Manners, Magic, & Machination

Lyonesse is a lost land, a kingdom out of Celtic and Arthurian legend to the west of France and the British Isles said to have slipped under the waves late in the eleventh century in just a single night. Adherents of Christianity say that the drowning was divine wrath as punishment for the islanders’ unvirtuous living, but in truth, the inhabitants of the Elder Islands were always reluctant to accept the new faith’s spread from the lands to the East. None more so than the islands’ halflings—or fae—in their fairy shee (or grottoes) in the Great Forest of Tantravelles, their very power preventing Christianity from gaining a foothold, whilst the ordinary men and women of the Elder Isles embraced a great many other faiths. This was before the islands’ submergence, when its Ten Kingdoms and petty duchies and baronies feuded with each other, knights sought to embody the code of chivalry, wooing fair noble women, and competing in tournaments major and minor; wizards and witches explored the limits of their knowledge in the Elder Isles and otherworldly realms, whilst being bound by the Great Edict of Murgen—the most powerful of the surviving Elder Islands’ arch-mages—which forbade them from involving themselves in the petty politics of the Elder Isles, but not from meddling in the affairs of each other; and flimflammers and mountebanks slinked from village to village, enjoying the best that each has to offer for the least amount of effort—or the best scheme they can run. It is the events which took place in the Elder Isles during the Fifth Century that are perhaps the best known, when the ambitious King Casmir of Lyonesse sought to defeat and conquer the nine rival kingdoms, in particular, the island kingdom of Troicinet and its king, Aillas. These tales—and others—are chronicled in the fantasy novels, Lyonesse, The Green Pearl, and Madouc—better known as the Lyonesse Trilogy by author Jack Vance. They and their setting are also the subject of a roleplaying game from The Design Mechanism.

Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance is a hefty tome which enables the Storyteller and her players and their characters to explore the Elder Isles and get involved in the intrigues, plots, rivalries, and conniving between the kingdoms and their lords, between those of rival magic users, court lords and ladies, adventure on quests great and small, get caught up in the taunts and clutches of the faery, or simply go in search of a really good cup of tea and slice of cake—if not pickled brawn and mashed bean sprouts in a robust nigella sauce, followed by fried grayling fish with sautéed pollock drizzled with a white wine nettle sauce. In addition to being able to randomly determine the landlord of the inn or eatery where the Player Characters are dining, as well as what they are eating—feasts are an important feature of life in the Elder Isles, Lyonesse introduces the Elder Isles and gives a synopsis of the three novels, explores the Ten Kingdoms via a lengthy gazetteer, examines their society and religion, presents rules for the magic of the Elder Isles, and more. The book is over five hundred pages long and whilst somewhat unwieldy, is undeniably comprehensive.

The comprehensiveness begins with a history of the Elder Isles followed by a guide to the Ten Kingdoms of the Elder Isles—Blaloc, Caduz, Dahaut, Dascinet, Godelia, Lyonesse, North Ulfland, South Ulfland, Pomperol, and Troicinet, as well as two others, Scola and Skaghane, the latter a separate island whose forces recently invaded North Ulfland and South Ulfland, an event which prefigures the events of the trilogy. It details the location, climate, and geography of each, history and background, government and economy, culture and people, notable places, and lastly, each kingdom’s role in the Lyonesse Saga and situation during each part of the trilogy. Each is accompanied by a map of the kingdom taken from the larger map of the isles. As well as all of this information, this gazetteer offers extra details, such as the Royal Honours of Lyonesse, the strange and isolationist Isle of Tark where women are never seen—this is because all of them are vampires and reside underground where their superior enables them to mine for precious metals, a discussion of political campaigns—Lyonesse being a hotbed of political intrigue—along with a table of villainous plots! Not every kingdom is accorded this extra information, but this, of course, is a reflection of the source material. Throughout though, there is a wealth of details here, from the weird and the wonderful to the mundane and the ordinary, even down to highlighting the inconsistencies in the Lyonesse Trilogy itself. Those aside,  there is plenty of information around which the Storyteller can build a story or scenario idea or a player could create his character.

The chapter on the society and religion of the Elder Isles makes clear that the inhabitants of the Ten Kingdoms are a melange, settled wave after wave of different peoples—Danaans, Galatians, Greeks, Lydians, Celts, and more. They were followed by Romans who only settled but did not conquer, Greek and Phoenician traders came, as did British and Irish settlers, the Celts having a strong influence in the Elder Isles. They are a welcoming people, with a strong sense of hospitality, their Roman blood making them cautious with money, their Greek blood granting them silver tongues and quick wits. As well as explaining everything from their social classes, morality, and law and justice to language, coinage, aesthetics, and education and science, the chapter details the numerous cults and religions to be found on the island, to be seen in the isles’ innumerable hidden temples, graven idols, standing stones carved with mysterious glyphs, and unknown tombs whose constructions methods have long been lost, plus songs, dances, place-names, and folk-tales that suggest a land of forgotten gods and dead priesthoods. The faiths include the Court of Dead Gods, Etruscan Rites, the Druid Faith, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Mithraism, all of which are described in detail and include a Faith bonus should any character—Player Character or NPC—be an adherent to one religion or another.

By default, all characters in Lyonesse are human—guidelines in the Bestiary provide the means to create Halfling Player Characters. The process of character generation begins by rolling dice to determine base attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma. From these are derived several factors. These include the expected Damage and Experience Modifiers, Healing Rate, Height and Weight, Hit Points, Strike Rank, and so on, but to these are added Action Points, spent to act in combat, and Luck Points, used to give a character an edge, whether to reroll a dice roll, swap the tens and units of a percentile roll, to mitigate damage or unfavourable circumstances, or to gain a vital advantage in combat. Each character also receives the same set of standard skills, the base value for each one determined adding two attributes or doubling a single attribute.

Beyond the base character, a player takes his character through four steps. In the first, he rolls for or selects an Origin and a Culture—Celtic, Hybras, Ska, or Itinerant, which will provide one hundred skill points to assign to various standard skills, professional skills, and a Combat Style. The latter represents skill in fighting a number of weapons and  an associated trait, for example, the Dagger, Sling, and Bow weapons and the Skirmishing Trait for the Hunter Combat Style. Next, the player rolls for a Background Event—this providing a story element or motivation for the Player Character, determines his community ties—mostly derived from his social class, and in the third, he selects an actual Profession as well as assigning another one hundred skill points to its related skills. Some professional skills come from a character’s Culture; the others come from his choice of Profession. A character’s choice of culture also sets the careers available to him. For example, Crafter, Fisher, and Hunter are available to all four Cultures; Courtesan and Alchemist to Hybras only; and Wise Man/Woman to Celt, Ska, and Itinerant. Although the base values for both types of skills are determined by a character’s attributes, the granting of the same number of skill points throughout the process serves to balance character generation. Lastly, he assigns a further one-hundred-and-fifty skill points as bonus skill points.

In addition, a character has several Passions—loyalties, beliefs, and feelings towards someone or something, that are again measured as percentiles and which work in a similar fashion to the Personal Traits of the King Arthur Pendragon RPG. They also do something more though in that they can serve as a resisting value or to give a bonus to an action if said action is dramatically appropriate to the Passion. For example, a character who is subject to a seduction attempt could use the love of his wife to resist the attempt, whilst later he might use the same Passion to grant a bonus to a bow shot to strike a villain who has his wife in grasp and is threatening to kill her.

Ublaf the Unbelievable is a street poet and performer who ran away to Twissamy rather than work on the family farm, something that neither of his siblings have forgiven him for. Although he always had a fascination with stories—especially ones involving fairies, his family always saw it as a distraction from work, he learnt much from the travelling troupe of entertainers he joined. Not just performing skills, proving a reasonable poet and orator, but also how to seduce others—of any gender, and so make life easier for himself. He has had a string of lovers and received and pawned various fine gifts, but thoroughly enjoys such encounters that he wants more and more! One day, he might even seduce a fairy king or queen!

Ublaf the Unbelievable
Age 24
Profession: Entertainer

STR 12 CON 11 SIZ 11 DEX 08 INT 11 POW 12 CHA 15

Action Points: 2 Damage Modifier: -1d2 Experience Modifier: +1 Healing Rate: 2

Hit Points
Head 3 Chest 5 Abdomen 4 L. Arm 2 R. Arm 2 L. Leg 3 R. Leg 3

Initiative Bonus: +10
Luck Points: 2
Magic Points: 12
Movement Rate: 6

Standard Skills:
Athletics 30%, Boating 23%, Brawn 33%, Common Tongue 26%, Conceal 30%, Customs 62%, Dance 33%, Deceit 56%, Drive 20%, Eloquence 75%, Endurance 22%, Evade 16%, First Aid 19%, Folklore 32%, Influence 45%, Insight 48%, Perception 23%, Ride 20%, Sing 37%, Stealth 19%, Swim 23%, Unarmed 20%, Willpower 34%

Professional Skills:
Acting 60%, Art (Poetry) 57%, Courtesy 56%, Literacy 45%, Lore (Fairy) 52%, Oratory 57%, Seduction 56%, Streetwise 42%

Combat Skills:
Citizen Militia (Mace, Shield, Trait: Cautious Fighter) 20%

Passions
Loyalty to Town/City (Blaloc) 47%
Love (Himself) 67%
Hate (His brother and sister) 57%

Background
Origin: Blaloc
Culture: Hybras
Social Class: Freeman
Family: Parents dead, outright enmity to both brother and sister, both grandfathers still alive, no aunts or uncles, four cousins.
Reputation: A good family reputation
Connections: One Mover & Shaker contact, one reasonably connected rival
Family is Reasonably Connected; one ally
Weakness: Nymphomania 57%
Background Event: For some time now you’ve suspected that a powerful being has been watching out for you, and have come to believe it is one of the local gods of popular legend. You cannot say why they might be interested in your fate, but you've had several strokes of remarkable fortune that cannot be attributed to luck alone.
Affluence Rating: 52%

Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance uses the Mythras system for its mechanics, a tried and tested percentile system in which a player rolls equal to, or less, than a skill or passion to succeed. Any roll of five or less always success, whilst ninety-six or above is a failure. A Critical success is one fifth of a skill, a Fumble, either ninety-nine or one hundred. The rules cover difficulty factors, contested rolls, group rolls, and so on, as you would expect, but also allow for an optional ‘Success, but…’ with consequences rule. It is also possible to augment one skill with another, although if successful, this only adds a tenth of the augmenting skill to the intended skill roll. For example, Ublaf the Unbelievable would add 15% to his Seduction skill when augmenting with his Eloquence. However, this would not increase the chance of his player rolling a Critical result.

