and also no hooks. The individual descriptions are intriguing, but possibly not quite enough to get the Gunslingers to investigate every case. Also, ‘Omega City’ itself does not have an overview or broad description. To be fair, both are due to the intermittent nature of the creation process involved in Dungeon23, the creator coming back to the process day-by-day rather than sitting down and working at it. On the other hand, this nature means that lack of connections between locations means that the Warden—as the Game Master is known in We Deal in Lead—can pull them out and insert them into her own content as much as she can develop her own hooks to them.

Physically, Omega City is not yet fully formed. Only an Ashcan version is available. It is handwritten and not always easy to read, whilst the map, though serviceable, are rough. The writing though, is by intent short and punchy, often spurring more questions than answers.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is by its very nature rough and ready, but it does present some sixty or more locations that present mouldering mysteries and decaying dangers in a minimalist fashion that the Warden can use and interpret as is her wont. In this way, Omega City – Ashcan Edition can serve as a series of prompts for the Warden’s own city or prompts for her own version of ‘Omega City’.

The Other OSR: Teenage Oddyssey

The nineties was a decade of Grunge, Britney Spears, and Hip-Hop, of growing up without the Soviet Union and Communism being the traditional bogeyman, of television sensations like Twin Peaks, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and Friends, and the rise of easy communication and information with the widespread adoption of mobile phones and the Internet. This is the decade in which Teenage Oddyssey is also set, a decade which was in its own way just as odd and crazy as the previous decade when many ‘Player Characters as Teens’ roleplaying games are set—though of course, without the existential dread and paranoia given that the end of the world was imminent. Published by Cannon Otter Studio, as its title suggests, Teenage Oddyssey uses Into the Odd, the Old School Renaissance-style rules light microclone published by Free League Publishing as the basis for its mechanics. The result is a fast-playing, fast set-up, sometimes brutal roleplaying game.

A Teenager in Teenage Oddyssey will be aged between twelve and fourteen and have three stats—Body, Mind, and Charm—and Luck, Hit Points, a Background, and some starting Gear as well as some cash. The stats range in value between eight and eighteen, but can go up and down. Body will go down because of injury and Mind because of fear, but all can be improved through experience. Luck ranges in value between one and five and Hit Points between one and six, but can go higher. Background might be Arcade Champion, Farmer’s Kid, Drama Club Kid, or even TTRPG Nerd and grants one or two items of Background Gear. Teenage Oddyssey uses an inventory system, so there are limitations on how many items a Teenager can carry, depending on whether they are Big Items or Small Items, carried in the hand or the backpack. High stats means that a Teenager begins play with one piece of Background Gear, whilst low stats mean he starts with two. Creating a Teenager is simply a matter of rolling for all of these and then cross-referencing Luck and Hit Points to determine Background, all of which can be done in a matter of minutes.

Michaela Puckett
Age: 13
Background: Photog
Body 13 Mind 15 Charm 11
Luck: 3
Hit Points: 3
Cash: $8
Gear: Camera, bicycle, backpack, notebook, pencil, House keys

Mechanically, Teenage Oddyssey is simple and straightforward. To have his Teenager undertake an action, a player makes a standard Test, rolling a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll equal to, or less than, an appropriate stat. Standard rules for Advantage and Disadvantage apply. A Luck Test is rolled against a Teenager’s Luck, but Luck can also be spent to reroll a standard Test or to increase the damage rolled on a damage die to its maximum. The Game Master can reward Luck for good roleplaying or even out of pity! Depending on the situation, a Teenager’s Background can grant an Advantage or even an automatic success on an action.

Combat, in line with Into the Odd, is brutal in Teenage Oddyssey. Initiative is handled in narrative fashion, with combatants acting in order according to what fits the story and then when one participant has acted, he gets to choose who acts next, including the Game Master. Attacks always hit and inflict damage and the only time an Attack Test is rolled is when a Called Shot is desired. Weapons inflict damage according to their size, that is, whether they are Big Items or Small Items. A Small Item that will fit in pocket inflicts less damage than a Big Item carried in the backpack. The damage die can explode, so that it is possible to inflict a lot of damage with a lucky series of rolls. Damage is deducted from a target’s Hit Points and then his Body Stat. Armour—which can be Big or Small (Small Armour is not as easy to spot, whereas Big Armour is obvious to spot)—reduces damage, as does a shield. Once a Teenager starts suffering damage to his Body stat, his player has to roll to avoid Injury. The number of dice rolled for this depends on the Teenager’s current Luck. If it is very low, the maximum number of dice are rolled and there is a slight possibility that the Teenager will be killed straight off. A Teenager will die if his Body is reduced to zero.

In addition, weapons can have Tags, such as ‘Flammable’, ‘Nauseating’, or ‘Shrinking’. Although a combatant targeted by such a weapon cannot avoid the raw damage, he can make a standard Test to avoid the effects of the weapon’s Tags. Some Tags have ongoing effects and some allow further standard Tests to avoid their effects.

Fear is treated as an attack that inflicts damage to the Teenager’s Mind stat. A Mind Test is allowed to resist its effects, but if failed, a roll is made on the Fear Table. This works like Injuries, the player rolling more dice if his Teenager’s Luck is low. If the Teenager’s Mind stat is reduced to zero, a roll is made on the Madness Table, which can result in a permanent loss of Mind. Having a Snack will restore points of Body and Mind, whilst Going to Bed will restore both completely. When a Teenager goes up a Level, he gains more Hit Points and can either increase his stats or choose a Perk. Perk is typically based on the adventure just played, but can include being given a car, getting a job, building a treehouse, getting a companion pet, finding a Freeze Gun in the secret lab of the deranged scientist, or finding an Arcane Spell.

For the Game Master there is some advice, including not being afraid to make it up or keep it weird, and try not to kill the characters (but let it happen if they bring it on themselves). That said, Teenage Oddyssey is brutal in terms of its combat system and a big feature of its rules are combat-related. Enemies and NPCs are provided as templates to which the Game Master can add Tags to individualise them and so create interesting monsters and NPCs.

