[Fanzine Focus XXVIII] The Undercroft No. 14

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. For some fanzines, the system of choice changes over time.

Published since July 2014 by the Melsonian Arts Council, the frequency of issues of the fanzine, The Undercroft is no longer as regular as it once was. After a four-year gap between the publication of The Undercroft No. 10 and The Undercroft No. 11 in August, 2020, it was something of a surprise to see the publication of The Undercroft No. 12 the following October. In addition, although previous issues provided support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, the more recent issues have moved away from providing direct support to providing not only support for the Old School Renaissance in general, and thus any fantasy retroclone. The Undercroft No. 11 even went as far to provide support for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition! There was no support for that roleplaying game in The Undercroft No. 13, and nor is there in The Undercroft No. 14. Rather the content consists of three articles, all written to compatible with the retroclone of your choice.

The first of the three articles in The Undercroft No. 14 is Daniel Sell’s ‘GUN!’. This presents all of the rules and guns you would ever need for your fantasy roleplaying game, from gunpowder cannons to wheellocks, matchlocks, and flintlocks, along with rules to using them. The core rules are for matchlocks which can be fired once per battle, suffer double range penalties beyond short range, have a chance of misfiring, damp conditions increase the chance of misfiring, but at short range, they ignore five points of armour. They may also be used as clubs. Thus they have a limited use. Weapon types include pistols, arquebuses, arquebus à aroc, muskets, petronels (a firearm larger than a pistol which can be fired from horseback), and more. It even goes into the weirder combinations—the key gun, mace gun, the axe gun, the shield gun, and more, noting that most are unwieldy in either role. It adds the airgun, the duck gun, and other models and oddities, and overall, the article is well researched. There is a certain tone upon the author’s part of, “Really?”, at some of the ridiculous designs that have been created over the course of the gun’s development, but overall, a decently comprehensive article whose content is easy to drop into any Dungeons & Dragons-style game.

The second entry is not an article, but a scenario. In Brian Wille’s ‘Gold from the Ceiling’, the Player Characters are making their away from one town to the next in the autumn on muddy and literally shitty roads when there is a very bright light which streaks across the sky and lands somewhere to the north. As everyone knows, stones which fall from the sky are said to be made of precious metals, so with funds running low and the possibility of easy money not that far away… Of course, everyone knows this, which means there is a not so much a gold rush on as a ‘stones which fall from the sky’ rush as all and sundry race to the nearest town and then north to be first to get the precious metals. That is not the only complication on the way in what is a bit of a caper adventure—and then there is the stone itself and what it contains, which turns out to be a ‘Hideous Creature From Another World’ which is not happy! There is treasure to be found, but the Player Characters will definitely have to fight for it. This is a fun adventure and should a session or two’s worth of play.

Benjamin Foster is the author of the third and final article in The Undercroft No. 14. ‘Wandering Things of Threads and Patches’ which presents descriptions of fourteen interesting NPCs to be encountered almost anywhere. They include Payam Sadiq, Bearer of the Sacred Toad, whose duty it is to bear the supreme being, a forty-four-pound toad, on his back and show him the wonders of the world. Payam both loves and hates the Sacred Tranquil Toad, follows his every whim (which only he knows as the Sacred Tranquil Toad never speaks), and has to deal with the consequences when the Sacred Tranquil Toad casts a random spell because it has got angry. The hulking, be-monocled, Markduk, White Ape Enumerator, threatens everyone with accountability and proceeds to take their census, whilst Benyamin Asari, Retired Coachpainter, is a renowned decorator of coaches and sedans, whose style has fallen out of favour as lesser practitioners copied his style—which he wishes would come back in fashion. He help you analyse that pattern of movement of coaches though… All fourteen come with lists of possessions, wants, and hates, but no stats. This makes it easy for the Game Master to adapt them to the retroclone of her choice, and in the process 

Physically, The Undercroft No. 14 needs a slight edit in place, but is otherwise neat and tidy, and enjoyably illustrated. The cover, like The Undercroft No. 13, wraparound in full colour, is weird and creepy. 

The continued move to fewer, but longer articles does mean that The Undercroft No. 14 feels slighter as with the previous few issues. However, even with just three articles in the issue, The Undercroft No. 14 contains a good mix—two generally useful articles, including lots of memorable NPCs, and a scenario, all three of which are easy to adapt and use in a Game Master’s campaign. The Undercroft No. 14 is the best entry to date in the current format of longer, fewer articles.

[Fanzine Focus XXV] The Undercroft No. 13

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 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.

