[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] Ascoleth: The Last Great City

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 Dungeon Master 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone.

Ascoleth: The Last Great City was published in June, 2022. It is a collaborative project between Monkey Blood Design and Rabid Halfling Press, a systems-neutral weird science-fantasy fanzine that describes a city in the end times and as a toolkit provides the Game Master with numerous tables of prompts and ideas that she can use to bring it to life. It is part one of ‘The Finisterre Trilogy’, although sadly, the other two parts have yet to appear. The setting for the fanzine is a sliver of land in the eschaton, the last days, called Finisterre. On it stands an entity that is both alive and a city, a final refuge in the very uncertain times. It is so large that districts within are almost cities unto themselves, each with their own distinctive architecture and often purpose. Nominally ruled by The Lord-Executor Ampiranx III, it is the Consortium which actually runs the city, though in many cases the various districts are autonomous, some with ties to the Consortium, some with not. Finisterre itself could be a complex machine found in the dusty basement of a wizard’s tower or the ever-expanding dreamworld of a sleeping child-god, as seen from within. Only three of Ascoleth’s districts are  detailed, and like all districts in the city, they shift, rotate, and move, but there are the means included as well to create others, as the Game Master is likely to want to create more.

The three major districts are the Magitek Praecinctum, the Necrosian Borough, and the Pariah Conurbation. Each is given entries for something ‘Dominating the Skyline’, a ‘Site of Interest’, a ‘House of Worship’, and the ‘Faction in Control’, plus quick lists of its demographics ongoing problems. This is followed by a table of the district’s neighbourhoods. For example, the Necrosian Borough accommodates the city’s undead citizens, but not very well since there is of course more undead than can be supported by the district’s amenities. Living visitors are advised to wear corpse paint lest their flagrant flaunting of their living status cause offence, so there are professional corpse painters at the entrance to provide this service as well as blood banks since blood is legal tender in the Necrosian Borough. Dominating the skyline is ‘The Triangle of Tragic Truths’, a huge, inverted pyramid of bloodstone atop which is an enormous disc that turns to face the sun and so block the district and its inhabitants from direct sunlight. The ‘Hall of the Eternal Smile’ is the ‘Site of Interest’ where the undead go to meet and discuss their undeathly issues, plus attend KrptoCon, an event dedicated to magical technology related to death and undeath. The ‘House of Worship’ is ‘Rigorous Mortis’, an old, decrepit prison where the undead use the execution platform and torture chamber to ritually torture and execute each other as acts of devotion. The ‘Faction in Control’ is ‘The Gatekeepers of Yore’, a fanatical group of monarchists under Archking Akoscion XIX, a partially mummified halfling vampire, currently in a guerilla war with The Sanguinista Urban Liberation Front. Of course, the district is home to all manner of undead, plus necromancers and anyone with an interest in the dead and undead. Its ongoing problems include massive class divides, overcrowding, and the vampire insurrectionists.

The neighbourhoods of the Necrosian Borough include the Royal Quarter where too many undead royals live, leading to murderous feuds in an effort to reduce numbers and so increase space, but this is hampered by the fact that the undead are very difficult to kill. Then there is the Black Light District which should be left to the reader’s imagination!

Beyond this treatment of the three neighbourhoods, over half of Ascoleth: The Last Great City is dedicated to creation tables for the city. Tables include ‘Who Do You Bump Into?’, ‘You Took A Wrong Turn And…’, ‘Whose Face Is On That Wanted Poster?’, and more. Lastly, the ‘District Generator Tables’ enable the Game Master to create districts of her own. For example, the ‘Adventurer Generator’ might create a hook such as the Player Characters being hired to eradicate a former saint, now corrupted, from a pearlescent tower or infiltrating an illusion of the underworld inhabiting a very scary Halfling, not actually undead, but wearing corpse paint. Of course, the Game Master will need to develop these further.

Physically, Ascoleth: The Last Great City is very well laid out and engagingly written. With its splashes of red, the artwork varies from the bizarre to the grim, but it fits the strange tone of the setting.