Almost half of Teenage Oddyssey is devoted to the single scenario, ‘Bad Times at Pazuzu Pizza’. Designed to be played by four to six First Level Teenagers in roughly a session or two, it begins after school with the Teenagers going to their favourite hangout, Pazuzu Pizza, a small hole-in-the-wall pizza shop. Here they can shoot the breeze, watch cartoons, eat greasy pizza, and play arcade video games. Something happens though, and when they wake up, the Teenagers find their hometown and its residents transformed into a hellscape and threatened by madness and monsters and demons. In order to save the town and its inhabitants, at the insistence of the ghost of one of the Teenagers’ crushes, they must destroy the demon responsible, hiding out at a farm on the outskirts of town. Except none of this is actually true. It turns out that the proprietor happens to be a Soviet sleeper agent and has spiked the Teenagers’ pizza with powerful experimental hallucinogens, and when they wake up, the Teenagers are not in a town filled with wrecked cars and broken buildings under roiling purple clouds and spiking red lightning, but suffering from a shared hallucination. In the course of the quest, the Teenagers will fight a Snake Priest at the church and take the Holy Sword, essentially play Frogger with huge insect-like monstrosities skittering along the highway, fight their Science Teacher wearing an exo-suit of hamsters, and so on. Finally, they will face the Demon in the Field.

So ‘Bad Times at Pazuzu Pizza’ is weird and gonzo and over the top. It is also entertaining, but its pay-off is incredibly shocking and downbeat. Essentially, because the Teenagers are on powerful experimental hallucinogens, nothing that they see is true. So, whilst they may think that they are attacking monsters and demons that have infested the town, what they are actually doing is attacking the townsfolk and going on a rampage. A drug-induced rampage true, but a swathe of actual bloody murder all the same. And whilst they are doing that, the scenario never lets them know that this might be the case, that what they are seeing is not real and what they are doing is having tragic consequences.

As an introductory scenario for a roleplaying game, ‘Bad Times at Pazuzu Pizza’ is a very bad choice. It is a one-shot scenario since the players are unlikely to want to roleplay their Teenagers again as they are now mass-murderers. It is shockingly violent—both in play and in hindsight after the reveal—which runs counter to the advice for the Game Master that she should avoid trying to kill the Teenagers. Most of the encounters in the scenario are about combat. It showcases the roleplaying game poorly. ‘Bad Times at Pazuzu Pizza’ could instead have been offered as a one-shot separate from the core rules and that would have been fine. The scenario also does not have warnings and it really does need them.

None of this is helped by the lack of advice for Game Master on what the nineties were like. There is no background, no bibliography, and no suggestions as to what a scenario for Teenagers set in the nineties would be like. The question is, what makes scenarios with Teenagers in the nineties different from scenarios with Teenagers in the eighties? Teenage Oddyssey does not tell you…

Physically, Teenage Oddyssey is well presented and the artwork has a suitably scrappy look to it.

In terms of rules and play, Teenage Oddyssey is a solid adaptation of Into the Odd. The Game Master can take these rules and run a fun game, based on her own knowledge of the nineties and that of her players. However, the lack of advice and historical background is disappointing and the included scenario is horrifyingly shocking for a roleplaying game that is pitched as one of wild and crazy adventures rather than one of unwitting murderous rampage.

The Other OSR: Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms

Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is an anthology of short one-page scenarios and encounters for use with Runecairn: Wardensaga (or its earlier version, Runecairn), the Norse fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published By Odin’s Beard. Unlike most Norse- or Viking-themed roleplaying games, Runecairn: Wardensaga takes place after Ragnarök has come to pass, leaving a world without gods and beset by darkness and danger, into which a lone hero strides, ready to defend the innocent and the weak who still survive amidst this chaos. It is specifically designed to be played by a single Game Master—or Warden—and a single player (although the rules do provide for other options), whilst mechanically, it is inspired by minimalist Old School Renaissance roleplaying games such as Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave. What this means is that the sixteen entries in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms can easily be adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice and their minimalist format makes the processing of adapting that much easier.

The format for Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is very simple. A single page dominated by a map of the encounter with the accompanying text providing a brief overview and almost as equally brief descriptions of the various locations, plus a legend for the map. The maps are all hand drawn and possess a certain roughness. This does not mean that they are bad maps, but rather they are not as polished as they might have been. There are no stats given for any of the monsters, the Warden expected to simply use those found in the Runecairn: Wardensaga rulebook or the Runecairn Bestiary. The side effect of this means that if the Game Master is adapting the scenarios to the another rules, she can similarly use the stats from the bestiary for the roleplaying game she is using.

The sixteen scenarios in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms open with ‘Worldserpent Hollow’, a simple dungeon with clearly marked areas of light and darkness, full of skeletons, draugr, and secrets a Dwarf is excavating, and ends with ‘Limbs of Yggdrasil’, the immense ash tree pockmarked with the stumps of branches long cut from the tree behind which the Hero can hunker down for protection as spectral archers pepper his path with arrows. In between, the Hero will face another ‘Storm of Arrows’ as he crosses a kill zone that is already stabbed with ten-foot-long arrows embedded in the ground; come across a settlement already put to the torch and the inhabitants sacrificed by desperate cultists in ‘Mistbound Village’; discover a ‘Grove of Woe’, with its corrupted trees that reach down and grab passing travellers with a noose and are already strung with hanging cultists, whilst a lindworm lurks on the edge of the grove; and break into ‘The Ring Fortress’ which contains a great hammer-shaped cairn and has cultists are preparing for great unknown event whilst two ghost colossuses circle outside, wailing and smashing their hammers on the ground! ‘The Ring Fortress’ could contain the ‘Cairn of Thunder’, a hammer-shaped cairn, hand-dug, ringing to the constant sounding hammering, and home to a massive bone titan which if it climbs from its pits and stands, will bring the cairn down upon itself and the Player Character!

Many of the encounters are linear in nature, with a set entry and exit, so that not only is there a sense of progression from the beginning of an encounter to its end, but also from the beginning of the anthology to the end, as if the Player Character is on a great journey, perhaps searching for something. In some cases, the Warden will need to work with the player (or players) to provide some motivation for the hero to engage with an encounter. Others can simply be placed in the Player Character’s path as he journeys onward. All encounters begin with a bonfire, a sanctuary of light and rest in the darkness of the after-Ragnarök.