Passions work in a similar fashion to skill augments, again adding a fifth of their value to the skill roll. They have other uses though, often being used to either drive or determine the actions of Player Character or NPC, to oppose other Passions, as a measure of a character’s commitment to that Passion, and even resist being manipulated. Depending upon events, Passions can deepen or wane, reflecting the outcome of a Game Master’s plot as much as they can be used to drive a plot and interactions between the Player Characters and with the NPCs within it. All of the NPCs drawn from the Lyonesse Trilogy in the roleplaying game have Passions, useful, of course, for the Game Master when determining their motivations and actions.

Since Lyonesse uses Mythras, combat in the Elder Isles tends towards being short and brutal. It uses an Action Point economy to determine how many things a Player Character or NPC has per round, actions including attacking, bracing against incoming attacks, changing range, casting magic, countering spells, and even dithering(!), and Combat Styles that each cover a number of weapons and Traits. For example, the Noble Combat Style includes Spear, Sword, and Shield, plus the Mounted Combat or Trained Beast Trait. The Trait in particular, covers special training or situations, for example, the Mounted Combat Trait enables the rider to ignore the skill cap placed upon combat rolls by the Ride skill, whilst Trained Beast covers fighting in close formation with an animal, the user able to use his Action Points to defend against attacks against the animal. As well as inflicting damage, the primary aim in combat in Mythras is to inflict Special Effects or disadvantages upon an opponent, such as doing a Bash to knock him off balance, Bypass Armour to inflict more damage, Compel Surrender, Scar Foe, and so on. This requires a differentially better roll than that of an opponent, so a Critical success versus a standard success, a success versus a failure, and similar results. Typically a roll will generate just the one Special Effect, but a Critical success versus a Fumble will generate a maximum of three! This makes for a much more action-packed fight, one with more story, and thus potentially as memorable as it is nasty. The Elder Isles being a land of chivalry means that the combat rules also cover jousting.

Also intrinsic to the Elder Isles and thus Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance is magic. Woven into the lives of fairies, halflings, and various wizards, witches, and the like, magic is potentially powerful and deadly. In the Elder Isles it comes in three primary forms—fairy magic, sandestin magic, and enchanted items. Fairies and halflings have their own magic, whilst human magic users are capable of mastering the incantations necessary to command sandestins, the strange creatures who will actually perform the magical effect for the caster, and some of whom have effects of their own beyond merely casting magic. However, many so-called wizards are simply charlatans who were lucky enough to have come upon an enchanted device, either that, or stole or swindled it from its former owner. For fairy magic, it is a matter of learning or finding someone who can teach a Player Character one or more Fairy Cantraps, such as Agriva’s Telescopic Fornication—something that Ublaf the Unbelievable would probably want to learn, Egumasko's Mellow Scarf—sends a scarf to wrap around the head of the intended target and forces him to abay his passions or tempers, or Impspring Tinkle-toe—makes the recipient involuntarily leap high into the air whilst simultaneously twirling their feet!

Sandestin magic requires much more effort, practitioners studying the skills of Sandestin Invocation and Sandestin Coercion. The former actually needs to be studied multiple times, each time for a different Axiom, such as Geomancy or Verdomancy, each Axiom related to a different type of sandestin and thus different spell effects. The exact effects can be altered through the caster’s Sandestin Coercion skill, the higher the skill, the more effects possible. However, this requires more Magic Points and it is possible for a magic user to run out and overextend himself, leading to an unfortunate result, such as the caster suffering from a random poison or souls of every living creature within 10 metres being ripped from their bodies, their becoming haunts, and only able return to life if they first kill the magician! As with fairy magic, a wide list of interesting spells are given for sandestin magic. For example, Expurgation removes written text, illustration, and art from books and scrolls, Gyration lifts a victim into the air spins them at a speed chosen by the caster, which can range from making them ill or actually ripping limbs off, and Obturation, which will close one of the target’s orifices of the caster’s choice. The spell selection is diverse, inventively named, and some of them are useful, but many of them in their own way are quite nasty. However, learning spells is hard work, represented by their high costs in potential experience point rolls which a player will have to save and pay in order to learn a new spell. Lastly, there are rules for creating and using enchanted items which a swindler or mountebank might use to fool others into thinking that he has great magic ability.

Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance also includes a bestiary, ranging ordinary creatures and giant versions to supernatural beasts like Bearded Gryphs, various types of Fairies and Halflings—including rules for creating Halfling Player Characters, Sandestins, Screamers, and individual creatures such as Dungle the Giant who is bothered by a jealous Harpy or Arbogast the Ogre, flesh-eating of the Forest of Tantrevalles. They are joined by full write-ups and stats for the heroes and villains of the Lyonesse Trilogy, such as young Prince Aillas, heir to the throne of Troicinet, who is thus the target of the ambitious, driven, amoral King Casmir of Lyonesse. Their inclusion of course, enables the Game Master to involve the Player Characters in the machinations and plots of the various NPCs and so pull them into the setting.

In addition, Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance introduces other worlds and suggests what might be found there as well as reasons to visit, tables for generating towns and taverns and what might be found there, and a set of extensive notes for the Game Master on running the roleplaying game. These cover the types of adventures to be had in the Elder Isles, the nature of its magic, its themes—travelogues, food, tricks and tricksters, and getting captured, as well as general advice on various aspects of Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance and its setting. If the roleplaying game is lacking, it is that there is no scenario, or indeed no scenario hooks, which might have been useful for a setting that is as rich as this is, but the notes for the Game Master nevertheless useful and will help her create her first adventure, or two.

Physically, Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance is very well laid out, well written, and illustrated with some very nice black and white artwork. The rules are thoroughly illustrated throughout with the tale of primarily one character, though they expend a little with magic, which adds a sense of continuity from start to finish. However, it does need an edit in places and whilst the maps are in colour, some full colour illustrations would have perked up the book a little.

Lyonesse: Fantasy Roleplaying Based on the Novels by Jack Vance is fantastic and thorough, almost compendium-like adaptation of a classic fantastical setting, one that is likely to feel almost familiar to many gamers, because even if they have not read the novels, they will have encountered its influence on Dungeons & Dragons. This provides an opportunity for roleplayers old and new, unaware of them or not, to visit the Elder Isles, the setting of that influence, and explore it in all of its glory and grit, its whimsy and wonder, its manners and machinations, its delights and its dangers, in this well designed, well researched roleplaying game.

The Other OSR: Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower

An isolated location, a village in peril, a need for outside agents—the player characters, and a secret long forgotten. These are all the classic ingredients for a type of Dungeons & Dungeons scenario which has been with us from the beginning with T1 The Village of Hommlet and B2, Keep on the Borderlands and continuing with Scourge of the Howling Horde for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and H1 Keep on the Shadowfall for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition—and beyond! Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh fits this same pattern. The hillfort village of Anminster sits astride the road through the Ettinmarsh, an isolated stop along a minor trade route, but both trade and travel have been disrupted by bandits and the local lord’s capacity to respond has been limited by the loss of half of his soldiery. Thus, he has need for freelancers—that is, the player characters—to investigate and perhaps put an end to the danger threatening Anminster.

All this sounds like an Old School Renaissance adventure for the retroclone of your choice—and it is. Not the retroclone what you were thinking of though, but for Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, which is written for use with Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, the supplement for Mythras which is designed to do Dungeons & Dragons-style adventuring with a percentile mechanic, a stronger emphasis on skills, and the use of passions. Published by The Design Mechanism—and available in the United Kingdom via Aeon Games—Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh is designed for characters of Rank One and Two. It is intended as an introduction to the world of Greymoor, the setting for Classic Fantasy adventures—surely a nod to Greyhawk, one of the original Dungeons & Dragons campaign worlds, but noticeably does not include a great deal in the way of background about that setting. Instead the given background is very much focused on supporting the set-up for the adventure and its sequels, the first of which is Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower.

Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower is a follow on from Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, building on the set-up provided in Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, that of an isolated location beset by banditry—in this case, a tribe of goblins. Importantly, what the events of Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh did was focus on another situation—one confined to the village fort of Anminster and below—rather than the bandit threat. Essentially, Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh left that plot thread hanging, but its sequel picks up on it and brings it to a somewhat succinct conclusion. Again designed for characters of Rank One and Two, the scenario opens with the both the village and the adventurers being alerted to an attack on a caravan out on the causeway through the swamp. Clues at the burning caravan point back into the swamp and to an ancient tower—the tower of the scenario’s title, once the home of an ancient Elven necromancer and now widely believed to be haunted. Here the Goblin band which has been plaguing the causeway and surrounding area have its base.

The six floors of the narrowing Moonspike Tower are described in some detail as are the inhabitants, as there is more to the location than a Goblin lair. In fact, there is a chance that the player characters can roleplay their way through the situation, but there likelihood is that that they will have to fight their way in and up to atop the tower. Notably, there is a strange artefact there that requires the player characters to return to Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh to activate and if activated will require the Game Master to develop further adventures (though Kefitzah Haderech: Incunabulum of the Uncanny Gates and Portals from Lost Pages may well be useful). 

Effectively, Moonspike Tower and the Goblin lair wraps up the plot which began in Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh and brings it to a close. Yet, this only takes up sixteen pages of Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower, so what of the other twenty or so pages? Well, some of those pages are given over to monster stats, exactly as you would expect, but the remainder is split into two sections.