Systemless, Ascoleth: The Last Great City would work as well with Old School Essentials, Into the Odd, Troika!, or even Numenera. The Game Master will need to provide stats and details as necessary, but the pages of Ascoleth: The Last Great City are rife with ideas and prompts that are entertainingly inventive and will form the basis of some great.

A Cartographic Compendium

One of the best books—and the most useful—of 2021 was The Staffortonshire Trading Company Works of John Williams. Published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, this is a systems neutral supplement—which means it is not written for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying—which can be used with almost any roleplaying game. It is a collection of maps and illustrations based on seventeenth century historical references, first from the British Isles, then across Europe to around the world. Shops, taverns, hovels, fortifications, early industrial buildings, churches, universities, and so much are mapped in painstakingly beautiful detail and made easily accessible in the one volume. To fair, I am not unbiased, since this was a volume that I edited—but the cartography is both clear and easy to use, and that is not something that I am responsible for. That would be down to Glynn Seal, designer and publisher of the Midderlands setting through his Monkey BloodDesign. Not content with providing the maps for The Staffortonshire Trading Company Works of John Williams and the Midderlands setting, the cartographer has drawn and produced his own set of maps. Actually, not one set of maps or two, but three.

The HandyMaps series consists of three packs—HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures, HandyMaps – Towns & Villages, and HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales. Each of the three was funded via Kickstarter— HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures, HandyMaps – Towns & Villages, and HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales, and each consists of several double-sided cards in A5-size—148 mm × 210 mm, each done in black and white, and depicting the maps, plans, and floor plans of various locations. The cards are sturdy and in general unmarked with details. There are no numbers or names applied to them, enabling the Game Detail them however she wishes and so use them in her campaign as she likes.

HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures consists of twenty-six cards. They have a floorplan of a building on one side and an illustration of the building on other. The floor plans are done in black and white, whilst the illustration is in full colour. They are drawn on a five-feet grid and are marked with possible suggestions as to their use. So, the first map in the pack looks like a church, complete with a statue, a balcony above the ground floor, a tower, and what might be crypts below possibly accessible from a sewer. The suggestions for floorplans are church, temple, village hall, and gallery. Still connected to the sewer via the basement, more mundane is the two-storey warehouse/storage business, crate and barrel maker, ironmongers, and ship and crew hire, which stands over an open storage or possibly, a marketplace. Other buildings include an industrial site, which could be a forge, glassblowers, or pottery maker; a museum, art gallery, or temple which extends far underground, but has a statue atop that is a nod to one of the goblins in Monkey Blood Seal’s Midderlands setting; and a lop-sided building which could be an eel seller, a cooked eel seller, an eel breeder, a fishing tackle shop, or a dwelling. An obelisk might be a monument, a dimensional anchor, memorial, or summoning device, blow which a shaft extends down into the ground where there is a strange room… There is a huge variety to these maps. Not just from one set of floor plans to another, but there is variety and flexibility with individual floor plans too, since each has multiple different suggested uses. For example, the coastal tower with basement and cave tunnels to the cliff face is first listed as a lighthouse and its illustration and floorplan certainly suggest that. Alternative uses are listed as watch tower, smuggler’s den, wizard’s tower, or signal tower. Thus, the Game Master can show her players the illustration on the front and flip it over to show the floor plans, and even if the Player Characters have seen the building before and been inside, they do not what might be inside or to what use the building is being put to.

HandyMaps – Towns & Villages is in some ways the least useful and the least flexible of the three packs, mostly because the buildings are often obvious in what they are. However, the suggested uses goes a long way to mitigate this. It consists of maps of various towns and villages, including a walled town overlooked by a castle, a town of concentric walls, a large village with field boundaries marked around them, a river port, a hamlet surrounding an abbey on a hill, a port with a castle or fort on a spit of land, and a village threaded through a cave system in the middle of a river. These are all standalone pieces, but with this set, the Game Master has access to twelve cards and thus twenty-four maps, and thus a variety of maps and locations and layouts. Which means a decent selection of towns and villages with which she can populate her campaign world.

HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales returns to the format of HandyMaps – Towns & Villages with maps on both sides of the cards. There are twenty-four cards in the set and thus the Game Master is provided with a total of forty-eight maps—or at least that is what the number of cards would suggest. In fact, there are more, because some cards contain two or three maps of smaller locations on a side, so there are closer to sixty maps in the set rather than simply forty-eight. Again, like HandyMaps – Towns & Villages they are not named, but being primarily dungeon locations, they are marked with secret doors, elevation changes, and the like. They are typically marked with a five- or ten-foot grid. Where necessary side elevations are provided for clarification. What is obvious about the set is its wider scope for inventiveness and the cartographer’s mixing of terrains. For example, a system of flooded cave or an underground river system leads to tomb or a lakeside cave opens up to network smaller caves in the rocks in the lake leading to rough hewn rooms what could be cells or tombs, and together with what could be a chapel leading off the main cave, could be a monastery or a set of catacombs. Some do stand out, such as the waterfall above a pool from which juts a giant finger of rock through which a tunnel leads to an underwater cave or lair; a ruined tower with stairs descending to a cave system that has been painstakingly worked until it resembles a skull; a large mine marked with damaged rails for the mining carts; an elongated cave network that curves out of a worked building into the form of a snake.

What the HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales pack is not is a set of dungeon geomorphs, that is, dungeon sections designed to be cut out and laid down so that they connect to each other and so form a larger whole. There is still room for such a product from Monkey Blood Design, but with HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales, all of the maps are designed to be discrete, although an inventive Game Master could connect them if she so wished.

Physically, each of the three sets in the series—HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures, HandyMaps – Towns & Villages, and HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales—is solidly produced. They are presented on stiff grey card, the floor plans and maps being crisp and easy to read, and the illustrations of the buildings in the HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures done in muddy, almost washed-out colours. If there is an issue with the three sets it is that there is no index card listing the floor plans and maps and none of the cards or maps have a number or letter. The inclusion of such a letter or number would make the maps easier to use as the Game Master can note down which map or floor plan she has used and as what. Of course, if the Game Master has access to the PDFs for these sets, then she can save, print, and mark them up as she likes. They are also very useful for online play.

Maps play such an important role in roleplaying, especially fantasy roleplaying, that having maps to hand is always going to be useful. They can serve as inspiration, and they can fulfil a need if the Game Master wants a particular map or floor plan. The individual locations and floor plans—especially those of the HandyMaps – Towns & Villages and HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales—lend themselves to campaign building, the Game Master adding them as she fits to a larger map where her campaign or world is set. Then of course, each map pack is a lovely thing to have and the three map packs do fit in a sturdy box also available from the publisher.

Altogether, the HandyMaps – Buildings & Structures, HandyMaps – Towns & Villages, and HandyMaps – Dungeons, Caves, & Strange Locales live up to their name—handy and maps. Useful as inspiration as much as maps, Glynn Seal’s excellent cartography in the series will help bring a game to life and for the modern Game Master are even more useful for online play.

[Fanzine Focus XVII] Midderzine Issue 3

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 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. 

Midderzine, which promises ‘More green for your game’, is a fanzine devoted to The Midderlands, the horror infused, green tinged interpretation of the medieval British Isles flavoured with Pythonesque humour and an Old School White Dwarf sensibility, published by Monkey Blood Design and first detailed in The Midderlands - An OSR Setting & Bestiary. Also published by Monkey Blood Design and like The Midderlands line, this fanzine is written for use with Swords & Wizardry and adds new flora and fauna, locations, oddities, and more. This is much more of a house publication and so is cleaner, tidier, and more consistent in style than the average fanzine. This includes the artwork and cartography of designer Glynn Seal as well as the artwork of Jim Magnusson.

Midderzine Issue 1 set the format with a pleasingly cohesive first issue. Midderzine Issue 3 follows that format opening with ‘Meet the Midderlander’, an interview with one of the creators of The Midderlands as a setting. Now this time the interview is with me, because I am the editor on The Midderlands - An OSR Setting & Bestiary and its two sequel supplements. Now the interesting aspect of the interview is not the fact that it is with me, but rather it is the role which warrants the interview and thus it is an editor being reviewed.

