Friday Fear: Vengeance of Bathory

Has the greatest serial killer in history fled America for her homeland in present day Slovakia? Has she taken refuge in her ancestral home of Castle Čachtice, despite it having been destroyed in 1799 and her having died there in her sleep in 1614? Who is this monstrous murderer, this woman with the worst reputation in history? None other than Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed! Following the revelations about her viciously cruel and bloody campaign of torture amongst the fashion community and on the streets of Los Angeles, her whereabouts are unknown. But those in the know, those that know of her true nature and abilities, have reasons to suspect that they have not truly defeated and that she will return again. Perhaps though, can she be really destroyed and the threat she presents to the world stopped once and for all in her home? This is the set-up for Vengeance of Bathory, a modern day, vampire-hunting setting scenario set in central Europe. It is a sequel to The Blood Countess, the entertaining scenario about the efforts to uncover Báthory’s swathe of stalking and slaughter in Los Angeles that took in part some of its inspiration from the seventies television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Published by Funny Shaped Dice Productions, Vengeance of Bathory is a short, one or two-session horror scenario, the seventh in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Vengeance of Bathory does work better as a sequel to The Blood Countess, but it is not the only set-up suggested in the scenario. Alternative suggestions include looking for a tourist, Lucinda Miles, who has gone whilst visiting Čachtice, the village below Castle Čachtice; working for an organisation that want to investigate Countess Elizabeth Báthory; and a vision is experienced of one her victims point towards the village. Of these options, only the first is developed in the scenario, leaving the others to be developed by the Fright Master. The scenario begins with the arrival of the Player Characters in the sleepy village and their first night at the Penzión Čachtice, the only guest house not to be fully fixated on the Báthory legend. The Player Characters have time to interact with a few locals at the guesthouse’s bar and the following day visit the Draškovičov kaštieľ – Múzeum Čachtice and Church of Methodius and gain some extra background about Báthory and the surrounding area.

However, there is an issue with the scenario in getting the Player Characters from this set-up and into the meat of the plot. There are hooks and pointers as to where the Player Characters might go in the village, but they are underwritten and not easy to bring into play by the Fright Master. It does not help that the village itself is not detailed in a way can be easily used and the only locations detailed are the Penzión Čachtice, Draškovičov kaštieľ – Múzeum Čachtice, Church of Methodius, and Castle Čachtice. The village also has a tourist industry dedicated to dedicated to Báthory and relatively little is made of that. As it turns out, the village is full of threats and dangers to the Player Characters, including cultists and the presence of Countess Elizabeth Báthory herself. The cultists’ presence could have been made more in and about the village, having them watch the Player Characters and making them a little paranoid. Some of the cult members include the staff of Penzión Čachtice and unless they are really pushed and confronted by the Player Characters, their involvement and the horrific nature of their activities may not be discovered. Which is an issue when discovering their involvement and their activities is one way in which the plot can move the Player Characters onto the main thrust of the plot.

Eventually, the Player Characters will find their way into the tunnels that run under Čachtice all the way to Castle Čachtice, and this is when the pace of the scenario picks up. As they make their way through the tunnels, the Player Characters will come across horror after horror. Torture chambers, ghoul nests, dark temples, sacrifice storage spaces, and moreVengeance of Bathoryand worse! The complex of tunnels and rooms are stalked and haunted by cultists, ghouls, and phantasms, and none of it is mapped. The Fright Master is expected to roll for locations found, encounter details, and events. The events are all attacks by the various threats, but all varying in terms of the odds that the Player Characters have of defeating them, effectively how many there are versus the Player Characters. The ‘Details’ table includes some entries that are easier to use than others. Hostile, injured, corpse, and squabbling encounters are likely easier to use than say the curious and friendly encounters. Here is another aspect Vengeance of Bathory that the Fright Master might to develop so that she has something interesting to place in the path of the Player Characters in what is otherwise a random dungeon!

Apart from a possible vision, the Player Characters will not have met Countess Elizabeth Báthory so far in the scenario. This changes in the finale, which takes place in the Tomb of Báthory. She will command a haunting of phantasms to flit back and forth battering at their psyches, whilst she flits in and out, punching and kicking, and shrieking in cruel laughter at their plight. She will especially take delight in taunting any Player Characters who had a part in defeating her in Los Angeles. It is a challenging fight and there is a chance that the Player Characters will be defeated, captured, and tortured… However, they can also defeat her and do so for good. The Player Characters may want to arm themselves in preparation and ideally, the Fright Master should help them do that, perhaps back at Penzión Čachtice. Another option is to involve the local police and an NPC is provided for that, and being a European police officer, he does have access to firearms.

The scenario includes eight pre-generated Player Characters. Two of them are locals, one the curator of the museum, the other the priest at the village church. If they are not used as Player Characters, then they can be used as NPCs instead. Only four of them have combat skills and only one has a psychic ability, but all come with backgrounds, weaknesses, and a thumbnail portrait. Four of them are also continuing their hunt of Countess Elizabeth Báthory after their encounter with her in The Blood Countess.

Physically, the cover to Vengeance of Bathory manages to be both distracting and horrific! The internal artwork is good and it does include a decent image of the village, though the Fright Master will need to work out what some of the buildings are. Otherwise, the production values are decent.

Unfortunately, Vengeance of Bathory is simply not as good as The Blood Countess. It does not flow as easily as it should and the Fright Master will need to develop elements of it to strengthen its plotting and so ease the Player Characters towards the finale with Countess Báthory. With the necessary development done, Vengeance of Bathory has the potential to deliver an session or two of bloody horror in the Grand Guignol style.

Friday Fear: Carmilla

It is 1870. In Hofwasser Village in Styria, the eastern region of Austria that borders Hungary, a strange affliction has struck many young women, the symptoms mysterious and often fatal. One day they are bright, energetic, and full of life, then the next their skin pales as white as milk and they become lethargic, losing their appetites, and gaining a sensitivity to light such that they dare not venture out of doors. Already one young woman has died from this strange sickness and there are two more girls in the village showing symptoms. What is this dreadful illness which has struck the village? Many of the village’s older residents have begun to recall the folktales of the region they learned as children, of black beasts in the darkness, of forest demons that lure innocents to their doom, worse, of the much-feared Upir, a soulless monster that preys on the blood of its victims. Hofwasser Village is also home to Colonel Daniel Morton, a former British attaché to the Austrian service, who has retired and now lives in the schloss, Karnstein Hall. He too has grown concerned about the illness, fearing that it will come to infect both his teenage daughter, Laura, and the young charge, Carmilla, he is looking after.

If all this sounds familiar, then it probably means that you have read Carmilla, the Victorian-era novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by twenty-five years, this is a classic tale of Gothic romance and vampiric horror with a strong female antagonist, which is now the direct—very direct inspiration for Carmilla, a scenario published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends. Part of the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, it is ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Carmilla opens with the Player Characters at Karnstein Hall. They are there with Colonel Daniel Morton to assist him in determining the cause of the malady that has beset the young women of Hofwasser and been cause of one death so far. After some tea—there is actually a lot of tea consumption in the scenario as Karnstein Hall is a bastion of the British Empire in ‘Mitteleuropa’—and the first of several listless encounters with Colonel Morten’s daughter and recent charge, Laura and Carmilla, he asks for the Player Characters’ help. The initial investigation takes place in the nearby village at the homes of the affected women, but later there is scope for research in the library at Karnstein Hall, which reveal some oddities that suggest that the mystery lies closer to home. The Player Characters’ suspicions will be confirmed following the funeral of one of the young women in the village and that will lead to a nasty confrontation in the confines of the Karnstein family mausoleum.

The advice for running Carmilla states that, “As an adaptation of a fairly popular story, players should be willing to suspend their knowledge of plot for the sake of playing their characters more accurately (offering Experience Points for roleplaying can help encourage this).” This is either a challenge or a problem depending upon your point of view, due because what the scenario is asking the players to do is to roleplay characters who do not know what a vampire is and unlike the players, are not steeped in over a century’s worth of vampiric lore. This is in the face of a situation where the players are fully aware that Laura is the victim of a vampire and that vampire is Carmilla. Literally, aware players could end the scenario in fifteen minutes by going to Carmilla’s bedroom, breaking down its door, and killing her. The scenario does not want the players to do that, but wants them to play through the investigation and experience the effects of the vampire’s predation and determine its cause. The scenario also admits that it proceeds in linear fashion and it does, very much keeping the players away from directly investigating either Laura or Carmilla.

As with other scenarios in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, Carmilla includes eight pre-generated Player Characters. They are divided between visitors and staff at Karnstein Hall. The staff consist of Madame Raquel Perrodon, governess to Laura Morton; Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, the French finishing governess to Laura; and Frau Franziska Pichler, the cook at Karnstein Hall. The visitors include General Gerhard Spielsdorf, a former colleague and now friend of Colonel Morton; Fraulein Johanna Bauer, a young hunter who lives in the nearby woods; Dr. Hans Hartog, a laudanum-addicted medical doctor with an interest in eastern mysticism; Father Augustus Koellerer, the local Catholic priest; and Baron Maximilian Vordenburg, a local noble with a fascination for folklore. Only one of the eight, Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, has any Paranormal Abilities and so might give the Player Characters a slight advantage in certain situations.

