[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2

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

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

The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 continues the description of the ‘Lost World’ setting begun in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1, detailing a plateau only whispered of lying deep in the southern jungles for use with Old School Essentials. Unfortunately, the first issue of the fanzine was an unbalanced affair, dividing its attention between some evocative Classes for Player Characters and NPCs residing on the plateau and a adventure to get Player Characters from the lands of civilisation to the north onto the plateau. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 presents the various social groupings atop the plateau. These consist of ten tribes, six humanoid tribes, and four kingdoms. The ten tribes are hunters and gatherers, and fairly small. Each is given a page that lists their (Present Social) Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The Present Social Structure breaks down their numbers, the Relationships notes connections to other tribes, and the Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The descriptions vary wildly in length and thus detail. For example, ‘The Aasai’, skilled hunters and trap makers, is only accorded half a page, and note the tribe is dominated by a shamanic council, number roughly thirty, and its members paint their hair red, stretch their ears, and make statues to various dinosaur deities. The Hazda tribe is give three quarters of a page. They are skilled scouts and explorers and know the plateau very well, its members include eight scouts, and they believe that after death, the soul transforms into a tree, so worship the whole jungle across the plateau as their ancestors, believe that the world was created by a giant Megaloceros known as Ksitu and build bone towers in their camps to him, and use a flower extract as eyedrops to increase tribe members’ physical and spiritual perception. There is this constant fluctuation from one tribe to the next in terms of content and detail or lack of it, including the relationships between tribes. In too many cases, it is simply stated that a tribe is in an ethnic conflict or has problems with another, but not why. There is a lot of variation between the tribes, but too many feel underdeveloped, especially if the Game Master and her players want to use them in conjunction with the character Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1.

The six humanoid tribes are all treated as monsters rather than Player Characters and NPCs which could use the Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2. Like the human tribes, they are given a page that lists their Social Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. Added to this is a table of names. This is done for each of the six humanoid tribes, leaving the Game Master why something similar was not include for the ten other tribes? There appears to be greater numbers of them, and they include Neanderthals, what could be apes, and what could be Orcs. Unlike the description of the ten tribes, which includes an illustration, few of the descriptions of the humanoid tribes do. This is a fundamental failing, because these are essentially monster tribes in the Kalunga Plateau setting and the Game Master has no idea what they look like.

‘The Four Great Kingdoms’ presents a similar treatment of the organised kingdoms in the south of the plateau, one of which is found underground. Each is given a two-page spread, which lists its Crops and Livestock, Language, Social Structure, Economic Structure, Religion, Population and Hierarchy, and war Technology. The entries are longer, but typically most of the second page is taken with a single large illustration. To call them kingdoms is a misnomer, since each only has the town. That said, why not name that town and mark it on the map? Also, why is there no description of the towns? No simple description of what the kingdom is? No mention of the relationships between the kingdoms or between the kingdoms and the various tribes—both human and humanoid? For example, the Anuunaki have vertical farms in the black dirt walls of cliffs, where they also having breeding huts for the pterodactyls which they ride, but this is listed under Crops and Livestock. Okay, yes, the pterodactyls are technically livestock, but surely one of the leading facts about the kingdom is that it raises pterodactyls which are then ridden? That should be upfront and not buried in a section on farming, and ignores the fact that the entry on the Anuunaki does not tell the reader what they are used for. It does show in the accompanying illustration, but that is not the point. So, whilst there is a lot of good description given for the four kingdoms, the fundamentals are still missing and the information is poorly organised.

Although the four kingdoms described, there are no guidelines on creating either Player Characters or NPCs from any one of the four. This partly negates their use until more information is provided, but certainly space could have been made in the pages of the fanzine given that so much space is devoted to artwork that takes up almost whole pages.

Lastly, in ‘Creed’ examines some of the gods and spiritual beings attracted to the plateau and worshipped there. That worship is more formalised in the Southern Kingdoms, but in each case gives the entity’s Spiritual Form, Physical Form, Behaviour, Interests Over the Plateau, Offerings, Shaman’s Clothes, and Symbol Made on the Floor. The latter describes how the symbol is made, for example, that of Agwessu, ‘Master of the Lakes and the River’, must be made with the powder of dried fish scales, but not why. Where the tribes see them as animistic beings, the shaman of the southern kingdoms call them ‘Baghvãs’ and allow them to manifest in their own bodies. Besides the main pantheon, there is a list of minor ‘Baghvãs’ too. What really is not explored is what the shaman gets out of all of this.

Physically, The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is well presented. The artwork and the cartography are both decent. The fanzine is overwritten and slightly heavy going, and in need of a good edit.