Actual content for The Midderlands begins with ‘The Haven Gazette’, a collection of five rumours and news pieces, like reports of the ‘Brigands of the Scaled Skin’ terrorising travellers in the borderlands or how an argument between two friends in the village of Weeshaw escalated into a brawl that split the village and had to be broken up by the local militia. These are really quick thumbnail snippets that the Game Master can use as bits of background colour, rumours, or adventure hooks to develop. It is followed by ‘Hexes & Unique Locations’, a description one hex on The Haven Isles map, this time on the Thames Estuary where a strange obsidian obelisk has been found and there is an old beacon to warn ships of the Swine’s Teeth Rocks below. Again, it is up to the Game Master to really develop these as adventure locations, but the descriptions are good.

The bulk of  Midderzine Issue 3 details the one town—Sixoaks in Kentshire, in the Southeast of the Haven Isles. There is a lovely moment for geographers everywhere with the inclusion of Polg’s Pond, an oxbow lake, said to be home to a wart goblin who once saved the townsfolk from a sudden flood, an event celebrated with the annual Polg’s Flood Festival. Sixoaks is noted for its one inn, for which privilege the owners are heavily taxed by the local lord; the particularly good carrots grown by Boris Picker and brought by a customer from Great Lunden; and Thistle, the prized mudcow bull who is protected against rustlers and the hungry. There is also the Tithe Barn where the local lord, Lord Krust, stores the heavy taxes levied on the townsfolk, and who suspects that one of the guards stationed there is pilfering from. This is the major hook in Sixoaks, an investigation that the player characters will be asked to conduct in order to confirm their employer’s suspicions. The investigation is a slight affair, with really very little in the way of plot, but should provide a session or two’s worth of play.

‘New Monsters’ details the Elemental Gloomium and the Eyeballer. The first is a corrupted Earth Elemental which searches out veins of gloominum to feed its addiction in the deep and the dark, and whose fists are known to inflict a Gloom Punch and a gloom-touched deformity. The second is a scavenger which comes out at night in search of detritus to search through and which has multiple eyeballs giving it amazing, almost magical eyesight. It eyes are prized by collectors, but exactly for what is left up to the Game Master to decide.

Lastly, Richard Marpole writes up another Scottish Class, leading on from his ‘Woad Rager’ in Midderzine Issue 2. The new Class is the Phantom Piper, who carve and play Scrotland’s national musical instrument to guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife, to lay angry spirits to rest, and even play Scrotland’s clan warriors into battle. The pipes are part of a Phantom Piper, supernaturally linked and granting him spells and the ability to turn and destroy the undead. In turn though, as he grows in piping power, the Phantom Piper grows closer to the Other Side and receives a  Mark of Death, like translucent skin or the sound of bones clicking when he walks… This though may bring him to the attention of Witchfinders and Inquisitors and may even end up with him being burned at the stake! The New Oddities are all Phantom Piper spells, like McDonal, Where’s Yer Trousers, which transports the target’s trousers miles and miles away, and Flower of Scrotland, which summons a wrath-filled army of ghostly warriors to fight for the Phantom Warrior. This is another fun, thematic Class, and perhaps the author will return with other Classes for the other regions of the Haven Isles in future issues.

Physically, Midderzine Issue 3 is up to the same standard as the previous editions. This means reasonable artwork and excellent cartography, though it does feel a little rushed in places and could have done with a tighter edit.

If there is anything missing from Midderzine Issue 3, it is perhaps a good adventure with a good plot, but hopefully that will change with future releases from Monkey Blood Design. Overall, Midderzine Issue 3 feels a little broader in its application in that its contents could be used in other settings should the Game Master be prepared to adapt the material. Really though, as with the other issues, the content of Midderzine Issue 3 is very much written for use with The Midderlands, providing further solid support that the Game Master can easily add to or develop for her campaign.

[Fanzine Focus XVI] Midderzine Issue 2

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 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.