The scenario is supported with two good maps, one of the village of Hofwasser and the other of the mausoleum where the final confrontation with Carmilla takes place. There is no map of Karnstein Hall, which is slightly disappointing, but its inclusion might have encouraged further exploration of the Morton family home which the scenario would prefer the players not to do. The back cover blurb for the scenario also serves as a handout and there is one handout in the book, which is plain.

Physically, Carmilla is well written and has excellent artwork. The combination of a linear structure and a clear layout means that the scenario is going to be easy to run.

As written, Carmilla is not a challenging scenario to run. As written, Carmilla is going to be a challenging scenario to play. This is because it demands that the players suspend their self-knowledge, locking it away for the length of the scenario, and roleplay characters who have no knowledge of the threat they face and have to learn about it, bit by bit. It does help that ‘Carmilla’ is not a wholly traditional vampire in the style of Dracula and it does help that it is intended to be played in a single session. As an adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story, Carmilla, the scenario is decently done, but as a scenario, Carmilla is making big demands of its players and keeping a straight face because of those demands and not being able to rush off and always investigate where a player might want to, makes it hard work. And this in a scenario designed for casual, one-shot play. If the players are able to do this—or they have not read the original short story, then Carmilla is a serviceable one-shot, easily prepared and run.

Friday Fear: Medieval Mysteries

It is rare that scenarios are set during the period of the Spanish Inquisition, despite it lasting over three-hundred-and-fifty years. ‘Fires of Hatred Defile the Sky’ from Red Eye of Azathoth, a singular foray into the Cthulhu Mythos for Kobold Press, and Chaosium, Inc.’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ from Strange Aeons, both published for Call of Cthulhu, are exceptions. Medieval Mysteries takes gamers back to early period of the Spanish Inquisition with two scenarios designed to be played in two hours each. The first is ‘The Shroud of Pestilence’ in which the Player Characters investigate what looks to be an outbreak of the Black Death in a nearby village, but which turns out to be something else, whilst in ‘Heresy’, they attempt to save a group of conversos—Jews who converted to Christianity—from what is effectively, two monsters! This is all packaged with a framing device which lends itself to an ongoing campaign. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Medieval Mysteries is a duology of short play time, one-night horror scenarios, the first entry in the series of historical horror adventures in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Medieval Mysteries is set in Spain in about 1490. Whilst the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as much of Spain, are united through marriage of Queen Isabella I (of Castile) and King Ferdinand II (of Aragon), but they remain separate entities. What unites the Iberian peninsula is religion and the growing power of the Inquisition under the command of Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada which not only enforces Catholic orthodoxy, but also investigates possible acts of heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant—often in the most violent of ways. As a default, the Player Characters are all associated with the Santa Maria de Soria monastery, some hundred miles or so north-east of Madrid. The monastery offers a place of relative safety, but hides its own benign secrets. It is led by an abbot whose gift of foresight enables him to see paranormal abilities in others and dangers elsewhere, directing such individuals to seek out, investigate, and defeat supernatural and monstrous threats. Such efforts have to be conducted with great care, since any paranormal ability would be regarded by the Inquisition as mysticism and thus heresy.

In addition to a brief description of the monastery, Medieval Mysteries describes two new skills and two new paranormal abilities. The two new skills are Blacksmithing and Religious Mysticism, which will be of a specific faith, like Taoist Mysticism or Judaic Mysticism. The paranormal abilities are Exorcism and True Sight, both of which are likely to find their way into other scenarios. The pre-generated Player Characters consist of a mix of monks, nuns, and peasants, some with paranormal abilities, some without, but all with some background, a description, and a phobia. Perhaps the only thing missing here is advice on creating Player Characters suitable for the period and setting, since the set-up lends itself to a campaign in the style of The X-Files, but set in medieval Spain.

In ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, the Player Characters are directed to the village of Herrero which he initially believed to be suffering from an outbreak of the plague, but after receiving a vision, believes that there is an evil dark shadow looming over both it and its inhabitants. He wants them to investigate the possibility of the infernal. The Player Characters will initially encounter a plague doctor attempting to treat the terrible symptoms. The Player Characters get to examine the bodies that have not yet been buried and examine them for the terrible signs of the plague and interview the very concerned remaining villagers. Although many suspect that the devil himself is responsible, but very quickly, the Player Characters should discover signs indicating that something else is responsible, more monstrous than devilish. The Sense Monsters paranormal skill will be useful confronting this creature.

Despite its brevity, ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’ packs in a decent amount of investigation and interaction before the Player Characters ascend into the hills and the second half of the scenario, which involves a confrontation with the culprit. This is a combat scene in a cave, a nasty encounter that has a chance, more or less, of instantly killing a Player Character, and that is even before the battle commences. Only one of the Player Characters is equipped with an effective weapon, so he should absolutely be selected. Ultimately, the players and their characters should try and get the creature out of its comfort zone, otherwise, a ‘Total Party Kill’ is a possibility. Which is fine for a one-shot, but not if the players want to continue playing their characters in the next scenario.

In ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’, the abbot sends the Player Characters to the city of Sigüenza where he has learned the Inquisition is about to begin an investigation into rumours of heresy and witchcraft among the conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity. The abbot wants the Player Characters to investigate such rumours before the Inquisition begins its own heavy-handed inquiries. Talking to people in the converso quarter of the city will reveal that there is a young woman who talks to herself. Use of paranormal may confirm more and if confronted, she will tell the Player Characters that there is heresy being committed in the city, but not amongst the conversos. Rather it is occurring in the St. Jerome Monastery attached to the College of San Antonio de Portaceli, the city’s famed university.

‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ follows the same format as ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, but the combat encounter is not quite as deadly and does not mark the end of the scenario. Ideally, it should end with a trial of the culprit after the Player Characters have captured him, with them giving testimony against him. This is not the only way that the scenario can end, another possibility being trials of the conversos. Either way, the Game Master will need to run this to best effect, perhaps playing up the drama and theatre of any such trial more than the scenario does, which really only provides broad details. Overall, ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is a more sophisticated and more interesting affair than ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’. The only thing that the Game Master might want to do is create some Inquisition NPCs as none are provided.

Physically, Medieval Mysteries is a decent looking affair behind a somewhere murky cover. The artwork inside is reasonable and the scenarios are generally well written. The cartography is plain and serviceable.

Both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries end in a little sign-off as if presented by the host of a late-night horror anthology series, so making them slightly different to traditional horror roleplaying scenarios. There is an ominous threat of lurking power and paranoia that pervades both scenarios, though definitely more so in the second scenario than the first. The short, two-hour running time for both scenarios does also means that ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is underwritten given no stats for the Inquisitors and the lack of staging for the trial. Nevertheless, it is the better and more interesting of the two scenarios in the book. Overall, the brevity of both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries means that they are easy to prepare and run, with scope to develop them a little further and scope to explore the setting in future releases.

Friday Fear: The Nightmare

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the city of Stockton, California, was beset by a rash of strange deaths amongst its Hmong community. The Hmong were refugees from the Vietnam War and subsequent conflicts in southeast Asia. A total of one-hundred-and-seventeen immigrants and their descendants died under strange circumstances in their sleep, suffering from what doctors called ‘Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome’ or ‘SUNDS’. However, the community did put these deaths down to medical causes, but to a supernatural creature that had accompanied individual families to the USA, continuing to prey upon the men of the families as they slept, literally pressing upon their chests and paralysing them in waking nightmares and feeding upon their terror, killing them in the process, whilst to outsiders making it appear as if they died in their sleep. The Hmong call this creature the ‘Dab Tsog’. That was decades ago, but now the city and its Hmong community has once again been beset by an outbreak of deaths due ‘sleep paralysis’. Could the Dab Tsog have returned to prey on the Hmong community? After losing one of her patients to these nightmares, Dr. Maria Vicente, who conducts studies at a sleep clinic, is beginning to suspect that something is stalking the sleep of her patients and so asks for help from anthropologists, folklorists, and investigators. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, The Nightmare is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and third in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

The Nightmare, like the first in the ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, Horror in Hopkinsville, before it, is inspired by a real incident, one that also inspired the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. It returns to the story in Stockton and opens with the Player Characters attending Dr. Vicente’s sleep clinic where she is attempting to study the disrupted sleep patterns of a young boy. The Player Characters will have had the opportunity to conduct some research about Stockton, the deaths amongst the Hmong, and the community’s belief that a Dab Tsog was responsible. They will also have discovered that strange lights have been seen in the city as well, but most notably they will have made the link between the Dab Tsog and figure of the ‘Night Hag’ found in other cultures. Thus, the scenario really sets the players and their characters up with what they need to know right from the start. After an encounter in which Dr. Vicente’s young patient has his sleep interrupted in a frighteningly scary fashion and one, if not more, of the Player Characters are lured away, the narrative in the scenario is not to discover that there is supernatural threat abroad in Stockton, but rather to confirm what the Player Characters already think it to be. To do this, they will need to visit the Hmong and ask some questions of the not always trusting members of the community, calling for some good roleplaying.

