[Fanzine Focus XXXVII] Black Pudding #8

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Black Pudding is a fanzine that is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord and as of Black Pudding No. 6, for use with Old School Essentials as well, so is compatible with other Retroclones, but it is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fanzine. For starters, it is all but drawn rather than written, with artwork that reflects a look that is cartoonish, a tone that is slightly tongue in cheek, and a gonzo feel. Its genre is avowedly Swords & Sorcery, as much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as Conan the Barbarian. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules and published by Random Order via Square Hex, Black Pudding’s fantasy roleplaying content that is anything other than the straight-laced fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, but something a bit lighter and not a little tongue in cheek, yet still full of adventure and heroism. Issues one, two, and three showcased the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules with a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures, whilst four also included the author’s ‘OSR Play book’, his reference for running an Old School Renaissance game, essentially showing how he runs his own campaign. Issue five included a similar mix of new Classes, NPCs, and an adventure, but did begin to suggest a campaign setting, which six also continued as well as containing its owning wilderness area for the Player Characters to explore.

Black Pudding #8 continues in the same vein as Black Pudding No. 5, Black Pudding No. 6, and Black Pudding #7, containing a mix of new Character Classes, new monsters, NPCs, and mini-scenarios, although no further details or descriptions of Yria, part of the ‘Doomslakers’ campaign are given. The tongue-in-cheek tone of the fanzine begins inside the front cover with the Wizard spell, Foot in Face, which the wizard can prepare a round in advance and then cast instantly as a rejoinder, stunning the defender for a round, whilst on the facing page, ‘The Barbarian Blade’ which parodies Conan and eschews the use of magical swords which makes the men of the south weak. The wielder of this two-handed blade must do so with strength and without fear, but can strike any foe and inflicts 2d8 damage! It is over the top, but in keeping with the genre.

The new monsters are twists on standard types. Thus, the ‘Fee Foe’ is a giant that enjoys the blood of adventurers, lairs on roads and under bridges where it charges a toll. It is also good at throwing rocks and can block passages as if Hold Portal was cast. Hopefully, the players will get the pun in the name. The ‘Troglozyte’ is a version of the Troglodyte, but bigger and nastier with a fast regeneration ability and the possibility that when bitten by a Troglozyte, an adventurer might be transformed into one! The ‘Reeking Rotter’ is an undead thing whose attacks inflict ‘Rot Spatter’ which causes sufferers to retch temporarily and whose bite infests victims with rot worms that reduce their Constitution. The rot worms not only stink, but emit tiny screams! Lastly, the ‘Octonods’ are creepy scientists from another dimension that come looking for wizards’ spells and scrolls that they turn into a noxious gas to incubate their young! They are utterly lacking in joy and can sting with their tentacles, or their gaze attack can inflict damage, cast Charm Person/Monster, cast Telekinesis, or simply teleport a target away. They have the feel of big threat, perhaps an ongoing one.

The first of the issue’s several new Classes is the ‘Alien’. Its strangeness means it suffers a bonus to Reaction rolls, whilst its Weird Food requirements cost more, and Weird Brain makes it immune to Sleep, Charm, and Geases. It adds a degree a complexity with ‘Strange Powers’, which enable it to project powers from its head. These powers are all potion-based, so a player will be looking at the treasure section of the rules—whether ‘Basic’ or ‘Expert’—rather than the spell lists. Whilst the ‘Alien’ is less likely to appear in many a campaign, the ‘Death Witch’ is more obviously useful. She cannot be of Good Alignment and is capable of casting both Cleric and Magic-User spells, can speak to the dead and turn undead as a Cleric, and as a ‘Skull Lover’ turns any weapon decorated with a skull into a magical weapon. In addition, she can make and place a Hex Bag on a target to trigger later for more damage. Should a Death Witch die, she will rise again in three days with a loss of Charisma and indebted to evil…

The ‘Fighting Wombat’ Class is a silly addition, a Fighter type, but with the ability to dig tunnels, store items in its back pouch, and when unarmoured, can hide in natural surroundings like a Halfling. The ‘Goon Royal’, by Jayne X Praxis, is a rare contribution to Black Pudding from an author other than James V. West. Apart from a bite attack which continues to inflict damage until the target makes a successful saving throw versus paralysis and the ability to climb like the Thief Class, there is little to make the Class stand out.

The penultimate Class in Black Pudding #8 is the ‘Feral Knight’. This is a fallen warrior, cursed to wander the wilds until he commits deeds of honour that will restore his lost glory. This is a Fighter Class, but with limited access to arms and armour. Initially only a dagger and a shield, but other weapons and armour become available as the Player Character gains Levels, whilst magical arms and armour can be used at Ninth Level. The ‘Feral Knight’ is ‘Heroic’ and has an attack bonus versus Evil enemies, immune to fear, and his ‘Courage’ gives a bonus versus mind-effecting magic. He also gains Knightly powers as he acquires Levels and does great deeds, including being able to know alignments, casting Cure Light Wounds three times per day, and eventually cast First Level Cleric spells daily. There is a table to determine what caused the fall of the ‘Feral Knight’. There is a lot of detail to the Class, but with it plenty of roleplaying potential.

The last Class is the ‘Norg’, a Giant Kin Class. This is another Fighter Class, but one who fights with a penalty with one-handed weapons, finding armour is difficult because the each member of the Class is at least eight feet tall, is immune to cold magic effects, and has the special abilities of the Polar bear, including knowing their language. The ‘Norg’ can also speak to giants, but they will not trust the ‘Norg’. This is a simple and serviceable Class, easy to add to a campaign and roleplay. Of the six Classes in the issue, the ‘Feral Knight’ is the most interesting and the one with most gaming scope built in.