Published since July 2014 by the Melsonian Arts Council, the frequency of issues of the fanzine, The Undercroft is no longer as regular as it once was. After a four-year gap between the publication of The Undercroft No. 10 and The Undercroft No. 11 in August, 2020, it was something of a surprise to see the publication of The Undercroft No. 12 the following October. In addition, although previous issues provided support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, the more recent issues have moved away from providing direct support to providing not only support for the Old School Renaissance in general, and thus any fantasy retroclone. The Undercroft No. 11 even went as far to provide support for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition! There is no support for that roleplaying game in The Undercroft No. 13, although there is advice for using one of the articles with it. Otherwise, the issue does feel as if it is moving away from its Old School Renaissance origins.

The Undercroft No. 13 contains but three articles. The first of these is Sándor Gebei’s ‘Familiars for Witches’. This is a list of six dark and disturbing alternatives to the familiars that you might find in other roleplaying games with witches. For example, a witch has three crows, out of whose eyes she can see and cast hexes. Each time she casts a hex via one of her crows, it is set free from the witch’s bidding. When the witch subsequently strangles someone with her own hands, the victim returns to the witch as one of her crows. The other five familiars are of a similar or worse nature.

The main article in The Undercroft No. 13 is ‘So, it’s the End of the World’ by Dennis Manning. This is an exploration of the post-apocalypse genre. It is a solid overview, beginning with asking the cause of the disaster, such as a new Ice Age or extreme flooding from Climate Change or a virus, a plague, or zombie outbreak unleashed as the result of ritual magics or super science, before emphasising that adventures in this genre are about survival and rebuilding rather than delving and plundering. It suggests the use of Resilience value to represent what is essentially a Player Character’s mental Hit Points. If through loss, tragedy, or danger, enough points of Resilience is lost to reduce it to zero, the player rerolls a new total on the next lower die type, potentially gains a Condition, such as ‘Sleeping less than usual’ or ‘Temper tantrums’, and continues playing. If the die type for a Player Character’s Resilience drops below a four-sided die, it is time for him to retire. A table of Conditions is provided as is one for Injury Conditions, although the rules for handling injuries in the same fashion as Resilience are barely discussed.

Other rules for the genre include item quality, barter economics, personal inventory and storage, and detailing and running the homebase. The Player Characters are expected to protect the inhabitants of their base, build and manage resources—represented by die types, and face the consequences of their actions if the inhabitants are upset at all, such as killing or exiling a resident or exposing them to danger. There is a table for this, as there is for individualising the home base, essentially the reason it was selected in the first place. The rules creating and running a homebase and the dangers to the well-being of the Player Characters and the residents are all serviceable. Serviceable and no more, because they are not really anything which has not been seen before, whether in fanzines or other roleplaying games. Of course, if the genre and the set-up is new to the reader, then fine, but if not, the rules feel somewhat out of place in the fanzine, too modern a subject or genre in comparison to the usual Old School Renaissance fantasy that is usual fare for The Undercroft. So it is debatable just much use a reader of the fanzine will get out of them. The lack of examples do not help with this either, and overall, ‘So, it’s the End of the World’ feels as if it is actually the prototype for ‘The Apocalypse Hack’ a la The Black Hack and perhaps might have been suited to a dedicated ‘post-apocalypse’ issue or even roleplaying game of its own rather than sandwiched between two fantasy articles.

Rounding out The Undercroft No. 13 is Alex Clements’ ‘You Have Been Cursed’, a list of mostly minor curses that can be inflicted in the Player Characters for fun and roleplaying potential. It suggests a change to the rules for curses and removing them in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In particular, needing a Remove Curse spell of a particular Level to remove a curse, either that or fulfilling the removal terms of the curse. A typical curse states that the Player Character has been cursed by Sainted Bartholomew and consequently badgers hate the Player Character. They will crawl from their cets in the dead of to seek him out, perhaps even take him whilst he is awake, though probably not as badgers are strong, but not foolish. They are patient and they are good tunnelers… As can be seen, not every curse has conditions which can be fulfilled in order to lift it, but all thirty-six are inventive and engaging and are really going to make a player curse his Dungeon Master.

The Undercroft No. 13 needs a slight edit in place, but is otherwise neat and tidy, and enjoyably illustrated. The cover, wraparound in full colour, is weird and creepy. 

The Undercroft No. 12 felt slight because of the long articles, and so does The Undercroft No. 13—for exactly the same reason. Further, as reasonable as they are, not all of the articles in The Undercroft No. 13 fit the fanzine and whilst the individual articles are in no way bad, together the end result is underwhelming rather than engaging.