The Nightmare is a three-act story. In the first, the Player Characters ‘witness’, or at least, experience someone suffering from the predations of the Dab Tsog and the second investigating the reactions of the community. The third brings the story to a climax back at the sleep clinic where, with local help, the Player Characters can lure the Dab Tsog into striking and thus revealing her presence and making her vulnerable. This will result in an intense physical battle in which the Player Characters have very little time in which to attack—so they had better be prepared. She is not the only threat that the Player Characters may face, but she is the toughest one.

In terms of support, the scenario includes a handful of handouts and eight pre-generated Player Characters. They represent a good mix of ages and backgrounds, several have the Investigation skill, others the Paranormal Folklore skill, and a couple the Sense Monsters Paranormal ability. The latter will be very useful, whilst one is a very dab hand with the dagger, which will be extremely useful in the final encounter.

Physically, behind its creepy cover, The Nightmare is decently presented. The artwork is decent and is dark and foreboding throughout, whilst the floorplans of the sleep clinic are nicely done (though oddly, there is no toilet on the floor where it is located). Although the handouts are plain, the pre-generated Player Characters portraits are good.

The Nightmare is short and direct, no surprise given that it is intended to be played in a single session. Like The Blood Countess before it, the scenario very much has the feel of an episode of a television series. For The Blood Countess, this was Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but for The Nightmare this is The X-Files, though a standalone episode, not one tied to the Series’ ongoing plot to do with UFOs and aliens. Overall, The Nightmare is easy to prepare and will provide a good sessions’ worth of creepy horror that might put the players, let alone the characters, off their sleep.

Friday Fear: The Blood Countess

A monster stalks the streets of Los Angeles as a series of bodies of young men and women are found in bodies of water—although the authorities do not yet truly know it. Are these deaths due to the ‘Shoreline Slasher’ or something worse, something out of history, one of the most prolific murderers of the early modern period? Of course, it is the latter. This is the set-up for The Blood Countess, a scenario that is pretty much upfront about who or what is responsible for the deaths, who or what the Player Characters will be investigating, and who or what they will have to defeat. Anyone who knows their history, certainly their bloodier history, and their macabre history, will know who the Blood Countess is. This is Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed, who was accused of the torture and murder of hundreds of peasant girls and sentenced to immurement. Over the centuries her reputation as a monster has not only grown, but also become associated with vampiric lore. If Dracula is the preeminent vampire, then the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory is his female counterpart. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, The Blood Countess is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and second in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

The Blood Countess initially focuses on the most recent death, that of Michael Ventnor, his body found with many puncture wounds, and the disappearance of a student, Veronica Brookes. A nicely detailed and laid out investigation, involving a good mix of persuasion and sidestepping the authorities, as well as sneaking into back offices to look at security footage, plus a trip to the city museum to look at some ghoulish torture implements from the European Middle Ages, will ultimately point to a modelling agency, recently founded in the city, and an address in a neighbourhood full of ‘McMansions’. The name of the agency is the De Ecsed Agency and research into the name of the owner, Bethany De Ecsed, will give the players and their character some intimations as to who might be responsible and what they might be up against. Although not subtle, it should add a little shiver to the scenario for the players. The scenario will culminate in the Player Characters breaking into the home of Bethany De Ecsed, making some unsurprisingly bloody discoveries, and hopefully getting away following a nasty confrontation with the murderess.

The scenario is supported with maps of the McMansion, a handout giving a detailed description of the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, and an autopsy report for Michael Ventnor. It also comes with eight pre-generated Player Characters, two of which have Paranormal abilities. None are members of law enforcement, though one is an ex-police detective, and some have interests in the occult or weird crimes. The biggest challenge in the scenario is really getting these Player Characters together in order to co-operate on the investigation. Although there are some suggestions, this is where the scenario is at its weakest. Although set in Los Angeles, the scenario is easily relocated to any big city with a body of water where the bodies can be dumped.

Physically, behind its suitably bloody cover, The Blood Countess is decently presented. The artwork is reasonable, the floorplans of the McMansion are clear and easy to use, and the scenario is well written.

The Blood Countess is not a subtle affair, but it is fun, combining a solid, often sympathetic investigation with the lurking threat of a monstrous murderess that the players are going to be aware of almost right from the start of the scenario, adding a little frisson of anticipation as to how ghastly and how dangerous she is actually going to be when the confrontation comes. The investigation itself feels reminiscent of an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker—and there is an episode of that series involving a vampire in Los Angeles—and playing the scenario in the style of that series could work quite well. Overall, The Blood Countess is a very solid addition to the ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, offering a good session of American pulp horror that pitches the Player Characters up against a tough version of a classic monster.

Friday Fear: Horror in Hopkinsville

On the night of Sunday, 21st August 1955 and the early morning of Monday, 22nd August 1955, five adults and seven children, residents near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, were attacked in their farmhouse home. For four hours they held off an assault by small, dark alien creatures peering in through their windows and doors. Were the strange creatures, nicknamed the ‘Hopkinsville Goblins’, actually extraterrestrials from outer space, having just landed in their UFO, something else, or as the United States Air Force officially classified the encounter for a Project Blue Book, a hoax? Although the event has passed into folklore and become a renowned close encounter case amongst UFOlogists, even celebrated as the Little Green Men Days Festival in Kelly community, most regard it as a hoax. Now, your players have an opportunity to find out for themselves as their characters investigate a similar case in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Horror in Hopkinsville is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and first in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games, whilst its UFOlogical themes that it would very well with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game.

Horror in Hopkinsville does not concern the infamous Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter directly. Rather it is a sequel in which the Player Characters investigate another incident and so might posit a cause for both. David and Julia Wright have been terrorised in recent weeks by strange and unusual occurrences in and around their house. Scratching sounds on the roof late at night, followed by chittering or ‘clicking’ noises, loud thumps on the side of the house, the electricity in the house flickering, and the camera system that the Wrights installed to capture evidence of the culprits broke down, whilst the motion-sensor lights have proven ineffective, having detected nothing. The Wrights have been unable to find any cause and are almost at their wits’ end, so they want the matter investigated. The scenario suggests several ways in which the Player Characters might get involved—being a friend or relation of the Wrights, other inhabitants in the town having suffered similar incidences and indicate that the Wrights might have witnessed something, the Wrights revealed their story to a local paranormal or UFO study group of which the Player Characters are members, or the Player Characters are members of a secret organisation that investigates the paranormal or UFOs and are responding to a report made by the Wrights. However, the eight Player Characters provided in Horror in Hopkinsville are really only suited to the first three options rather than the fourth.

Prior to the start of the adventure proper, the Player Characters get to do some research, either using the Humanities/History, Journalism, or Paranormal/Folklore skills. Both the skills and their results reveal at the very least the details of the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, and are also easily adapted to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. The scenario proper begins with the arrival of the Player Characters at the Wright family home on a quiet Wednesday evening. There they have the opportunity to both interview the family, including with some care, the Wright’s eight-year-old daughter, Tianna, and investigate the house. The inference is, of course, that whatever is plaguing the house, has some connection with Tianna, that, for example, she might be psychic. Investigation quickly reveals evidence that something is going on and this is confirmed as the action quickly heats up. The scenario neatly accounts for most of the options that the Player Characters might take, such as one of their number watching from outside whilst the rest investigate inside, but whatever the Player Characters do, it should lead up to a couple of jump scares and the revelation that there is something under the Wright family home—in the sewers!

If the scenario is fairly tightly plotted up until this point, the Player Characters have more freedom of action after they descend into the sewers under the street around the Wright family home and begin searching for the strange creatures that have been lurking near and scratching the house. Effectively, the scenario becomes a bug hunt in the dark, broken by the cold beam of their torches and the hissing of the white, pasty creatures. The scenario includes some encounter descriptions for when the Player Characters are down in the sewers, but does feel underwritten. Perhaps the possibility of the creatures having kidnapped the Wrights’ baby son might have provided some impetus for the Player Characters to act and it would have been interesting if the creatures’ lair were described so that the Player Characters could not only find it, but also find evidence that the activities of the creatures are connected to the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter?

By the end of the scenario, the authorities will have arrived and the Player Characters will need to justify their actions, running around in the sewers, firing guns being frowned upon. This will take some persuasion, but will be easier if the Player Characters are members of a secret government agency. That agency might want to clean up the area and cover up the story even if they are not.

Physically, Horror in Hopkinsville is well presented, although the choice of font and artwork is a little heavy in style. This though, does not mean that it is bad. The scenario is not badly written, although it does need an edit in places and it is written for an American audience, so the Game Master may need to look up a term or two. The cartography of both the house and the sewers is decent, whilst the front cover is excellent, echoing the look and feel of the classic covers for the Chill roleplaying game and pulp horror paperback books.

Horror in Hopkinsville is designed to be a pulp horror scenario, one that is easy to run and quick to prepare—and that is the case, no matter which roleplaying rules the Game Master decides to use. However, it is not a sophisticated plot or story and the Game Master may want to develop it a bit further herself. However, for a single evening’s worth of straightforward, easy-to-prepare, pulp action horror, Horror in Hopkinsville is a decent choice.

