The Other OSR: Bridgetown

In between the Infinite Sky above and the fog-bound depths of the Under below, the Bridge goes ever on. Towns sprawl upwards into dense conurbations of towers as if to touch the Infinite Sky, whilst the narrow sewers and undercities thread in and out of between the Bridge’s great stone piles. Were one to descend below, you might discover labyrinths and hidden facilities, and deeper still, horrors and strangeness beyond the understanding of any Bridger, each fascinated by the Bridgers brave—or foolish—enough to descend so far. Some Spans of the Bridge are busy towns. Some the gated estates of the aristocracy. Some are broken—by accident or by too much theft of the Bridge’s stone and metal, the only source of either, for the Bridgers. Some have buildings upon which there are rooftop gardens—the only source of food for the Bridgers. Some have gone to seed and overgrown into wildernesses, as much as the cobbles of the Bridge will allow. There is said to be a Span on the Bridge where it is perpetual night and another where the Span revolves slowly to connect with the rest of the Bridge once a day. It is also said that the Bridge is alive and some can hear its whispers if they listen carefully enough. In between every Span, stands a Gatehouse. Most are operated by the Turnpike Guild, taking travellers money in return for supposedly safe passage, though most regard the supposedly protective guild members as nothing more than extortionists. From the Awful Birds in the Infinite Sky and the Gargoyles lurking seemingly everywhere, everything is hungry and resources are far from plentiful, and occasionally, something strange will happen on the Bridge, though no one will say what. As the Bridge crumbles underfoot, there are those who look beyond their Span, ready to go in search of… something. The Bridgers are at peace now, thanks to the mythical pact between the Trolls and Gruffolk and Humans and Coblins, so now is as good a time as any for a Bridge-Punk to go look for it, somewhere along Bridgetown.

Bridgetown describes itself as a pastoral, liminal roleplaying game. Liminal certainly, as it is always set somewhere in between along the infinite length of the Bridge. Pastoral? Perhaps, but then only so far as the cobbles of the Bridge allows. Published by Technical Grimoire Games, best known for Bones Deep, it uses the TROIKA!, published by the Melsonian Arts Council, this is a roleplaying game of picaresque adventure and exploration along a weird and winding bridge that never seems to end. It is possible for the players to select backgrounds from the core rules for TROIKA!, but Bridgetown has a dozen of its own that all help enforce the feel of the sitting. These are Coblins, Gruffolk, Humans, and Trolls. The Humans include the Cobble Canter, charlatans who beg and spread the word of new gods and ideas like the Unrequited Moon and the Bleeding Stone; the Fallen Aristocrat who has literally fallen out of his tower and been scored by his fellows; the Pebble-Pincher, the homeless of the Bridgetown, who cheerfully avoids the authorities and might be connected to the mysterious Bindlestick Syndicate; the Stonewright, who can shepherd the spirits of the dead into protective keystones and talk to them; and the Turnpike Turncoat, a member who has been turfed out of the Turnpike Guild. Coblins are tiny folk, who typically travel in very large groups, forced out of their homes following the pact that ended their enslavement, finding homes where they can squeeze into. Coblin Cranny-Crawlers travel more openly, whilst Coblins in a Trench Coat disguise themselves in human-sized clothes. Gruffolk are nomadic goat-folk, travelling in braying groups called trips. The Gruffolk Hostler is on an endless quest to feed his Gruffolk travellers, whilst the Gruffolk Pilgrim searches for the perfect destination, the Fat Pastures, the Gruffolk afterlife, with a zeal, but enjoy a good fight along the way. The Troll Sewer Worker maintains and protects the sewers in the Underbridge, and as a member of the Sewer Union, seeks to unionise other works and stand up against the Turnpike Guild, whilst the Troll Shaman, or ‘Croaker’, who sacrifices part of his own stony hide to cast various spells and cures. Lastly, the Stone Keening is a Troll-sized agglomeration of human souls not syphoned into a keystone by a Stonewright, who have animated a pile of rubble and are mostly looking to avoid getting turned into a pile of gravel by a braying mob or for a quiet place to grow moss.