‘Ghiki’s Hole’ is the first of two scenarios in Black Pudding #8. It is an adventure location, a grated hole in the ground in the wilderness, which opens onto a sheer shaft, two hundred feet deep. The caves at the bottom of the shaft are home to the titular Ghiki, a ‘Cyclops Serpent’, curled up on a pile of bones and treasure. The adventure is short and challenging, but has a pleasingly physicality with the deep shaft, some caves in the walls, and webs near bottom, but above the lair. The lair of Ghiki, quite a tough monster, is shown with the creature winding around the treasure adding further to the sense of place. The second scenario is ‘General Skull Falcon’s Hall’ (possibly, but it is not clear), in which the Player Characters ascend a snowy mountain to consult General Skull Falcon who will respect their bravery in climbing the mountain and reward them with several true facts they did not know and one false fact. This location has a hook built in, but is short enough and compact enough to drop into a campaign when that hook, the Player Character’s need for knowledge they cannot get elsewhere comes up as part of a campaign. So, a good addition in that eventuality.

One of the best features in Black Pudding is ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, a collection of NPCs ready for hire by the Player Characters. There is a decent range of NPCs given here, such as ‘Elotar Flatulus’, a Third Level Thief with a love of tea and dislike of loud music, who has seen and done it all, but might just be getting a bit long in the tooth, and ‘Nart Flindasterd’, a Fourth Level Thief who likes precious metals, but hates guards and wizards because as a genius toddler, the son of wealthy wizard, he was dropped on his head, and ever since, he not been a genius and it really irks him. There are eight ready-to-use NPCs and each one will add a little in their own way to a Game Master’s campaign.

The big feature in Black Pudding #8 is ‘Zasto Fillstian, War Wizard, Hellrider, Outcast of Seapath’, a major NPC who is a Seventeenth Level Magic-user and Seventh Level Star Wizard (as detailed in Black Pudding #3) who hunger for power and consequent actions drove him out of the city of Seapath and into a secret sanctuary in the Dweomerdrake Mountains from where he raids hidden and dangerous worlds whilst viciously protecting and hoarding what he finds. This includes, but is not limited to, a Sherman tank, adapted to run on wine or beer, given the lack of diesel. His write-up includes descriptions of his favourite treasures; his trusted agents—an alien as per the Class earlier in the book and a cold-hearted Elf; his Book of Eternal Life, which he won from Hell and from which he cast the spell of the same name; and Golgor, the star from which he gains some of his powers. Together with a map of his lair, this is the real big threat in the issue and would be a major presence in any campaign.

‘Iron Devils II’ describes ten magical swords. For example, Hawkhead is a +1 sword that lets the wielder see through the eyes of a passing bird for a turn or Whiplash, a +1 sword whose curved blade negates bonuses for shields or cover, and can be thrown and will come back if the attack misses, whilst the mirror blade reflects invisible things and lets the user see through a door or over a wall once a day. All ten blades are illustrated and nicely detailed, each one adding a little different flavour.

Physically, Black Pudding #8 adheres to the same standards set by the previous issues. So plenty of good, if cartoonish artwork to give it a singular, consistent look, accompanied by similar cartography. As with previous issues of the fanzine, the potential and obvious problem with Black Pudding #8 is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Labyrinth Lord or Game Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Game Master should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine.

A new issue of Black Pudding is always welcome, offering as it does a lighter, sometimes sillier approach to Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy. This gives the fanzine a genuinely unique identity and Black Pudding #8 is no different, offering a mix of content that veers from the instantly useable to the so weird that the Game Master is going to find it harder to add to her campaign. Yet there was the hope that the next issue of the fanzine would further develop the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules as well his setting of Yria, but Black Pudding #8 does not do that and it is disappointing. Make no mistake, there is good content in Black Pudding #8 and it is a finely produced fanzine, but there is scope to do more than do the same mix again.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIII] Black Pudding #7

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Black Pudding is a fanzine that is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord and as of Black Pudding No. 6, for use with Old School Essentials as well, so is compatible with other Retroclones, but it is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fanzine. For starters, it is all but drawn rather than written, with artwork that reflects a look that is cartoonish, a tone that is slightly tongue in cheek, and a gonzo feel. Its genre is avowedly Swords & Sorcery, as much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as Conan the Barbarian. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules and published by Random Order via Square Hex, Black Pudding’s fantasy roleplaying content that is anything other than the straight-laced fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, but something a bit lighter and not a little tongue in cheek, yet still full of adventure and heroism. Issues one, two, and three showcased the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules with a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures, whilst four also included the author’s ‘OSR Play book’, his reference for running an Old School Renaissance game, essentially showing how he runs his own campaign. Issue five included a similar mix of new Classes, NPCs, and an adventure, but did begin to suggest a campaign setting, which six also continued as well as containing its owning wilderness area for the Player Characters to explore.

Black Pudding No. 7 continues in the same vein as Black Pudding No. 5 and Black Pudding No. 6, containing a mix of new Character Classes, a few monsters, and expanded descriptions of Yria, part of the ‘Doomslakers’ campaign. The issue, though, begins with four new Classes, whose quality varies. The first is the ‘Rat Bastard’, the offspring of Wererat and Human parentage. Treated like a Chaotic Thief, the Class has the ability to shift into a Wererat and use a Claw and Bite attack, but takes extra damage from silver. The Class also has a strong sense of smell, is naturally stealthy and sneaky, including being able to escape bonds and cages. The Turncoat ability forces the ‘Rat Bastard’ to betray everyone if offered more money than the Class is currently receiving… The ‘Rat Bastard’ is intentionally evil/Chaotic Class, suitable for NPCs, most obviously, but also for a campaign where the players are playing evil/Chaotic Classes. If the ‘Rat Bastard’ has a role in certain campaigns, the role of the remaining three Classes is uncertain except for sillier or gonzo campaigns. The ‘Iggy’ Class is a crude, shirtless risk-taking brawler whose ‘Lust for Life’ random, jerky battle dance gives him Armour Class bonuses despite being able to wear armour on his head and legs, make unarmed attacks, steal weapons and use them, and whilst he is partially immune to mind-affecting sleep and spells and all manner of intoxicants, he throws himself into danger, often harming himself in the process. The ‘Flamer’ is an Angel, but on fire, which inflicts fire damage, including the Magic Missile-like Fireburst, block damage with a Fire Shield, can Fly daily, and is, of course, immune to fire. Unfortunately, the ‘Flamer’ incinerates any armour not magically designed for it, has a chance of melting any weapon it uses, and can take double damage from the cold. The Class essentially feels like the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. Lastly, the ‘Eyeball’ is a walking, talking eyeball, with sight-based abilities, such as being able to read any scroll and spot hidden and invisible things, plus it has the Thief abilities of Sneak, Pick Locks, and Pick Pockets. It suffers penalties in bright light though. It is intentionally a humorous Class, but really all three—the ‘Iggy’, the ‘Flamer’, and the ‘Eyeball’—are pieces of humour rather than necessarily humorous Classes. Their inclusion in any game would change its tone and it would have to be a specific type of campaign, gonzo and absurd, that they would work in.