Midderzine, which promises ‘More green for your game’, is a fanzine devoted to The Midderlands, the horror infused, green tinged interpretation of the medieval British Isles flavoured with Pythonesque humour and an Old School White Dwarf sensibility, published by Monkey Blood Design and first detailed in The Midderlands - An OSR Setting & Bestiary. Also published by Monkey Blood Design and like The Midderlands, this fanzine is written for use with Swords & Wizardry and adds new flora and fauna, locations, oddities, and more. This is much more of a house publication and so is cleaner, tidier, and more consistent in style than the average fanzine. This includes the artwork and cartography of designer Glynn Seal as well as the artwork of Jim Magnusson.

Midderzine Issue 1 set the format with a pleasingly cohesive first issue. Midderzine Issue 2 follows that format opening with ‘Meet the Midderlander’, an interview with one of the creators of the Midderlands as a setting. This time it is Edwin Nagy, a New England author who has is currently adapting the City of Brass scenario for Dungeons & Dragons to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition for Frog God Games. Again, short, but nicely highlighting members of the team who work on The Midderlands. Actual content for The Midderlands begins with ‘The Haven Gazette’, three pages of expanded rumours and news sheets entries which the Referee can expand upon for her campaign. For example, ‘The Lucky Bazaar’s Golden Lionman’ details a great gold statue with a lion’s body and a man’s head which looks around on the hour. Located at an indoor bazaar, this entry ties in with the third book for The Midderlands, which details the city of Great Lunden, Havenland’s capital. Other entries detail the blood being drawn from the well in the hamlet of Fetterstone or the fact that Lord Beron Mung has lost a valued, supposedly magical tankard and is willing to reward the person who returns it with turnips! These are of course hooks which the Game Master can develop for her game, but look closely at the front of the article and there is a joyously grim list of all the ways in which people have died over the last month and how many. 

‘The Vile Sign’, a new cult which is growing in influence in Staffleford as it tries to return a long-banished demi-god, Froggathoth, to the mortal realms once again. Again, this is really more of a hook which the Game Master will need to develop, but unlike the entries in ‘The Haven Gazette’, there is more detail here from which she can work from. There is some potential here for crossover between the existence of the cult and Lord Beron Mung’s missing tankard, since they take place in the same county, but again that is something for the Game Master will need to connect. Next there are three similarly themed tables. One is ‘Slightly Less Shit +1 weapons’, the second is ‘Slightly Less Shit +1 Armours’, and the third is ‘Slightly Less Shit Containers of Liquid’. With entries like the spear which summons a block of cheese at the wielder’s feet with every successful hit and the suit of leather armour decorated with skull iconography and with a skull shaped helmet, but when worn, makes the user like a skeleton, all of these are really fun and bring a degree of weirdness to any Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy game. The Game Master though, does need a thirty-sided die for these three tables.

The issue’s ‘Hexes & Unique Locations’ presents Port Mulhollow, a refuge for thieves, smugglers, brigands, and more, located beneath the ground. It is also an illicit trading post known also for its surprisingly good tavern and as a jumping off point for expeditions which want to delve further into the Middergloom below. It is accompanied by a good street plan, but nothing in the way of hooks or reasons to engage the player characters here. Now of course, there is nothing to stop the Game Master from creating her own and ideally any party of player characters will help generate that.

Three entries are given in ‘New Monsters’ and one in the ‘New Flora & Fauna’. The later is the Gloak Tree, which is native to the Upper Middergloom and sways in a fashion which is known to beguile those who watch them. Then unfortunately for the beguiled, the Gloak Tree eats them! The first of the monsters is the Pigseer, a debased pig-man form which of late has been seen in Norfolkshire slaughtering sheep. They are armed and they do seem to have some kind of magic. The Pigseer nicely ties back to a new story in ‘The Haven Gazette’. The Biledog is a large malevolent black dog which often vomits luminous, acidic vomit on its victim and the Dungling an impish creature that operates in packs and which has long fingers which it uses to steal things out of the bags of its victim. It is more of a nuisance than the threat that the other monsters are.