The first is ‘Tomb Lair of the Kobolds’. Just six pages long, it presents base of a small band of Kobolds which the Game Master can drop in her campaign in and around the Ettinmarsh where Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh and Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower are set. It can be used as a random encounter or a hook is included to draw the player characters to the Kobold lair. Short and detailed, in terms of rewards it deliver more magical items than in previous adventures, but it feels too similar to the Goblin lair of Moonspike Tower in being another encounter with evil humanoids. Nor does it feel like a development of the earlier content in both adventures, when perhaps the rest of the module could have given more information about the area around Anminister and Ettinmarsh. In particular, where the artefact atop Moonspike Tower might lead could have been developed as could the bedraggled settlement of Sunken Veldra, which is marked on the map.

The remainder of Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower—almost half—is given over to a set of encounter tables. These have been copied from the Classic Fantasy Unearthed Companion and modified for use in the supplement’s default setting of Mystamyr. They cover travel on all types of terrain as well as flight and do include notes on special encounters. In general, should the Game Master want to expand upon possible encounter in and around Ettinmarsh, then the tables are useful.

Yet, as useful as the Random Encounter tables are and as decent a mini-encounter/dungeon ‘Tomb Lair of the Kobolds’ is, both feel out of place in Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower. Arguably, Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower should be concentrating on bringing the adventure and plot begun in the previous adventure to a close. Well, actually it does, but only in the first sixteen pages, leaving the author to fill the scenario/supplement with seemingly random content. So the question is, should the Moonspike Tower encounter really have been included in this adventure at all and instead been included in Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh? Arguably so, given its length… That would have been allowed room for the encounter with the Kobolds and perhaps another two encounters to support the Random Encounter tables or perhaps some background on Ettinmarsh and the wider area so that a Game Master can create material of her on. 

Physically, Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower matches the standard of presentation of Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh. It is clean and tidy, lightly illustrated, though not with new artwork. Like its prequel, the module would stand up to better handling with a card cover. The maps are better handled than in the prequel though, and although the area map is presented in colour on the back cover, it does include the location of various places that are meant to be hidden from the player characters.

There is no denying that Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh needed a sequel. After all, it left a big plot hook left dangling… Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower does a decent job of providing that sequel and bringing that story line to a close, even offering a guide to using non-violent means. Yet that only takes up half of the module, and whilst the rest of module—the mini encounter and the Random Encounter Tables—is decent enough, the constituent three parts of Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower just do not feel as if they should be in the same module. Ettinmarsh and the surrounding area deserves more coverage, it is just a pity that Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower does not provide that.

The Other OSR: Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh

An isolated location, a village in peril, a need for outside agents—the player characters, and a secret long forgotten. These are all the classic ingredients for a type of Dungeons & Dungeons scenario which has been with us from the beginning with T1 The Village of Hommlet and B2, Keep on the Borderlands and continuing with Scourge of the Howling Horde for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and H1 Keep on the Shadowfall for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition—and beyond! Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh fits this same pattern. The hillfort village of Anminster sits astride the road through the Ettinmarsh, an isolated stop along a minor trade route, but both trade and travel have been disrupted by bandits and the local lord’s capacity to respond has been limited by the loss of half of his soldiery. Thus, he has need for freelancers—that is, the player characters—to investigate and perhaps put an end to the danger threatening Anminster.

All this sounds like an Old School Renaissance adventure for the retroclone of your choice—and it is. Not the retroclone what you were thinking of though, for Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh is written for use with Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, the supplement for Mythras which is designed to do Dungeons & Dragons-styleadventuring with a percentile mechanic, a stronger emphasis on skills, and the use of passions. Published by The Design Mechanism—and available in the United Kingdom via Aeon Games—Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh is designed for characters of Rank One and Two. It is intended as an introduction to the world of Greymoor, the setting for Classic Fantasy adventures—surely a nod to Greyhawk, one of the original Dungeons & Dragons campaign worlds, but noticeably does not include a great deal in the way of background about that setting. Instead the given background is very much focused on supporting the set-up for the adventure and its sequels.

Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh details just three general locations. The first is the village of Anminster, the second is the adjoining tower where Lord Anminster resides, built atop the ruins of an old Dwarven tower, and a five level dungeon below his tower. One indication of the ‘high magic’ nature of the setting is that the village has a shop where potions can be brewed and bought and a shop where magical items can be bought and sold. Their inclusion breaks any sense of naturalism there might have been to the adventure. It might have made more sense if the village population was larger and there was an obvious source for these magical items.

Half of the adventure is devoted to detailing the dungeon below Lord Anminster’s tower. In fact, this dungeon is not so much a dungeon, but an inverse tower built into the rock—and below—upon which  Lord Anminster’s tower stands. This is an ancient dwarf fortress, which served as both the home of garrison which provided protection for travellers through the Ettinmarsh and hid a darker secret at its lowest reaches. The halls, rooms, and barracks of this inverse fortress have long been abandoned and access hidden, but the latter will be revealed shortly after the start of the adventure. There is actually little to be found here, but there are clues to be found which hint at what the fortress is really protecting.

Now although the scenario set-up focuses upon banditry and threats to travellers, the actual focus of Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh is what lies below Anminster. Indeed, once the adventurers arrive at the village, the scenario gives no hook or reason for them to leave and go adventuring. Instead, attacks by the undead will isolate the village further and then when Lord Anminster reports knocking from behind a wall in his tower, the player characters will be engaged to investigate and put a stop to the cause. Taking up this engagement will push them downwards to reveal dark secrets, a puzzle of sorts, and an even bigger danger. There is capacity for some decent roleplaying between the player characters and that danger and the danger is designed to be thwarted by solving a puzzle rather than combat. If it comes to combat in dealing with the threat, then the player characters are in a very great deal of trouble. As is the rest of Greymoor…

Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh feels as if a bait and switch has been pulled on the players and their characters since it does not focus on the bandits and the surrounds of Anminster as its set-up suggests. In fact, that focus is the subject of Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower, the sequel to Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, so the Game Master and her players will have to play through both scenarios for the suggested set-up to be fulfilled. One issue where Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh does feel threadbare is in its rewards and if there are few magical items are to be found, then perhaps a little more money could have been included so that the player characters could spend their rewards at ‘ye olde magik shop’ in the village. 

Physically, Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh is cleanly presented. The scenario is light on artwork, but the writing is decent. The production values could have been a little higher though, a card cover instead of a paper one, for instance. The main issue with the module is that the maps are just a little fuzzy and could have been better handled. They are just about legible though.

There is an air of familiarity to Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, but that is rather the point of Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!—doing styles of adventure that are familiar, but with more detailed roleplaying rules. Overall, Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh delivers a decent mix of combat and roleplaying, but comes up trumps in providing a problem which requires neither. Beyond Adventure Module M1: The Terror of Ettinmarsh, the Game Master will have to either develop further adventures of her own or run Adventure Module M2: Moonspike Tower. Either will provide a good base from which a party can go adventuring.

The Other OSR: Classic Fantasy

It is impossible to ignore the influence of Dungeons & Dragons and the effect that its imprint has had on the gaming hobby. It remains the most popular roleplaying game some forty or more years since it was first published, and it is a design and a set-up which for many was their first experience of roleplaying—and one to which they return again and again. This explains the popularity of the Old School Renaissance and the many retroclones—roleplaying games which seek to emulate the mechanics and play style of previous editions Dungeons & Dragons—which that movement has spawned in the last fifteen years. Just as with the Indie Game movement before it began as an amateur endeavour, so did the Old School Renaissance, and just as with the Indie Game movement before it, many of the aspects of the Old School Renaissance are being adopted by mainstream roleplaying publishers who go on to publish retroclones of their own. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, published by Goodman Games is a perfect example of this. Other publishers have been around long enough for them to publish new editions of their games which originally appeared in the first few years of the hobby, whilst still others are taking their new, more contemporary games and mapping them onto the retroclone.

Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style! is an example of a publisher taking an existing roleplaying game and mapping it back onto the roleplaying game designs of the Old School Renaissance. Published by The Design Mechanism, it is a supplement for use with Mythras, the set of rules previously published as RuneQuest 6, and now presented as a streamlined version of Basic Roleplaying, the skills based, percentile system derived from RuneQuest which would be used in a wide variety of roleplaying games. One important aspect of Mythras is that it includes Passions—loyalties, beliefs, and feelings towards someone or something, that are again measured as percentiles and which work in a similar fashion to the Personal Traits of the King Arthur Pendragon RPG. In essence, Mythras can be described as a ‘Skills & Passions’ percentile, simulation roleplaying game, designed to handle detail and grit in its gameplay, but without being overly complex.

Thus, Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style! is designed to take the percentile system of Mythras and map it onto the Class and Level set-up of Dungeons & Dragons and its various iterations and interpretations. Which is most odd indeed, for arguably, what the original RuneQuest and thus Basic Roleplaying was designed to do was everything that Dungeon & Dragons did not. In Dungeons & Dragons, characters are defined by their role—or Class—and are restricted to the powers and abilities of their Class; characters acquire Experience Points from adventuring—killing monsters, finding treasure, and sometimes story awards too—which when the amount exceeds a set threshold, a character gains a Level and all of the benefits of that Level; and various elements of the game are abstract in nature, including Armour Class, Hit Points, and so on. In the first iterations of the venerable roleplaying game, only the Thief Class had specific skills! RuneQuest and thus Basic Roleplaying, used neither Classes or Levels; everyone had skills and could learn any skill given time, and they improved them by learning and doing, one skill at a time; weapon skills were learned weapon by weapon, armour protected a character against damage rather than made you harder to hit, with hit locations having Hit Points and being protected by pieces of armour; and of course, everyone had access to magic too in one form or another. All of which is possible in Mythras, but in order to do classic Class and Level fantasy, not all of this is possible in Classic Fantasy. What it does mean though, if your Ork Berserker has the ‘voice of an angel’, then he can learn to sing and improve his skill and does not have to become a Bard to do it! (Which of course is not allowed in Classic Fantasy…)

To create a character in Mythras, a player rolls dice to determine his character’s base attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma. From these are derived several factors, including Damage and Experience Modifiers, Healing Rate, Height and Weight, Hit Points, and Strike Rank, plus Action Points, spent to act in combat, and Luck Points, used to give a character an edge, whether a dice roll, the mitigation of damage or unfavourable circumstances, or a vital advantage in combat. Each character also receives the same set of standard skills, the base value for each one determined by adding two attributes or doubling a single attribute. Then, the player takes his character through three steps. The first is to select the character’s Culture—Barbarian, Civilised, Nomadic, or Primitive; the second step his Career, the third his Bonus skill points. At each step a character receives a set number of points to assign to skills, either to a character’s standard skills or his professional skills, the latter type of skill, such as Commerce, Gambling, and Mysticism, gained after years of practice and learning. Some professional skills come from a character’s Culture; the others come from his choice of Class. A character’s choice of culture also determines the Classes available to him. Although the base values for both types of skills are determined by a character’s attributes, the granting of the same number of skill points throughout the process serves to balance character generation.

