Memory & Magic

The coven is where the sisterhood is safe, where memories can be made, where its members can rejoice in the company of each other, where threats can be faced together, and dangers overcome, even if that is at the cost of memories. For memories represent power. But give up too many memories, use too much power, and the afterlife may become a dark and evil existence. This is the underlying story to Last Sabbath, a storytelling game of the history of a coven of witches and warlocks. The history will take them from their calling and formation of the coven through the appearance of a threat which imperils the coven, the discovery of how that threat can be defeated, and ultimately a confrontation with that threat and the aftermath of that confrontation. As the history progresses, the events and Memories are recorded in a diary. To defeat the threats and dangers they may face, the Witches may draw upon these Memories or their life sources to power charms, spells, and incantations. As a result, they will lose the Memories or age minutes, hours, or years, and potentially die in the process. They will have an existence in the afterlife, but the number of Memories lost determines the nature of that existence. A few and the Witch will return as a familiar to the next generation, too many and the Witch becomes an evil ghost!

Last Sabbath is from the Italian publisher, Officina Meningi. It is very rules light and can be played as a group or solo, and is designed to be played without a Game Master. As a solo roleplaying game, Last Sabbath is a journalling game, whereas in a group, the journal, or diary, is shared. It is played over the course of seven Scenes—‘The Calling’, ‘Initiation’, ‘Danger’, ‘Research’, ‘Revelation’, ‘Threat’, and ‘Epilogue’—which takes the Witches through their story and the story of the coven. There is no setting beyond the fact that there is a coven and a threat, the players being free to create their own during the first scene, whether that is Witches at a school of magic, a coven fleeing the Salem witch trials, or modern day coven protecting a small town.

The Scenes are further subdivided into Rounds, either three, five, or seven, depending upon the length of game that the players want to play. Each Scene is driven by three Leading Questions and six Prompts, the latter intended to be rolled on a six-sided die, or alternatively a Divination, of which four methods are given. The push here is to use the Divination means as six prompts is not enough and does not offer enough variability for repeat play. The Divination can also be used as means to suggest a resolution also. In each Round, the players take it in turns to narrate the Story from their Witches’ perspective, inspired by the Prompt or Divination. Interaction between the players and Witches is limited, a player and Witch only able to respond directly to the narration of another player and Witch when it is their turn. At the end of her narration for a Round, a player notes a Record of it in the diary, and at the end of the Scene, the player marks one of these Records, whether it is personal or pertains to the whole coven, as a Memory. As the coven faces greater dangers and the threat, these memories can be consumed to cast ever increasing more effective magic—Charms, Spells, and Incantations. Casting an Incantation has the greatest effect, such as regenerating the whole of a burned down forest, exorcising an ancient evil, or sending another Witch through time, but also the greatest cost, either terms of Memories or the Witch’s life itself. It represents the greatest sacrifice and will likely come in the penultimate Scene, ‘Threat’, when the coven will confront the danger at the heart of their story. The ‘Epilogue’ has only one Round, in which the players each narrates what happens to their Witches, including those who died, in a single Record.

The last quarter of Last Sabbath is devoted to divination methods. Four are given—Tarot, Rune Stones, Mikado, and Tea Leaves—along with instructions on how to use them and then interpret the readings as prompts for each scene. Some are easier to use than others, and some will take longer to use and interpret, and so may slow game play down. The latter is less of an issue in solo play, but in group play, it may become a problem. The Tarot cards are likely to be more familiar and easier to interpret, whilst the Runes are more flexible and open to interpret. The Mikado is likely the least familiar and will take some adjusting to. Which leaves the Tea Leaves, the most ambiguous and most open to interpretation, but also the most charming and relaxing since it involves making tea in a teapot and drinking the tea to find the results. All include examples of interpretations. What might have been useful is a bibliography of books consulted for these methods. That said, they offer a greater variability than most journalling games do, since the prompts they provide are open to wider interpretation.

Although Last Sabbath is described as being suitable for being played as a solo journalling game, this aspect of its play is not explored beyond a single paragraph. The lack of advice on this and other aspects of play is disappointing. Last Sabbath is not a long roleplaying game, especially given that its lats quarter is given over to alternative, but thematically appropriate means of generating prompts. Arguably, one of these means could have been dropped in favour of more advice and support, especially for solo play. Or simply, the page count increased from forty-eight to sixty plages.

Physically, Last Sabbath is boldly presented in splashes of red and black with stunning artwork. The artwork really is good, but it does not always feel appropriate. The artist—Loputyn—is noted as being part of the Lolita fashion moment, and this is reflected in the art style of Last Sabbath. It means that the witches depicted are young, and often nude. The artwork is not explicit, but because it only depicts the Witches as young girls and not a wide range of ages, the look of the roleplaying game does lean towards the prurient. This is in contrast to the writing which states that the Player Characters can be warlocks as well as witches and that each player is free to decide who her witch is. As a consequence, there is a dissonance between what Last Sabbath is about and how it looks, such that it is either going to put off the audience it is intended for or attract the attention of an audience for whom it was not intended.