Pride of place in Midderzine Issue 2 goes to Richard Marpole’s ‘Woad Rager’. This new Class is a Scrottish warrior who takes the Woad Path and thus becomes increasingly immune to fear, charges into battle for extra damage and scariness, and paints himself with Woad patterns that are extra scary, make him extra vigilant, protects him against all magic. It takes time for a Woad Rager to learn his first pattern and he learns more as he gains more Levels. The ‘New Oddities’ are also of a Scrottish nature, like Laird MacCrae’s Prime Haggis, a delicacy which not everyone can stomach, but which does seem to grant miraculous protective powers, and Iron-Beer, which might give the imbiber a cast iron stomach or it might do something else. All of these items are fun too and will be desired by just about anyone playing a Scrottish character in The Midderlands.

Physically, Midderzine Issue 2 is very nicely produced with excellent artwork and cartography. In terms of its production values, it feels a bit tight in its binding and so is not quite as easy to reference.

Again, there are some nice connections throughout the pages of Midderzine Issue 2, though not quite as many as in the first issue. Also, this is issue is a little lacking in hooks to help the Game Master get her players and their characters involved in a situation or place, so it does leave her with a little more than it really should. That said, there is a much that is actually quite good within this issue, much of if which would work as well outside of The Midderlands as much as in it. Overall, not quite as good an issue as Midderzine Issue 1, but Midderzine Issue 2 still adds to The Midderlands.

[Fanzine Focus XIV] Midderzine Issue 1

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 another Dungeon Master 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.

Midderzine, which promises ‘More green for your game’, is a fanzine devoted to The Midderlands, the horror infused, green tinged interpretation of the medieval British Isles flavoured with Pythonesque humour and an Old School White Dwarf sensibility, published by Monkey Blood Design and first detailed in The Midderlands - An OSR Setting & Bestiary. Also published by Monkey Blood Design and like The Midderlands, this fanzine is written for use with Swords & Wizardry and adds new flora and fauna, locations, oddities, and more. This is much more of a house publication and so is cleaner, tidier, and more consistent in style than the average fanzine. This includes the artwork and cartography of designer Glynn Seal as well as the artwork of Jim Magnusson.

Midderzine Issue 1 opens with ‘Meet the Midderlander’, an interview with one of the contributors to The Midderlands, in this case, Swedish artist, Jim Magnusson. This is nice and short, but to the point, doing something that a house organ should do, that is, highlight those involved in the creative process. Actual content for The Midderlands begins with ‘The Haven Gazette’, three pages of expanded rumours and news sheets entries which the Referee can expand upon for her campaign. For example, ‘The Leper Knights of Saint Corrobin in Helm’s Ford’ were recently granted the right to establish a monastery in Helm’s Ford despite local objections; Edmund Fester won the deeds to an old keep near Darlow as told in ‘Gambler Priest ‘Wins’ Keep’; and Mulch Fertwiddle gives his best tips on growing turnips slug free in ‘Garden Goblin’s Corner’. There lots of these and if perhaps the gardening tips are really filler, they do add colour and flavour, whereas the rest work as good hooks for the Referee to develop and help draw her players further into the setting.

‘Hexes & Unique Locations’ detailed several new places. They include the ‘Plinth of Dullen Fields’, a strange set of grave markers at the site of a battle six hundred years ago; ‘The Ruins of The Cock & Pocket Inn’, now a sinkhole and the last known sighting of a missing tax inspector as mentioned in ‘The Haven Gazette’; and ‘Ratdog Tor’, a monster-infested rock outcropping previously mentioned in The Midderlands. More detailed is a new village, ‘Stonecastle’, which is surprisingly quiet, but of course hides a secret or two. Interestingly, neither the local lord—Sir Uriah Fellchurch—nor the villagers are aware of them, so it will be down to the player characters to become aware of them. ‘The Eyeless Harrowers’ details a New Cult of monastic brewers, all blind and eyeless, whose beers and ales are brewed in secret, but sold across the Midderlands. Again, this is something for the Referee to develop from the description given here.