For the most part, character creation in Classic Fantasy follows these steps, but the first change is in selecting a Race. In Mythras, the default Race is Human, but like the roleplaying games of old, Classic Fantasy also offers Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Halfling as its other Races. The choice of Race will determine the number of dice to be rolled for Attributes and also the choice of Classes available. In some retroclones Race is treated as a character’s Class, but in Classic Fantasy, it is a character’s Culture. Humans have Barbarian, Civilised, Nomadic, or Primitive as their Culture and like the Cultures of the Demi-Humans, determines the choice of Classes to choose from. Where Humans gain an extra Luck Point and an extra Experience Roll in addition to the standard and professional skills from their Culture, Dwarves gain Magic and Poison Resistance, Infravision, and Tunnel Sense; Elves gain Infravision, Resistance to Sleep and Charm, Unaffected by Raise Dead, Stealthy, and Secret and Concealed Object Detection; Halflings gain Magic and Poison Resistance, Stealthy, and Exposure Tolerance (Feet). The other Races receive similar abilities modelling similar elements found in their design in retroclones.

Classic Fantasy offers twelve Classes—Bard, Berserker, Cavalier, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Magic-User, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, and Thief-Acrobat. As well as standard and professional skills, each Class provides a Combat Style, a package of weapons in which members of the Class are trained—such as only honourable weapons for the Cavalier Class and daggers, darts, knives, slings, and staves for Magic-Users, and a number of Abilities and Talents. Some of the Talents are organised into Tiers and a character needs more Experience Rolls to select them. Where Classes in Dungeons & Dragons et al are organised into Levels, in Classic Fantasy they are organised into Ranks—and just the five per Class. Now Ranks are not Levels, representing progression in an organisation, such as a guild or order, rather than an abstract measure of achievement. To increase in Rank, a character needs to advance their Class’ five prerequisite skills, for example, the Ranger Class has Athletics, Channel, Combat Style (Ranger), Piety (Specific Nature Deity), and Stealth. These all need to be at 50% for a character to qualify for Rank 1, otherwise they remain Rank 0, and then at 70% for Rank 2 and so on… In some Classes, Rank is organised as a pyramid, so to progress, characters of those Classes will need to wait for a spot to open up.

In addition, all characters have Passions. During the process of generation, a character gains them from their Culture or Race, and then from their Class. One of these has to be a Moral Philosophy, either Good, Neutral, or Evil, to which a trait or two is attached. Some Classes require a strict Moral Philosophy, for example, a Druid must have Neutral (Respectful of Nature and Strives for Balance). Some Classes also require a character to take an oath and again, this is treated as a Passion. In this way, Passions model the morality of the Alignment systems to be found in various retroclones, but because they are measured as percentiles and can go up and down—depending upon how a player roleplays his character—they offer a more nuanced alternative.

Our sample character is Ned Smith, a simple blacksmith’s son from the town of Blaineford Forum. His older brother is more skilled than he is and so he has decided to search out fame and fortune elsewhere. He has decided to put to use the martial skills he learned as member of the town’s militia.

Ned Smith
Age: 18 Culture: Civilised
Fighter Rank 1

STR 18 CON 15 SIZ 14 DEX 11 INT 15 POW 12 CHA 14

Action Points: 3 Damage Modifier: +1D4 Experience Modifier: +1 Healing Rate: 3
Build: Medium Height: 182 cm Weight: 95 kg
Hit Points
Head 6 Chest 8 Abdomen 7 L. Arm 4 R. Arm 4 L. Leg 6 R. Leg 6
Luck Points: 3
Magic Points: 12
Healing Rate: 3
Movement Rate: 6
Experience Rolls: 1

Standard Skills:
Athletics 52%, Boating 33%, Brawn 52%, Combat Style (Fighter) 62%, Conceal 28%, Customs 70%, Dance 25%, Deceit 34%, Drive 28%, Endurance 50%, Evade 42%, First Aid 36%, Influence 33%, Insight 42%, Language (Common Tongue) 69%, Locale 35%, Perception 39%, Ride 28%, Sing 26%, Stealth 26%, Swim 33%, Unarmed 52%, Willpower 39%

Professional Skills:
Commerce 44%, Craft (Blacksmith) 41%, Lore (Military History) 40%, Lore (Strategy & Tactics) 50%, Streetwise 41%, Survival 47%

Abilities/Talents
Armour Proficiency, Combat Proficiency, Weapon Specialisation (Axe) (+10%/+1 Action Point)

Passions
Moral Philosophy: Good (Helpful, Honest) 58%
Loyalty to Town/City (Blaineford Forum) 57%
Love (Mother) 56%
Hate (gang) 56%

Equipment
Mail shirt & Coif (5 AP Head, Arms, Chest, Abdomen), Laminated Greaves (4 AP), Battleaxe (1d6+1), Dagger (1d4+1), Shortspear (1d8+1)

In the main, Classic Fantasy uses the mechanics of Mythras, but it adds to them in order to emulate its genre. This includes rules for locked and stuck doors, repairing arms and armour, searching rooms and finding secret or concealed doors, securing doors, traps—with several examples, visibility underground, and where to rest and recover. These all emphasise the dungeoneering aspects of the genre and thus Classic Fantasy. Instead of the Strike Rank system of Mythras, initiative is used in Classic Fantasy, but the primary change to the combat mechanics is to offer rules for miniatures combat. In effect, what these do is shift the mechanics of Mythras further away from the simulation of Basic Roleplaying to the wargaming roots of Dungeons & Dragons and thus the hobby.

Where in the roleplaying games that it is emulating have Experience Points, Mythras and thus Classic Fantasy, have Experience Rolls. As per Mythras, these are awarded by the Game Master at certain points in a campaign or at the end of a scenario and can be used by a player to improve any of his character’s skills. (In a traditional Basic Roleplaying game, they are earned skill by skill and only those skills which have earned an Experience Roll can be improved.) Although attaining a new Rank does not cost any Experience Rolls, some Classes do offer higher tier talents which cost more Experience Rolls to purchase. When a skill is improved, it will be increased by no more than five percentiles, which means that character improvement is relatively slow—although a Game Master can reward her players with more Experience Rolls for a faster game—and even slower in terms of rising in Rank. And that is if the player focuses primarily on his character’s five Class prerequisite skills necessary to raise in Rank.   

Mythras offers four types of magic—Folk Magic, Animism, Sorcery, and Thesim. Classic Fantasy offers just the two disciplines—arcane and divine, the first primarily the domain of the Magic-User, the latter primarily the domain of the Cleric. The Arcane Bard can also cast arcane spells, whilst the Druidic Bard, the Druid, the Paladin, and the Ranger can cast divine spells. Where magic and spells in most retroclones are Vancian in nature, essentially memorise, cast, and forget, Classic Fantasy offers a little more flexibility and a few more options. Arcane spellcasters still have to memorise their spells and divine spellcasters still have to pray to their deity, and spells are forgotten once cast, they require Magic Points to be expended and a skill roll to be made for a spell to be successfully cast. In addition, a spellcaster can increase the Intensity of a spell to increase its effect or its Magnitude to make it harder to disbelieve or dispel. Both cost extra Magic Points beyond the basic cost of casting. Many of the arcane and divine spells listed will be recognised as versions of those found in the Old School Renaissance and includes cantrips for the arcane spellcaster.

Similarly, the bestiary and the treasure section are full entries which will very familiar to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons or another retroclone. From the Red Dragon and the Kobold to the Bag of Holding and Girdle of Giant Strength, Classic Fantasy covers just about every standard a Game Monster would want to populate her dungeon (world) with and reward her players and their characters with, in turn providing a reinterpretation of each for the Mythras system. There are some new magic items too, like the Broom of Hostility and the Flagon of Curses, as well as guides for the Game Master to develop her own. Rounding out the supplement is a discussion of the cosmology common to retroclones and the deities of Greymoor, the implied setting for Classic Fantasy. This is useful if the Game Master is running a game not set in a specific world. Lastly, there is a set of encounter tables in an appendix.

Physically, Classic Fantasy is a decently presented black and white hardback book which echoes the look of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks. Numerous artists illustrate the book, some of the artwork being very good, some of it being rather cartoony. Another issue is that the tables—and there are quite a few tables in the book—are not always easy to read as the text is quite small. The only thing that is perhaps missing, is a conversion guide to Classic Fantasy the Old School Rennaisence.

Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style! is designed as a reinterpretation of classic Class and Level fantasy roleplaying, reworking it to function using a percentile mechanic with more realistic combat and more nuanced spell casting. Yet given its core mechanics, it is a grittier and deadlier reinterpretation, and with its emphasis on skills and passions, it brings a greater sense of individuality and nuance to each and every character. Overall, Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style! is the percentile retroclone with which to take Mythras down a dungeon to fight dragons and steal treasure, as it successfully brings the Basic Roleplaying mechanics to old style gaming.