Physically, Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is presented in as simple a fashion as possible. They are all easy to read and in addition, many of them are accompanied by some very good pieces of art. The depiction of the two ghost colossuses circling the Ring Fortress is exceptionally good.

Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms can be used in multiple ways. As a set of one-shots, as a set of encounters to place in the path of an ever onward moving hero, as inspiration for the Warden, or even as inspiration for the Game Master of another roleplaying game. Whether facing a hammer-wielding, niflmare-riding headless Jotunn in a broken village or crossing a water-logged battlefield contested by the living and the dead, there are some great encounters in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms and some memorable confrontations with chaos and darkness.

The Other OSR: Under the Seal of Solomon

Under the Seal of Solomon is a scenario for Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Published by Lantern’s Faun, as the title suggests, it is set in the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia on the plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Here the first city states were founded, here the first men and the women strode forth to explore the lands between the first two great rivers known to mankind, to enter the silent, gloomy valleys where demons and their acolytes hid and devised their evil plans, here they would encounter the very gods of Sumer, and here they would build the first great civilisations. As those first men and women to stride the land, the Player Characters are Sumerian ‘Bounty Hunters’ , those willing to go forth and undertake dangerous tasks—explore the unknown, hunt down criminals, kill monsters, and more… In Under the Seal of Solomon, the Player Characters have a greater calling—killing demons!

In Under the Seal of Solomon, the king, Solomon himself, has selected the Player Characters for a great task. Whether the Player Characters are augurs, astronomers, sorcerers, priests, or warriors, you have been given a new role—exorcist. Demons run rampant across his kingdom, and King Solomon has chosen them to rid them from his lands. However, this is no easy task since demons cannot be killed. Instead, their physical manifestation must be defeated, the demon captured, and then conveyed to the Temple of Solomon where it can confess its corruptions. Only then will the kingdom be free of that one demon. There are seventy-two demons. If though, a demon cannot be killed, how is this task to be achieved? In addition to blessing the Exorcists with an oath to capture the demons, King Solomon bestows them with three other gifts. These are the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon. The Keys work in similar fashion to the Magic Words in Into the Bronze, being written down on tablets or sheets of vellum and used against a demon. However, unlike the tablets of the Magic Worlds, the Keys of Solomon do not break, only the implements using them do. The Seal of Solomon is a ring engraved with his sigil used to seal the written Keys, whilst the Jar of Solomon is used to trap a demon before taking it to the Temple of Solomon. So think of this as Ghostbusters, but with Demons and set in Ancient Mesopotamia and not New York.

The bulk of Under the Seal of Solomon is dedicated to describing its seventy-two demons who are ranked as Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Presidents—and some can hold more than one rank. A pleasing presentation places the hierarchy of the demons upon the steps of a ziggurat! Each demon is described in terms of its Manifestation, its Domain, and what Invocations it knows. The Domain is the power it holds over other demons and the Invocations are the powers it tempts sorcerers with. For example, Bael, King of the East, holds the Rank of King, manifests as a three-headed conglomeration of cat, toad, and man, has the Domain of “66 legions of demons”, and his Invocations include the teaching of science, bestowing of Invisibility, and the teaching of love. Attributes, Hit Points, and Damage are determined by the demon’s Rank.

In terms of support and advice, Under the Seal of Solomon suggests that a demon might be hiding amongst the population or tempting them openly as a false god, or colluding with a sorcerer. It suggests having a single demon dominate or take over a single hex, creating a location around it, in the process turning Into the Bronze into not so much a hexcrawl, but a hex clearance. The other factor that the Under the Seal of Solomon makes clear is that seventy-two demons is a lot and so the Player Characters are not the only ones to have received the blessings of King Solomon. This enables the Game Master to bring rival Exorcists into play. Lastly, Under the Seal of Solomon notes that it is set during the end of the Bronze Age, at the dawn of the Iron Age.

Physically, Under the Seal of Solomon is nicely presented, although the use of red text on black in places is not easy to read. It does need another edit.

Unfortunately, Under the Seal of Solomon is at best very light, at worst underwritten and underdeveloped. For example, it is not quite clear whether one Exorcist is holding the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon and using them to fight demons or if they are divided between several Exorcists. Nor is it really clear how the Keys of Solomon work against the demons and what the user is actually dealing with them. Similarly, there is no actual adventure in Under the Seal of Solomon as its cover claims. Instead, what it gives the Game Master is a campaign set-up. It is not even a campaign framework, because there is only a beginning, and not a middle or an end. After all, what happens when the Exorcists have defeated all of the demons?

Ultimately, there is no denying that Under the Seal of Solomon is a great set-up for Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia (and indeed for any roleplaying game set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia). Unfortunately, it simply does not support the Game Master as fully as it should and leaves her with more concepts to develop and questions to answer than it really should.

—oOo—

Soul Muppet Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

The Other OSR: Runecairn: Wardensaga

Ragnarök came to pass and the world as it was known came to an end. Yet the world did not end, it was only broken, the gods of the Aesir and the Vanir missing or dead, Jörmungandr dead and flensed, the Jotunn forced to flee back Jotunheim. Yet as broken as the world is, and as full of dread and danger as the Nine Realms are, there are heroes who would stand alone against the darkness, to defend villages against roving bandits, hunt a creature stealing children, reclaim a family cairn overcome by the dead, retrieve a great relic lost to the ages, broker peace between warring clans, protect a caravan passing through dangerous lands, and search lands old and new for secrets and mythical beasts. Such activities are dangerous, but these heroes are strong of heart and even when they die, they will find their way back to bonfires that warm the soul and give life and never dwindle—and even link the Nine Realms. A great hero’s failure is only temporary, until it isn’t. Until then, a hero can try again and again to overcome the danger he faces, to find another way now that he is forewarned.

Runecairn: Wardensaga is the most complete version of Runecairn, the Norse fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published By Odin’s Beard, collecting the Runecairn Core Rules, the adventure ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’, and Runecairn: Advanced Rules into one handsome volume. Like the publisher’s We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game, it is inspired by minimalist Old School Renaissance roleplaying games such as Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave. It is specifically designed to be played by a single Game Master—or Warden—and a single player. However, the advanced rules gives options for reducing the players to one and turning Runecairn: Wardensaga into a solo roleplaying game or increasing their numbers for a more traditional roleplaying game.