1984: Time Master

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

The first roleplaying game about time travel was the quite appallingly useless Timeship: A role playing game of time travel and adventure, published by Yaquinto Publications in 1983. It was quickly followed in 1984 by two further time travel-themed roleplaying games. One was the surprisingly historical Time & Time Again, published by Timeline Ltd., the other was the classic, pulp action Science Fiction Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension from Pacesetter Ltd. It was one of three roleplaying games that the publisher, set up by a number of ex-TSR, Inc. employees, including Mark Acres, Troy Denning, and Stephen Sullivan, would release in 1984. The company’s first, and best known, was the classic horror game, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown, and it would be followed by Time Master and Star Ace: Adventures in Space, a classic pulp Sci-Fi roleplaying game. All three used the same mechanics and all three were extensively supported with supplements and scenarios. All three also remain in print, having become cult classics since their original publication.

As with CHILL: Adventurs into the Unknown before it, Time Master was published as a boxed set. Behind its exciting cover of a man escaping on a flyer of some kind away from marching soldiers, battleships, and dinosaurs, the box contains three books, a map, a sheet of counters, and three ten-sided dice. The three books are the sixty-four-page ‘Travelers’ Manual’, the main rulebook, the thirty-two-page ‘Guide to the Continuum’, the setting book, and the sixteen-page ‘Red Ace High’, a starter scenario. The map is double-sided. One side depicts an area of wilderness in colour, whilst on the other is a depiction of facilities on an airfield. The one-hundred-and-forty counters are a mix of black and white and colour and show Time Agents, Demoreans, and a lot of military units, including vehicles across various eras, such as chariots, jeeps, artillery pieces, and futuristic flying craft.

In Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension, the Player Characters are members of the Time Corps, established in the seventy-second century to police, protect, and restore the timeline. Mankind constructed the first time travel devices in 7051. Although crude, their rapid adoption and use by world governments to erase and rewrite triggered the Time Wars which would last a century and only end with the signing of the Temporal Treaty in 7054. The major powers also agreed to set up an organisation which would protect the timeline, repair where necessary, and prevent tampering by outsiders, renegades, and rogue states. It was granted autonomy and it was planned that it would be disbanded when its work was done. Then the Demoreans appeared. The discovery of a shape-changing alien species from a Parallel world prepared to inflict untold damage to our timeline on Parallel T-0 in order to make it like theirs proved to be a shock and forced the Time Corps to continue its remit. The Agency recruits agents from 3,500 BCE to 7171 CE, but focuses on six ‘Event Windows’. These are Fifth Century BCE Athens, Rome from 61 BCE to 37 AD, Angevin England from 1154 to 1216, Tudor England between 1509 and 1603, Napoleonic France from 1804 to 1815, and France from 1940 to 1944.

The ‘Travelers’ Manual’ explains both the rules and the history of Time Corps and its procedures. Its Time Agents operate in the past and on other parallels according to certain laws. The Law of Identity states that nothing can exist twice at the same time, which means that a Time Agent cannot go on a mission in a period when he has already lived. The danger is that if he did, he would be caught in a ‘Loop Trap’ forced to relive his first visit to the period. The Law of Preservation states that timelines repair themselves, which negates the infamous ‘Grandfather Paradox’. The Law of the Time Barrier prevents time travellers travelling into the future, whilst the Law of Death states that if a time traveller dies, it is permanent. In addition, the Time Corps has its own regulations. These include not recklessly taking a Human or alien life; preventing the activities of Demoreans and renegades in the past, ideally killing the former and returning the latter to Time Corps Headquarters; not engaging in time travel without permission; not leaving any advanced technology or weapons in the past; not revealing the existence of the Time Corps; not investigating the origins or ancestry of another Time Agent; destroy Renegade equipment; and never to return to Time Corps Headquarters from a mission unless it has been successfully completed or the Time Agents are forced to abort it. It is notable that the Time Corps adheres to a code of ethics and does not recruit criminals of any kind.

Time Corps Agents have a Rank and Grade. The Ranks start at Trainee and finish at Timemaster, and there are ten Grades within each Rank. Each time a Time Agent successfully completes a mission, he is promoted one Grade. Once an Agent reaches the Rank and Grade of Time Master, Grade Ten, he retires from the field. A Rank Six or ‘Lifer’ Agent is granted access to ‘Fountain of Youth’ technology which prevents from aging when he is in the past.

Mechanically, Time Agent advancement is tracked at the end of a successful mission by rolling against its Significance Rating. Every mission or adventure has a Significance Rating indicating how important a person or a place or an object is in terms of the flow of history. For example, Pericles from Fifth Century BCE Athens has a Significance Rating of 350 and Charles DeGaulle from France from 1940 to 1944 a Significance Rating of 150. The Continuum Master—as the Game Master is known in Time Master—assigns a mission a total Significance Rating based on individual ratings and then tracks the Time Agents’ action over the course of the mission in comparison to this total. If the Time Agents kill NPCs or some how change history to how it should be, these Significance errors the total Significance Rating and the number of Success Points the Time Agents are awarded collectively with which the players can improve them.

In addition, the amount by which the total Significance Rating was reduced is the value against which the Continuum Master makes a Significance Check. This is rolled on ‘d1000’ and if the result is under the combined value of the Significance errors committed by the Time Agents, then they have changed time. These changes will vary from mission to mission, from scenario to scenario, and each scenario includes a Historical Changes Chart that lists the changes and their effects. For example, in the ‘Red Ace High’ scenario included in the boxed set, the Historical Changes Chart gives changes ranging from the early adoption of aerial and rocket power and World War II beginning in 1935 and ending in a devastating defeat for the Allies to the death of an ancestor of a Time Agent, causing a number of missions needing to be redone. These changes will not become apparent until the Time Agents return to Time Corps Headquarters, where they may be informed by their Time Corps Sentinel, who briefs them, or through the use of ‘Paranormal Memory’.

All Agents of the Time Corps possess ‘Paranormal Memory’, the psychic ability to remember what should have happened in history, in fragments rather than being crystal clear. It is not the only Paranormal Talent that an Agent might have. Others include ‘Memory Restoration’ which is used to repair and restore the memories to what they should be in the timeline, ‘Significance Sensing’ to determine how important an NPC is in history, and ‘Time Shift’, which enables an Agent to move time back, but in game terms, only as far back as the start of the previous round! The Demoreans possess different psychic talents, including ‘Dimensional Travel’ and ‘Shape Shift’. Paranormal Talents are powered by Willpower and are relatively costly to use, so players will need to pick and chose when their Agents deploy them.

An Agent in Time Master is defined by Abilities and Skills. He has eight Basic Abilities. These are Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Willpower, Personality, Perception, Stamina, and Luck. These range in value between twenty-six and eighty. The Basic Abilities have various uses, such as the basic chance to hit a target using a firearm for Dexterity, Willpower as the chance to overcome the fear of seeing a monster, Personality to persuade an NPC, Perception to notice things, and so on. Luck has more uses. First off, only Player Characters have Luck as a Basic Ability—NPCs and other threats do not. It is rolled to avoid certain death, spent permanently to avoid being shot, and of course, how fortunate or not, the Player Character according to the whims of the dice. Several other abilities are derived from the Basic Abilities. These include Unskilled Melee, Health, and more. The Basic Abilities can also grant bonuses to an Agent’s skills.

Skills range in value between forty-one and one-hundred-and-thirty-five, and have a base value derived from a Basic Ability, such as Dexterity for combat skills and Stamina for Swimming, or a number of Basic Abilities which are then averaged. A skill is ranked at either Specialist, Expert, or Master, and each provides a flat bonus to the basic skill value. This is either ‘+15’, ‘+20’, and ‘+25’ respectively. There is an emphasis on combat skills, both on foot and mounted, but the majority of the non-combat skills will cover most situations. Unlike Chill, this roleplaying game does include the Computer skill, but the skills are not organised in an always logical fashion, so that the Pilot skill is included under Heavy Weapons skills rather than the non-combat skills.* The skills are quite detailed in their use, especially the combat skills. So, although an Agent starts off with relatively few skills compared to Player Characters in other roleplaying games, this is offset by a player and the Continuum Master needing to know how they work.

* Thanks to Big Jack Brass for pointing that out.

To create an Agent, a player rolls three ten-sided dice, totals and doubles the result, and adds twenty to get the total for each Basic Ability. After working out the derived abilities, the player chooses a Historical Speciality for his Agent, typically that when he was born, and selects two more skills to reflect what he did before he was recruited by the Time Corps. He also selects a second Paranormal Talent.

Mathilde Berwick was a swordswoman and performer on the stage at the end of the nineteenth century. Her ability with both sword and as an actress have stood her in good stead as a Time Agent.