Unparalleled Alternatives

For many British gamers, their first encounter with Luther Arkwright came with Imagine #14, the June, 1984 issue of TSR (UK)’s house magazine. The issue gave an introduction to the character and to the seminal and award-winning comic strip by Bryan Talbot, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, as well as presenting a scenario, ‘The Fire Opal of Set’, written for use with Classic Traveller and TSR, Inc.’s own Star Frontiers, which came complete with pre-generated player characters that could be played as a gaming introduction to the setting. The setting for the comic is not one Earth, but many, across which a war is being fought between one parallel, Zero-Zero, and the Disruptors. The latter seek to destabilise and control multiple parallels, typically through advanced technologies and the backing of totalitarian governments, to their own ends. Zero-Zero, an advanced scientific utopia, seeks to prevent this, its primary agent being Luther Arkwright, an escaped Disruptor trainee, who as the next step in Human evolution is unique in all the parallels and can psychically transport himself across the parallels.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, recently reprinted in a collected volume, is exquisitely drawn, its setting and central character a nod to the works of Michael Moorcock and the swinging television adventure series of the 1960s—The Avengers, The Champions, Adam Adamant Lives, and so on. Originally conceived in the 1970s, it would not be fully published until 1989 and go on to receive multiple awards as well as a sequel, Heart of Empire, or the Legacy of Luther Arkwright, a decade later. An audio adaptation was released in 2005. In terms of gaming, 23rd Parallel Games published The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, in 1992, but unfortunately it was ill received. More recently, the second iteration of Hogshead Publishing, announced that Zero-Zero, an RPG based on The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and using the d20 System, was due to be published in 2004, but it did not come to fruition. Then in 2015, The Design Mechanism, the Canadian publisher best known for RuneQuest 6 released Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels though, is not a roleplaying game in its own right, but supplement that requires the use of RuneQuest 6. It casts the player characters as agents of Valhalla Project, a programme directed by the computer W.O.T.A.N on Zero-Zero, to monitor and counter Disruptor operations. Each is highly gifted being trained experts in their field and in many cases also possessing psychic powers, perhaps being in the progenitors of homo novus, the next step in human evolution. Whether they are indigenous to a particular parallel, able to operate through empathic links forged with other selves on other parallels, or shunting between parallels via advanced technology, the agents of Valhalla will be participating in missions that will ultimately lead into the events of the first series—roughly analogous the early 1980s.

Character or Agent Zero-Zero creation in Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels follows the step-by-step process as RuneQuest 6 and other Basic Roleplaying derived RPGs. A player rolls dice for his attributes and from them derives the starting values for his skills. Then the player has three sets of points to assign—one for his Culture, derived from his Parallel Type and his Social Type; one for his Career; and lastly a set to spend as he likes, representing his training by Valhalla. Several new skills included, whilst others are updated, to reflect the fact that the many Earths of  Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels are far more technologically advanced than the Bronze Age of RuneQuest 6.

It should be noted that the character creation process is not an easy one. Primarily this is due to having to flip back and forth between Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels and the RuneQuest 6 rulebook. This is exacerbated by the supplement’s slightly poor organisation and the need to work out which skills an Agent needs to represent the selected background.

Our sample Zero-Zero Agent is Lucretia Raslo, an airship mechanic on Parallel 13.16.94. Her family runs shipyards in New New York, building and repairing airships. Lucretia followed in her father’s footsteps, her mechanical aptitude being noted at an early age, and became a mechanic and engineer. This was despite her mother’s efforts to teach her the social niceties. With little chance of finding an eligible suitor for Lucretia, her mother’s attention turned to her younger daughter. This left Lucretia to work where she is happiest, that is, with machinery. Her knack for diagnosing and solving mechanical problems—represented by her Technical Trait—was what brought her to the attention of Valhalla Project Agents.

Lucretia Raslo
STR 8 CON 10 SIZ 10 DEX 11 INT 17 POW 16 CHA 11

Action Points: 3 Damage Modifier: -1D2 Experience Modifier: 0 Healing Rate: 2
Build: Heavy Height: 161 cm Weight: 67 kg
Hit Points
Head 4 Chest 6 Abdomen 5 L. Arm 3 R. Arm 3 L. Leg 4 R. Leg 4
Luck Points: 3
Prana Points: 16
Tenacity Points: 16
Movement Rate: 6
Strike Rank: 13

Standard Skills:
Athletics 19%, Brawn 53%, Conceal 27%, Customs 80%, Dance 37%, Deceit 28%, Endurance 45%, Evade 28%, First Aid 28%, Home Parallel 39%, Influence 22%, Insight 33%, Native Tongue 70%, Perception 48%, Sing 27%, Stealth 28%, Swim 18%, Unarmed 19%, Willpower 52%

Professional Skills:
Commerce 43%, Craft (Blacksmithing) 57%, Craft (Embroidery) 37%,Drive (Land Vehicle) 42%, Electronics 53%, Engineering 64%, Gambling 58%, Mechanisms 73%, Pilot (Airship) 44%, Streetwise 26%

Passions
Loyalty to Society 53%
Love (Sister) 47%
Hate (Gang) 53%
Dependency (Gambling) 20%

Parallel Type: Industrial Age
Sociological Type: Manufacturing

Trait
Technical

In addition to the various changes to the skills to reflect the width of technology found across the parallels, the Magic Points of RuneQuest 6 are replaced with Prana Points that fuel the setting’s Psionics and Mystic talents. Each Agent also has an attribute new to RuneQuest 6. This is Tenacity. It is equal to an Agent’s Power attribute and works like the mental or psychological equivalent of his Hit Points. Loss of Tenacity Points from shocks or sanity-shaking events can lead to an Agent loosing his mind.

Further, each Agent has one or more Traits that brought to the attention of the Valhalla Project and lead to his recruitment. These can be as simple as Charming, Polyglot, Quick, and Unshakeable, and most of these provide a base advantage rather than require the use an Agent’s Prana Points. Conversely, the rules for Psionics are more complex, though only slightly so, and do require the use of an Agent’s Prana Points. Once an Agent has rolled, or selected, the Psionic Trait, it opens up further options—Disciplines such as Biokinesis, Empathy, Telekinesis, Telepathy, and so on. Each Discipline possesses a number of Talents. For example, the Talents for Telepathy include Mental Scan, Mental Shield, Mind Probe, Telepathy, Thought Implant, and Psychic Wrack. Each Discipline will have its own skill, for example, Discipline (Biokinesis), that is rolled whenever a Talent is used from said Discipline.

As long as an Agent has Prana Points to spend and can make the appropriate Discipline checks, he is relatively free to use his Psionic abilities as he wants. What stops him is the Psionic Intensity he has for each Discipline. Equal to one twentieth of his Discipline, it governs the number of Talents he can use at any one time as well as the effects of some Talents. For example, the Focus Force Talent can be used to inflict damage equal to the user’s Intensity, whereas the protective value provided by Mental Shield is also equal to his Intensity.

Another option, representing the route taken by Luther Arkwright himself in the comics, is that of Mysticism. Consisting of a number of Paths of Enlightenment, such as Focal Yoga, Shaolin Monastics, and Transcendentalist Meditation, each of which have their own Talents. Where the Psionics of Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels presents a whole new set of powers and mechanics for RuneQuest 6, the rules for Mysticism in this supplement function exactly as they do in RuneQuest 6. It is possible for an Agent to begin the game already on one of these Paths of Enlightenment, but their primary use is twofold. Initially as abilities for NPCs—Luther Arkwright has them, but later on, as a campaign progresses, as something for the Agents to aspire to.

As powerful as Psionics and Mystic can be in Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels, their use, along with the difficulties and dangers of combating the machinations of the Disruptors, places a lot of stress upon an Agent and makes them prone to certain Dependencies. These can be as mundane as Alcoholism or Gaming (gambling), or as antisocial as Stealing or Voyeurism, or worse. Every Agent begins play with at least one Dependency—and can have more—and the strength of a Dependency also weakens his Tenacity, that is, his mental fortitude. Each Dependency has a percentage value that works like a skill, but any checks against it are ones that an Agent wants to fail lest it grow like any other skill. Again, this is another reflection of the comic series in which the characters, including Luther himself, suffer from addictions, whether drugs or behaviours. In game though, the effect of any Dependency will primarily be part of a scenario or ongoing campaign. These rules also mark Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels as a setting for mature players.

Although Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels has to encompass a wide range of technology, much like the comic, it places an emphasis upon steampunk and clockpunk devices. This does not mean that other technologies are not ignored as various examples of alchemical and chemical, psionic and multiversal, and computer and nanotech technology are also given. For the Agent who likes to tinker, there are rules for creating devices of their own, including vehicles and firearms. These feed into the supplement’s new rules for handling firearms and vehicles, which again encompass a wide array of types and technologies.

Having got the technical aspects of a Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels out of the way, the last third of the supplement devotes itself to the background. This starts with W.O.T.A.N, the Valhalla Program, and the Disruptors, but as much as they figure in the setting, the focus of this background is the infinite number of Parallels and the means to travel between them. Each parallel is significantly different to its neighbours and the further a parallel is away from ZeroZero, the more likely it is diverge from ZeroZero. Some parallels might be radioactive wastelands or frigid icehouses following runaway climate change, but there are common themes running across a great many of them. These are known as ‘variations’, for example, an Aztec Empire variation in which Christopher Columbus was executed for heresy and Spain is now the vanguard against an invasion from the New World; a British Empire variation in which the Great Fire of London did not happen, allowing mathematician Sir Christopher Wren to become astronomer royal and spur a scientific revolution that would lead to better timekeeping and thus improved navigation by the Royal Navy, ensuring its dominance decades earlier; and German Republic variation in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is lost at sea on a trip to Clipperton Island and an isolationist president is elected in 1940; and so on. 

The discussion of Parallels is supported by numerous examples, each ready for the GM to drop an adventure into, as well as guidelines for creating his own. These are very much pointers to spur the GM’s imagination rather than a set of tables to create Parallels from start to finish, though perhaps such a set of tables might have been of use for the GM new to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. The inclusion of such a set of tables would also support the other technical aspects of Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels that aid in construction of devices, weapons, and vehicles. Perhaps they could be included in companion volume?