Runecairn: Wardensaga begins with general advice and then advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. The general advice states that the Warden’s role is one of neutrality, that the roleplaying game is Classless—the abilities of an Adventurer relying on equipment and experiences, that the possibility of death is ever present though never without warning, that fiction comes before the dice, that an Adventurer has opportunities to grow through his experiences, and that the player should always be presented with choices. For the Warden these include design philosophy—that she is helpful and honest as conduit of information, the context and realism determine difficulty, that the world changes and sometimes changes because of what the Player Character does, the narrative should support the emerging story, that danger is everywhere and obvious, that the player and his character should always have and be presented with choices, and when all that fails, there is occasionally, just luck. For the player, the principles advise agency, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then he should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but here are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. Similarly, the world of Runecairn: Wardensaga has its own principles.

An Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga has four abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Wits, and Spirit, rated between three and eighteen; Vigour and Vitality, which are rated between one and six; and Resilience which is a total of Vigour and Vitality. Vigour is the Adventurer’s self-determination, which Vitality is how hale and hearty he is. A player rolls dice for all of these, and can swap two of the abilities. The player then picks a Class. This can be Warrior, Skald, Scout, or Seer. Each Class provides a range of equipment and skills or special actions that will give the Player Character many of their initial abilities.

Gertrud
Warrior
Strength 17 Dexterity 15 Wits 11 Spirit 12
Vigour 6 Vitality 5 Resilience 11
Def 3
Linden Wood Shield (+1 Def), Chainmail (Bulky, Def 2), Bearded Axe (d8), Ash Wood Spear (d6, 20’), Memento of Defeat, (Free Slots: 4)
Skills: Block (Shield), Parry (Axe), Disarm (Axe), Hack (Axe), Thrust (Spear)

Mechanically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is straightforward. When a player wants his Adventurer to act or react—and it is dramatically appropriate—he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, Wits, or Spirit, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage, and can apply to damage as well as standard actions.

In terms of combat, Runecairn: Wardensaga uses the same core mechanic, but in terms of rolling dice, combat in the roleplaying game is all about damage and reactions. Fundamentally, every attack made by an attacker will hit the defender and inflict damage. That is, unless the defender can do something as a reaction. Every Adventurer can ‘Roll’ away from the attack or ‘Withdraw’ from the combat, but each Class adds its own options in terms of Reactions. These require ‘Key’ items, pieces of equipment, that without, the Adventurer cannot perform the Reaction. For example, the Scout’s Key item is a pair of hunting knives. These are light enough that the Scout can perform a ‘Dash’ as a Reaction, which requires a save versus his Dexterity, the Scout able to avoid all damage if successful or impairing it and reducing it to a four-sided die if it is unsuccessful. Attack actions also require an item of equipment and increase the amount of damage inflicted or another effect. For example, the Seer Class has the ‘Clobber’ action. This requires a staff and has the Seer smashing a defender over the head with his staff, granting the Seer advantage for the damage roll, and the defender being forced to roll a save versus Strength or be dazed. Many of the actions and Reactions force the Adventurer to suffer ‘Fatigue’. Each point of Fatigue fills a slot in the Adventurer’s Inventory.

One damage is suffered, the ‘Def’ or Defence value, reduces the amount of damage suffered. Both Classes and monsters and NPCs have a base ‘Def’ and this can be augmented by any armour worn or shield carried. Damage is then deducted from Resilience. If an Adventurer’s Resilience is reduced to exactly zero, he will receive an Omen, a message from the spirits, or gods, or… which can be good or bad. If reduced below zero, damage reduces Strength and counts as a critical strike. This requires a save versus critical damage on Strength, and if failed, the defender dies.

For example, as Gertrude struggles through the last of a snowstorm to get to the next village, she hears yells and screams from up ahead. Over the rise, she sees a caravan which has been ambushed during the storm. It is in disarray as several figures fight the surviving guards and others drag off merchants. Gertrude spots two of the rough-looking fellows attempting to abduct an old woman. Unlimbering her Linden Wood Shield and readying her bearded axe, she charges down the hill. The Warden rules that since the battlefield is noisy and the old woman is screaming, neither of the cultists will spot her charging down the hill and will grant her Advantage on the damage roll. This means that Gertrude’s player will rolling two eight-sided dice instead of one and taking the best result. Gertrude’s player rolls a five and an eight. He chooses the latter and inflicts eight points of damage. The Cultist has a Def of one, reducing the damage he is about to suffer by one to seven. However, the Cultist only has Resilience of six, so it is reduced to zero and the Cultist takes a point of damage to his Strength. It also means that the Warden has to make a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls against the Cultist’s Strength of ten and rolls a sixteen! The Cultist yelps at the sudden blow and drops dead… At this point, it triggers a special ability which means that when the Cultist dies, a black tentacle bursts out of him and inflicts damage on the nearest person. This requires a roll of one on a twenty-sided die. The Warden rolls seven, so nothing happens.

The other Cultist looks round in surprise. He reacts by throwing the old woman down and drawing his seax, advances on Gertrude. He stabs at the mighty warrior and rolls six for the damage. Gertrude has a high enough Resilience to stop a lot of this damage, but his player decides on a Parry Reaction. This enables Gertrude to deflect the attack and riposte with advantage on the damage roll. Gertrude’s player rolls fourteen, which is under Gertrude’s Strength. Gertrude smashes the seax stab aside and the Cultist suffers enough damage to reduce his Resilience to zero, but not inflict any damage to his Strength. The Cultist screams in pain. This attracts the attention of the other cultists attacking the caravan. They stop what they are doing and move to take down their attacker. She will make a worthy sacrifice.

Two of the Classes—the Skald and the Seer—are capable of casting various forms of magic. These are Runestones and Sagas. Runestones are polished stones into which spells are inscribed, whilst Sagas are memorised tales that are recited to channel the power of the gods. Both Runestones and Sagas take up an Inventory Slot in total and when either a Runestone or a Saga inflicts damage, it bypasses non-magical armour. There is a decent list of spells for the Seer, such as Cloak of Knives or Spectacle, as well as one for the Skald like Laughter or Sense Evil.