The five new monsters in Black Budding No. 7 are quick and simply presented, with abilities and their minimal background details, all delivered as a series of bullet points. They include the ‘Rocky’, ‘Grave Crusader’, ‘Dracowisp’, ‘Tyrano-X’, and ‘Queen of the Dark Light’. The ‘Rocky’ and ‘Dracowisp’ consequently feel underwritten because their descriptions do not give them a role, whereas the ‘Grave Crusader’ is an Undead protector of burial sites. The ‘Tyrano-X’ is a Tyrannosaurus Rex-type creature, but intelligent and whose eggs are used in potions and royal breakfasts, so their eggs are hunted, even though one egg per nest poisons the eater. The ‘Queen of the Dark Light’ is a villainous sorcereress, who relishes in the shadows, maintains a coven of witches to serve her, is protected by Shadows, can summon Zombies, and so on. Both the ‘Tyrano-X’ and the ‘Queen of the Dark Light’ are given a full page each—the ‘Queen of the Dark Light’ on an appropriately black page—and so are given more detail, even if only mechanically, that the Game Master can more easily bring into her game.

Half of Black Budding No. 7 is devoted to ‘Yria: A Black Pudding Gazetteer’. It primarily focuses on the five cities of one region—Darkmirth, Frimmsreach, Kanebok, Seapath, and Summertop—with the spaces in-between filled in with rolls on the accompanying ‘d66’ table. These are only given thumbnail descriptions, whereas the individual cities and their environs are given a page each. Darkmirth is described as being ruled by a one kind king whose mind has been lost to the darkness of the Shadow Shrine and black sword in hand, demands the city be made black… Seaport is perched on a cliff over an angry sea and behind a mountain range, but the protection of the god, Krolton, the Blazing Heart, ensures it offers a safe harbour and posterity for the incredibly wealthy guilds and merchants. Underneath lie broken layers of the sewers and older cities, infested and haunted by creatures and monsters that lurk deep within. Here there is opportunity for adventurers to delve deep and find work in a city dominated by guilds—merchants, thieves, and assassins.

‘The Mythos of Yria’ present the pantheon of gods worshipped across Yria. How Mother Nest, the Moon, screamed and birthed life into the world over and over as the Black Wing, the great bird of death, swooped down and snatched it up again and again from around Nexus, the World Tree. The twelve gods are described in detail, including each one’s physical form, how it is worshipped, the requirements of its clerics, what is seen when standing in its presence, and what are the portents of its coming… This the Worm Witch, Mother of 100 Dooms takes the form of a medusa with worm hair, her robes tattered and old, her belly swollen with child, silver mirror eyes, surrounded by one hundred children, each one a monster. She is worshipped in foul festivals of feasts of worms and rotten meat, child sacrifice, and worse… Her clerics must carry and eat worms to know her mysteries, carry daggers, smell disgusting, and summon worm-like monsters daily. Her Alignment varies between Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil, and standing in her presence is to smell her foul breath, see her black fingernails, and hear her hissing rasp, whilst surrounded by wriggling worms, skittering creatures, and nausea. The portents of her coming include flowers wilting, hordes of bugs, food rotting, the Moon clouding over… Each of the twelve gods is detailed in similar fashion, in each case, adding to the richness of the Yria setting. There is a brutality to all twelve of these gods that suits the Swords & Sorcery genre.

Physically, Black Pudding No. 7 adheres to the same standards set by the previous issues. So plenty of good, if cartoonish artwork to give it a singular, consistent look, accompanied by similar cartography. As with previous issues of the fanzine, the potential and obvious problem with Black Pudding No. 7 is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Labyrinth Lord or Game Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Game Master should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine.

In terms of quality, Black Pudding No. 7 really divided in two. So, whilst it starts poorly with the four Classes, three of which are unlikely to see a lot of use in any game, the other half, consisting of ‘Yria: A Black Pudding Gazetteer’ and ‘The Mythos of Yria’ which together present a world and help bring it alive. Here there is scope for the Game Master to expand the world and make it her own by developing adventures for it and bringing it to live through play. A starting adventure or two would not go amiss in one of the locations detailed in ‘Yria: A Black Pudding Gazetteer’, perhaps in the pages of Black Pudding No. 8, but Black Pudding No. 7 really does provide a good introduction to the author’s home campaign of Yria.

[Fanzine Focus XXVI] Black Pudding #6

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Black Pudding is a fanzine that is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord and so is compatible with other Retroclones, but it is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style  fanzine. For starters, it is all but drawn rather than written, with artwork that reflects a look that is cartoonish, a tone that is slightly tongue in cheek, and a gonzo feel. Its genre is avowedly Swords & Sorcery, as much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as Conan the Barbarian. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules and published by Random Order via Square Hex, Black Pudding’s fantasy roleplaying content that is anything other than the straight-laced fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, but something a bit lighter, but still full of adventure and heroism. Issues one, two, and three have showcased the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules with a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. Black Pudding #4 included a similar mix of new Classes, NPCs, and an adventure, but also included the author’s ‘OSR Play book’, his reference for running an Old School Renaissance game, essentially showing how he runs his own campaign. Black Pudding #5 was more of a return to form, a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. It did, however, begin to suggest a campaign setting.

Black Pudding No. 6 continues where Black Pudding No. 5 left off. Previous issues of the fanzine have always been entertaining, but primarily felt like collections of new Classes, character sheets, monsters, and NPCs from the author’s ‘Doomslayers’ campaign, but without really presenting what that ‘Doomslayers’ campaign actually is. Now Black Pudding No. 5 did contain its own collection of new Classes, character sheets, monsters, and NPCs from the author’s ‘Doomslayers’ campaign, but it also included something more. This included the mini-sandbox, ‘Standing Stones of Marigold Hills’, but was really seen in ‘Adventures in the North’. This was a small region taken from Yria, part of the ‘Doomslakers’ campaign, beset by arctic temperatures, Ice Witch matriarchs, Ice Wights, and more! Parts of Black Pudding No. 6 carry on directly from ‘Adventures in the North’, but there is new setting material too. Further, Black Pudding No. 6 marks another shift, this time in terms of rules, so that it covers Old School Essentials as well as Labyrinth Lord.