Advice for the GM is kept relatively short, but is supported by full stats for the various characters from The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire as well as a short scenario. ‘On Thin Ice’ sees Valhalla Program Agents attempt to thwart a Disruptor plan to destabilise 13.16.94, a Parallel caught in a new ice age. Amusingly, it takes place in Design Mechanism’s home country of Canada and even has a chance for the Agents to encounter a Baron Harkonnen-like alternate version of Mayor Frode! Any fans who remember Imagine #14 may also note that illustrations from its adventure, ‘Fire Opal of Set’, also appear in ‘On Thin Ice’ as thumbnail portraits for various NPCs. Rounding out Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels are a complete write-up of the Luther Arkwright Saga—The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire—and an appendix of extra sources and inspirations, all of them worth investigating in their own right, though that said, the inclusion of some nonfiction sources on alternate history would have been nice additions.

Physically, Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is a slim hardback down in black and white. In some ways this is a pity, since the Luther Arkwright Saga has been done in colour. That said, black and white certainly suits the exquisite and beautifully detailed line art of the first series. In places Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels does need a tighter edit, but really it needs to be slightly better organised for ease of use, mostly because the GM will need to refer to RuneQuest 6 for its rules and because of the complexity of the setting. Some may also  find the choice of a smaller typeface wearying on the eyes.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is not necessarily a setting nor a supplement for the uninitiated or the non-fan of Luther Arkwright. If you fall into that category, then go read the graphic novels and then come back to this review, because The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is far, far better than this or any other review of mine. Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels definitely feels like a toolkit for running a game across the Parallels. It is solidly done toolkit, but nevertheless, given the complexities of the setting and of the rules, Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is a sourcebook for the experienced GM and players alike.

Call of Cthulhu II (Part the Second)

So it is at long last that Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, is a reality. The venerable and inaugural roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror receives not only a new edition, but also an update and an upgrade—and proper updates and upgrades in either case. For this is not a mere case of intermittent creep between reprints or makeovers of the current rules with relatively minor changes in the rules, an issue that has beset previous editions of Call of Cthulhu. Rather Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a full rewrite and design of the game, the mechanics, and how the game is played, arguably something that it has not been given in some two decades—if not longer. In the process, the designers—Mike Mason and Paul Fricker working from the earlier editions designed by Sandy Petersen and the late Lynn Willis—have sought to address some fundamental issues that have arisen in over thirty years of game play, to make the game more accessible, and more attractive to an audience of the twenty-first century. The result is a relatively radical redesign whose differences—despite it fundamentally being compatible with previous editions of the game—have proved to be slightly contentious given the game’s thirty year history and whilst they may not necessarily be to the taste of every player or Keeper, they do make sense.

Published by Chaosium, Inc. after a very successful—although subsequently difficult—Kickstarter campaign, the very first thing that you notice about Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is that rules have been split into two books—the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook – A Core Game Book for Players and the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook. Of these two, the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook focuses upon everything that a player needs to play Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition—barring a clear and simple explanation of the rules—including investigator creation, skills, a wide array of investigator Occupations, and historical background. All that without being exposed to the secrets of the Mythos and its effects that are detailed in the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook. It is this book that is being reviewed here.

Just as with the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook is presented in full colour—here a soft blue as opposed to the sandy tan of the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook. The use of colour is not extensive, but the use of double page spreads at the start of each chapter gives the book a certain grandeur, whilst the use of pages torn from a notebook to hold sidebar text gives a sense of marginalia, of extra esoteric details added by an ‘occult expert.

For the most part, much of the first fifth of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook is the same as the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, but there are differences enough to make reading one of these books after the other less of a repetitive experience. So whilst there are overviews and examples of play in both books, each is slightly different. What is noticeable by its absence in these opening pages is H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’. Indeed there is no fiction present at all, that being left to the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook and its inclusion of ‘The Dunwich Horror’. Now this is lamentable, but given the limitations of the space in the book and the amount of material that has to go into the book, it is at least understandable.

Instead of H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, the chapter ‘H.P. Lovecraft and the
Cthulhu Mythos’ examines the author and his influences, the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, the development of the Mythos before and after his death, and the Mythos itself. Others author covered include August Derleth, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, and more, but the focus is soundly on Lovecraft himself. That said, it does not deal with the more reprehensible aspects of Lovecraft’s character and thus his fiction, but that is probably best left for another discussion. Notably what it does highlight are the decisions made by Sandy Petersen in designing the Mythos for Call of Cthulhu, essentially stripping out the ‘war in heaven’ concept that has the Great Old Ones battling the Elder Gods, the arbitrary division of these ‘gods’ into good and evil, and the association of the elements with certain Great Old Ones. The result was, and is, starker, more ‘Lovecraftian’, and more evocative of Cosmic Horror as well as being satisfyingly familiar.

The investigator creation rules in the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook are the same as those in the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, but with a stripped down list of Occupations—less than thirty as opposed to the hundred or so in the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook. So whilst it is perfectly possible to create investigators using the rules found in the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook, the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook gives more options. Similarly, the list of skills is almost the same as in the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, the additions being mostly more mechanical details for each skill—the effects of ‘pushing’ that skill and setting some opposing skill difficulties as guidelines for the Keeper.

At its most basic, Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is mechanically no different to previous editions of the game. It uses percentile dice to roll under a value—typically a skill, an investigator’s Sanity, and so on. These values are joined in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition by an investigator’s attributes, now expressed as percentile values rather than between three and eighteen. The values have also been graded—Regular for under the full value, Hard for under half of the value, and Extreme for under a fifth of the value—for easy determination of the difficulty of any roll and the success of its outcome. This has also been supported by the new character sheet which has space for all three values for all of the game’s attributes and skills.

The new rules encourage increased player agency. Prior to a skill roll, the player and Keeper can agree upon the possible outcome of a successful skill roll. If the skill roll is successful, the player can narrate the outcome, but if the roll is failed, then the Keeper narrates the outcome. This agency does not apply to every situation, and similarly, it does not always apply to the new type of roll in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This is the capacity to ‘Push a Roll’. This addresses the issue of failure in previous editions of the game wherein if a player failed a roll, there was no way around the problem and this could be an issue when the investigator was trying to find an important clue, such that the Keeper would have to find a way around this roadblock in order for the game to progress. In Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition a player can ‘Push a Roll’. What this means is that if a player fails a roll, then he can roll again. He needs to explain what his investigator is doing differently to earn the right to Push a Roll and he also needs to negotiate with the Keeper what the consequences of failure are. This is not a rewind of events, but rather a second, desperate attempt.

For example, Sergeant Install is a bomb disposal officer working to deactivate a bomb that has been attached to the underside of the driver’s seat of a nice Mercedes. Unfortunately, the car’s owner, Mr. Alexander is sat in the car, unable to move lest the device detonate. Sergeant Install has Demolitions 70%, and because the bomb is in an awkward place to get at, the Keeper rules that the Difficulty of the task is Hard, or half the skill. So in Sergeant Install’s case, this will be 35%. Unfortunately, his player fails the roll.

Sergeant Install’s player decides to push the roll, explaining that the Sergeant will draw upon his previous experience with this type of device to determine the correct course of action. The Keeper accepts this and together they negotiate the terms of possible failure—the countdown will suddenly speed up. Fortunately, Sergeant Install’s player makes the roll and both he and Mr. Alexander are safe.

Even if the second ‘Pushed Roll’ fails, the investigator need not necessarily ‘fail’ at the intended action. Rather he can instead both succeed and suffer the consequences of his failure to ‘Push a Roll’. In other words, he succeeds, but opens himself up to all of the horror that the Keeper can inflict upon him. In this, the designers are drawing upon the storytelling maxim of “Yes, but…” wherein a new element is added to a story by one storyteller and then accepted by a second storyteller who further embellishes the new element. In Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the step from the ‘yes’ to the ‘but’ is not one step, but two dice rolls and some negotiation, but the result is that the infamous ‘Clue Roadblock’ of previous editions has been removed. If necessary an investigator is always going to get the clue he is looking for—if it is there, that is—but the consequences or embellishments of his failed rolls are invariably horrific and Sanity-sapping...

Combat rolls cannot be Pushed in this fashion, but like the right to narrate the outcome of successful skill rolls, ‘Pushing a Roll’ is another storytelling mechanic. Most obviously it is a means to get around the problem of failed rolls, but it has another effect—it makes the play of the game less black and white, giving a greater flexibility in the outcome of skill rolls and so moving Call of Cthulhu towards a slightly pulpier feel. Examples of Pushed rolls and the consequences of their failure are given for each skill in the skills list.

Lastly, ‘Pushing a Roll’ is not the only means included in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition to counter failed rolls. There is also Luck. This is probably the most controversial new mechanic in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. In the new rules, it is a stat or attribute that is rolled just like the Luck roll was in previous editions of the game, but in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Luck is also a resource that can be expended to improve rolls, for example, from a failure to a Regular success, from a Regular to a Hard success, and so on. This does not include attempts to ‘Push a Roll’, on which Luck cannot be spent in this fashion. When Luck is spent, it is on a one-for-one point basis and once spent, the points are gone and the Luck stat is permanently reduced, although it can be recovered at the end of a scenario or campaign.

It should be made very clear that this expenditure of Luck is an option. Neither the Keeper nor his players have to use it in their game. What its use does though is move—much as ‘Pushing a Roll’ does—Call of Cthulhu towards a pulpier style of game in which there is a little more give in terms of investigator survival. In a sense, when spending Luck, an investigator is ‘pushing his luck’ and quite literally, his luck can ‘run out’. In play Luck actually becomes a resource to be managed, the player judging when the time is right to ‘push his luck’, more judgement being used in an ongoing campaign game than in a one-shot or convention where he will throw caution to the wind and is unlikely to play that investigator again.