As the mighty warrioress comes to her aid and attacks the cultists who would have kidnapped her, the old woman, Tove, finds herself thrown into the snow. She is now free to act, and as Skald, she reaches into the folds of her tunic to pull out her Runic Focus. Concentrating on the key item, she recalls the story in which Thor called down the power of lightning on his enemies. With a crackle of energy, a dagger of lightning appears in her hand. From where she lies, she throws it at the Cultist still standing in front of the unknown warrioress. This inflicts three damage, reduced by one for the Cultist’s ‘Def’. This means the Cultist suffers Strength damage and triggers a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls eleven for the Cultist, which means that with a zap, the Cultist is blown off his feet. The Warden rolls for the Cultist’s post-death ability. This time she rolls a one and a black tentacle emerges from the dead Cultist and inflicts a six-sided die’s worth of damage on Gertrude!

If an Adventurer dies, it does not necessarily mean that play is over. The Adventurer simply reawakens at the last Bonfire he rested at. He loses all Souls found—Souls are remnants of the power of the gods scattered and hidden across the Nine Realms, that if returned to a Bonfire whilst alive can be used to imbue an Adventurer with power and improve his abilities and Vitality—and has his Strength and Resilience restored to full. However, when this happens, it also reduces his Vigour by one. If his Vigour is reduced to zero in this fashion, the Adventurer truly dies and rises as a Shade… Lastly, any enemy that the Adventurer killed before dying is also returned to life!

This is the extent of Runecairn in terms of its basic rules. What is interesting about Runecairn: Wardensaga is that it shifts what would be the inherent abilities of a Player Character because said Player Character has a Class in another roleplaying game from the internal to external. Much of what a Player Character can do is down to the equipment that he carries and packs into his inventory, and many of them enable the use of skills. What that means is that an Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga could snatch up a spear and carry a ‘Thrust’ attack as per the Warrior Class, enabling him to lunge forward ten feet and make an attack, but suffering from fatigue in return, or after obtaining a Runic Focus, learn spells as can a Skald. In addition to finding Souls and spells, an Adventurer can also find Relics and Rings. Relics are items imbued with magic or spells, often one-use items, which when used do not inflict Fatigue, and sometimes can be recharged. For example, a Skull Beacon, a charred and crumbling skull with faintly glimmering eye sockets, which glows brightly when held. It can be used to light up and area, but only once. To recharge it, it needs to be burned on a roaring bonfire. Rings typically grant a better benefit, but always at some cost. For example, the Iron Ring is wrought of dense metal grants a point of Defence, but at a loss of Speed.

The Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provide two extra Classes, alternate ways of playing the roleplaying game, and a Delve Generator. The two extra Classes are the Berserker and the Pyre. The former is a warrior who calls upon his animal spirit to fight with great ferocity, whilst the latter draws upon fire to burn his enemies and even shield against their attacks. The first of the alternate methods of play is solo play. This suggests playing Runecairn: Wardensaga as a Journalling game, suggesting that the player use an ‘Oracle’ as a means to draw meaning from the randomness of play, such as that created using the Delve Generator. This ‘Oracle’ can be a Tarot deck, but the guidance for solo play in the Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a set of tables to roll upon. The co-operative play gives a way of bringing another player into a session, the Adventurer using an effigy stone at a bonfire to summon a fallen hero—from either the past or the future—who will fight alongside the Adventurer, until one of them dies. Conversely, the Adventurer might face a ‘black fetch’ instead of a fallen hero, intent of stripping him of his humanity and vigour. The ‘black fetch’ can be run as a normal NPC by the Warden, or if both players do not object to the situation, by another player, setting up an adversarial situation. Alternatively, the ‘black fetch’ might actually be a fallen hero who believes the Adventurer to be the ‘black fetch’!

The Delve Generator creates locations for play in Runecairn: Wardensaga. This includes locations such as cairn or stronghold, objectives such as infiltrating the mercenary group at a stronghold and convincing its members to join the Adventurer or hunting a cairn for the rock troll that killed the adventurer’s family is hiding out in the family tomb. An extensive set of tables provides encounters within these locations, NPC reactions and actions, and a countdown mechanic which determines how close the Adventurer is to his objective after each encounter. Thus, the Adventurer need not explore the whole of the location to achieve his objective. The process is neatly handled through a flow chart that makes the solo play proceed with ease.

Penultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a complete delve, ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’. This is designed as an introductory adventure which showcases how to play and how the Adventurer lives and dies. It begins with the Adventurer waking up not know where he is and what he should possess, so the first part is really looking for both, though the inevitable death within the first few locations will teach the player the transient nature of life and death in the roleplaying game and then reinforce the importance of the Adventurer’s possessions as they really are key to his survival. Lastly, the appendices consist of a short, but useful bestiary, and some player options as well as a pronunciation guide.

Physically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is well presented and the artwork is excellent. However, the writing does feel succinct in places, leaving the reader wanting a little clearer explanation. However, there is a good example of Adventurer and a good example of combat. Both do a good job of showing how the roleplaying game works. If there is anything missing from the pages of Runecairn: Wardensaga, it is details of the wider world, of the Nine Realms, which the Warden will have to develop. Another issue is that there is no differentiation within each Class, so that the only difference one Warrior and another is their core abilities. That said, Runecairn: Wardensaga is not designed for that style of play where these are multiple players. Nevertheless, when there are two players involved, they should ideally have their Adventurers each be of a different Class.

Runecairn: Wardensagaa is the complete version of Runecairn, containing everything needed to play, including a beginning scenario, and then more to play further, whether that is just one player and the Warden, as is standard, solo play, or more players. There is a fantastically brutal dynamism to the play of Runecairn: Wardensaga, combined with a strong player agency that the Warden is encouraged to support through the roleplaying game’s principles. In particular, the thrust back and forth of combat is desperate and gruelling, a player whose Adventurer has his equipment, always having choices in terms of how he attacks and he reacts. This reliance upon equipment emphasises the power of these choices and makes the Adventurer feel mortal—even though this is not the case as death returns him to the last bonfire—rather than like some fantasy superhero. Yet the heroic aspect of Runecairn: Wardensaga means that the Adventurer can return from the dead, to come back with the knowledge of what killed him and perhaps be better prepared for the next attempt.