Mathilde Berwick

BACKGROUND
Date of Birth: September 14th, 1874 Place of Birth: Terra Haute, Indiana
Age at Recruitment: 37 Current Age: 40
Original Profession: Swordswoman & Performer Nationality: American
Education: High School Sex: Female
Height: 5’ 6” Colour Eyes: Brown
Weight: 135 lbs. Colour Hair: Brown

Strength 60 Dexterity 68 Agility 72 Willpower 66
Personality 72 Perception 62 Stamina 50 Luck 64

Unskilled Melee Skill: 66
Current Stamina: 50 Wounds: 13
Current Willpower: 66

SKILLS
Historical Speciality Level – Specialist Score – 79
Time Corps Stunner Level – Specialist – 83
Sword Level – Specialist – 81
Disguise Level – Specialist – 85

PARANORMAL TALENTS
Memory Restoration Level – Specialist Score – 48
Adaptation Speciality Level – Specialist Score – 48

Mechanically, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is a percentile system that really uses two types of roll. A General Ability Check is a simple roll against a Basic Ability to determine whether or not an action succeeded or not. A General Skill Check works the same, but for skill use. A Specific Ability or Specific Skill Check is used whenever a more nuanced result is required and the Continuum Master needs to know how many degrees of success were achieved. To do this, the player has to make a successful roll and the Continuum Master consults the TIME MASTER Action Table. She subtracts the value of Basic Ability or the Skill being used from the value of the roll and cross references it in the appropriate column on the TIME MASTER Action Table. This will give an outcome that is either a Limited, Moderate, High, or Complete Success. The specific outcome will vary from one skill to the next.

Combat in Time Master also uses the TIME MASTER Action Table. Initiative is handled with a roll of a single die and the winning side then uses the Art, fires missile weapons, moves, and then engages in melee attacks. The defending side has the chance to return missile fire. Once done, the defending does exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, this feels like a wargame rather than a roleplaying game. Attacks can be Specific Ability Check or a Specific Skill Check, depending upon whether or not the Agent has any skill ranks in the weapon he is wielding. What this means is that making a Specific Ability Check for an attack will give the Agent a lower chance to succeed and a lower chance to get a better roll, whilst someone with the skill will have a better chance of both. As opposed to Specific Ability and Specific Skill Checks, there is more nuance to possible outcomes. The attacker is rolling to determine the Attack Margin which will cross referenced on the Defence Column. The Defence Column is determined randomly for missile attacks, modified by the defender expending points of Luck or by the defender’s skill for a melee attacks. Unarmed combat results can be Scant Damage, Medium Damage, Harsh Damage, Crushing Damage, or Knockdown, and most of these inflict a loss of Stamina points, but some of these can also inflict a Scratch Wound and a Light Wound. Armed combat results include Scratch Wound, Light Wound, and Medium Wound, all the way up to Critical Wound. These inflict greater Stamina loss and possibly continued Stamina loss, depending on the severity.

Since it used the same mechanics, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown also felt rather like a wargame. However, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension does not just feel like a wargame, it can be played like a wargame. The combat rules quickly go from brawls and swordfights to using tanks, artillery, and heavy weaponry on the ground and using aeroplanes and space-fighters in dogfights to account for the wide swathe of history that Time Master encompasses. It does not, though, confine them to the personal use and deployment by the players and their Agents, but includes rules for handling skirmishes and tactical scale battles, with the Agents expected to get involved. There is scope for roleplaying in these battles too, but they are designed to be fought out the hex map and counters provided in the box. Although a couple of pages long, the rules cover cavalry and chariot charges, the role of leaders, and more.

The ‘Travelers’ Manual’ is rounded out with details on the Paranormal Talents wielded by both the Time Corps and the Demoreans, the equipment used by Time Corps Agents like the Chronoscooter and the Time Corps Stunner, and rules for the Agents interacting with NPCs. ‘Guide to the Continuum’ is the setting book for Time Master. Shorter, it gives some details on military formations, what the Earth of 7192 is like, and what the Demoreans are like. This includes how to spot them, what their schemes are, and dealing with Demorean defectors. The roleplaying game’s six ‘Event Windows’ are also described here, given a two-page description each, a summary of the military of the period, a short political summary, and stats for major figures of the period. These are broad treatments, but enough to get started, and each was further supported by a decent bibliography for 1984. Lastly, there is some advice for the Continuum Master on how to run the game, including how to switch to parallels rather than the base setting of Earth and its history as we know it. There is no discussion of bringing in elements of fiction as would be done in later releases. It should be noted that much of the contents of the ‘Guide to the Continuum’ can also be read by the players as well as the Continuum Master.

The third and final book in Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is the scenario, ‘Red Ace High’. This is a starter scenario set during the Great War, at the Battle of Cambrais in 1917. The Time Corp has detected a Demorean penetration into the period and sends the Agents back to investigate. Female characters will outfitted to look like men. The Agents arrive just int time to rescue an English officer under assault by some Germans before soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton come to their aid. He enlists them in a plan to reconnoitre a German airfield on the other side of the trenches and it is here that the Agents discover the Demorean plan. The underhanded aliens have armed Manfred von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron, with air-to-surface missiles, and plans to have him use them in the forthcoming battle to destroy the Allied attacks. It is a fun play around with history and definitely action-orientated, including participating and running part of the battle itself. However, it is linear and more experienced players are likely to want to look for means to defeat the Demorean plans than that is suggested.

In terms of design, Time Master aims for a universal mechanic with its TIME MASTER Action Table, and almost succeeds. The problem is that the results are not themselves universal, varying depending upon if the player is rolling a Specific Ability or Skill Check, an armed or unarmed attack, and so on. Plus, every skill has its own set of results, so that mechanically, Time Master, like CHILL feels overwritten and fussy. However, the TIME MASTER Action Table is printed on the back of both the ‘Travelers’ Manual’ and the ‘Guide to the Continuum’ books, so the Continuum Master can refer to the table on the back of the latter, whilst the results of various Specific Skill Checks can be consulted in the former.

Physically, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is very nicely presented boxed set. The cover to the box is eye-catching, being both exciting and intriguing. The artwork is not good or at least not as singularly noticeable as that of CHILL, most of it being publicly sourced rather than commissioned. The writing, and consequently, the rules, suffer in places from being overwritten unfortunately. The work problem is the organisation as certain chapters do feel as if they should be adjacent to each other.

—oOo—

Steve Norledge reviewed Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 61 (January 1985). Initially, he had doubts that a roleplaying game could successfully handle the difficulties of the genre, including needing to have an understanding of the theory of time, the freedom of the players wander through wreaking havoc on history, and the unlimited scope offered by the genre. However, he was impressed, saying that, “Overall, I quite liked Timemaster – it is an unpretentious little game, simple and yet provides the best yet framework for time travel rolegaming. It is eminently suited to the ‘one-off’ style of play, and, yet, with effort, would also be a good campaign game (though it would have a very episodic feel to it).” before awarding it a score of seven out of ten.

It was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 25 (April 1985) by Jim Bambra. Although highly critical of ‘Red Ace High’, which found rushed and flawed, he concluded that, “With its infinite variety of settings Timemaster has a lot of potential. Players can experience many different situations and save the world numerous times over.”

Russell Grant Collins reviewed Time Master in Different Worlds Issue 39 (May/June, 1985) in ‘Game Reviews’. He opened with, “In my opinion, TimeMaster has one of the most workable backgrounds of all the recent time travel games. It deals with a time patrol in the far future which is defending its past from aliens bent on destroying it and freelance time travelers who aren’t careful enough about what their actions are doing to the fabric of time.” before awarding the roleplaying game three out of four stars and finishing with, “The bottom line on this game is that once we got used to the system, my friends and I enjoyed it and plan to play it in the future. It is by no means perfect, but still enjoyable. For those who are interested in that sort of thing, TimeMaster is supposed to be totally compatible with Pacesetter’s other adventure games, Chill and Star Ace.”

Warren Spector reviewed the roleplaying game for Space Gamer Number 75 (July/August 1985), as part of the Featured Review, ‘The Pacesetter Line’. In general, he had issues with the finicky nature of the rules, especially those for combat, but of Time Master in general, he said, “Time travel RPGs seem to be in a mini-renaissance these days. If you’re into this sort of game (and I confess, I’m not), Timemaster may be a good choice. It’s got a fairly interesting unifying theme; the game does an excellent job of making time travel seem plausible, and the “Guide to the Continuum” is a gem. In this most open-ended form of roleplaying, providing players direction is no simple task. Timemaster does a fine job.”

The roleplaying game was reviewed in ‘Gaming’ in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine No. 86 (Mid-December 1984) by Dana Lombardy, whose conclusion was, “Time Master is a well-presented game. Whether you’re just looking for new ideas to incorporate into your current role-games, or want to try a fresh system. Pacesetter’s new game is worth getting.”

It was reviewed by Bruce Probst in ‘Snapshot’ in Breakout: The Australian Gamers’ Quarterly No. 21 (March-May 1986). He was highly critical of the roleplaying game, especially its combat system, highlighting the fact that weapons offer very little variation in terms of damage, the need to refer to the rulebook for every skill use despite the inclusion of the TIME MASTER Action Table, the nature of the background which limited the actions of the Time Agents, and so on. He concluded that, “In summary, I cannot recommend Timemaster unless you are willing to devote a lot of effort to make it work. On the other hand, if you simply enjoy playing a game, without regard to illogical backgrounds and terrible rules, then I can envision Timemaster, as being quite fun. It has a lot of promise; given more thought, it could have been a really great game.”