Just as Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition has made changes to the core mechanics and skills, so too have changes been made to combat. Whilst the DEX rank means of determining initiative has not changed, the first change is to fist and melee fights to avoid the ‘back and forth series of attacks and dodges’ of the previous editions. Now in a fist fight, the attacker and defender make opposed Fighting (Brawl) skill rolls with the better roll determining who is successful and can thus inflict damage. What a combatant cannot do is attack and parry—all of that is figured into the single roll. A combatant can also dodge and this again is handled with opposed Fighting (Brawl)/Dodge skill rolls. In a stand up fight, draws favour the attacker or the defender if he is dodging. This also applies to the use of melee weapons.

In a brawl, combatants effectively get two actions—once when they attack and then again when they defend. If a combatant has already tried to attack and then tries to dodge an attack, then he does so with a Penalty die. What this means is that fist fights and melees are faster—in terms of telling the story, if not necessarily mechanically—because investigators get to roll twice in a round, once as an attacker and once as a defender with possibility that an investigator might roll well and inflict damage in both instances.

Where melee combat consists of opposed skill rolls, ranged combat, including firearms, does not, primarily because combatants are not acting on the same initiative order or able to react with the same immediacy as in a fist fight. In fact the only reaction a combatant can have is to dodge—as he throws himself to the ground or ducks behind a wall—and that is all that he can do. The most obvious change to the rules for shootouts is for weapons that can be fired more than once in a round. They still can, but every shot after the first is with a Penalty die. The autofire mechanics receive the most attention and seem workable enough, though as with any set of autofire rules, they are bound not to satisfy everyone.

What comes across throughout is that combat and damage are deadlier than before. Primarily because characters can suffer major wounds—damage equal to, or greater than half of a character’s Hit Points—which will knock them prone and possibly render them unconscious. Then because attacks made at Extreme level of success inflict maximum damage, including the Damage Bonus, if a blunt force trauma attack, but maximum damage, plus a damage roll, if an impaling attack such as a knife or a gunshot. Further, it takes a long time to recover from any damage—the First Aid skill only grants a single Hit Point back and the Medicine skill requires time and rest upon the part of the injured investigator.

Lastly, options are included for hit locations, knock-outs, spending Luck to remain conscious, suppressed fire, and more. Overall, the combat rules feel relatively simple and straightforward. Notably though, they are very nicely illustrated with some fully worked out and very helpful examples.

Inspired by ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, the chase mechanics in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition get their own chapter. This abstracts the route of the chase into a line of dots—or locations—along which the Keeper can track the progress of both the investigators and the NPCs. All of the participants in a chase get a minimum of one action or Move each round, but the faster of them will get more. These Moves can be used to move forward; to mount an attack—using the Fighting, Firearms, or Drive (Auto) skills; cast a spell; overcome hazards—traffic jam, patch of mud, a fence, or even two men with a pane of glass, and so forth. All of which use the game’s main rules as normal. So far so good. The chase rules are a reasonable attempt to cover a common situation, but two problems arise. First, when a chase involves multiple participants or splits into more than one chase, they become more complex for the Keeper to keep track of. Second, when vehicles are used they use the same rules, but the only stat for vehicles that matter in a chase—when determining movement and the number of Moves available—is their Move stat. There is no stat that accounts for a vehicle’s mechanical handling, that would make it better at performing maneuvres. Now Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is not Car Wars, but given the advances in technology and the differences in vehicles in both the 1920s and the modern eras, it seems an odd omission.

Naturally, Sanity is as important to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition as it to previous editions of the game. Mechanically, the Sanity rules have not changed, but they have been rewritten for clarity. Primarily this has been done to make clear what an investigator’s mental state is, whether that is suffering from temporary, indefinite, or permanent insanity and which phase of the reaction to a sanity depleting experience he is in—‘A Bout of Madness’ or ‘Underlying Sanity’. If in the former phase, the player still passes control of his investigator to the Keeper as in previous editions and the investigator may come to later on to find himself in a perilous situation—as shown in some terrific examples. If the latter phase, then the investigator is more prone to suffering from delusions or the effects of an existing phobia or mania—thus making it easier to portray either under both normal and insane circumstances. The effects of insanity are also applied directly to an investigator and his backstory. Essentially exposure to the Mythos can alter aspects of an investigator’s backstory—his physical appearance, ideology and beliefs, relationships with significant people, meaningful locations, treasured possessions, and personal traits. The exact Sanity warping or corrupting effect of exposure to the Mythos to these elements is a matter of negotiation between the player and the Keeper, but the Keeper is also free to add new elements to an investigator’s backstory. Lastly, one of these elements—an investigator’s key connection—can be relied upon for comfort and succor in times of mental stress. Perhaps a religious investigator goes on retreat or one who values his parents spends time at home. Either way, the investigator may regain lost Sanity this way—though woe betide an investigator who loses such a key connection. Fortunately, losing a key connection is fairly difficult and cannot be lost at the arbitrary whim of the Keeper, it must be played out within the game.

Over all, the Sanity rules feel little changed. They do however, feel better explained, more organised, and thus streamlined. Where they are definitely improved is in the number examples that show how they work and in showing how insanity directly affects an investigator through the elements of—or roleplaying hooks from—his backstory. Now this may feel familiar from other RPGs, perhaps even other RPGs of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but this does not mean that they are not needed or unwelcome in Call of Cthulhu.

The oddly named ‘Playing the Game’—surely this chapter should have been called ‘Running the Game’ given that the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook is primarily for the Keeper?—is full of advice pitched along two different lines. The first is for those Keepers new to Call of Cthulhu, whilst the second is for those Keepers who are new to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Thus the advice covers setting up a group, setting up a scenario, creating investigators and investigator groups, handling and portraying NPCs, making the most of an investigator’s backstory, and even corrupting the investigator’s backstory via the Mythos… It also goes over the mechanics—when to roll the dice, ‘Pushing a Roll’, ‘Pushing a Perception Roll’, and so on. In some ways it feels very basic, but that is born out of familiarity rather than contempt.

Nevertheless, it is in this chapter that the Idea Roll makes its appearance in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. No longer is it up front and part of the investigator creation process or on the investigator sheet. Here it has been relegated to a roll of last resort, when the players have been run out ideas and have no idea what to do and so want to hand the fate of their investigators to the Keeper. Importantly, whatever the roll, the investigators get the clue or spur that they need, but if the r0ll is failed, they are placing their fate in the hands of the Keeper. This is in keeping with the story driven outcomes of failed rolls for ‘Pushing a Roll’, suffering a ‘Bout of Madness’, and so on.

The ‘Grimoire’ of spells has been expanded to allow for ‘deeper’ versions of various spells. Such versions are typically known by insane wizards, but it is possible for an investigator to learn such versions when he too is insane—either temporarily or indefinitely. For example, Body Warping of Gorgoroth enables the caster to alter his shape and appearance, whether to that of an object or another person, but the ‘deeper’ version lets the caster change himself into a true replica of another person.In addition, the chapter also explores the idea that its many spells can be redesigned so that the Keeper can create one more suited to his game. The example development of Create Zombie into Graveyard Kiss, Grey Binding, and Create Zombi illustrates the flexibility of the idea. Nevertheless, the spells will be familiar from previous editions of Call of Cthulhu, as are the selections of Mythos Tomes, artefacts and alien devices, and monsters, beasts, and alien gods. There are changes here and there. For example, the Mythos Tomes can be read again and again to gain more understanding of the Mythos, but this takes longer and longer each time with diminishing returns each time up to a maximum amount that can be learned.

Another change echoes the efforts of Sandy Peterson, the original designer of Call of Cthulhu to declutter the Mythos away from the supposed ‘Good/Bad’ leanings of various Mythos entities and races, and that is the removal of the classifications for said entities and races. Thus in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, they are no longer explicitly categorised as Independent Races, Lesser Servitors, Greater Servitors, Elder Gods, Outer Gods, Great Old Ones, and so on. This is primarily because H.P. Lovecraft was himself inconsistent about the application of such categories, particularly the Elder Gods, Outer Gods, and Great Old Ones. The effect is to free up how the Keeper both thinks about and uses these entities in his game, although for those not new to the game, the ‘monster’ classification of the older editions of Call of Cthulhu is discussed as an option.

The last major change to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition over previous editions of Call of Cthulhu is to the scenarios. ‘The Haunting’, after three decades of very worthy service has been made freely available as part of the Call of Cthulhu Seventh Edition Quick-Start Rules PDF. Similarly ‘The Madman’, ‘Dead Man Stomp’, and ‘Edge of Darkness’ have been excised after decades of worthy service in favour of two new scenarios. The first of these is ‘Amidst Ancient Trees’, a standalone scenario that places an emphasis on physical rather than the more traditional investigative skills of the classic Call of Cthulhu scenario. Thus Tracking, Spot Hidden, Listen, Stealth, Fighting, and Firearms skills are more useful than say Library Use or Other Language (Latin). Set in Vermont in 1925, it opens with the news of a gunfight on the edge of Bennington between the police and the gang who kidnapped the daughter of a prominent businessman, Lucas Strong. The gang got away with the ransom money, but did not hand over his daughter, and now Mr. Strong is hiring men to form search parties to find her. The resulting tramp into the woods is a somewhat linear affair, but it is nicely staged and it makes solid use of an entity* that is usually confined to the English countryside. A nice touch is that there are notes on the negative outcomes of ‘Pushing a Roll’ in certain situations. Nor this need be a one-shot as Vermont is in New England and it is just over the state line from Lovecraft Country, so a Keeper could easily add this to an existing campaign set in either location.**

*At this point I wanted to write Great Old One, but such a term is optional under Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

**Anyone with access to The Primal State, the Miskatonic University Library Association Monograph available as a PDF should consider adding ‘Amidst Ancient Trees’ to that mini-campaign.