The problem with The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is not just that its contents vary between the not very interesting, the poorly explained, and the unanswered questions, but that it avoids the interesting parts of the setting. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 described how the Plateau was once home to an alien civilisation whose presence was destroyed when an enormous sphere hit the planet. The sphere still remains, buried deep in the earth under the plateau that its impact threw up. What ruins remain are regarded by the current inhabitants of the Plateau as having been built by the gods. This, plus the combination of dinosaurs and the Lost World, is what is interesting about The Kalunga Plateau as a setting. Yet two issues in and none of that is explored or examined, leaving the would-be Game Master waiting for what is essentially, the good bits. Hopefully, some of that will be explored in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 3, but in the meantime, The Kalunga Plateau as a fanzine is beginning to feel like a partwork in which all of the interesting and playable content has been saved for much later issues.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIII] The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1

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

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

The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 is the beginning of a ‘Lost World’ setting, detailing a plateau only whispered of lying deep in the southern jungles, Classes for the tribesmen atop the plateau and the surrounding area, Invocations, and a scenario designed to get the Player Characters up onto the plateau itself. ‘The Kalunga Plateau’ opens with an overview of the plateau and some rumours with which the Game Master can seed her campaign. ‘The Setting’ explains a bit more, that the Plateau was once home to an alien civilisation whose presence was destroyed when an enormous sphere hit the planet. The sphere still remains, buried deep in the earth under the plateau that its impact threw up. What ruins remain are regarded by the current inhabitants of the Plateau as having been built by the gods. It then quickly settles down to present the first of three new Classes.

‘The Hunter’ specialises in the hunting and trapping of animals to feed the tribe. It gains points in the skills of Climb, Stealth, Bushcraft, Booby Trap, Sneak, and Tame. The latter is used to domesticate animals, whilst Bushcraft is used to handle survival in the jungle. The Hunter inflicts increased damage as the Class gains Levels, reflecting greater skill at killing creatures cleanly, and gains greater skill when working with fellow Hunters. ‘The Shaman’ can recognise the divine aura of another Shaman, makes for a poor combatant, and can conjure Invocations, such as Animal Spirit, Heal Wounds, Sleep, Feel the Evil, and so on. These are detailed separately in ‘Primal Invocations’. ‘The Combatant’ is the tribal warrior, which gains an attack bonus and can use all weapons. All three Classes are simple and straightforward, with the Hunter being the most complex. If there is an issue with the Classes, it is that they do not offer much in the way of choice to differentiate between one Player Character and the next. ‘Experience’ lists options for gaining Experience, such as killing dangerous enemies and creatures, surviving attacks, and exploration. ‘Gear, Weapons, and Coin’ gives a list of the prices for various items in the South Kingdoms, although without naming actual kingdoms. That and their details are promised for The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2.

Almost half of The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 is dedicated to a single scenario, ‘Journey to an Unknown Land’. This is designed to get standard type Player Characters from their ‘civilised’ lands of the north to South Kingdoms and from there into the jungle and up onto the Plateau. It presents several hooks to get them interested and then details the journey south to the Last Sip Inn. With the help of a guide—who exacts a high price—they can then follow the Bone Road to the Plateau. Once atop the Plateau, they are first chased by a tyrannosaurus rex and then rescued by a tribesman. His tribe will offer refuge, but in return for gaining its trust, the Player Characters must perform a task for its shaman. They must recover an artefact from the nearby Cave of Pain. It is a fairly deadly dungeon, linear, but if the Player Characters succeed, they will gain the trust of the tribe and be released to explore the Plateau further. Likewise, the adventure is linear itself, without any room for the Player Characters to do anything other than follow the plot.

The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 does not really achieve what it wants to do. Essentially, there is not enough attention paid to the Plateau itself and too much attention is paid to getting Player Characters from elsewhere to the Plateau with the linear and limited adventure, ‘Journey to an Unknown Land’, whereas attention is paid to Classes, native to both the Plateau and the surrounding jungle, which cannot be used in conjunction with the rest of the content. It leaves the first issue unfocused. For example, only the one monster—the tyrannosaurus rex—is given for atop the Plateau, the rest either being in the cave of the adventure or on the route to the Plateau. Then the description of the Plateau never amounts to more than an overview, so that the Game Master is never really given a good feel for it.

Physically, The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 is well presented. The artwork and the cartography are both decent. The fanzine is overwritten and slightly heavy going.

As a first issue, The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 is disappointing. There is good content within its pages, such as the Classes—despite their limitations, and the Invocations for the Shaman, but the rest feels randomly chosen so as not support the other. Fundamentally, the inclusion of the adventure, ‘Journey to an Unknown Land’, was a mistake. It could and should, have been saved for a later issue, when perhaps the author can focus on getting the Player Characters from elsewhere to the Plateau. Instead, that space could have been better devoted to developing and presenting the Kalunga Plateau as a playable addition for the Game Master’s campaign. Perhaps this will change with The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2.