Bridger creation in Bridgetown follows the same process as TROIKA! begins with character creation. A Bridger is defined by his Skill, Stamina, and Luck. A player rolls for each of these, notes his possessions, and then rolls for his Background. Each Background provides several Advanced Skills, which can be actual skills or they can be spells. The process is quick and easy, and also includes an objective or three that each Background might pursue.

Name: Cumil
Background: Troll Sewer Worker
Skill 4
Stamina 18
Luck 6

ADVANCED SKILLS
Sanitation 7, Swim 3, Awareness 6, Tunnel Fighting 6

SPECIAL
See well in dark tunnels and cloudy water
Inoculated against waterborne diseases

POSSESSIONS
Knife, rucksack, lantern, flask of oil, a grimy shovel, miniature trollhole cover (Sewer Union Badge of Membership), slimeproof ratskin cap, snapstipe mushrooms (three provisions)

LOOK’N FOR
Workers to unionise
A place in need of infrastructure
A real breath of fresh air

Bridgetown is described in twelve locations, such as The Heights (and Depths); Craterton with its massive rock that fell from the Infinite Sky; the Squeeze, which is so densely populated that a single path runs through it; the Great Excavation where the inhabitants have dug down so deep into the Bridge, that Bridgers have to climb down deep into the excavated pylon and climb back out again; and Sourstone, which is not home to the Fabled Candy Cobbled Streets where every stone is a treat, but something much worse… If this does not sound that all that many, they are not necessarily one and done locations. All have tables of events and NPCs, so that the Bridgers can visit certain locations again and again, like The Heights (and Depths) and The Wyld Bridge, which are given over to lengths of wilderness.

Between the spans the Gatehouses, massive blocks of stone manned by the various Turnpike Guilds who always charge extra, or special, for ne’er do wells like the Player Characters. The description of each Gatehouse includes the toll that the Bridgers will have to pay to pass. So, The Armistice Gate has a powerful keystone that enforces a ban against the use of all weapons, so the Turnpike Guildsmen have become expert martial artists and brawlers with a penchant for delivering impromptu sermons! To pass through the Gate, the Toll the Bridgers will need to pay is not monetary, but the gruelling ‘Embrace of Peace’ initiation rite and give up their arms and armour. Locations within the Gate include The Hall of Arms where the confiscated arms and armour—some of them actually a rare source of metal on the Bridge—are displayed and stored and The Path of Peace, the temple-point of crossing where travellers cross from one span to the next.

Essentially, every Span and Gate is an encounter all of its own, each unique in their own way and rife with flavour and small details that bring them to life. They can be played in order as written—and Bridgetown includes a full-colour map that both depicts all of the Spans and Gates and allows the Game Master to do that or alternatively, randomise their order. Bridgetown comes with a way to push the Bridgers along in addition to their individual motivations. This is the campaign starter, ‘Stone Soup’, in which the Bridgers come into possession of the Cauldron, a big iron pot with a smiling face in which can be cooked magical stews! Known recipes are few and ingredients rare, but start with a handful of provisions. Possible stews can be boring, fancy, or tainted, and have odd effects such as a fertile stew that makes anything planted in it grow to fruition in a day, turns into a blade that shatters are dealing maximum damage, or makes anyone eating it grow hungrier and hungrier until he finds what he is looking for. The Fertile Stew requires fresh and magical ingredients, the Bladed Stew needs sharp and old ingredients, and the Curiosity Stew wants dull and secret ingredients. In possession of the Cauldron, the Bridgers might be searching for the cure to a horrible disease, for the Perfect Stew that might be the best means of exchange to pass through the many Gates, and so on. The more immediate driver will be the search for more ingredients and recipes, and Bridgetown has lots of information about ingredients and recipes.