Black Pudding No. 6 is not without its new character Classes. These begin with ‘The Fat Lady’, as in, “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.” This Charisma-based Class should ideally be clad in armour with literal breast plates and winged helmets, and is all about singing, first to increase her Strength, to heal, to inflict damage, and influence people. Combine this with the Barbaribunny Class from Black Pudding #1 and the Referee will quickly find herself running What’s Opera, Doc?! ‘The Demodyn’ is a wee demon person who constantly radiates heat, can cast Burning Hands daily and any fire spell from a scroll, and ultimately, open a portal to the Infernal Plane daily. The third Class is the Beastfriend, who possesses a supernatural affinity with wild creatures and can calm, befriend, and ultimately call them to come to the aid of the Beastfriend. 

One of the best on-going features in Black Pudding is ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, a collection of NPCs ready for hire by the Player Characters (or in a pinch, replacement Player Characters). As before, there is a decent range of NPCs given here, such as Malloid the Mage, a Fifth Level Magic-User who knows many things, but if not, can ask the Kosmik Halo that constantly whirls about his head; Totterdun of Udderpeak, a Second Level Dwarf from a poorly regarded family of Dwarves, who likes to work, to get the job done as agreed—and no more, and then getting paid; and the Weird Boatmen, several Zero Level creatures who have access to the Boat of Safe Passage, who speak little, but for a price will safely take you across any body of water in complete safety. Where in previous issues there have just too many entries in this ongoing series, here they are kept to just eight and that feels just the right number.

The monsters in the issue a Monstrous Toad with a mucoid skin—the mucus can be collected and boiled to make a frog and toad repellent, and an unpleasant personality who enjoys giving out insults; Iggy the Husker, a pig-man-thing which can be summoned to hunt and dine on man; and the Nightstalker, a dog-like creature which nightly waits in the shadows to hunt those that be Powers That Be committed a bad act and should be punished. Only the victim can see it and he or she cannot ignore it lest their rolls be made at a disadvantage, the Nightstalker making a single claw and gaze attack nightly, the former inflicting deep scratches, the latter the random loss of Attribute points! The monsters here are more singular than is usual and perhaps all the more memorable for it.

‘Adventures in the North’ is continued from the previous issue and as well as adding soft, lumpy, and magical Snowmen who might come to the aid of of unwary travellers in the region, perhaps with healing magic, perhaps with messages written in the snow, it provides a table of things to be found upon the Frozen Victims of the Ice Witches. Found along the road to the north is Trence the Troll’s Roadhouse, owned by a hard man said to have troll’s blood in his veins and be capable of walking naked in the snow for miles, and claim that the weather was no more than, “a bit chilly”. For a good enough tip, he might impart some important piece of information that will help the Player Characters whilst they are in the north, but otherwise he will remain as cold and as tightlipped as his welcome—and he certainly will not explain why he has his mother in the cellar! Beyond lies the Domain of the Snow Witches, which Dembellina Rue, the Matron Prime rules with a cruelly icy grip and breeds goblins from filth and refuse. The two parts—in this issue and the previous one, provide a nicely done and particularly wintery north (barring the Ice Camels which feel silly), that can easily be dropped into a Referee’s campaign.

The feature article in Black Pudding No. 6 is ‘Underground Down Below: An Old School mapcrawl adventure for PC levels 3-6 or so’. This is a wilderness style adventure, but located underground, an underground into which the Player Characters have been cast, perhaps randomly, perhaps not. Down below, the Player Characters will find animated cave mouths capable of chomping them to bits, a shrine to the war goddess Hilda built from dung; mounds—some home to grumpy ants, some ambulatory and home to Granny Naga, other of soft stone upon which to fall asleep and fall prey to their hungry denizens; the remains of a once great, but long dead empire; a mighty palace crumbling under the care of decrepit, aging staff who await the return of their long lost leader; and walking villages home to tiny people who will also try to eat the Player Characters, though their attacks are like insect bites. If attacked the villages flip over and hide under thick shells.

There are almost forty locations in the ‘Underground Down Below’, all of them odd, even creepy. This feel is aided by the map and the intentionally scrappy presentation which pulls apart the map and provides a closer view of each location to accompany the description. This is necessary in part because the main map is cramped on the page, but this is not the real issue with the locale. Although there is plenty of ideas and imagination here, unless the Player Characters are cast down into it at random and thus need to find a way out, it does lack a hook or two for them to want to visit. This may necessitate the Referee combing through the various locations to derive such a motivation from them, which given the format is not as immediately easy as it should be. Overall, there is a lot of imagination to work with here, excepting motivations, and so ‘Underground Down Below’ is not as good as it could be.

‘A Trolling We Will Go’ provides a ready-to-play location, a play upon the idea of rolls being found under bridges. The Troll itself, an Urnt Troll, is a combination of the classic goat-hating Troll and the Dungeons & Dragons Troll, complete with powers of regeneration. The location is built and illustrated around a set of random tables which provide random finds, the Urnt Troll’s treasure, Trollish reactions, and more. Again, this is nicely detailed and easy to drop into a campaign.

Elsewhere in the issue, ‘A Curious NPC Approaches the Party’ provides a ready source of NPCs and their goals, whilst ‘Unfinished Puddin’’ adds numerous untested and undeveloped rules, such as Saving Throws being based directly on a character’s Attributes, better Armour Class for a barbarians if they actually wear less armour, and a more narrative-based Initiative order. All of these are workable to some degree, but adding these will change the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. Lastly, ‘Armour Class Hack: AC is Negative Only When Protection is Magical’ provides another alternative to Armour Class, this one limiting non-magical Armour Class to zero (or twenty, if ascending). Beyond magical armour is required and magical armour should be special, much like weapons can be special. This is a nice touch and has the potential to make armour much more interesting than it typically is in a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game.