Where Last Sabbath is at its best is in the inclusion of its four real-world divination tools as a means of creating prompts and driving the story forward, as they bring a physicality and a verisimilitude to the play and give the players something to interact with. Yet ultimately, Last Sabbath is underwritten as a roleplaying game and definitely as a solo journalling game. It does not provide enough structure or advice on how to set-up or play the game, relying instead upon the players to provide that, giving them more work than is really necessary. With that in mind, Last Sabbath is best suited experienced players who can overcome its issues.

Solitaire: The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon

Call of Cthulhu is the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and has been for over four decades now. The roleplaying game gives the chance for the players and their Investigators to explore a world in which the latter are exposed, initially often indirectly, but as the story or investigation progresses, increasingly directly, to alien forces beyond their comprehension. So, beyond that what they encounter is often interpreted as indescribable, yet supernatural monsters or gods wielding magic, but in reality is something more, a confrontation with the true nature of the universe and the realisation as to the terrible insignificance of mankind with it and an understanding that despite, there are those that would embrace and worship the powers that be for their own ends. Such a realisation and such an understanding often leave those so foolish as to investigate the unknown clutching at, or even, losing their sanity, and condemned to a life knowing truths to which they wish they were never exposed. This blueprint has set the way in which other games—roleplaying games, board games, card games, and more—have presented Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as many as there that do follow that blueprint, there are others have explored the Mythos in different ways.

Cthulhoid Choices is a strand of reviews that examine other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and of Cosmic, but not necessarily Horror. Previous reviews which can be considered part of this strand include Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

—oOo—

Your merchantman ship sunk by Imperial German raiders. You captured and held in a cell. There is a chance that you can escape, steal a boat and then… How long will you survive adrift in the ocean waters? Will you row or drift, perhaps you may find yourself coming ashore in the hometown of your ancestors, Kingsport, the mist enshrouded city of dreams or cast ashore in a strange new land where death and madness await. This is opening to The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon, a solo adventure inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, in particular, Dagon, The Festival, and The Hound, as well as The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Published by Officina Meningi following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it enables the reader to explore the story from his own point of view and perhaps survive to influence the outcome for a different ending than that suffered by Lovecraft’s protagonist.

As a choose-your own-adventure book, The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon is short at just eighty entries for the main Earth-bound portion of the story with a further ten entries for the sidestep into The Dreamlands. The player will need just a six-sided die and pen and paper to play and perhaps a couple of hours to play through at most. The Player Character is lightly defined. He has three attributes, Force and Will. Force is his physical strength and ability to fight, whilst Will is his ability to withstand stress and the horrors of the cosmos. Resistance represents his physical skills and tolerance to pain. His mental state is tracked by his Madness, which begins at Well-Balanced. As it goes from Stressed to Delerium via Paranoid and Schizophrenic, the Player Character suffers penalties to die rolls, first in The Dreamlands, but later in the waking world too. He can carry some equipment, such as a medical kit that will restore Resistance and a syringe of morphine that will restore Resistance and prevent him from entering The Dreamlands. Throughout his journey, the Player Character will find money, other items, and weapons.

The combat system is simple. The player rolls the die and adds the character’s Force attribute to the roll as well as any bonus from a weapon. The opponent’s Force value is subtracted from the total and the result compared on the ‘Table of Comparison’ on the solo adventure’s combat table. The worse the result, the less damage the opponent suffers and the more the Player Character suffers, and conversely, the better the result, the more damage the opponent suffers and the less the Player Character suffers. It is possible to inflict damage without the Player Character suffering any, but the chances are low. To defeat an opponent, his or its Resistance must be reduced to zero. Although it is possible to avoid some combat situations, when it does occur, it is simple and brutal.

The story of The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon is really one of transition through the three of Lovecraft’s short stories that inspire it. The opening scenes with the Player Character captured are drawn from Dagon, but the scenes in Kingsport are primarily from The Festival with those from The Hound made part of it. What they reveal is the existence of an ancient cult abroad in Kingsport, which at the time of the Player Character’s arrival, is readying to perform an ancient ceremony of Yule, older than Bethlehem. This becomes apparent very quickly if the Player Character visits the home of his ancestors, but he may also learn more from an old friend from college and so play out scenes from The Hound. Unless discovered or he runs away, the story pulls the Player Character into attending the ceremony of The Festival and towards the climax of the adventure book. In the process, the Player Character will learn some of Kingsport’s dark secrets and may be put a stop to the cult’s dread ritual. This will not be easy, for the Player Character will encounter horror after horror and many a deadly encounter, and even though the adventure book runs to less than a hundred entries, there many ways in which he can die or go mad. It will certainly take more than the one attempt to complete The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon.

The majority of the journeys in The Dreamlands are encounters rather than explorations as in the main section of the book, randomly determined by the Player Character’s Madness. The higher the result, the more dangerous and the maddening and unearthly the encounter is, before returning the Player Character to the waking world, likely the worse for the night’s poor sleep. Of course, the Player Character can die in The Dreamlands, but may also return with something that will benefit him in the waking world.

Physically, The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon is solidly presented and the artwork is good. Devotees of Lovecraft’s fiction will likely spot both the breaks and the inspirations, but the player need not be familiar with any of three short stories that underpin The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon to enjoy it. Overall, The Necronomicon Gamebook: Dagon is a short, but challenging adventure book that exposes the reader to the horrors of the cosmos and secrets lurking in Lovecraft country.