[Fanzine Focus XXII] The Undercroft No. 12

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 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.

After a four-year gap between the publication of The Undercroft No. 10 and The Undercroft No. 11 in August, 2020, it was something of a surprise to see the publication of The Undercroft No. 12 the following October. Although previous issues provided support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, the new issue continues the move by the fanzine away from that retroclone towards a neutral position with regard to any one retroclone, such that its contents can be used with Old School Renaissance fantasy roleplaying game. Unlike the previous issue, The Undercroft No. 12 does not include any content for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It does though, include four articles which are interesting and easy to adapt to the setting or retroclone of your choice.

The Undercroft No. 12 opens with ‘The Mountain That is a Man and Also God’ by Chance Philips. This really stands out in being in verse form, a format rarely employed in gaming. It describes a mountain that is between slumber and death, worked over and within by machine men, copper-wire brained and regimented into a strict hierarchy, who send out agents to walk among normal mortals, dressed in Halfling skin and hefty wigs, claiming to be Dwarves. It is a weird, ultimately creepy piece of verse, suggesting that all Dwarves might not be what they seem or at least, some of them, from this one single living mountain, are not what they seem.

Luke Le Moignan’s ‘The Legacy of Vazimak the Thanaturge’ introduces a new type of spellbook—the ‘Mnemocrypt’. This is a device or artefact which predates the use of spellbooks, an externalised memory palace which encodes and encrypts spells in a highly personalised fashion and dates from an ancient age of powerful arcane warlords. The Mnemocrypt of Vazimak the Thanaturge takes the form of a finely etched black sphere which can be studied. As the student learns more and more of its secrets, it increasingly becomes a burden and his mind becomes paranoid and he comes to see patterns in everything. The spells that the Mnemocrypt of Vazimak the Thanaturge grants all of a necromantic nature, such as Dreadful Osseous Vitality which animates and awakens the skeletons of the living, forcing the target to make a Consitution check lest his skeleton tear itself free and Bone Grenado which makes a nearby skeleton explode and potentially other skeletons explode in a chain reaction. Some nine spells are included along with notes on the Mnemocrypt of Vazimak the Thanaturge and others. The spells are all enjoyably inventive and nasty, especially for a villainous necromancer, and so could easily be added to his spellbook even if the Dungeon Master is not using Mnemocrypts. However, they are a clever idea in themselves, adding elements of longevity and research to an artefact. Hopefully, there will be more of them detailed in future issues of The Undercroft, or even more collected in a supplement from the publisher.

Daniel Sell’s ‘Dwarfen Trinkets and Artifacts’ is a table of one hundred items that might be found in a Dwarven home or purchased from a deal in such things. They include a lock of your mother’s beard, a Dwarven novel, a nest of copper and steel wires that is in fact a Dwarven map of the region, a bar of extra strong hair wax, and more. It is all rather mundane and intentionally so. These are a hundred mundane and ordinary items, diverse and engaging in nature, good for adding colour to a campaign with Dwarves, but at the same time, it does feel like filler—a bit.

‘Gallowsport’ by Sándor Gebei describes a dark and unforgiving harbour area beset by poverty, squalor, and organised crime, but contrasted by oddities that have come from abroad. Beginning with the features—sights, sounds, smells, buildings, and activity day and night—of the neighbourhood, it is detailed in table and bullet point fashions. There are tables for ‘Curios From Dark Seas and Distant Shores’, ‘Encounters’, ‘Rumours’, and more, as well as thumbnail descriptions of various landmarks and interesting places. So a curio might be a stiletto used in thirteen successful royal assassinations, an encounter with two beggars brawling whilst sailors look on and place bets, a rumour that a nearby abandoned lighthouse holds cursed treasure protected by giant crabs, and a ship in port might be the Venus, an infamous pleasure boat decorated in bawdy style. Together, the format and the fact that it is systems-neutral, make ‘Gallowsport’ very easy to use. A Dungeon Master can easily take this as is and drop it into the port city or town of his choice, using the roleplaying system of his choice.

The Undercroft No. 12 needs an edit in place, but is otherwise neat and tidy, and enjoyably illustrated. The cover, wraparound in full colour, is weird and creepy, full of eyes and eye-people as a thief looks on. 

The Undercroft No. 12 feels slighter because of the long list of gewgaws and knickknacks to be found in the centre of its pages. This is not to say that this list is not useful, but it is not necessarily as interesting or as immediately useful alongside the rest of the issue. The other entries in the issue are more engaging and will likely support play in a long term. Overall, The Undercroft No. 12 is a solid, serviceable issue.