—oOo—

With its “Join the Time Corps and you can become the Master of Time” tag line and set-up, there is a bracingly simple quality to Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension that appeals straight out of Science Fiction or television. Yet whilst the roleplaying game does set up and have the Player Characters as Time Agents, it hampers the play of Time Master with poor organisation and often fiddley rules requiring the players and the Continuum Master to refer the rulebook despite the fact that everything is rolled on a universal table. Where Time Master does help the players and the Continuum Master is providing clear, simple Laws of Time and Time Corps protocols, that help guide both in playing and running the game without it tipping over into chaos and causality. Ultimately, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension had and has the capacity to be a lot of fun, and make time travel roleplaying accessible, but it does not quite help itself achieve its aims. In the hands of a good Continuum Master, it would be a very different matter.

1984: CHILL

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It is surprising to think, that even two years after its publication, Call of Cthulhu, was the only horror roleplaying game in the industry. Of course, it had its own particular brand of horror, the Cthulhu Mythos, cosmic horror rather than traditional horror. Even though it was not specifically designed to do more traditional types of horror, stats were included for monsters such as vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Soon though, it was followed by roleplaying games that did do the more traditional type of horror. First, Stalking the Night Fantastic, published by Tri-Tac Inc. in 1983, and then by CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown. It was published in 1984 by Pacesetter Ltd., a company set-up by a number of ex-TSR, Inc. employees, including Mark Acres, Troy Denning, and Stephen Sullivan. CHILL was the company’s first roleplaying game and it was designed to evoke the feel and tone of films from the Hammer and AIP and Universal studios and of television series like Kolchak; The Night Stalker. Together with fairly simple mechanics, this made it both accessible and familiar, and then the roleplaying game itself, published as a boxed set, made it even more accessible by presenting the adventure in the box, ‘Terror in Warwick House’, as being playable after only reading the ‘CHILL Introductory Folder’.

In CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown, the Player Characters are members or ‘Envoys’ of S.A.V.E., ‘Societas Argenti Viae Eternitata’ or ‘The Eternal Society of the Silver Way’. Founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1844, this organisation discovered the existence of a highly disciplined source of evil that was not recognised or perceived by the scientific community and set out to establish proof of its existence. S.A.V.E. launched expeditions to locate and study creatures around the world, including dragons, basilisks, ghosts, ghouls, and more. Many such expeditions were failures, adding weight to S.A.V.E.’s fears about it came to call the Unknown. S.A.V.E. changed to become a secret organisation dedicated to investigating, cataloguing, and ending the threat of the Unknown where necessary. Today, its primary goals remain the same, and it helps its Envoys with information, equipment, financial aid, and where necessary, legal aid. In return, the Envoys report what they find back to the organisation’s headquarters outside Dublin and keep what they report, what they find, and what they do secret from everyone else.

All Envoys of S.A.V.E. are able to perceive the Unknown World to one degree or another. Those that can to greater degree are also aware of the Art, the ability to drawn energy from the Unknown and communicate with it. The founders of S.A.V.E. realised the existence of the Art and their successors have codified it into four forms—Communication, Restoration, Protection, and the Evil Way. All Envoys can detect when the Art is used, the traces left behind by creatures and monsters of the Unknown, and when the Evil Way is used. Some Envoys can do more than this, harnessing the disciplines of the Communication, Restoration, and Protection forms to combat the users of the Evil Way and the monsters of the Unknown.

Open the box for CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown and what you will find is the eight-page ‘CHILL Introductory Folder’ marked ‘READ ME FIRST!’, the sixteen-page ‘Terror in Warwick House’ scenario, the sixty-four page ‘CHILL Campaign Book’, and the thirty-two page ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ book. Below this is the double-sided ‘The World of CHILL’ map, a sheet of counters, and a Range Finder. Both map and counters are double-sided. One side of the half-inch square counters depict a range of Player Characters, creatures, and monsters, all in colour, whilst on there are doors, windows, stairs, beds, tables, and other pieces of furniture. On one side of the ‘The World of CHILL’ map is a map of the world marked with various sites of interest like Stonehenge and Tunguska, whilst on the other is a plain squared battle board for handling combat and the floor plans for Warwick House in the introductory scenario. There are also three ten-sided dice in the box.

CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown begins with the ‘CHILL Introductory Folder’. Subtitled ‘Stepping into the Unknown’, this introduces the reader to roleplaying, explains what is in the box, tells him how to use the dice and play CHILL. It includes eight, ready-to-play character cards, and an explanation of the core mechanic. There is a short example of play as well, so that within a few pages, the prospective player is also ready to play, whilst the prospective CHILL Master—as the Game Master is known—is prepared to dive into ‘Terror in Warwick House’ and reader herself to run that. The eight, ready-to-play character cards cover a then diverse range of ages, genders, and races. They consist of a male Caucasian martial arts instructor, a female Asian drama teacher, a Mexican-American college quarterback (infamously with the ‘Throw: Javelin’ skill), a female Caucasian model, a male Caucasian professor of anthropology and archaeology (complete with pipe and safari suit, including pith helmet), a female Caucasian investigative reporter (in the Kolchak: The Nightstalker mode), a male African-American surgeon, and a female Caucasian biology student. One issue here is the terminology, such as using ‘Oriental’ to describe the female Asian drama teacher, which would have been fine in 1984, but is not acceptable as a term now. So, some of the language in CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown has dated, though of course, this is easily addressed in play and it should be made clear that the mix of pre-generated characters was and is well intentioned by the standards of the day.

‘Terror in Warwick House’ is an introductory scenario and the second thing that the CHILL Master needs to look at. The Envoys are all members of S.A.V.E., many of them with links to Severn College. Recently, the college decided that it wanted to knock down a colonial era mansion that has been shut up due to its poor reputation, in order to expand the car park. Unfortunately, two workmen have been killed before the clearance began, and S.A.V.E. suspects that the Unknown is involved. It contacts the nearest Envoys, that is, the Player Characters, and asks them to investigate. The scenario is effectively a nasty haunted house, deadly in places, one which is played like solo adventure, but with the whole group deciding to move between locations or take actions together—and not splitting apart—rather than individually. Throughout, the Envoys will be taunted and haunted, and there are some creepy moments, like the wooden stairs animating as hands and grabbing the ankles of anyone on the stairs, with the players being shown how to roll dice, have their Envoys engage in combat, and detect the Unknown. It is linear and basic, playable in a single session. Which is fine up to a point, as CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is designed for players aged twelve and up, but there is no other scenario in the box. So, nothing more sophisticated for the CHILL Master to run properly for her players after running ‘Terror in Warwick House’ or simply a proper scenario that an experienced Game Master would want to run.

An Envoy in CHILL is defined by Abilities and Skills. He has eight Basic Abilities. These are Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Willpower, Personality, Perception, Stamina, and Luck. These range in value between twenty-six and eighty. The Basic Abilities have various uses, such as the basic chance to hit a target using a firearm for Dexterity, Willpower as the chance to overcome the fear of seeing a monster, Personality to persuade an NPC, Perception to notice things, and so on. Luck has more uses. First off, only Player Characters have Luck as a Basic Ability—NPCs and monsters do not. It is rolled to avoid certain death, spent permanently to avoid being shot, and of course, how fortunate or not, the Player Character according to the whims of the dice. Several other abilities are derived from the Basic Abilities. These include Unskilled Melee, Health, and more. The Basic Abilities can also grant bonuses to an Envoy’s skills.

Skills range in value between forty-one and one-hundred-and-thirty-five, and have a base value derived from a Basic Ability, such as Dexterity for combat skills and Stamina for Swimming, or a number of Basic Abilities which are then averaged. A skill is ranked at either Student, Teacher, or Master, and each provides a flat bonus to the basic skill value. This is either ‘+15’, ‘+20’, and ‘+25’ respectively (the ‘CHILL Campaign Book’ lists this as ‘+15’ for both the Student and the Teacher Rank, which is clearly an error). Some skills as Martial Arts cost double the skill points to acquire. The majority of the skills listed are appropriate for the eighties when CHILL is set and in terms of combat skills, all the way back to the medieval era. However, the only real technical skill available is Mechanics, and there are no skills for electronics or computers, which would feel odd in 1984, let alone today.

To create an Envoy, a player rolls three ten-sided dice, totals and doubles the result, and adds twenty to get the total for each Basic Ability. After working out the derived abilities, the player rolls a single die to determine the number of skill points the Envoy has, between one and five. If the Envoy has a Perception and a Willpower that are both high enough, then he will have a single Discipline in one of the Art. There are a lot of combat skills—including Boomerang slightly fewer professional skills, and very few common skills. The oddest skill is ‘Modelling’, is not making models or modelling a theoretical situation, but more social etiquette combined with the ability to walk poised fashion down a fashion runway… The skills are quite detailed in their use, especially the combat skills. So, although an Envoy starts off with relatively few skills compared to Player Characters in other roleplaying games, this is offset by a player and the CHILL Master needing to know how they work.