Fully written up are the two entries in ‘New Non-Player Characters’. The first of these ties back to the rumours and news given in ‘The Haven Gazette’, being a write-up of the gambling priest, Edmund Fester, whilst the second links to the setting of Stonechurch and the issue’s ‘New Class’, the Crowmaster. ‘Corlin Lackcraw’ is a Crowmaster who quietly serves Sir Uriah Fellchurch by collecting the news brought by the crows across the Midderlands and beyond. The Crowmaster is even quieter about the fact that he serves more than the one master… ‘New Monsters’ describes three new creatures, the Gloomrat, a dog-sized, three-eyed creature with a poisonous bite and possibly a nasty sting/mace/claw in the tale; the Catvile, a hairless, black cat whose skin can be cured to make light absorbing cloaks; and Devil’s Goat, a vile goat’s head thing with tentacles that spreads nasty rumours!

The Crowmaster is a new Class which is based on Druid, but which specialises in communications and dealings with corvidae of all types out on the moors and in the forests. They can understand and speak with crows and will come to build a network of corvidae spies, fly like a crow, and even take one as a steed. This is a nicely avian-themed variation of the Druid Class which lends itself to fun roleplaying. The two entries in ‘New Spells’ are self explanatory, Cover in Shit doing that to a Magic-User’s target, whilst Bag of Crap summons a bag containing ‘Crap You Find on Folk’ as detailed in The Midderlands - An OSR Setting & Bestiary, which the caster can pull things from. Hopefully the caster might something useful, but this does feel like a slightly silly, slightly useless spell. Rounding out Midderzine Issue 1 are ‘New Oddities’ and ‘New Flora & Fauna’. So the former includes a ‘Catvile Cloak’, which as the description of the creature details earlier, improves the wearer’s ability to Hide in Shadows, whilst the latter gives a range of minor creatures and plants.

Physically, Midderzine Issue 1 is very nicely produced with excellent artwork and cartography. In terms of its production values, it feels a bit tight in its binding and so is not quite as easy to reference.

Initially, it feels as if Midderzine Issue 1 spreads its focus far and wide, but delving into the fanzine and there is a pleasing number of connections between the articles and the content so that the Referee does not need to refer to other supplements to make use of its contents. This gives the issue a sense of cohesiveness that enforces the sense of Midderlands as a place even if the Referee was to take that content out of the setting and use it in her own. In fact, extracting this content would be quite easy. Overall, Midderzine Issue 1 is a solid first issue with gaming content that any Referee running a campaign set in The Midderlands will want to add and develop for her game.

Friday Fantasy: Behind the Walls

Behind The Walls is a short scenario set within The Midderlands, the horror infused, green tinged interpretation of the medieval British Isles flavoured with Pythonesque humour and an Old School White Dwarf sensibility, published by Monkey Blood Design. Designed for play by four characters of low Level using Mythmere Games’ Swords & Wizardry, it can easily be run using other Old School Renaissance retroclones and even other fantasy roleplaying games. It offers a short, investigative scenario strong on atmosphere and mood with an emphasis on mud, blight, and greed.

In The Midderlands, this scenario takes in the north of Havenland, near to the Scrottish border and the Great Wall of Hadreen by the Kelderwater Lake in and around the village of Otterdale, an isolated settlement located in a damp, mist-filled valley through which the Little Kelder stream runs and finally dribbles into the lake. Local farmer, Ebeneezer Garbett, has recently come into some gold and been quite generous in spreading his wealth around, much to the delight of the Otterdale’s inhabitants. The player characters may have been hired by an archaeologist who wants to investigate local Goman ruins—the Goman Empire having conquered Havenland in centuries long past, are looking for a particular fungus which grows in the region which will cure an illness that one of their number is suffering from, or are simply attracted by the sound of new found wealth to be found in the valley and nearby. Certainly this has been motive enough for another adventuring party—the Eagle’s Talon Adventuring Company—to come to Otterdale in search of treasure.

Making their way to Otterdale through the shifting mists of the fungi-infested soggy valley, the player characters discover the villagers caught up in the preparations to celebrate the new wealth that has come to Otterdale. They are cautious, unused to seeing strangers, but friendly and welcoming, though both they and the adventurers are in danger of being subsumed into a force which could grow and grow until it threatens the whole of Havenland.