Physically, Black Pudding No. 6 adheres to the same standards set by the previous issues. So plenty of good, if cartoonish artwork to give it a singular, consistent look, accompanied by similar cartography. As with previous issues of the fanzine, the potential and obvious problem with Black Pudding No. 6 is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Labyrinth Lord or Game Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Referee should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine.

The highlight of Black Pudding No. 5 was that it contained content from the author’s ‘Doomslakers’ campaign and the hope of Black Pudding No. 5 was that this would continue in future issues. It has, but only to the extent that the ‘Adventures in the North’ article started in Black Pudding No. 5 is completed in this issue. It would have been great to see yet more, but this is not to say that the content in Black Pudding No. 6 is poor. The issue benefits from having fewer Classes and NPCs, in their stead there being a good encounter at a bridge, some interesting rules ideas to test out, and a potentially fun underground wilderness. It is this underground wilderness, ‘Underground Down Below’, which ultimately disappoints, only needing a little extra development and support to be more immediately useful. Black Pudding No. 6 is not quite as entertaining as previous issues, but its content is not without promise.

[Fanzine Focus XXV] Black Pudding #5

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Black Pudding is a fanzine that is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord and so is compatible with other Retroclones, but it is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style  fanzine. For starters, it is all but drawn rather than written, with artwork that reflects a look that is cartoonish, a tone that is slightly tongue in cheek, and a gonzo feel. Its genre is avowedly Swords & Sorcery, as much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as Conan the Barbarian. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules and published by Random Order via Square Hex, Black Pudding’s fantasy roleplaying content that is anything other than the straight-laced fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, but something a bit lighter, but still full of adventure and heroism. Issues one, two, and three have showcased the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules with a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. Black Pudding #4 included a similar mix of new Classes, NPCs, and an adventure, but also included the author’s ‘OSR Play book’, his reference for running an Old School Renaissance game, essentially showing how he runs his own campaign. Published in August 2018, Black Pudding #5 is more of a return to form, a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. It does, however, begin to suggest a campaign setting.

Black Pudding #5 opens with ‘Standing Stones of Marigold Hills’. This is a mini-sandbox consisting of a series of hills strewn with tombstones and graves, with many of the latter occupied with the undead and the region by the spirits of the dead. Some of these occupants are given thumbnail descriptions for easy portrayal by the Labyrinth Lord. The tombstones were once tended to by the Marigold Witch, but although she is long gone, it is said that she left her spellbook behind. Perhaps it is in one of the tombs? The Book of Marigold is also detailed as is the fact that it will avoid being ‘captured’ and the three spells it contains. These spells are cartoonishly inventive, such as Arrow Road, which creates path of arrows which the targets of the spell must follow, and Marigold Charm, which creates a sphere of pungent aroma that renders those inside immune to poison, gas, and insect attacks, but at the cost of a reaction penalty and inability to surprise anyone.

The second adventure is ‘The Rat Queen Dies Tonight’, designed for Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Levels. It is a thirteen-location, fairly linear cavern complex, sparsely written, but nicely detailed. The Player Characters trail a band of marauding rats to this complex and discover what appears to be at first a scavenged tomb then hot and steamy caves. The secret is that the Rat Queen has entered a pact with a demon and according to that pact, she dies tonight! Are the Player Characters the means of fulfilling that pact or is there another solution? There is lots of treasure to be found, including Malefysto’s Grimoire of Nefarious Incantations, another book of spells. These are all fire-themed, such as Malefysto’s Hands of Fire, which gives the caster flaming fists that he can even throw them like mini-fireballs, and Malefysto’s Eyes of Doom which turns the caster’s eyes black and his gaze capable of vaporising anyone he looks upon! The spellbook will be a suitable reward for any Wizard, but there is plenty of treasure to go around and the scenario itself is fun.

 ‘Adventures in the North’. The details a small region taken from the land of Yria, the ‘Doomslakers’ campaign, dotted with independent villages and dwarf strongholds, the latter abandoned after the blue giants known as the Norg drove them out. Even now, the dwarves plan to take their lands back. It takes the traditional concept of the barbarian north and its frosty weather, adds big tables of encounters and rumours of the north, and new monsters and magical items. The new monsters include the Ice Witch, a twisted, cold-hearted woman who lives in an icy house or cloister with her sisters, can cast numerous cold and ice-themed spells, and can be healed from or even reflect cold attacks. When slain, they can rise again as Witch Wights which seek out the warmth of the living, and some Ice Witch matriarchs carry a Staff of the Ice Witch, which will might freeze anyone who grasps it, can cast further spells than those of the Witch Wight, and once a month, conjure a blizzard! There is a lot packed into the four pages of this and it is great to some setting content from the author’s own campaign. Hopefully this will be supported with an adventure or two and more support in future issues.

Black Budding is renowned for its one-page, slightly tongue-in-cheek new character Classes and Black Pudding #5 is no exception with a total of three. The first is the Ninja, which does everything you would expect. The Ninja cannot wear metal armour or wield two-handed weapons, but is good with ranged weapons, a better backstab attack than the Thief potentially inflicting a deathblow, is adept at stealth and can throw flash and smoke bombs. Each Ninja comes from one of eight Ninja Orders which sets certain requirements for being a Ninja, such as the Red Finger order requiring its members to wear red gloves and those of the Morbid Moons to honour the undead! The Ninja Class feels nicely done, but perhaps slightly overly potent in comparison to other Classes.

The Orbii is an ancient race of protectors, said to have served the Daughters of the Moon. They fight as Thieves, but each has a single special talent like being able to forge weapons and armour, including magical weapons and armour at Fifth Level or being able to track and forage. They can also pray to the Moon Goddess once per day to gain ‘Moon Luck’, such as a kiss which heals the supplicant or teleporting the character and his allies anywhere they like! The Boola is the buxom matron of wild places and mother to secrets, who fights as a Cleric, can listen to nature to learn its secrets, and is accompanied by one or more animal companions. Both are thematically strong, the Boola essentially a variant upon the Druid Class.