Above all, Runecairn: Wardensaga is a really enticing roleplaying game for two that gives the Warden a set of solid tools with which to create the situations and delves for the Adventurer to get involved in, whilst for the player, there are some great Adventurers to play and bring to life and use their skills, and together the means to explore a broken world. Ultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga is like a computer game in its one-on-one play-style, but its post-Ragnarök action has all the advantages of a tabletop roleplaying game—player agency, the varied and more reactive world created by the Warden, and the fierce and feisty actions, reactions, and decisions of the Adventurer.

—oOo—

By Odin’s Beard will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Return to the Odd

Bastion stands as the world’s largest city, an industrial powerhouse whose factories pour out guns, chemicals, manufactured goods, and even newspapers that ships carry from the city’s wharfs. Citizens flock to the city for work—the factories chew up their employees almost as much as they take them on! Expeditions leave the city travelling far and wide, many returning with tales of places weird, wonderful, and worrisome, often too far to even map given the size of the world. Yet there are wonders and secrets to found closer to home. The Underground lies beneath Bastion, at first the sewers, then tunnels, and caves below, full of long-lost secrets and ancient vaults. Cultists plot the return of their strange masters, unions counter plot even as they try to protect workers’ rights, and the mill bosses squeeze more and more out of there employees heedless of the religious fervour that undo their industrial empire. Scattered and across these cities and the darkness below are the Arcana, devices from ages past that grant fantastic powers, from pieces of jewellery to almost unmoveable statuary. There are men and women who search for these Arcana, knowing they can make a name for themselves, make themselves rich, if they can find the rights ones and find a buyer. They are Explorers.

This is the setting for Into the Odd Remastered, an Old School Renaissance rules light microclone originally published in 2014 that has been beautifully redesigned and re-laid out and published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It promises fast character creation, minimalist rules, strange things to encounter and be found, a complete hexcrawl and dungeon, and quite possibly the most fun set of tables available for any roleplaying game. However, it is very light in terms of setting, combining elements of cosmic horror, heavy industrial squalor, weirdness and wonder in the ruins of the past—above and below ground. Into the Odd Remastered is both a precursor to the author’s Electric Bastionland and an expanded version of the original, primarily in terms of supporting content.

An Explorer—or Player Character—in Into the Odd Remastered is lightly defined. He has three Abilities: Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, which range in value between three and eighteen. He also a six-sided die’s worth of HP, or Hit Protection, rather than Hit Points, a Starter Package, potentially a Companion, and some silver shillings. To create an Explorer, a player rolls three six-sided dice each for the Abilities and one die for the Hit Protection. Then by cross-referencing the value of the Hit Protection with the Explorer’s highest Ability, he receives a Starter Package. An Explorer with either low Hit Protection or a low Ability will receive a more powerful Starter Package, including an Arcanum, whilst an Explorer with a high Ability or Hit Protection, will receive a more mundane Starter Package. Thus, an Explorer with six Hit Protection and a high Ability of twelve would start play with a Maul, a Dagger, and a length of chain, whereas if the Explorer’s highest Ability is nine and he only has two Hit Protection, he begins play with a Musket, a Sword (d6), a Flashbang, and the ability to ‘Sense nearby Arcana’. The process is incredibly simple and incredibly fast—two minutes if that!

Hattie Tuggery
Strength 8 Dexterity 10 Willpower 15
Hit Protection 3
Starter Package: Club (d6), Ether, Crowbar, Flute

Mechanically, if an Explorer wants to undertake an action, his player rolls a twenty-sided die against the appropriate Ability, aiming to equal to or under to pass. Initiative in combat is handled with a Dexterity save if needed. Combat is equally as simple. A player rolls the die for the weapon used to determine how much might damage be inflicted. The target’s armour is subtracted from this and the remainder is subtracted from first his Hit Protection and then his Strength. This necessitates a Strength Save and the possibility that the Explorer will be unable to act. Should a character lose all of his Strength, he dies. It takes only a Short Rest to recover lost Hit Protection, but a Long Rest lasting a week to recover lost Ability points. Saves against Willpower are used for several things, maintaining morale of course, but also in a pinch, maintaining civil discourse with others, and more interestingly, to manipulate the powers of Arcana.

Arcana are the motivating force of Into the Odd Remastered and are categorised into three types. Base Arcana are ‘Powers You Cannot Understand’, Greater Arcana are ‘Powers You Can Barely Control’, and Legendary Arcana are ‘Powers You Shouldn’t Control’, but any Arcanum does one specific thing and does it well. For example, a Soul Chain is a base Arcana which forces a Dexterity Save on a target lest he loses points of Will and gives away a glimpse of his current desire; the Book of Despair is a Greater Arcana that fills a floor area with tentacles that grab and constrain unless a Strength Save is made; and a Space Cube is a Legendary Arcana which transports the user and a companion to a location they have been to before. Some one hundred or so Arcana are detailed in Into the Odd Remastered, but there is scope for the Referee to create yet more and there is advice in the book on how they woke and should be handled.

Other advice for the Referee covers understanding how the game is played, handling obstacles, tricks, and hazards, monsters and encounters, money and treasure—including options for the Explorers to invest in enterprises and war, and how to award Experience Levels based on Expeditions completed. They are thus awarded on a narrative basis. Beyond Novice, there are only five Experience Levels and each gains an Explorer Increased Hit Protection and the possibility of an increased Ability. Notable of these is that hazards and traps can invariably be spotted unless an Explorer is running, locked doors can always be picked, and so on. Saves or rolls are required in these cases where there is a time factor involved or the course of action an Explorer is about to take might trigger the trap. In effect, this places the agency with the player and his Explorer and takes into account that when exploring, the Explorer is by nature being careful. Several sample hazards are provided as well as sample monsters. This is all accompanied by a lengthy example of play to help both player and Referee get the feel of how Into the Odd Remastered plays.