Of course, in addition the Game Master can create her Spans and Gates—in fact, a book of reader submitted Gates and Spans would be an excellent companion volume—and she can add her own dungeons to the Under below the Bridge or even insert a ready-to-play one! In addition to the events and NPC tables to be found in most of the Span locations, Bridgetown includes spells linked to the Bridge which require the caster to be touching the Bridge directly and to possess a Spell-Stone. Every Spell-Stone has its own Stamina, which is expended when a spell is cast and crumbles to dust when all of the Stamina is expended. However, overuse of magic in an area causes a Span to weaken and also begin to crumble… Spells include Word on the Street when the caster literally asks the street underfoot what has happened there recently or Stonewall to create a physical wall to slow pursuers or a metaphysical wall to cause obtuse instructions in getting answers! There are further random tables for ‘Weird Weather’, more ‘Bridgetown NPCs or Creatures’, the effects of ‘Magical Spells Run Amok’, ‘Items and Loot’, ‘Awful Birds’, and more.

Physically, Bridgetown is cleanly laid out and accessible. It is clearly designed to be used at the table. The artwork is a mix of the twee and the odd and the doleful, a delightful combination.

As befitting a setting for TROIKA!, there is a weirdness and whimsiness to Bridgetown. In terms of scope, it is designed for short campaigns that would likely take the Bridgers across many of the Spans and through several of the Gates described in its pages, in addition to whatever the Game Master devised of her own. In terms of character, Bridgetown offers some wonderfully engaging choices, but the real character is the Bridge itself, a combination of the original London Bridge and Castle Gormenghast that looms over the Bridgers in their Dickensian flânerie as they in turn trudge and cavort from one Span to the next.

[Fanzine Focus XXXV] Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine

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

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

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine does something different and interesting. Published in 2019 by Technical Grimoire Games, best known for Bones Deep, it takes a campaign to the Southeast coast of the United States, specifically during the early half of the nineteenth century. This is a land of shifting, disappearing and reappearing Barrier Islands running along the coast, of marshes low and high, of sandbars, and the thick Pluff Mud which often rings them, hindering progress between them. Or at least the idea and the romance of them, rather than being specific. It incudes tables to create them and populate them with interesting features, a complete mini-point-crawl, and details of often eerie creatures to be encountered along the Barrier Islands and magical gewgaws and knickknacks to found and even bought. It is inspired by the region and its mythology, but it is ahistorical rather than specific. What this means is that the fanzine avoids the complexities and sensitivities of the history, whilst still acknowledging that they exist, and has rightly employed a sensitivity reader in order to do so. What remains is a moody, sense of isolation and strangeness lost in mist-soaked islands.

The fanzine begins with an ‘Island Generator’ that with a roll of twenty-sided die four times lets the Game Master create islands of her own, including their size, environment, and name. It is quick and easy, so that together with an explanation of the possible environments—sandbar, marshland, rocky, forested, structures, and other—the Game Master can have her string of islands with a handful of rolls. The ‘other’ option includes anything odd or weird that the Game Master deems, but an accompanying table suggests haunted islands, prison islands, cannibal islands, and more.

The centrepiece of Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is ‘Island Crawl: An Adventure For LVLs 1-2’. This details four Barrier Islands, running from north to south, from the last major settlement on St. Erasmus down to Wildys, once a hunting reserve belonging to a foreign sorcerer, but now gone to seed and populated by exotic and magically augmented creatures. In between, Backwater Bay on Aloyin is rife with pirates, including Captain Seymour Foy, whose ship is pulled by a chained kraken, upsetting the other pirates, and Fort Assumption, a former military installation, then former plague hospital, still said to be manned by the spirits of those who died there. There are only a handful of locations per island, but they are nicely detailed, just enough to intrigue the Game Master, but with room aplenty for the Game Master to add her own content.

Travel and time across the islands is nicely handled. Each day is divided into six four-hour increments called watches. The trail between one location and another can be traversed in a single watch, but getting across country takes longer. Accompanying detailed locations are a pair of splendid encounter tables, one for ‘Coastal Encounters’, one for ‘Inland Encounters’. Every entry consists of two elements, the encounter itself, and an ‘Omen’, a harbinger of what the Player Characters are about to encounter. For example, whether the chest they discover is an actual buried chest or a mimic, the indication of metal and wood above the mud, and the smell of salt, timber, and rust presages its discovery. These signs add to the atmosphere and mood of the Barrier Islands, enforcing their sense of difference and separation, and perhaps worrying the Player Characters as they begin to recognise the Omens and what they mean.