Physically, Behind the Walls is very nicely presented. The cartography is unsurprisingly excellent given the publisher, the illustrations all following the fungoid theme of the scenario. The scenario is also well written and easy to grasp, as well as being easy to adapt. This is not only to other retroclones, but also whole other roleplaying games. Both plot and setting are readily suited to be relocated in the settings for both Symbaroum and Forbidden Lands, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and even the post-apocalypse of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, among many others. Which serves to highlight the simplicity and versatility of both set-up and plot in Behind the Walls.

With relatively few locations and a handful of NPCs, what holds Behind the Walls together is its strong atmosphere, a sense of melancholy blight, and a number of flavoursome random encounters out in the fog which swirls around Otterdale. At its heart, Behind the Walls is essentially a fog-shrouded zombie-style outbreak, but one mired in muck and mucus as well as Havenland’s ancient history.

The Demon Stones

Originally published in 2015 for use with Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game—the descendant of Dungeons & Dragons, Edition 3.5—in June, 2016, the adventure The Demon Stones – A medieval-fantasy roleplaying adventure for 4 characters of levels 4 to 5 was re-published for use with Mythmere Games’ retroclone, Swords & Wizardry. It comes courtesy of Glynn Seal, better known for his artwork and cartography, and is published through his own company, Monkey Blood Design. It is an adventure for a party of four or more characters of Levels Four and Five. It combines investigation with wilderness adventure and a decent dungeon and comes more than very well appointed with counters to use on the tabletop and players’ maps as well as for the DM.

It begins with the player characters being approached by a dwarf, Rhuin Graystone, and hired to travel to Hoarwych Valley and the village of Gravencross. Once there, they are to protect some stones that have ‘fallen from the sky’. What the player characters will have already heard is that the stone are said to be demonic in nature and the valley is said to be suffering some sort of curse as a result. Nevertheless, the dwarf is paying handsomely and these are only rumours. Travelling to Gravencross, the party discovers that the curse is actually a disease called ‘Wychblight’, that is afflicting crops and animals alike. They will also learn the location of the first ‘demon stone’ and upon investigation in the village, what the inhabitants think about this and that. Following up on these opinions and rumours leads the adventurers to one or two oddities in the village, though what they mostly learn is the location of the first of the fallen stones. This leads to the next stone and the next, hinting at something else going on in the valley, and eventually to the true source of evil in Hoarwych Valley.

The Demon Stones feels more northern European in tone and style. This is no surprise given that the author is English, but this tone and style also echoes the dungeons and adventures published by TSR UK as the UK series of modules, in Imagine magazine, and subsequently GameMaster Publications magazine. There is a also a vein of horror running through parts of the scenario, though one that owes just a little to the Hammer horror movies. So there is a grimness to the scenario and there is also a decent bait and switch to its plot. The plot itself is essentially straightforward enough and not necessarily all that interesting.

This carries over in terms of design as the scenario does feel fairly traditional and its mix of treasure feels more randomly placed than by design. Further, and despite it having been rewritten for use with a retroclone like Swords & Wizardry, it still feels like an adventure written for a more complex iteration of Dungeons & Dragons. Which given the tone and style, would be Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rather than the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. This really comes to the fore in situations where certain actions are described, but not given rules for and the sense is that a more complex game system, like the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, would have the rules to handle them. That said, the advantage of the scenario being written for use with a retroclone like Swords & Wizardry means that The Demon Stones is accessible by any retroclone.  

Given the artistic and cartographical skills of the author, it not surprise that physically, The Demon Stones is a very well presented book. The artwork is good, though not always relevant to text where it is used, but the cartography is excellent, really very nicely done. The biggest problem with the text is the use of a stylised, serif font, which makes it a little difficult to read. A lesser problem is that it is overwritten in places and some of the text could have been tightened here and there.

The Demon Stones is not a great adventure, but that should not be taken as a criticism. Rather, it is a good solid adventure, perhaps with too ordinary a plot, but this means that it is accessible and easily dropped into most campaigns. This is helped by the high standard of the maps, which are very good indeed. As first published adventure, The Demon Stones – A medieval-fantasy roleplaying adventure for 4 characters of levels 4 to 5 is a more than creditable attempt.