However, Into the Odd Remastered is not necessarily a forgiving system. Combat in particular, is deadly as every attack succeeds and what matters is the amount of damage rolled. So, hirelings or playing with multiple characters might be an option if a group wants to avoid a total party kill. That said, it does favour the players and their Explorers when it comes to the exploration and the discovery of obstacles and traps. Here in Into the Odd Remastered, the Explorers choose to engage with obstacles and traps and risk the consequences of doing so, rather than having such obstacles and traps sprung upon them as is the norm in other roleplaying games. Nevertheless, the unforgiving nature of its mechanics and play means that Into the Odd Remastered may initially have the feel of a Character Funnel as in Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, with its set-up of multiple Zero Level characters per player.

In terms of setting, Into the Odd Remastered gives its various locations—the city of Bastion, the Underground, Deep Country and other cities, and beyond civilisation to the Golden Lands and Polar Ocean little more description than a paragraph each. In this it does not expand upon what was in the first edition of the roleplaying game, and is in some ways its biggest disappointment. The Referee is definitely left wanting more flavour and detail about Bastion and the wider world. Some of that though, is covered in the ‘Oddpendium’ a set of tables at the rear of the book for name generation, occupations, abilities, manner, connections, and important little life events, all for quick NPC generation. Others generate city locations, routes, locations, weird creatures, cults, borough decisions and the reaction to the mob of this and anything else, whether or not a thing is an arcanum, and more. There are options for different character groups such as Mutants from the Underground and Simple Folk from the Deep Country unused to city ways, and alternative Starter Packages. These table are pointers, elements that the Referee can use to develop the world of Bastion and beyond around the Explorers.

In between the rules and advice for the Referee and the ‘Oddpendium’, Into the Odd Remastered details three locations as play environments. These are the scum-encrusted fishing town of Hopesend Port, the Last Port of the North; a dungeon, The Iron Coral, which lies off the coast off Hopesend Port; and the hexcrawl, The Fallen Marsh, the soggy stretch of coast which lies between them. Now these are presented in the order of The Iron Coral, The Fallen Marsh, and Hopesend Port, which feels counter-intuitive if the trio is run as a campaign, with the Explorers starting out from Hopesend and then travelling through The Fallen Marsh to The Iron Coral. That said, the inclusion of The Iron Coral first essentially means that it is good for getting straight into play as it can be run with very little preparation upon the part of the Referee.

This new edition of Into the Odd expands upon the original dungeon, The Iron Coral, adding depth and detail, but still presented in a succinct series of bullet points. There is plenty of detail packed into this strange, often random complex of rooms. Expanding out from this is The Fallen Marsh and then a point of civilisation, Hopesend Port, providing all together a complete hexcrawl campaign driven by exploration and rumour. As good as this is, it still leaves Bastion itself untapped and unexplored and even with the tools of the ‘Oddpendium’, a great deal of effort upon the part of the Referee will be needed if she is to do something with the greatest city in the world and actually bring it into play.

Physically, Into the Odd Remastered is as lovely a book as you would imagine given that Free League Publishing is releasing it and Johan Nohr—best known as the ‘Artpunk’ designer of Mörk Borg—did the graphic design. The result is a genuine remastering, elegant often subtle, but always hinting at a clash between the baroque and a lost modernity. The writing itself is succinct and always to the point, although that succinctness does not always help the Referee as it should. Primarily this means that as minimalist as Into the Odd Remastered is, it is not really suited to be played or run by anyone without some experience of doing either.

There is an undoubtable elegance to the highly economic combination of Into the Odd Remastered’s minimalism and its new presentation. Both the rules and the setting of Bastion are very light and very much open to interpretation by both players and the Referee, yet arguably, Into the Odd Remastered all but leaves the city itself and much of the setting begging be to be expanded upon and explored. Room perhaps for a city and underground book for the setting of Bastion? In comparison, Electric Bastionland, the sequel to Into the Odd, is far better at its implicit world building. Yet in comparison to other microclones, Into the Odd Remastered does present somewhere to start playing with The Iron Coral and its associated hexcrawl.

Ultimately, Into the Odd Remastered is a lovely re-representation of a world that is accessible and all but instantly playable mechanically, but remains strange and elusive, oddly Dickensian and technologically fantastical, in terms of setting, and that is by design.

The Other OSR—We Deal in Lead

The world has not so much died as moved on. Landscapes seem to stretch on and on, pockmarked by settlements and the ruins of ages past, as strange machinery rumbles below seemingly straining to keep the sky and the ground moving like they did the day before. Old technology, much of it advanced by the standards of then and now, rusts and moulders where it sits; strange creatures—some said to have been things of legend and myth, lurk, ready to pounce and rend the unwary; and magic weaves a cunning attraction for the studious and the curious, the ambitious and the foolish, its knowledge perhaps lost on this world, but not the next. Figures are seen to stalk this world, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of beast which seems to understand their every action and word, and never leave their side, sometimes together in brotherly orders, but all wielding the gun, a deadly artefact that they use to kill. To kill the bandit, the robber, the cheat, and the murder, the apostate of their order, and in doing so restore order of society and ensure the men and women of this time can live free of tyranny and banditry. Then they are gone. Perhaps they left with the caravan as a guard, maybe they simply moved on to the next settlement, or they just found the Slip Door they were looking and their Guns knows the location of and stepped through, not to the next settlement, though there is always one, but the next world. This is the life of the Gunslinger, wielder of the legendary gun across the Drifted World and their credo is “We deal in lead.”

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in in the post-apocalyptic dark and weird west of the Drifted World that can step sideways into other worlds and genres and back again as legendary Gunslingers stalk the land, perhaps bringing order to the remnants of society, and then moving on to fulfil quests of their own. Perhaps to kill the murder of their order’s elder, retrieve their lost elder’s guns and take up her mantle, restore their honour, or even slay the demon within. It combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and presents the tools and tables to create wildernesses, worlds, and excursions, whether the Warden—as the Game Master is called—is running for a single player, a group, or a player is playing it as a journaling game and thus solo. As a setting and roleplaying game, it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities in terms of other roleplaying adventures.