Veronica Puckett
Strength 42 Dexterity 66 Agility 60 Willpower 62
Personality 66 Perception 70 Stamina 58 Luck 64
Unskilled Melee Skill: 51
Current Stamina: 58

Skills
History (Student) 66 (81)
Language, Ancient (Student) 66 (81)

ART
Clairvoyant/Prescient Dream 68

Mechanically, CHILL is a percentile system that really uses two types of roll. A General Ability Check is a simple roll against a Basic Ability to determine whether or not an action succeeded or not. A General Skill Check works the same, but for skill use. A Specific Ability or Specific Skill Check is used whenever a more nuanced result is required and the CHILL Master needs to know how many degrees of success were achieved. To do this, the player has to make a successful roll and the Chill Master consults the CHILL Action Table. She subtracts the value of Basic Ability or the Skill being used from the value of the roll and cross references it in the appropriate column on the CHILL Action Table. This will give an outcome that is either a Limited, Moderate, High, or Complete Success. The specific outcome will vary from one skill to the next.

Combat in CHILL also uses the CHILL Action Table. Initiative is handled with a roll of a single die and the winning side then uses the Art, fires missile weapons, moves, and then engages in melee attacks. The defending side has the chance to return missile fire. Once done, the defending does exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, this feels like a wargame rather than a roleplaying game. Attacks can be Specific Ability Check or a Specific Skill Check, depending upon whether or not the Envoy has any skill ranks in the weapon he is wielding. What this means is that making a Specific Ability Check for an attack will give the Envoy a lower chance to succeed and a lower chance to get a better roll, whilst someone with the skill will have a better chance of both. As opposed to Specific Ability and Specific Skill Checks, there is more nuance to possible outcomes. The attacker is rolling to determine the Attack Margin which will cross referenced on the Defence Column. The Defence Column is determined randomly for missile attacks, modified by the defender expending points of Luck or by the defender’s skill for a melee attacks. Unarmed combat results can be Scant Damage, Medium Damage, Harsh Damage, Crushing Damage, or Knockdown, and most of these inflict a loss of Stamina points, but some of these can also inflict a Scratch Wound and a Light Wound. Armed combat results include Scratch Wound, Light Wound, and Medium Wound, all the way up to Critical Wound. These inflict greater Stamina loss and possibly continued Stamina loss, depending on the severity.

For example, Veronica Puckett, investigating a mausoleum in the town graveyard is confronted by a zombie. Veronica, as a member of S.A.V.E., has read about zombies and knows that they are slow and relentless, and that they can be destroyed by a bullet to the brain or having their mouths filled with salt and the mouth shut. In some cases, when chopped apart, she has read that a zombie’s limbs continue to attack. Unfortunately, Veronica does not have a gun, so she will have to improvise. Fortunately, the CHILL Master tells her player that there is a shovel left nearby by one of the graveyard workers, and that because the zombie goes last in the Initiative, she can snatch it up and attack. However, first Veronica has to overcome her fear and her player make a Fear Check.

The Zombie has a FEAR statistic of five. The CHILL Master consults the fifth Defence Column on the CHILL Action Table and Veronica’s player rolls the dice. He rolls ‘10’, which gives a result of ‘M’. Veronica is ‘Mildly Frightened’. She loses five points of Willpower, but can still act. Veronica is going to thack the zombie with her shovel. Unfortunately, Veronica has no combat skills, so is relying on her Unskilled Melee Skill, which is 51. She swings wildly! Very wildly as she rolls ‘02’! This is not the best result that she can get, but it is very close. The CHILL Master deducts the result of the roll from her Unskilled Melee Skill to give an Attack Margin of ‘49’, or ‘H’. This indicates a Heavy Wound, which means that the defender would lose Stamina from the blow and continue to lose Stamina from the wound. Unfortunately, zombies cannot suffer worlds, so just loses 42 points of Stamina—more than half of its total. Fortunately for Veronica, the zombie misses its attack and she decides that it would be good idea to find another way to deal with the undead creature. For that she needs a gun or some friends help her. Before the zombie can attack again, Veronica flees the graveyard.

As well as the individual outcomes and rules for the skills, CHILL includes rules for travel, weather, vehicle movement, poisons, diseases, and more. As a horror roleplaying, it handles scares and their possible outcome through a Fear Check. These are made against an Envoy’s current Willpower and compared to the column on the CHILL Action Table that corresponds to the Fear statistic for the creature or monster. A Failure on the check results in the loss of Willpower and the Envoy fleeing in panic, as do most results to lesser degrees. On an ‘H’ or ‘C’ result, the Envoy is Courageous and overcomes his fear. The rules for animals cover their reaction to fearful situations, especially in reaction to the Evil Way, and also for creating minor and major NPCs, and their possible reactions. This scales up to larger organisations too, in particular, their relation to S.A.V.E. including the civil authorities, the clergy, the press, and more.

The ‘CHILL Campaign Book’ details the Art, the secret weapon has in its arsenal to use against the Unknown and the practitioners of the Evil Way. There are three Forms—Communication, Restoration, and Protection—that members of S.A.V.E. employ, and then there is the Evil Way. Each Form has its own skill, and costs between two and twenty points to use. In addition, a player can also spend points of his Envoy’s Willpower to improve the chances of a Discipline working one a one-for-one basis. The process can be interrupted in combat, and when that happens, the Envoy will also lose any Willpower spent. The amount that can be spent also depends on the Envoy’s current Stamina. Each Form has three Disciplines and each one needs to be learned individually. Although all nine Disciplines are useful, with some like Mental Shield and Sphere of Protection from the Protection Discipline, providing defence against attacks and other dangers, none of the Disciplines are offensive in nature. What this means is the Envoys will need to find another way to defeat the Unknown rather than simply relying upon the Art. In nature, the Art is more psionics than magic.

Penultimately, the ‘CHILL Campaign Book’ provides both a history of S.A.V.E. and a timeline along with an overview of how it operates and how it helps the Envoys. It gives enough details without being overly specific. Lastly, there is advice for the CHILL Master on running the roleplaying games. The advice is decent, covering what the CHILL Master does and what her responsibilities are, plus writing scenarios, maintaining game balance, and using elements of horror. It also suggests using the locations marked on ‘The World of CHILL’ map as potential starting points as they are all sites that S.A.V.E. has sent expeditions to and they failed to return.

The final book in CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’. It describes the Evil Way, the dark counterpart to the Art, as detailed in S.A.V.E.’s own Manual 2B: Devices of the Enemy. Over forty disciplines of the Evil Way are given, from Animation of the Dead, Appear Dead (Self and Other), and Blind to White Heat, Wound, and Write. Categorised into two groupings, Distortion and Subjection, they are forceful and dangerous, and in comparison, to the Art, give creatures, monsters, and practitioners of the Evil Way the edge. Like the disciplines of the Art, those of the Evil Way cost the user Willpower to use, but where an Envoy will have a skill value in individual disciplines of the Art, the user of the Evil Way will have a simple ‘Evil Way Score’.

Nearly two thirds of ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ is dedicated to the Evil Way and descriptions of its disciplines. The remaining presents it monsters, beginning with simple animals, before going on to describe some ten corporeal, incorporeal, and special creatures. They include the Ghoul, the Mummy, Werewolf, and the Zombie for the corporeal, and the Banshee, the Fetch, the Ghost, and the Hate for the incorporeal. The two special creatures are the Changeling and the Vampire. The latter is a simple Carpathian Vampire, the weakest of its kind. Nevertheless, it is still a tough opponent—and indeed, all of the entries in ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ are hardy monsters, drawn from classic horror stories and films, which will be challenging opponents to the Envoys. There can be no doubt that ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ is the highlight of CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown. It is easier to read and use than the ‘CHILL Campaign Book’. Both monsters and the Evil Way are nicely detailed and fantastically illustrated and ready to be used to scare the Envoys, if not their players. If there is anything missing from this list it is the Frankenstein’s Monster type creature and the Witch or Wizard, although it would not be that difficult for the CHILL Master to create them.

CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is something of a misnomer because nothing in its pages and its horror is really ‘unknown’. All of its monsters are known and that is because they are all drawn from common folklore and from their depiction on screen. This gives them a familiarity that potentially makes them less scary and to certain extent breeds the disdain which CHILL would be held at the time as evidenced by the reviews. Of course, Call of Cthulhu was the ‘superior’ horror game. Its Mythos was then unfamiliar, nihilistic, and the protagonists, the Investigators, were fragile amateurs lacking the backing of a worldwide, secret organisation. Yet, what CHILL offered was a broader, though not deeper, choice in terms of its horror. It could do the Gothic horror of classic Americana and Hammer Horror films, it could do ‘monster of the week’, and yes, it could do Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! if you wanted. The familiarity means that in play, the players have to lean into and embrace the genre that much more. They are not necessarily going to be scared by the unfamiliar, but they can roleplay their Envoys being scared by what is otherwise familiar to them as players.