The return of The Undercroft No. 11 is certainly welcome, and despite the shift to support for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition for some of its content, it still presents oddities and weirdness just as the previous issues did. Thus Dungeon Masters can use the oddities and weirdness just as much as Referees can for the Retroclone of their choice. 

[Fanzine Focus XXI] The Undercroft No. 11

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 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.

It has been four years since The Undercroft No. 10 was published in August, 2016, so it was something of a surprise to see the Melsonian Arts Council publish The Undercroft No. 11 in August, 2020. Previously leading way along with the Vacant Ritual Assembly fanzine in its support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, the new issue marks a notable change in support away from that retroclone. It comes with content suitable for any Old School Renaissance fantasy roleplaying game, it actually includes content for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. How the fanzine’s readership will react to that shift remains to be seen, but perhaps it marks the publisher’s acceptance of the influence and impact of the current version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Skipping past the editorial—since it is a secret and you are not meant to read it, The Undercroft No. 11 begins with a description of ‘The Aulk’, a strange grossly-fat slug thing which inhabits the Astral Sea and preys upon the memories of others. No one can quite agree on what the thing looks like, since it is often forgotten about or the memory of the encounter is quickly forgotten about—or actually eaten by the Auk. Written by the Chuffed Chuffer, this sounds like a rather banal beast, but if the Player Characters can actually find it and kill it, then they can harvest two things from it. First, Aulk Slim, its mucus trail said to enhance memory and illusion spells, and second, Aulk Crystals, small glass orbs—actually Aulk poo!—each of which contains a memory which can be experienced by holding it to your forehead. Such memories might be skills, spells, experiences, and more. There is plenty of gaming potential here if the Player Characters have to go on a ‘Hunting of the Aulk’ for a lost memory or clue.

Luke Le Moignan’s ‘Edicts of la Cattedral della Musica Universale’ presents seven heretical clerics. They include the Tithenites, who devote themselves to humble good  deeds, animal care, and beer-making, but revile Oozes instead of Undead and manufacture St. Tithenai’s Salt, a pinkish salt which works as Holy Water against such creatures; the Indulgencers, who believe that the spirits of the dead face a jury in the afterlife and so summon ghostly sinners to the mortal realms to work off part of their sentence; and the similar Venerators, who compel the Undead to participate in tea ceremonies and discuss their grievances, hopefully coming to terms that will redress their issues and so allow them to become restful dead! There are some interesting NPCs to be created out of these options, though for Player Characters, they present some equally as interesting roleplaying possibilities, but the descriptions do seem underdeveloped for that purpose.

For Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the fanzine details three Dwarven archetypes. Written by Daniel Sell and Daniel Martin, these are the Circle of the Mole Rat, the Oath of the Hammerer, and the Dungeon Master. The Circle of the Mole Rat is a Dwarfen Druid Archetype which grants Blind Sight, tunnelling abilities, and even secrets answered via message drops by Mother Mole Rat. The Oath of the Hammerer is a Dwarfen Paladin Archetype which embodies Dwarven cultural justice, using hammers as a holy symbol to dispense justice, becoming intimidating and fearless, and ultimately being able to cast Branding Smite upon those that deserve justice. The Dungeon Master is a Dwarfen Ranger Archetype which hunts for monsters and creatures which the Dwarves keep as their exotic guardian beasts. Of the three, the latter again feels underwritten and perhaps the least interesting, but the other two lend themselves to inclusion in a Dwarven focused campaign.

S. Keilty’s ‘The Corpse Seller’ is weird monster NPC, a long-armed creature found only down dark alleys at night where it sells members of the undead tailored to willing buyers, reaching into its abyssal mouth to pull them forth. However, the bargain will be steep—an arm, betrayal, or worse. If a bargain is not reached, then the buyer will become one of the corpses! This is a nasty thing which might be difficult to add to campaign, but would be memorable if so added.

Lastly, ‘The Root’ by Luke Gearing—author of Fever Swamp—presents a force born of Chaos, almost primal, which constantly shifts and probes with tendrils for cracks which allow it to enter into our worlds. When it does, each tendril can take one of several different forms, from a fungal colony whose spores drive the infected to defend and become one with the colony whilst granting the secret to destroy it—if they can or are even willing, to Mind of a Willing Host which spread the Root as spoken language, written word, and meme. Could the glossolalia of a mystic be the vector for the Root’s influence? All six options are interesting and any one of them could form the basis of a campaign backdrop with some effort upon the part of the Game Master, perhaps an even larger one as the adventurers travel from plane to plane, world to world, dealing with different forms of the Root.