The ’Creatures’ article has just the six entries. They include the Boohag, a scrawny, mean-tempered old by day, bloody red skinless spirit by night, that like La Llorona, rides sleepers at night to steal their breath; the Plat-Eye, a shifting shadow with one large eye that sometimes takes the form of a dog and attempts to lead you astray and away from any treasure it guards; and Tommy Rawbones, a maniacal skeleton with tattered skin and too many teeth which particularly lies the taste of liars and children. Another mysterious denizen of the region is the ‘Low Tide Merchant’, which wanders the Barrier Islands at low tide, carrying an assortment of strange and useful items, that if he likes you, will let you purchase, such as an island map or ghost flintlock (one shot, kills anyone, but they return to haunt their killer!). Not all of the goods will truly benefit the purchaser, or in the case of spells, work quite as accurately as they are supposed to, so buyer beware when it comes to perusing the wares that he carries in his burlap sack.

Lastly, ‘Magic Items’ describes some six magical items particular to the Barrier Islands. These include ‘Sticking Chaw’, a chewing tobacco as black as tar with the stench of sulphur that when chewed makes the teeth black and creates a wad that can be spat at a distant target to encase and bind a target like a Web spell or a Raccoon Baculum, a very reliable love charm that enhances Charm effects which is made out of the phallic bone of a raccoon!

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is a thoroughly engaging fanzine, but it is not complete. There are a couple of issues that it does not address. For example, it uses the terms ‘Haint’ and ‘Root Doctor’, but it never explains what these are. In this way, it feels underwritten and waiting for more detail. It also feels underwritten in that the Game Master will need to develop the included ‘Island Crawl: An Adventure For LVLs 1-2’, especially given that it lacks hooks or objectives.

Physically, Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is very nicely done. It is fantastically illustrated and the cartography is very good.

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine was published the same year as Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and it would actually make a fantastic setting for that roleplaying given that both have the Player Characters engage with the local folklore. In addition, two other roleplaying supplements have been published since that explore the folklore of the United States of America—Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game and Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse. Could either of them be extended out of the mountains and forests as far as the coast? Then again, Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine need not work with a fantasy Old School Renaissance retroclone. For example, Into the Odd would work very well with it, as would any Pirate-themed roleplaying game.

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is sadly the first and only issue. It is a pity, because it promises and hints at so much with an eerie mystery and salt-soaked mud flats just waiting for the tide to rush in. With no more issues to come, it is perhaps the Game Master’s task to do more for it with her own content than the publisher will.

Reviews from R’lyeh Post-Christmas Dozen 2022

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

—oOo—

Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop
Unbound ($40/£30)
Written by Sir Ian Livingstone with Steve Jackson, Dice Men is not a history of Games Workshop, but rather a memoir of its founding and first decade or so by the founders of the company, whose dedication and hard work would propel the both of them and the company to the forefront of the gaming hobby in the United Kingdom. The company went from producing wooden puzzles and games and importing the first copies of Dungeons & Dragons direct from E. Gary Gygax to a licensee for numerous roleplaying games, including Call of Cthulhu, MERP, and Stormbringer, and publishing its own titles such as Golden Heroes and Judge Dredd the Roleplaying Game—plus of course, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The authors have delved deep into their archives and their memories to bring forth a fantastic array of photographs and treasures, and thus the book is a lavishly illustrated coffee table book that will bring back memories of a certain age.

Frontier Scum: A Game About Wanted Outlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier
Games Omnivorous ($25/£19.99)
This Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game takes criminals to the Lost Frontier, an Acid West hallucination of the Wild West, in which the Player Characters must survive the weirdness, uncertainty, and loss, all of which infuses the landscape and its promise of renewal subverted by avarice and ambition. The Player Characters are desperate outlaws, at best searching for redemption, at worst trying to survive in what is a deadly game—especially gunfights. Fortunately, every Player Character can survive at least one gunshot by having his hat shot off! The roleplaying game includes the full rules and a setting, more enough for a mini-campaign. The Frontier Scum book itself is brilliantly done as a plain matte board book and a spine with no cover that makes the glue visible. The layout inside is thematically done as a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue, which is absolutely perfect for the look and feel for Frontier Scum. This is a startlingly different version of the Wild West and Frontier Scum brilliantly brings it alive!

Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
Chaosium, Inc. ($44.99/£39.99)
Regency Cthulhu takes Call of Cthulhu into the late Georgian period and an age of manners and propriety when everyone—including the Investigators—is expected to conform to societal norms, and woe betide to anyone who does not, including those prepared to investigate the Mythos and cosmic horror. The supplement provides a good introduction to the period and a guide to playing good gentlemen and good gentlewomen, including rules for new Occupations, place in society, and Reputation, the latter actually working as the equivalent of Social Sanity! It supports this with a complete setting in the form of a rural Wiltshire town with lots of secrets and two good scenarios set in and around the town, which invite the Investigators to various social events and then hint at strange things going on in and round the town. Both setting and rules highlight the tension between a highly conservative and stratified society and the need to investigate the Mythos and the consequences of doing so, all of which serves to bring out the Regency period’s roleplaying and storytelling potential.

The Electrum Archive Issue #1
Emiel Boven & CULT OF THE LIZARD KING ($26/£20)
The Electrum Archive Issue #1 introduces us to the Science Fantasy world of Orn where the descendants of survivors transplanted by the ancient starfaring civilisation known as the Elders (who have long since disappeared) survive and explore the Elder ships which crashed to the surface and buried themselves in the surface of the planet long ago. The Player Characters—Fixers, Vagabonds, and Warlocks—search the wilderness for signs of Elder technology and Elder Ink. As Elder Drops, Elder Ink is a currency, but when vaporised and inhaled by Warlocks, it expands the mind and enables users to enter the Realm Beyond and cast spells known by the Spell Spirits. And the spells themselves are entirely random in their name and effect, so every Warlock’s spells will be different. The Electrum Archive Issue #1 comes with lots of flavour and detail, and includes six detailed regions complete with the plot hooks and events that will keep a gaming group busy for multiple sessions. The Electrum Archive Issue #01 is a great introduction to what is a weirdly inky, baroque, and alien planetary romance.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Days of Wonder ($80/£60)

From the designers of Flamme Rouge, the board game of cycling ‘Grand Tours’, Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a board game of tense car races in which drivers jockey for position, manage their car’s speed and energy, requiring careful hand management of movement cards to ensure they can keep ahead of the pack and if not that, then at least, keep up. The base game is fast and furious, with a real sense of speed as the cars career around corners and accelerate onto the straights, but expansions and advanced rules add weather, road conditions, and events, which can make even a single race more challenging, let alone a whole championship. Designed for solo play or up to six players, Heat: Pedal to the Metal can be played by the family, but the expansions will appeal to petrolheads and board gamers alike as it lets the players race like it was in the sixties!

The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings
Free League Publishing ($49.99/£45)

The new edition of The One Ring moves the highly-regarded roleplaying game set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth two decades on and the focus from Rhovanion, the region to the East of the Misty Mountains, to Eriador, the region to the West of the Misty Mountains. The One Ring Starter Set began with The Shire, but the new rulebook explores far and wide beyond its borders as well as tidying and streamlining the mechanics. The Player Characters step out into the wilderness to find adventure and perhaps curb the influence of the Shadow which threatens to sow chaos and undermine society as its forces search for signs of the One Ring. This has all been redesigned in a style and look that echoes that of the classic editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy published by Allen & Unwin, and has a more scholarly feel as if Bilbo himself sat down to write it himself.

Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made
Aconyte Books ($29.95/£24.95)
Board games have come a very long way in the last quarter of a century, but as authors James Wallis and Sir Ian Livingstone explored in Board Games in 100 Moves, their history goes much further back than that. Now James Wallis returns to explore the history of board games from a different angle—through the boxes, boards, cards, and meeples of the annual Spiel des Jahres winners in Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made. This is a history of some of the best games ever published—as well as some of the near misses—that tracks the massive rise in popularity of the board game as well as the themes, the changes in design, and trends in the hobby in that time. This is a great read for anyone who loves board games and wants to know more about them and the genesis of the hobby. Beautifully illustrated with many titles from the author’s own collection and engagingly written, this is the history book that board gamers will want on their shelves.

Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence
Osprey Games (£25/$35)
What if by 1510, Niccolò Machiavelli, the military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had persuaded Leonardo da Vinci to stick to engineering rather than painting? What use could the genius’ designs have been put to in the defence of the republic? Now armed with primitive computers run on water clocks, spring-powered tanks capable of withstanding any cavalry charge, their canons blasting way left and right, and gliders flit across the perfectly blue Tuscan skies delivering messages, intelligence, and reports of troop movements to the city and her military commanders. The Republic of Florence is once again a growing power, but her neighbours are jealous of the new technology and the question is, just how much information is being controlled and compute by the calculating devices. Gran Meccanismo is a Clockpunk roleplaying game of intrigue, invention, and war—no surprise since the Player Characters might find themselves crossing wits with Machiavelli, avoiding the charms of Lucretia Borgia, and entering into philosophical discussions with da Vinci himself! Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence combines fast-playing, easy to grasp rules with a setting that not only can genuinely be called unique, but one to which your first response should be, “That’s a cool idea!”

Bones Deep

Technical Grimoire Games ($30/£30)
Bones Deep begins with a genuinely weird premise—that after you die your skeleton hatches from your corpse and goes in search of a near life and to find itself as far away as possible, on the sea floor. Literally, ‘bones deep’. Together the skeletons explore the strange, often lightless realms of the sea floor, armed with a few skills, a little magic, and a desire to both own and create some memories of their own. Bones Deep is packed full with a briny bestiary and descriptions of some twenty locations, including ‘The Bottom of the Barrel’, a meeting place for undersea creatures specially constructed with an air half and a water half so that crabs, fish, wizards, witches, skeletons, and any other creatures can meet in safety, stories, and more. This is a fantastic undersea sand crawl which uses the simple mechanics of Troika!, but takes into account the very different physics of the bottom of the ocean. 

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One
Rebellion Unplugged (£40)
Remember the good old days when you could arrest Judge Death for the crime of Littering? It was possible in the classic Judge Dredd board game designed by Ian Livingstone and published by Games Workshop in 1982. Rebellion Unplugged brought this fondly remembered game back in 2022 allowing players to return to the streets of Mega-City One and bring the law to its 800 million citizens. Their task is to respond to crimes and their perpetrators, making arrests, and proving themselves to be the most productive Judge—and so win the win. The original game involved lots of luck and plenty of intervention by the other players in an attempt to stop a player and his Judge from arresting high value criminals and crimes. The original game has bags of theme, but its high luck and high player intervention make it very much an Ameritrash design. The new edition—some forty years on since the release of the original—keeps the same game play, but adds extra rules which bring more detail and depth to game, including Specialist Judges such as Cadets, Special Judge Squad, PSI-Judge, and more. The result is that players can play the game like they remember or use the new rules for a new experience. Either way, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is a light, highly thematic, and most of all, fun board game that fans of the iconic law man of the future will thoroughly enjoy.

Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons
St. Martin’s Griffin ($29.95/£22.99)
If one of the most interesting histories of roleplaying and TSR, Inc. in particular, was 2021’s The Game Wizards by Jon Peterson, then arguably its counterpart and equal was 2022’s Slaying the Dragon by Ben Riggs. The Game Wizards charted the first half of the TSR, Inc.’s history and Slaying the Dragon explored the second half from the ousting of E. Gary Gygax and takeover by Lorraine Williams through to the company’s purchase by Wizards of the Coast. It is a fascinating tale of missed opportunities and mismanagement of property after property in a failed search to find that one thing that would transcend the publisher beyond its roleplaying origins. It is not a definitive history of the company during this period, since Lorraine Williams is not interviewed, but nevertheless this is an engaging read from start to finish, providing anecdotes and insight down the path to TSR, Inc.’s sad ending.

Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Volume I
MacGuffin & Co. (£34)
Technically, if you are going to cheat on a list of the best games of 2022, then you had better make sure that the  recommendation you cheat with, is worth it—and Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Volume I is definitely worth it. This hidden gem is contains not one, not two, but eleven, fully supported, mini-campaigns, all systems agnostic and all lasting no more than four sessions (but can go on longer if you want). Covering a diverse range of genres, including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Christmas campiness, and all sorts of weirdness. Religions done as start-ups, complete with a OSE or ‘Oracle Spiritual Exchange’ tracking the number of worshippers, essentially The Big Short, but literally with faith. Soul retrieval from the dead across the Solar System in Ghostbusters meets Office Space. Evil Wizard’s staff and familiars filling in for him after the wizard is killed. Nuns seconded in disgrace to an abbey in France which might just stand over a pit or it might stand over a hell pit in Seventies hellish horror. And what if Atlantis, after it sunk, became the Las Vegas of under the sea? Deep One mobsters anyone? Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Volume I is a superb collection of ideas and set-ups, offering shorter, more focused, and engaging campaigns that can go on for as quick as you or as long as you want, and for the game system you want.

Subaquatic Skeletal Adventure

When you die, your skeleton’s duty is ended and it hatches, leaving its fleshy, but rotting shell behind, and goes in search of both refuge and self. Some never make it. Some are buried too deep. Some are cremated. Some fall into the clutches of necromancers and some are destroyed by torch and pitchfork wielding villagers. Others though do find their consciousness and refuge, far away from the world of both Humanity and oxygen. Under the sea, on the ocean floor where they make new lives for themselves amidst the Sulphur Spires, along the Reef Roads, in the Final Shipyard, and at The Bottom of the Barrel. (It is a meeting place for undersea creatures specially constructed with an air half and a water half so that crabs, fish, wizards, witches, skeletons, and any other creatures can meet in safety.) They must deal with the mercantile Crab Cabal whose members always know what your credit rating is, Sleep Jelly (fish) that steals a Skeleton’s memories, and the oh so silent Cephalopods—so silent that they surely have to be planning something, as well as the occasional Wizard who descends into the ocean depths to continue his studies. In this strange world, the skeletons explore the ocean floor, walking, rather than swimming as they are no longer encased in the flesh which would give them buoyancy, climbing underwater mountains and ridges, absorbing the memories of those they touch to learn more about the oceanic world around them, making new memories for themselves. They are truly Bones Deep…

Bones Deep is a subaquatic setting for Troika!, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness published by the Melsonian Arts Council. Published by the Technical Grimoire Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a toolkit to run adventures on the bottom of the sea, sandbox fashion, in which Skeletons explore a whole new world, discover its secrets, get involved in the various sea factions and their feuds, and begin to make a new life for themselves. Inspired by real deep-sea life, it combines this with strange fantasy to present twenty locations, such as the Graveyard Lake or Kelp Forest; some fifty creatures, including Otters, Shark Hydras, and Witches; and some thirty-six spells, all ocean themed, like Air Bubble, Coral Shaping, and Undertow. It includes a handful of stories to help start a campaign, including finding out what the secret plans of the Cephalopods are, curing Wizards, repairing the Sunken Barge—a space barge which fell to the Earth and crashed into the sea, and is now occupied by a Necromancer! The Sunken Barge is one of the few mapped locations in Bones Deep.

Given that Bones Deep is written for use with Troika!, it should be no surprise that Skeletons in the setting are lightly defined, primarily by their Skills, Backgrounds, Abilities, and Drives. A Skeleton is first defined by his Background. There are six in Bones Deep. The Newborn is recently hatched, learns skills quickly, and is confused with flesh still clinging to his bones. The Carver turns to scrimshaw in pursuing the deepest of arcane secrets, channelling magic through the runes he carves into his bones. The Keeper misses the sensations of his former flesh and so offers his ribcage, skull, and the kelp on his arms as home for various creatures who will follow his commands. The Junker remains fascinated with technology and tools, so salvages debris from the seabed and tinker with gadgets it embeds into his bones. The Shifter has realised that just as his Skeleton is no longer limited by its former fleshy home, his bones are no longer limited to the humanoid form, so with effort shift into different forms which possess different skills. The Infested not only recalls his hatching with horror, he is also home to a squirming parasite that changes him, torments him, and wants it to consume him.