In terms of design, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown aims for a universal mechanic with its CHILL Action Table, and almost succeeds. The problem is that the results are not themselves universal, varying depending upon if the player is rolling a Specific Ability or Skill Check, an armed or unarmed attack, a Fear check, and so on. Plus, every skill has its own set of results, so that mechanically, CHILL feels overwritten and fussy. However, the CHILL Action Table is printed on the back of both the ‘CHILL Campaign Book’ and the ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ books, so the CHILL Master can refer to the table on the back of the latter, whilst the results of various Specific Skill Checks can be consulted in the former.

For a horror roleplaying game, and certainly one written and set in the eighties, there are some odd omissions from CHILL. There is only the one technical skill, Mechanics, and technology is not addressed at all in the roleplaying game. There is neither an equipment list nor even prices given for the weapons it does list. Some of that is due to the fact that S.A.V.E. pays for the Envoys’ expenses whilst they are on an investigation and they each start with standard set of equipment. Nevertheless, from a technological standpoint, CHILL did not and does not feel like a modern-set horror roleplaying game. The advantage to that is that it can easily be shifted from the modern period to earlier periods, and much of the artwork depicts encounters with the Unknown in the Victorian era. Further, CHILL would be just as easy to run in even earlier periods, although that would be outside of the time frame for S.A.V.E.

If ultimately, there is a problem with CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown, it is that it lacks a proper scenario. That is, one that the CHILL Master can run for her players. ‘Terror in Warwick House’ is more like playing a novel—and doing so collectively—than actually playing a proper horror scenario. Without that example scenario to get an idea of what a scenario for CHILL would like, the advice on writing scenarios is consequently underwhelming. That said, the inspirations for the roleplaying game’s designers—the films of Hammer Horror and Universal Monsters—are also inspiration for the CHILL Master and so are a ready source of scenario ideas. This is despite the fact that CHILL does not include a filmography. Instead, its list of suggested reading consists of Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, H. Rider Haggard, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker—and yes, H.P. Lovecraft.

Physically, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is very nicely presented boxed set. The cover to the box is eye-catching and the artwork is excellent, imparting feelings of dread and terror for the poor fortune stuck those situations. This is done by Jim Holloway throughout and it gives the roleplaying game a highly consistent look. The writing, and consequently, the rules, suffer in places from being overwritten unfortunately. The ‘CHILL Campaign Book’ could have slightly organised as certain chapters do feel as if they should be adjacent to each other.

—oOo—

CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown was reviewed in ‘Horribly simple to learn: CHILL will leave you shivering for more’ by Jerry Epperson in Dragon #90 (October 1984). Although critical of the economics rules—or lack of them, and for not exploring options outside of being members of S.A.V.E., his main issue with the included scenario. “Experienced role-players will find that “Terror in Warwick House” is much like a guided tour of a national monument. While it portends to be a dangerous place, one gets the feeling that those who fell victim to the sinister occupants before the player characters were called to the scene were either idiots or invalids. The clues required by the characters to dispose of the evil are practically spoon-fed to the players.” Despite these issues, his conclusion was much positive: “At the risk of seeming to contradict all of the above complaints, it must be said that these problems are not major flaws in the game’s design; any CM should be able to alter them with little effort. All things considered, the CHILL game does just what it sets out to do. It doesn’t stall play with unwieldy rules or sub-systems, and it allows the CM to pace the storyline and preserve the intensity of a situation thanks to the game’s elegant simplicity. As an alternative to dungeon delving, superheroing, or chasing after Cthulhu, the CHILL game is something you can really sink your teeth into.”

As was a common occurrence, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown was reviewed not once, but twice in the pages of Space Gamer. First by William Barton in the ‘Capsule Reviews’ in Space Gamer Number 71 (November/December 1984). He said, “Chill is an impressive and professional first release for Pacesetter and an excellent addition to the genre.” He criticised the turn sequence in combat and did not think that Player Characters started with enough skills, but praised the roleplaying game for its innovations, including the CHILL Action Table. He finished his review by saying, “Still, Chill is a viable alternative in supernatural gaming for those who desire less gunplay than is typical in Stalking or prefer more conventional creatures than the sanity-blasting horrors of CoC.”

Then, as part of an overview of the complete output from Pacesetter Ltd., Warren Spector reviewed CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown in ‘The Pacesetter Line’ as a ‘Featured Review’ in Space Gamer Number 75 (July/August 1985). He highlighted the inclusion of the adventure, ‘Terror in Warwick House’. “This adventure is worthy of comment. Many roleplaying games come packaged with adventures but, as far as I know, Chill is the first to include an introductory folder advising players to begin playing that adventure before they’ve read the rules of the game! To begin, players have only to read a four-page, READ-ME-FIRST! introduction to the rules, pick up the 16-page adventure booklet, and begin playing! And, sure enough, the cockamamie scheme works! The adventure itself is too straightforward and contrived (with CM instructions like “Don't let the players go upstairs yet!” How do you stop them?). But what the heck? At least you don’t have to wait for days while everyone learns the rules.” Although he felt that the mechanics needed work, Spector finished with, “Though superficially simpler than Call of Cthulhu, the clear leader in the horror field, Chill falls somewhat short of the mark.”

No less than Keith Herber reviewed CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown in ‘Games Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 37 (November/December 1984). As with other reviews, he paid particular attention to ‘Terror in Warwick House’, saying that, “For ease of use, this scenario offers a set of pre-generated player-characters that can be used and the adventure itself provides but limited choices for the players the results of these choices being clearly spelled out for the benefit of the novice gamemaster. While this does lead to a more or less predictable conclusion, the purpose of the adventure is to demonstrate the rules of the game and this it does admirably. It also proved to be one of the best introductions to role-playing games I have yet seen. While I might question the saleman’s [sic]claim that a group of beginning gamers can be playing within fifteen minutes of opening the box, it is certain they could enjoy an exciting first time with roleplaying on the same evening that they purchased the game.” Although he was critical of the low number of monsters in the books, especially given that once they have been defeated, the Envoys are no longer subject to Fear effects from them, he was positive about the game overall. “I found Chill to be a well thought-out, well-presented game that simulates the world of horror as represented in (particularly) the movies. The rules are flexible enough and complete enough to allow a gamemaster to set whatever tone or mood he desires his campaign to have and there is a large amount of written and filmed material from which to draw adventure designs.” Lastly, he awarded CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown three stars out of five.

Angus McLellan reviewed CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 61 (January 1985). He too, was critical of ‘Terror in Warwick House’, saying that, “Even for an introductory scenario it's rather slow and distinctly lacking in excitement.” and found the creatures in the ‘CHILL: Horrors from the Unknown’ to be, “…a rather drab bunch of werewolves, vampires, ghouls, etc.” Before award CHILL a surprising score of seven out of ten, he finished with, “To sum up, Chill is ideally suited for beginners, the rules are not crystal clear, but the examples give a good idea of how it all fits together. The horrors are, alas, merely scary, the excitement soon palls, as the players expect more than the trick and tease style terror of Chill. Some hard work from the GM would help but for the money I'd want more than this. With both Call of Cthulhu and Daredevils available at the same sort of price why bother. A few years back this would have shaken the RPG community, now it’s second rate.”

In ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 23 (February 1985), Paul Mason was similarly critical of ‘Terror in Warwick House’. “Unfortunately, the introductory scenario just doesn’t make the grade. Not is it full of arbitrary manipulation (eg ‘Do not allow the players to go up the stars at this time’), but it has omissions, unnecessary repetition and poor explanations in places. I’m dubious of its merits as a means of introducing newcomers to roleplaying.” Nevertheless, in spite of this and objections to sometimes jokey side of the writing, he the review up with, “Still, if you fancy a game of investigation with gothic horror overtones, and you don't much care for H P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, then Chill would be the game to buy.”

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CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is a horror roleplaying game aimed at younger players, in terms of its horror and tone, its choice of monsters and creatures. This makes its horror more accessible and more familiar, which combined with core ease of the rules and CHILL Action Table, make the basics of the game easy to learn and play. CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown emphasises this aspect by having it so that the CHILL Master and her players can open the box, read through the ‘CHILL Introductory Folder’ and then CHILL Master also read through ‘Terror in Warwick House’, and be playing in thirty minutes. However, beyond this, CHILL is not as complete or easy as it should be. The mechanics to the roleplaying game do feel fussy with lots of different skill and action outcomes depending on that the Envoys are doing, which hinders ease of play, and that despite the universal nature of the CHILL Action Table. The existence of S.A.V.E. suggests that CHILL can be played as campaign game, but what that might look like is barely touched upon and worse, the possible foundation for longer term play, a proper, starting scenario is not included.

Ultimately, if CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown feels lighter and tonally different, it is only in comparison to cosmic horror of Call of Cthulhu. It is still a horror roleplaying game, one that deals with the classic monsters of horror, and just as those confronting those can still be enjoyed in prose and on screen, so can confronting those can still be enjoyed in a roleplaying game. As a design, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is not quite as good as it could be, in terms of mechanics or content, but all of the elements are there to make it both playable, enjoyable, and incredibly, initially, highly accessible. Although it deals with classic horror, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown is a very playable horror roleplaying game that falls short of being a classic.