Physically, The Undercroft No. 11 is well presented with an excellent colour cover and an array of dark illustrations inside. It does need a closer edit in places though.

The return of The Undercroft No. 11 is certainly welcome, and despite the shift to support for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition for some of its content, it still presents oddities and weirdness just as the previous issues did. Thus Dungeon Masters can use the oddities and weirdness just as much as Referees can for the Retroclone of their choice. 

Fanzine Focus XI: The Undercroft No. 10

On the tail of 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 showcased how 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 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. Leading the way in their support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have been the fanzines The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published in August 2016, The Undercroft No. 10 comes with just four articles. It opens with ‘Babel Square’ by Sándor Gebei, which describes a city location, part-exotic bazaar, part-bohemian quarter where strange encounters and strange goods are to be had. For example, a marching band of mice might pass through, playing the best of military mouse tunes or a hot air balloon might land in the middle of the street with a young girl dressed in blue, her pet dire wolf, and middle-aged man in green aboard. Found here is the Gallery of the Moonstone Swan, where artist Quil-Xon crafts beautiful body parts in obsidian, life-size bronzes of people, and so on, whilst the Corner of the Emerald Empress is a lavish restaurant  which serves specialities such as auroch haggis and cockatrice balut. Although there is not much depth to the description of Babel Square, there are lots and lots details with which a Referee can bring out its flavour and exoticism. It is perhaps though, not really suited to the grim and grimy feel which is the default for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Instead its fantasy is more high than low and there is a dissipated, decadent quality to the piece.

Corruption comes to the fore in the ‘void’ described by Luke Gearing, the author of Fever Swamp. Its inky blackness is warm and embracing, granting knowledge and power, but ultimately twisting and corroding from within to turn individuals into Occulted Husks and perverting the design of spells. Its effects are shown in the fall of the Occulted Kingdom and its Occulted Queen, as well as the artefacts created in response to its insidious influence, such as the Court-Black clothing won by courtiers to hide their corruption. Three example tainted spells are also listed, enough at least to suggest how a Referee might twist others, plus rules for corrupting the player characters and its effects upon them. This is a pernicious thing, but again, apocalyptic and much like an article in the previous issue, campaign ending.

Greg Gorgonmilk offers up some things in ‘A Miscellany’. For example, ‘Dead Fairy in a Lamp’ is a rosy glass tube containing tiny bones and wings, which when rattled and a certain word is spoken, casts an intense, warm light which reveals invisible objects and a clear view through stone, whilst ‘The Cloak of Beards’ is a magical patchwork vestment of some length, woven from the beards of twenty ancient kings and lined with mouse velvet, which grant the wearer regal charisma, bearing, and influence. There are just four things described here, each quite detailed and not a little decadent in their design. Certainly these are very far from the often brutalist design of magic items in Dungeons & Dragons.

Rounding out the issue is ‘The Officers’ Rest’. Written by Ezra Claverie, the designer of Crypts of Indormancy and set in the same world as that scenario, ‘The Officers’ Rest’ details part of the Her Majesty’s Western Shipyard and Submarine Pens of the Elven navy, abandoned long ago after the fall of the Elven Empire. It is also the lair of one their leftover warmachines… More specifically, this is set in the same location as ‘Decoherence Wight’ from The Undercroft No. 7, but is not quite as apocalyptic. It does have a pleasing post-industrial feel of abandonment, but unfortunately, ‘The Officers’ Rest’ suffers from the same issue as ‘Decoherence Wight’ in that it does not provide a reason for the player characters to go there. This is compounded by the lack context, in that the several pieces have appeared in the pages of the fanzine describing bits of the author’s setting, as well as Crypts of Indormancy, but they are all excerpts and we have yet to see an overview or really an introduction. This is clearly the author’s campaign world and it seems a shame to just show snapshots.