Skeleton creation itself is very simple. A player selects or rolls for a Background, notes down the details, and that is it. He can however, also roll on the ‘Skeleton Generator’ table at the back of the book to determine whether his Skelton is spooky or scary, and what Allegiances, Conditions, Past Life Memories, Clothing, Fleshy Life Skills, Drives, and Quirks he has. These are all optional, intended primarily for use with NPCs, but useful here.

Wilf

Background: Junker

Base Skill: 4

Stamina: 19

Luck: 9

Drive: To Salvage

SKILLS

5 Taking Things Apart

2 Inventing

2 Spell – Torpedo Throw

2 Spell – Protection from Rain

1 Gadget Fighting

POSSESSIONS

Tinkering Tools, Flowlantern, 3 Flares, Old Coat Rack, Umbrella, Gadget – Bounding Shield, Gadget – Charged Wrench

Mechanically, Bones Deep makes only a few changes to Troika! Drives replace the standard means of healing Stamina and recovering Luck, whilst Stamina becomes even more important than usual. It represents a Skeleton’s energy, motivation, and will to keep going. Whilst a Skeleton no longer has the needs of his former fleshy coating—oxygen and food, love and intimacy—he can still suffer damage. Bones can be broken, crushed, burned, and fall under the influence of necromancy. Spells also cost Stamina to cast. The major ability that every Skeleton possesses is being able to absorb memories. This is a Luck test and if successful, the Skeleton can learn about an object’s past, a creature’s emotions, and the recent changes to an environment. He can also communicate with fish using the same method. However, if a Skeleton fails to absorb a memory, he suffers a Memory Mishap, which can lead to the loss of memories, spells, or other weirdness.

The bulk of Bones Deep can really be divided into two long sections. Almost a third is devoted to a lengthy bestiary of fish, cephalopods, cetaceans, crustations, and jelly fish, plus witches and wizards. Whereas over two thirds of Bones Deep is dedicated to various locations, which run from the Jungle and Silt Rivers and along the Shore Line to Sulphur Spires and Sargasso. Each location includes a description, an associated table of events or things which can be found there, plus nearby locations. For example, at the Graveyard Lake, the table is ‘2d6 Things Dredged from the Lake’. One location is mapped out in detail, the Sunken Barge, but there is a table of encounters too, plus several stories that the Game Master can develop into fuller scenarios.

Physically, Bones Deep is cleanly and tidily presented. All of the undersea creatures are very nicely presented and the writing never less than engaging or interesting. In the particular, the book is full of small details bring the setting to life. For example, the Air Bubble spell creates a bubble of air that can choke a water breather or drag someone to the surface because of its buoyancy or the Teleport spell that underwater that leaves behind a vacuum that causes a shockwave when the caster teleports and compression when he arrives at the desired location that forces him away from the intended destination. Both spells take into account the physics of the subsea environment. All of the creatures have a ‘Mien’ table which determines their behaviour, which for example would be practicing Swordplay, Practising Pacifism (Badly), Swordfighting (Angry), Swordfighting (Mating), Swordfighting (You), and “You talkin’ to me!?” for the Blade Eel, a creature created by the Necromancer “as a living pun”. These various tables lend themselves to a game designed to be run with a minimum of preparation—that is, once a game is got going.

Bones Deep does not have a starting point. There is no beginning scenario, and for all of its atmosphere and flavour and detail, instead of there being a way into the game and setting, the Player Characters just are. Which for a setting as odd as this is a potential problem for some players and their Game Masters. There are plenty of adventure hooks within its pages, but not an easy starting point. Similarly, there is no break between sections in the book. Flip over from one page and you find yourself in a completely different section of the book, going the section on spells to the one on creatures. It is disconcerting.

Bones Deep explores a brilliantly alien world brought to life. It could easily be adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice, but as a Troika! supplement, it is pleasingly self-contained, but could work as a region for Player Characters to explore as part of a Troika! campaign. On its own, Bones Deep is a weird and wonderful and wet standalone campaign setting.