We Deal In Lead begins with advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. For the Warden these include design philosophy—neutrality of the role, that the roleplaying game is Classless, death is always a possibility, the players should always be presented with clear choices, and the players share objectives, and so on, as well as the nature of adventures, content and safety tools, how to handle information, difficulty, narrative focus, and preparation, and present danger, treasure, and choice. For the player, the principles advise agency, teamwork, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then they should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. The same is done when describing the Drifted World, a set of principles that are to the point rather than providing any great detail. On the plus side this means that there are going to be basic elements which will be the same from one Warden’s game of We Deal In Lead to another because the principles are presented in a direct and accessible fashion, whilst leaving plenty of scope for the Warden to develop the details. On the downside, this can leave the Warden with more effort required to prepare and run a game, although the book includes numerous tables designed to help with that. Overall, the sparse nature of these sets of principles reflects the open nature of We Deal In Lead’s Drifted World.

A Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead has three Abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Heart, ranging in value between three and eighteen. Of the three abilities, Strength and Dexterity are obvious in their use, whilst Heart is used for social interaction, carrying out rituals, and in Gunslinger duels. Grit represents his ability to endure and continue rather than health, plus various physical and mental traits and some equipment. He owns a Gun, a firearm out of antiquity with inlaid stock and engraving. He may also be a member of an order of Gunslingers, led by an Errant. This might be a Player Character or an NPC. To create a Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead, a player chooses or rolls on the tables for name, surname, and background, plus any extra traits, and then three six-sided dice for the Gunslinger’s abilities, followed by two six-sided dice for his Grit. He selects or rolls for the details of his gun and his hat, and then some equipment. The Gunslinger is ready to play.

Maggie Chambers
Age: 38
TRAITS
Background: Bandit Physique: Short Skin: Pockmarked Hair: Braided Face: Sunken Eyes: Distant Speech: Squeaky Clothing: Colourful
Virtue: Tolerant Vice: Cold Reputation: Driven Misfortune: Heartbroken
Strength 13
Dexterity 16
Heart 15
Grit 9

EQUIPMENT
Three days’ rations, torch, 12 lead, Rifle with ironwood grip and hawk engraving, galloner hat

Mechanically, We Deal In Lead is straightforward. When a player wants his Gunslinger to act, he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, or Heart, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage. Armour provides some Defence, but only against mundane attacks, not against bullets. Damage is inflicted directly on Grit, then Strength, which can inflict critical damage. When Strength is reduced to zero a Gunslinger is dead. Critical damage necessitates checking on the Scars Table, which depending on the damage suffered, can leave the Gunslinger with concussion, bloodied, touched (and aware of the location of the next Slip Door), or even dead. Gunfire is resolved not through a Save versus an ability, but a roll of two six-sided dice on the ‘Shoot Table’ which might mean maximum damage, a hit or a graze, a miss, or a mishap. It is thus random, but because the gun of the Gunslinger is an artefact or relic gun, it grants certain advantages, including Steel Resolve, in which the Gunslinger draws resolve from his weapon to restore Grit and special attacks. These differ by weapon. Thus, there is ‘Fan the Hammer’ for the six shooter and ‘Give It Both Barrels’ for the shotgun. If a Gunsmith and a forge can be found, a Gunslinger can have his Gun upgraded, although the price is high.

Duels—and specifically duels against other Gunslingers—are even deadlier as you would expect. Contests are required to determine who fires first and hitting an opposing duellist necessitates a save versus Heart. Damage is deducted directly from a Duellist’s Strength rather than Grit. Combat can be deadly, especially duels, and opponents will often flee Gunslingers, their morale broken. Gunslingers themselves can also be affected by the loss of morale, though usually only when they lose their Guns or their Errant is killed. Then they are broken.

Beyond the core rules and combat, We Deal In Lead provides for magic and companion beasts. The latter can bond with a Gunslinger and so become a Gunslinger themselves—bar the Gun, of course, a loyal companion who can help a Gunslinger on his quest. The former mostly involves rituals, often cast by groups. No magic itself is described, but rather the rules suggest that it be rare, knowledge of it having been mostly lost, and not without its cost. Unless presented with the means and motive to cast magic, it is likely to remain a narrative aspect of a campaign’s villain and thus the province of the Warden. Further rules cover wilderness exploration, of which there is a lot in the roleplaying game, so turning parts of its play into a hexcrawl, and traversing to other worlds, primarily through Slip Doors. There are threats and legends that stalk the in-between spaces, but a Gunslinger’s Gun never stops working—though he may need to find a world’s alternative to lead. The wilderness rules are supported by a table of wilderness encounter hooks and a lengthier and more detailed set of tables to create excursions, essentially missions on the other side of Slip Doors on other worlds. Both are designed to work with the solo or journaling rules that allow a single player to stalk the Drifted World via his Gunslinger, including a flow chart to track his progress. In addition, the bestiary in the appendix provides nearly forty monsters to face along the way. Some feel drawn straight of Dungeons & Dragons, some have a cryptological bent to them, whilst others like the Mayhem Beast, Serfbot, Skinshift, Ursborg, and Drifted Third are native to the setting. Lastly, in the scenario, ‘Swampwater Shootout’, the Gunslingers go after the turncoat who killed the Errant of their Order. It is a fairly short affair, designed to introduce the game and its mechanics, and should provide a session’s worth of action.

Physically, We Deal In Lead is well presented. For the most part the book is done in cream, but the thick border of every page is colour coded according to the chapter and its subject matter. This makes finding things in the book that little bit easier. The rules are all very clearly presented and surprisingly, for a book of its length, supported by proper examples both of character creation and combat. The latter is quite lengthy, taking up two whole pages and also serving as an example of play.

If there is an issue with We Deal In Lead it is in its openness and often its sense of the ineffable and the beyond. It leaves a very great deal for the Warden to fill in and develop, certainly in terms of anything akin to a campaign or long-term play. For some Wardens this will not be an issue, but for others, it may be the case. By comparison, the short term is very well supported with encounters and excursion ideas. This does though mean that there is a flexibility to We Deal In Lead, the Warden being free to run it in the slightly done setting as presented, create her own endless prairie, or even switch genres to a standard Western.

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game takes the Old School Renaissance and the Wild West to an empty, endless frontier, its sparseness and openness often matched by the look of the book. Whilst the origins of We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game may lie in micro-clones such as Cairn and Knave, the designers do an excellent job of building upon them to present something new, in a different genre with the sense of a world that really has drifted on.