Physically, The Undercroft No. 1o is well presented. The artwork is decent and the writing clear. The editorial for the issue opens with the lines, “on this our tenth issue it is important to remember that this will not last forever there was a time when this publication did not exists and there will again be a time when it ceases…” Take this into consideration this then, for The Undercroft No. 10, if not the last issue, is at least the last issue since August, 2016. That may well be a good thing, for The Undercroft No. 10 feels a little tired, too drawn out perhaps for the articles it contains. None of them are actually bad articles, but as much as they are well presented, they do not feel easy to use or to bring into a campaign. Perhaps The Undercroft will return after it has had a well-deserved rest, perhaps not. Either way, The Undercroft No. 10 is not an unreasonable point at which to

—oOo—

The Undercroft fanzine and other titles from the Melsonian Arts Council will be available from Squarehex at UK Games Expo which will take place between June 1st and June 3rd, 2018 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

Fanzine Focus X: The Undercroft No. 9

On the tail of 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 showcased how 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 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. Leading the way in their support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have been the fanzines The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published in April 2016 by the Melsonian Arts Council, after solely concentrating on the scenario, ‘Something Stinks in Stilton’, for its eighth issue, The Undercroft No. 9 returns to its usual format and mix of content, though with an emphasis on new Classes. The black-covered issue begins with ‘Skinned Moon Daughter – A new class for games in the Great North’ by Benjamin Baugh. It is not so much a ‘Race as Class’, a la Basic Dungeons & Dragons, but a particular individual of a particular gender as Class. This is a Skinned Moon Daughter, who born under the omen of a Skinned Moon, grows up immune to the cold and with a taste for meat of any condition. When she comes of age, her Moon song can summon beasts such as wolves, walruses, and bears, and when one comes, she persuades it to swallow her whole. Inside the warmth of the creature’s belly, the Skinned Moon Daughter controls the beast, its strengths and abilities, but it speaks with her voice and moves with her intelligence. Such beasts can only be occupied for a month before they vomit the Skinned Moon Daughter back up, but she will be able to summon another… This is an interesting Class with varying powers according to the beast ridden. There are also interesting roleplaying opportunities should a Skinned Moon Daughter come to marry. This Class would work well with Frostbitten and Mutilated, the recently released supplement from Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Barry Blatt offers up ‘101 Uses of a Hanged Man’, drawing upon the seventeenth century belief in the medical efficacy of items such as Dead Man’s Hair, to create charms and potions. Researching the recipes to create these is no simple matter and the article suggests the difficulties involved. There is some good period detail here and although the article is limited in its scope, it can be used as the basis for further recipes of the Referee’s creation. The author’s blog expands upon this article. It is followed by a second new Class in the issue, ‘The Doctor’, designed by Patrick Stuart. Both a natural philosopher and a trained medic, the Class focuses on healing and saving lives, and notably, is forbidden from inflicting lethal damage. As the Doctor gains Levels, he becomes an Intolerant Rationalist, knowing that magic to be explicable and so able to withstand its effects, but unable to benefit from it; a Dangerous Atheist, for whom divine magic works just like arcane magic; a Master Surgeon, capable of conducting surgery on the brain and more despite society’s taboos attached to it; and more… This Class makes a different addition to campaign set in the early modern period—the default period for most Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay settings—and comes with some fun roleplaying hooks.

Where ‘The Doctor’ and ‘Skinned Moon Daughter – A new class for games in the Great North’ adds new Classes the game, ‘Everyone is an Adventurer’ by Daniel Sell does away with all Classes, replacing with the singular Adventurer. At each Level, a player selects either Fighting, Learning, or Cunning. This determines the player character’s capabilities as well as lowering their Saving Throws at each Level, so Fighting grants a +1 attack modifier and 1d8 Hit Points; Learning grants two Skill points and 1d6 Hit Points; and Cunning grants two three random spells and 1d6 Hit Points. Spellcasting is based the expenditure of Magic Points. Although this offers scope for customisation and flexibility as a character acquires Levels, the result is likely to feel somewhat flavourless in play.

The last of the new Class options in The Undercroft No. 9 is Edward Lockhart’s ‘Dead Inside – Replacement classes for a world of sadness and pain’. The four Classes given—the Fallen, the Pariah, the Detached, and the Partners in Crime—have all seen too much in their former adventuring lives and are designed to replace the Classes they once had. Such Classes—the Fighter, the Cleric, the Wizard, and so on, are now the province of the NPC. Instead, the four new ones given here sort of map back to the classic four Classes, being degenerate, almost wrung out versions of them. Thus, the Fallen is a Cleric of sorts whose voice can work like the Command spell, use both Wizard and Cleric spells and wands, and whilst they can cast some spells, they can only cast them the once—and once only. How playable these Classes are in the long term is questionable, whereas for a one-shot or two, or even a relatively short campaign they might work. Similarly, they might work as NPC Classes, something that the player characters do not want to aspire to.