The monsters in the issue begin with a quartet of unconnected and a quartet of connected creatures. The former includes the Star Troll, wise in cosmic wisdom and with a penchant for Elf flesh; the Ipzee , a cave-dwelling many-toothed thing which cannot be pushed over, swallows its treasure, and whose teeth can be turned into wands; the Ninja Devil, packs of miniature devils which practice Ninjitsu and assassination; and the Angry Shell, a grumpy if multi-lingual sea beast with a great shell who hates to be disturbed, but which might be bribed to talk. The connected creatures are the Arqod Illuminara, the Arqod Champion, the Arqod Dreadling, and the Arqod Sauropod. The Arqod Illuminara are ancient mind-bending, hyper-intelligent humanoids from the time before, always accompanied by their fearsome zealot Arqod Champions, almost suicidal, perpetually hungry for live flesh (and brains and bones) Arqod Dreadlings, and perhaps riding a great Arqod Sauropod, whose ichor can be harvested for its magical properties, and when not serving as beast of burden, likes to play practical jokes by pretending to be small hills. There is something very much of the Alien Universe in these creatures, the Arqod Illuminara being a little like the Engineer for example. Each of these creatures is accompanied by thumbnail descriptions—sometimes a little more, illustrations, and stats, all enough to be both entertaining and playable.

One of the best on-going features in Black Pudding is ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, a collection of NPCs ready for hire by the Player Characters (or in a pinch, replacement Player Characters). There is a decent range of NPCs given here, such as Iko Rain, a Fourth Level Ninja whose turn-ons are infiltration and turn-offs are yaks, turtles, and big fights, and The Beast of Bogl, a Four Hit Dice Beast who likes food and fighting, hates talking and not eating, and will not carry anything. Much like the monsters, they each come with full stats, thumbnail description and portrait, as well as a list of their abilities and how much they can be hired for. Unfortunately, seventeen is too many, just as they did in Black Pudding #4, and as inventive and as fun as these are, they do begin to like place fillers rather than actual gaming content.

‘They Come… But What Are They?’ is a one-page NPC/monster generator. With a roll of a handful of dice, the Labyrinth Lord can create the encounter’ looks, alignment, magic, special defences and attacks, toughness, and more. It is quick and dirty and useful. Rounding out The Black Pudding #5 is a quartet of detailed magical weapons. Zam is a +2 sword which can read magic and grant levitation once a day, but really wants to kill Dark Elves; Traumch, a Chaotic +2 battle axe which can smash armour and deals double damage against unarmoured opponents and the undead; and Riveredge and Moonbeam are +1 swords, the first granting water breathing, increased swimming speed, and the ability to walk on water, whilst the second inflicts double damage on lycanthropes and can capture moonlight and shine like a torch. All four are nicely themed and interesting enough that any character capable of wielding them would have fun with them. Lastly, on the back of the issue is a new character sheet for the retroclone, this time laid out as the face of the demon statue being plundered on the cover of the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. It is silly certainly, but a bit of fun, and a nice nod to the origins of the game.

Physically, Black Pudding #5 adheres to the same standards set by the previous issues. So plenty of good, if cartoonish artwork to give it a singular, consistent look and lots of quite short articles, that are in places are underwritten. The obvious issue with Black Pudding #5—and indeed, any of its issues, is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Labyrinth Lord or Game Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Game Master should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine, but Black Pudding #5 does something that previous issues have to dated avoided. That is, showcase parts of the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ campaign and that lifts Black Pudding out of just being a madcap medley of monsters, Classes, and NPCs.

Again, just as in previous issues, Black Pudding #5 has too many NPCs and whilst there is still room for ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, it should ideally be reduced in size to make way for other content. Especially the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ campaign which deserves more attention in the pages of the fanzine. Once again, Black Pudding #5 combines a slightly gonzo style and look in a professionally published package offering fun new content and the promise of more of the ‘Doomslakers!’ campaign setting.

The Madness of Marlinko

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord details a borderlands city where life takes a strange fever-dream cast, where confidence tricks and scams are an accepted way of life, where its each of four contradas—or quarters—worships one of the four gods (and pointedly ignores the fifth) entombed in the squat, black bulk of the Tomb of the Town Gods, and where adventurers can find respite, relaxation, rumours, and more from the wilderness beyond… It stands amidst the Greater Marlinko Canton in the world of Zěm—as detailed in What Ho, Frog Demons! – Further Adventures in Greater Marlinko Canton, not too far from the Slumbering Ursine Dunes, and from there, Misty Isles of the Eld. It is published by Hydra Collective LLC and is an Old School Renaissance setting supplement designed to be run using Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord. Of course, it can easily be adapted to the Retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

As a city located in the Hill Cantons, a region described as, “A Slavic-myth inspired, acid fantasy world of Moorcockian extradimensional incursions and Vancian swindlers and petty bureaucrats.”, Marlinko matches much of that description. Both of its four contradas and their inhabitants have Slavic names and many of its monsters are drawn from Slavic legend. For example, one of the city’s leading socialites is Lady Szara, organiser of the annual Bathe in the Blood of your Servants charity ball, is secretly an ancient and evil strigoi—a Romanian version of the vampire—who it is suggested, should speak in the style of the actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor, only more sinister. She may even employ the Player Characters to locate certain magical gewgaws and knick-knacks, that is, if she simply does not decide to consume them... The Eld—essentially ‘space elves’ from another dimension with a distinctly Melnibonéan-like, decadent sensibility—slink secretly into the city, and the bureaucracy extends to unions, such as The Guild of Condottiere, Linkboys, Roustabouts, and Stevedores, a union for adventuring party hirelings, which really objects to scab hirelings! Numerous swindlers and scam artists are mentioned throughout the description of the city, and there is even a section on ‘Running Long and Short Cons’.