The second scenario, ‘Crimson Letters,’ takes place at Arkham’s famed Miskatonic University and in Call of Cthulhu terms, is much more of a traditional investigative affair. The investigators are called in to look into the circumstances of the death of a young university professor who died under mysterious circumstances to ensure that there is no ensuing scandal. The scenario comes with various NPCs and locations and is more of a sandbox than the structured affair that is ‘Amidst Ancient Trees’. What this means is that there is a lot more preparation required by the Keeper and this not helped by the sizeable cast of NPCs and motivations that he will have to handle. The scenario would also certainly have benefited from a jumping-off or starting point for the Keeper to work from and thus provide a hook for the investigators. Overall, as good as ‘Crimson Letters’ has the potential to be, it does feel a bit too much like a tool kit for the Keeper rather than an actual scenario.

Whilst there is nothing intrinsically wrong in changing the scenarios from one edition of Call of Cthulhu to another, neither scenario feels right for the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Rulebook. In the hands of an experienced Keeper both scenarios are perfectly fine, but for the inexperienced or neophyte Keeper both represent a challenge, especially ‘Crimson Letters’ which possesses a complexity that is arguably too much for a scenario in a core rulebook. The first problem essentially is that neither is really an introductory scenario—or just quite an intermediary scenario if the Keeper and his players have played ‘The Haunting’. The second problem is that both scenarios are written with the experienced Keeper in mind, that is, the traditional audience who has been playing Call of Cthulhu for as much as thirty years or more, though more so in the case of ‘Crimson Letters’ than ‘Amidst Ancient Trees’.

Arguably, these scenarios are the only real misstep in the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook. Their inclusion and the lack of scenarios designed to ease a Keeper—whether a Keeper new to Call of Cthulhu or just the new edition—into running Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is both disappointing and out of step with the effort made by the rest of both the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook and the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Rulebook to both teach and showcase the new rules. Rounding out the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Rulebook is a set of extensive appendices. These include a glossary, a a conversion guide from previous editions to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, equipment lists, rules summaries, and more.

Physically, the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook suffers from the same organisational oddities as the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook. Where that volume has the ‘Life As An Investigator’ and ‘Advice For Players’ chapters separated by a chapter on ‘The Roaring Twenties’, here the chapter on Magic—covering the reading and study of Mythos Tomes and the learning and casting of spells—is separated from the subsequent chapters that detail the Tomes of Eldritch Lore and the Grimoire of spells by the chapter on running the game, itself oddly named ‘Playing the Game’. So there is an odd bump in the narrative flow of reading and learning the game and again, a organisation that is not as logical as it should be. That said, the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook is physically well presented and comes with some decent artwork, although various pieces are somewhat scrappy and lack the assured atmosphere of the old pen and ink pieces of the previous editions of the game. Although the editing wavers towards the book’s end a little, overall the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook is well written, the rules benefiting greatly from the efforts of the authors to explain the rules through copious examples—to the point where there are almost too many examples.

-oOo-

In coming to the end of any review it is usually a simple matter of drawing it to a close with a simple conclusion. This is not possible with what is a radically new and different take upon as venerable a game as Call of Cthulhu. Thus this review will draw not one conclusion, but several in pulling together my thoughts about Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

Most obviously, the biggest changes to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition are its mechanics. Their effect is to move it towards the Pulp style and feel, but it is not a wholly Pulp style game. Certainly ‘Pushing a Roll’ does move the game towards the Pulp and arguably away from the uncaring nature of a Lovecraftian universe, as does the expenditure of Luck and various other optional rules, but apart from ‘Pushing a Roll’, all of these are optional rules. In other words, the Keeper and his players does not have to use them. It is at best, slightly pulpy, and should a Keeper want a more Purist style of game, then the best option would probably be to ignore the optional rules. On the other hand, combat is now deadlier than before and healing greatly slowed, so the survivability of an investigator does feel as if has been substantially reduced. Which certainly makes it feel more like a Purist game and may be seen as a counter to the slightly pulpy ‘Pushing a Roll’ mechanic.

Of the optional rules, being able to spend Luck to adjust dice rolls has the most noticeable effect upon how people play Call of Cthulhu. This is because Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition turns Luck into a valuable resource, one that can be spent to effectively push an investigator’s luck and when low after having been spent, reflects the fact that an investigator’s luck really has run out. Now in a convention game or one-shot, Luck is there to spent. After all, the scenario will be over in four hours and that investigator is never going to be played again, so a player can be more daring, perhaps devil may care, with the life of his investigator. Luck though exacerbates this feeling, whereas in a campaign, Luck becomes much more of a precious resource, with limited refreshes of it at the end of scenario or part of a campaign. So Luck is something to be hoarded rather than spent, a player saving it until the moment when his investigator really, really needs it. What this means is that in an one-shot game, Luck makes a scenario much more of a Pulp game than a Purist.

Another side effect of the publication of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is that it fosters ‘edition wars’, that is, disagreements between one version of a game and another. It is perhaps more prevalent between versions of Dungeons & Dragons and of Old School Renaissance ‘retroclones’, but the differences between Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and its previous iterations are enough to inflame one over your favourite version of Call of Cthulhu. Whatever you feel about Call of Cthulhu, the game has been in print—more or less—for over thirty years and in that time it has been very well supported with a lot of highly playable material. Of course the publication of the new edition will mean that those previous editions of the game will no longer be supported, but that it is less of a handicap than some might think.

Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is compatible with the previous editions and vice versa. If a Keeper and his players can handle simple arithmetic, then running any scenario for Call of Cthulhu under Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition will not be a challenge. The extra preparation required by the Keeper will not add much to the extra required to ready a scenario anyway and for the most part, a Keeper could run any almost any scenario published in the last thirty five years without any difficulty or even preparation, whether that is from The Asylum and Other Tales, The Stars Are Right, or Tales of the Sleepless City. It means that old material is still available and accessible and playable using Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It means that your library of Call of Cthulhu books, campaigns, and scenarios and the material contained in them are still valid and definitely have not made redundant purely because of the publication of a new edition.* Likewise, a Keeper can just as easily take a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, for example, Cold Harvest or Dead Light, and run it using Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition, Call of Cthulhu, Fifth Edition, and so on.

*It is fair to say that there are exceptions. For example, The 1920's Investigator's Companion, Vol. 1, 1920's Investigator's Companion, Vol. 2, and The 1920's Investigator's Companion are all redundant with the publication on the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Investigator Book.

-oOo-

So at this point in the review, I want to step away from the analysis of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook and talk about my emotional response to the new edition of the game after playing it several times. I was a play-tester—like many people—and I was a Kickstarter backer—again like so many people, and of the playtesting groups, we were the only ones to record those sessions. In playing both through the playtest sessions and various games since, at no time has it never felt like I was not playing Call of Cthulhu. True, it felt fiddly in places and the Investigator sheet looked fussy, but this never translated into play. Nor did any of the investigators I played feel less or more competent. In places the rules did feel slightly more complex, especially the Chase mechanics and whilst investigator creation looks more complex, the numbers are simple and the choices of Occupations excellent—especially if you have the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Book.

A more considered and thoughtful question arises when I come to review titles for Call of Cthulhu other than Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This is, “Can I run this using Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition?” Every time, whether the book is The Asylum & Other Tales, Green and Pleasant Land, or Tatters of the King, the answer is “Yes.”

However, I do have strong feelings about the changes to the content of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook. Simply, I am saddened by the omission of the short story ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and the loss of the scenarios—‘The Haunting’, ‘The Madman’, ‘Dead Man Stomp’, and ‘Edge of Darkness’. Of course, I still have them in previous editions of the game, but a Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook without them seems lacking.

-oOo-

Penultimately, in reviewing Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, there is the matter of the title of these reviews—‘Call of Cthulhu II (Part the First)’ and ‘Call of Cthulhu II (Part the Second)’. It is the ‘Call of Cthulhu II’ that is important here, for although the reviews of both the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook and the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, are together a review of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, arguably they are not Seventh Edition at all. Rather they are Call of Cthulhu, Second Edition—the real Second Edition and not the one published in 1983. For all of the editions published between 1981 and 2005—from Call of Cthulhu to Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition, are really one game with just minor changes between editions, a contention only exacerbated by the number of minor editions released for the Fifth Edition. The publication of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a radical design in comparison to those previous editions, it is as a thorough a rethink of the way in which the game is played as it has ever received.* It is as thorough a reexamination of the rules and the issues of the rules as the RPG has ever had and indicates a major step in the game’s evolution and history.

*Arguably several of the other RPGs of Lovecraftian investigative horror can also be seen as radical responses to decades of Call of Cthulhu. Take your pick as to which...

Ultimately, the question you have to answer is this… “Should Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition have been just another reprint with minor tweaks made to the rules and a new layout that pleased no one, or should the designers have actually addressed issues with the game that had arisen after thirty years of gaming?” The question hardly warrants an answer, because it cannot be denied that Call of Cthulhu needed an update, a redesign, a rethink—and not just because it was being funded via Kickstarter. The resulting Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition has been updated, redesigned, rethought, and the end result is a far more resilient, more nuanced game, but with options included to allow a Keeper to run the game how he wants. If the designers of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition had to get one thing right it was addressing the issue of failed skill rolls and in the ‘Pushing a Roll’ mechanic, the designers absolutely have. The mechanic is simple, elegant, and in keeping with the designers’ efforts to give the players greater agency during the game. This is balanced by the granting of agency back to the Keeper when ‘Pushing a Roll’ or an Idea roll are failed. The other mechanical changes evolve from previous editions of the game and are logical and standardised, making the game easier to learn and play. Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is also easier to learn because the rewriting of both the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook and the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook includes copious examples of the rules and play, and all together, Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is more accessible for Keeper and player alike.

The fact that it is an evolution of the previous rules, means that the thirty years of previous supplements, scenarios, and campaigns are still accessible and playable using Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, yet Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is also a great jumping on point for the game. Whilst Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition brings many changes to the venerable RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror, this is without fundamentally changing what Call of Cthulhu was—and is, the preeminent RPG of Cosmic Horror.