Luke Gearing’s ‘The Sickness’ presents the first of the issue’s monsters. A combination of cancerous slime and undulating sexual pox given physical, it invokes severe lust in those it infects. Sadly, such victims become hosts for a similar creature and so the disgusting cycle begins again. The third is contained in ‘Nine Summits and the Matter of Birth – Cosmic disasters and antinatal cults among the island people’ by Ezra Claverie. This is set in the same world as his Crypts of Indormancy, describing how the Sea People, islanders who were once part of a great Elven empire, suffer under an infrequent astronomical conjunction which causes the Generative Authority, a wave of monstrous births to ripple through the Sea People clans. As these both escalate and cascade, the ultimate effect is to unleash kaiju-sized chimeric creatures upon the island. How large and how many is up to the Referee to determine as it is possible to have too many and have them rampage across the islands. Combine this with the mystery of their cause, a cult with hatred of birth, and a race against time to stop the kaiju rampage, and you have a weird ‘atomic-horror, pacific island, giant monster’ style scenario. It will need some development upon the part of the Referee, but is as odd a set-up as you would imagine.

Between these two, there is ‘Cockdicktastrophe – A sexy beast’ which it is not and of which the less said, the better. Written by Chris Lawson, it describes a monster and encounter every ‘inch’ as bad as the title suggests. It is not badly written, but it is awful in it its utter lack of point or use. As a piece of body horror, it is onanism, nothing more, nothing less. Six wasted pages which would have been put to better had they been left blank.

Physically, The Undercroft No. 9 is well presented, cleanly laid out, and the few pieces of art all serve their purpose. It needs a slight edit in places, but that is by-the-by. In terms of content, the issue brims with interesting articles, especially if you like working new Classes into your game. For the most part, these Classes are things you would add to separate games as none of them necessarily work together, and barring the Doctor Class, none of them can be added to an existing campaign without changing aspects of that campaign. With some of them, campaigns can be perhaps built around them instead of their being added to a campaign. Of the monsters, perhaps ‘Nine Summits and the Matter of Birth – Cosmic disasters and antinatal cults among the island people’ is the most involving piece in the fanzine and easily the standout from the three monster-related entries. Overall—and bar the one dreadful article—The Undercroft No. 9 presents plenty of content for the Referee to work with rather than add immediately to his campaign.

Fanzine Focus IX: The Undercroft No. 7

On the tail of 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 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. Leading the way in their support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have been the fanzines The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published by the Melsonian Arts Council in November, 2015, The Undercroft, No. 7 follows on from the sixth issue with its medley of dangerous artefacts with a medley of dangerous creatures and monsters. They include a mythical beast obsessed with freedom, a worm beneath the world, endlessly creating spaces between, a war that created monsters which walk the land, a horrid and emotionally febrile thing that no mother wishes to give birth to, and a mad witch who lives in the swamp and who is part tree.

It opens with Edward Lockhart’s ‘The Omnicorn aka The Freedom Beast’, a well-proportioned steed of majestic stature and attitude. Found unchained and free in any wilderness, it is rumoured that there is just the one of these beasts, existing in a great many different places all at once. It is spikey, horned, and bristled in body and attitude, embodied freedom above all, unable to abide hierarchy and organisation. Legend says that the blood of this creature will free the imbiber of any compulsion, magical or mundane. If so, then it must be bargained for with the Omnicorn, who will test anyone who asks for it as to how highly they value freedom and turn violent any who do not value it sufficiently. This is a magical beast suitable for a quest or two rather than a simple random encounter, though no doubt that would be memorable too.

Luke Gearing—the author of the recently released Fever Swamp—follows this with the ‘Mezzo-Worm’, an abyssal creature whose maw chews through the rocks far below the surface, leaving behind a labyrinth of tunnels that are each a ‘wound-in-the-wall’. The tunnels are easy to get lost in and every good adventurer fears getting lost in them lest they encounter and are swallowed by a ‘Mezzo-Worm’ and consumed forever… That said, there are things to be found in the tunnels left by the creature, treasures, oddities, and artefacts—if you dare go looking. The  ‘Mezzo-Worm’ is something to add to an underworld campaign, especially if the Referee is wanting that something to be Cthonian-like.