Intended to be regularly visited by Player Characters of Second and Third Levels, what Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord is not, is a traditional city supplement. There is no building-by-building description, no great history of the city, or great overview. Instead, it focuses on the pertinent details about four contradas and the things that can be found there and more importantly, can be interacted with by the Player Characters. Včelar is home to Marlinko’s wealthy, dominated by their great painted-plastered town-manses and famed for Jarek’s Manse and Tiger Pit where the perpetually name dropping and bragging owner has built a domed all-weather tiger pit in which he stages tiger wrestling! Obchodník is the city’s business district, where at Fraža’s Brokerhouse, the Player Characters might make purchases from the radically—for Marlinko, that is—honest and unfortunately terribly racist, Fraža the Curios Dealer, or pay for at fortune at The Serene Guild of Seers, Augurs, Runecasters, and Wainwrights—the clarity (at least) of any such fortune depending on the cost. Svině is home to Marlinko’s slums, but also many guilds, such as The Illustrious Workers of Wood or The Guild of Condotierre, Linkboys, Roustabouts and Stevedores’ Dome of Supernal Dealings, but also home to the Catacombs of St. Jack’s Church of the Blood Jesus, whose disturbingly bloody misinterpretations of Christianity has the potential to unleash murderous mayhem upon the city. Soudce is home to the city’s suburbs, their skyline dominated by the Onion Tower of the Checkered Mage, the home of the city’s resident arch-mage, František, a surprisingly level-headed wizard, who might pay well for certain items.

Each of the four contradas is accompanied by a table of random encounters, a mixture of the mundane, the silly, and the weird. For example, a group of flirts who if a Player Character parties with might wake up the next morning at his own shotgun wedding; Kytel the Duellist, a thoroughly bored swordmaster who will fight anyone to first blood; Old Slinky Panc, an escaped tiger, probably drugged and quite harmless, who Jarek the Nagsman would probably want returned—and returned unharmed; and a Hairless Hustler who will offer to sell the Player Characters two bars of surprisingly warm to the touch silver metal—and there is a reason that the Hairless Hustler lacks hair… These are all engaging encounters which make getting about the city memorable and interesting, some of them having the capacity to turn into interesting adventures depending upon the actions of the Player Characters.

Marlinko’s notables are described in some detail, but perhaps the best part of their descriptions are the suggestions on how to speak like them. The Game Master should have enormous fun portraying any one of them. In comparison, only two adventure sites are detailed in Fever-Dreaming Marlinko—‘Lady Szara’s Town-Manse’ and ‘Catacombs of the Church of the Blood Jesus’. Ultimately, they are both places to raid and ransack, home to respective evils present in the city, but not raid and ransack without reason. A Player Character might be kidnapped and find himself locked up in the catacombs first or the Player Characters all together might be hired to find a missing person, whilst Lady Szara could hire the Player Characters rather than give them cause to attack her and so have them visit her home. Of the two, ‘Lady Szara’s Town-Manse’ is the more interesting and the more thoughtful in its design, being an actual home rather than just another monster lair. It is also better mapped.

Beyond describing might be found in each contrada, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko details crime—sanctioned and unsanctioned crime—and punishment in the city, advice on running cons in the city, and buying and selling in the city—everything from War Ocelots and Radegast’s Dark ale to the Poignard of the Overworld and a campy, faux-barbarian meadhall. Emphasising Marlinko as a place to visit and unwind in its taverns and other entertainment establishments, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko includes a guide to carousing in the city and potential outcomes whichever contrada the Player Characters are visiting. There are even three locations for the Labyrinth Lord to expand as potential adventure sites, though of course, it would be nice to have had more ready-to-play adventure sites in the book.

However, as odd and as weird as the city of Marlinko is, it can get weirder. As with the other titles set in the Hill Cantons, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko has a Chaos Index, which tracks the ebb and flow of the weirdness in the city, much of it being driven by the actions of the Player Characters, including making trips back and forth to the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. This is indicative of the design of Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, that it is ideally meant to be played in tandem with Slumbering Ursine Dunes. As the weirdness factor grows, the cultists of the Church of the Blood Jesus might commit more, and bloodier murders, mass hallucinations might break out, hundreds participate in a group wedding, and more. The weirdness factor also affects the ‘News of the Day’, the rumours and truths which spread throughout the city.

Rounding out Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is a set of five appendices. The first is a bestiary which adds three monsters—the Robo-Dwarf, the Wobbly Giant, and the Cantonal Strigoi, whilst the second, a ‘Tiger Wrestling Mini-Game’, provides the rules for handling events at Jarek’s Manse and Tiger Pit, the only tiger-wrestling arena in town. It is definitely a dangerous pastime, but good luck to any Player Character who throws his hat into the ring! Two new Classes are detailed in the third appendix. The Mountebank is a Thief-subclass which has the Sleight-of-Hand skill for moving and switching out objects as part of a scam, can use Illusionist spells—though they can only be learned by swindling them out of actual Illusionists, and even temporarily raise their Charisma to eighteen! The other Class is the Robo-Dwarf, which is more of a strange mechanical variant upon the actual Dwarf Class. The last two appendices provide the Labyrinth Lord with a useful list of ‘Common NPC names and Nicknames’ and a pronunciation guide.

Physically, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is generally well laid out, the writing is clear, and the artwork is excellent. It needs an edit in places, the real problem with the physical book is that it is not well organised, lacking an introduction which would help the Labyrinth Lord understand how the city functions as a game setting and the order in which the book’s contents come not always in the right place. Once the Labyrinth Lord has read through the book, it is relatively easy to grasp how the city works as a setting.

Apart from the less than useful organisation, there are really only one or two other issues with Fever-Dreaming Marlinko—both of which could cause offence. The first is that St. Jack’s Church of the Blood Jesus is a potentially offensive misinterpretation of Christianity, whilst the second is that one or two of the NPCs are described as fervent racists and that the Labyrinth Lord is expected to portray this in character. Now this does take place in a fantasy world, but that does not mean that neither a player nor the Labyrinth Lord cannot or should be necessarily comfortable about this. This is one aspect of the setting which will require a discussion between all of the players before play begins to see whether they are prepared to accept it or not as part of the setting. The likelihood is not and the Labyrinth Lord should be prepared to replace it with potentially less offensive character quirks or attitudes for the NPCs concerned.

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is designed as campaign base, one which the Player Characters will return to again and again after exploring first the Slumbering Ursine Dunes, then the Misty Isles of the Eld, and from there, the wider world of Zěm as detailed in What Ho, Frog Demons! – Further Adventures in Greater Marlinko Canton. Although the Labyrinth Lord could use it in another setting, it does work best with those other books. And each time the Player Characters visit Marlinko, the Labyrinth Lord is given the means to make that visit memorable—with locations they might want to go to, random encounters which can become something more, rumours, and eventually weird things going on around them. There is no part of Marlinko as described which cannot be interacted with or does not add to the sense of oddness which pervades the city and which will probably be worse with every visit. Overall, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord is a brilliantly written, incredibly gameable setting supplement which provides the Labyrinth Lord with an excellent toolkit to bring a fantastical city setting to life.

[Fanzine Focus XXI] Wormskin Issue Number 8

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3 and Wormskin No. 4, published in July, 2016 and Winter 2016 respectively, improved hugely upon the first and second issues, together providing a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions about the setting before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood. Published in the winter of 2017, Wormskin No. 5 looked at how the region might be explored, whilst also presenting the region around ‘Hag’s Addle’. Wormskin No. 6 focused on the area around Prigwort, as well as detailing ‘The Fairy Lords of Dolmenwood’ and the ‘Unseasons’ that beset the region, whilst Wormskin No. 7, published in the autumn of 2017, added both personal names and honourifics to Dolmenwood as well detailing further hexes under the eaves of the extensive forest.

Wormskin Issue Number 8 was published in February 2018, and exposed further secrets of Dolmenwood, presented a further guide to travelling in the region, and added further monsters. It feels like a relatively short issue, just containing four, reasonably lengthy articles, but all four do add to the setting. The issue opens with ‘The Sisters of the Chalice and the Moon’, an examination of witches and the witch cults to be found in Dolmenwood. The witches of Dolmenwood worship and become companions, guardians, and wives to otherworldly wood-gods known as Gwyrigons, and are highly secretive about their beliefs and practices. Their tenets are given as well as their initiation rites, how they live, their powers and abilities, schemes and goals, rumours about them, and their relationship with the factions also in the region. So they are cast spells like Magic-Users, gain certain powers from the Wood-gods—these are detailed in Wormskin Issue Number 7, can craft potions, talismans, and charms, and so on. For the most part, these are fairly typical abilities accorded witches, and since no mechanical details are given, the Game Master could easily refer to The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition for the game stats. The relationships with other factions is just as useful, such as the Elf Lords’ view that the witches’ communion with the daemon nobles of the Otherworlds as discourteous, treacherous, and disgusting, whilst the witches claim fairies to be selfish and false; that the Duchy of Brackenwold and Barony of the High Wold tend to pointedly ignore the witches—since some of their family members might actually be witches, whilst the witches see both as ephemeral and irrelevant; and the witches seeing adventurers as useful when they need a task done that they themselves cannot do. Overall, it is good to a faction like the witches covered in such detail, and for the most part they are going to remain as NPCs, so the Game Master will need to provide the mechanics and rules herself should one of her players want a witch character.

In the course of eight issues, Wormskin has described a lot of the hexes, roads, and locations in Dolmenwood and since the region is quite a wide area, the Player Characters are going to be doing a lot of travel throughout the wood. Which also means that they are going to be staying out in the forest overnight on a regular basis. This is where ‘Camping in Dolmenwood’ comes into play, which provides rules and guidelines and charts for camping wild in the woods. This covers finding a suitable campsite, setting it up—fetching firewood, building a fire, fining water, foraging, hunting, and more, activities they might undertake during the evening, setting watches, and sleep. It all looks a bit mechanical, but with the roll of a few dice—including a thirty-sided die to determine a particular campsite and its features—a Game Master and her players can determine where and how well the Player Characters are camping, and from that derive a bit of roleplaying and party interplay. How often a Game Master wants to use these rules depends how much she wants to make travel a strong feature of her campaign (for example, it is a strong feature of The One Ring: Adventures Over The Edge Of The Wild), but can also be used to reinforce the fact that Dolmenwood does not being weird and eerie when the Player Character beds down for the night.

‘Strange Waters’ lists thirty different types and forms of water, their appearance, taste, and effect if consumed to be found in Dolmenwood—whether at the end of the day when setting up a campsite. For example, a shallow, muddy pool decorated by lilies and inhabited by amphibians whose surface is a perfect mirror and which tastes perfumed, but if drunk, instils an insatiably lascivious urge to remove your clothing! With thirty options for each element, the Game Master can use this table to make some of the waters to be found in the forest weird and hint at some the magics which run through them.

Rounding out Wormskin Issue Number 8 is more ‘Monsters of the Wood’. This entry in the department has a mycological theme with the inclusion of the Brainconk, Jack-o’-Lantern, Ochre Slime-Hulk, Pook Morel, and Wronguncle. These are all predatory fungi, some even sentient, such as carnivorous Brainconk which creep down from their current treetop homes to latch onto sleeping victims and slurp out their brains, and Pook Morels, which are tiny, but which project psychic horrors upon their victims who drop their possessions. These the Pook Morels scoop up and scamper back to their lairs to hide! All five of these fungi are accompanied by superb illustrations which will be sure to highlight their creepiness when shown to the players.

Physically, Wormskin Issue Number 8 is as well presented as previous issues. It is well written and cleanly and simply laid out. The artwork is good too, a mix of colour and black and white, which captures the weird and dreamy feel of Dolmenwood.

Of course, if you have previous issues of Wormskin, then Wormskin Issue Number 8 is absolutely worth adding—a major faction, something to engage the players and their characters with, a little of the weirdness to be region’s waters—literally, and new monsters. There is a nice sense of scale to the issue too, moving from the overview of the witches and their place in Dolmenwood, then getting smaller and smaller down to the mycology.


Sadly, Wormskin Issue Number 8 is the last issue. This is not as bad as it sounds, since Necrotic Gnome is planning to create a definitive Dolmenwood supplement, one which would best showcase the setting’s promise first hinted at with Wormskin Issue Number 1. Looking back at the eight issues, the ultimate problem with them is their ‘partwork’ structure, resulting in an incoherent feel. It meant that there would be several issues before there was a real introduction to the setting and articles which asked the most basic of questions about the region. What it felt like was needed is to take all eight issues and then split their articles up and assemble in some sort of order. With any luck, the forthcoming Dolmenwood setting supplement will address these issues, for the Wormskin fanzine has never been without flavour or atmosphere, just organisation.