With material already from the author of one of the Melsonian Arts Council’s scenarios, the issue follows it up with an entry from Ezra Calverie, the author of the other, Crypts of Indormancy. ‘Decoherence Wight’ is probably set in the same setting as that scenario with its suggested Elven Empire long lost and mourned by the Elves of today. One installation belonging to this empire was Her Majesty’s Western Shipyard and Submarine Pens, whose last commander detonated a great weapon when it was threatened by rebel forces. The shipyard fell, but was ruined and has been a forbidden zone for the last fourteen centuries. Yet the Pygmy folk of the surrounding jungle talk of dark, lurching figures seen in its grounds at dusk, each blackley putrefied and swarming with flies. These are the Decoherence Wights, marked with faintly glowing polyp that seems to have an entropic effect when touched by weapons and which can inflict both necrosis and Decoherence Fever. There is nothing wrong with the Decoherence Wight as a creature on its own, but really it lacks context. It does have an origin, but there is no reason for the adventurers to visit the buildings and hulks of the ancient shipyard, at least none given and that seems such a missed opportunity if the Referee is to have his player characters encounter these horrid creatures.

In ‘Orcoidism & Subhumanity’, Daniel Sell explores one possibility for the existence of the Orciod or Half-Orc. This is as some kind of throwback rather than as the traditional fantasy, an expectant mother giving birth to one of these grey and wiry, sharp-toothed and screeching runts rather than the hoped for pink, plump, and wailing baby. Of course, there is no known causes, but plenty of conjecture and the unwanted child is ill-mannered and quickly prone to violent rages that escalate and escalate as it ages to the point where it is a murderous threat to the community. Most communities urge the family of an Orcoid whelp to abandon it early lest it become a threat to all. There it may die, but some survive to breed tribes of Orcs that come to threaten the family, the community, and more. Other communities have been kinder though, having been known to raise and keep the child, as ugly as it is, keeping it calm and happy despite its inherent need for clannish brutality and the breaking of societal order.

Lastly in James Holloway’s ‘Old Sigvor’, the old witch in the woods has literally become the old witch in the woods. Now she wanders her woods, mad with pain and ready to inflict a similar pain and a paralysis upon those who enter her realm. This is very much a static kind of encounter, best suited perhaps for adding as a location-based encounter in a sandbox. Much like the earlier ‘Decoherence Wight’, it feels very much as if the location needs fleshing out to give reason to give the adventurers a reason to visit the witch’s woods.

Physically, The Undercroft, No. 7 is decently put together and the artwork is reasonable, yet as a product it feels underwhelming. In the editorial, Daniel Sell states that, “everything is fine” over and over, but it really is not quite. Too many of the monsters and creatures in this issue leave the reader wondering quite what to do with them and wanting context that is concrete. That lack of context also means that the issue suffers from a lack of variety—not in terms of actual monsters—but in terms of material. Of course, The Undercroft, No. 8, with its scenario does not offer that variety, but perhaps future issues will?

Fanzine Focus VIII: The Undercroft, No. 6

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional and unofficial 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 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.

Published by the Melsonian Arts Council in July, 2015, The Undercroft, No. 6 follows on from engaging initial issue with its intriguing and useful material; the less than satisfying mix of content that constituted the second issue; the decent medley that made up issue three; the solidly done issue four; the campaign disrupting magical medley of of the fifth issue; and the entertaining scenario, ‘Something Stinks in Stilton’, that made up issue eight. Where the previous issues, The Undercroft, No. 5 definitely came with a theme, that of magical artefacts, The Undercroft, No. 6 does not, but it does continue the same medley of dangerous artefacts.

The issue opens with ‘Ludolf’s Folly’ by Forrest Aguire. This gives a potted history of the noted Flemish tapestry cartoonist (sic), Jonas Ludolf, and the various pieces of art that he created in his diverse and disparate career before his disappearance. It concentrates on the one item, a plain looking spellbook, written haphazardly in Dutch in such a way that whilst anyone—not just Wizards—can cast the five spells it contains, they can never be sure of the exact wording of each spell. What this means is that sometimes the spell works as expected, but most of the time the effects are some kind of failure. So for example, on a mild failure, the Divination spell works, but the information provided is incorrect, though the spellcaster believes it to be correct; on a moderate failure, the spell works, but the spellcaster has to announce the information again and again; on a major failure, the spell works, but the spellcaster has to announce facts about any building he enters; and on a catastrophic failure, the spellcaster gains instant enlightenment, dies, and gains sainthood. All five spells—the others being Detect Invisible, Wizard Eye, Vanish, and Remote Surveillance—work in a similar fashion. This is an enticing object and potentially a lot of fun as the player characters work out just how bad this book really is, despite the abilities it gives everyone not a wizard.

Edward Lockhart’s ‘The Pyramid of Flesh and the Unknown Disk’ details not one artefact, but two. The Unknown Disk has a triangular hole in its middle and is capable of ripping a hole into an alternate reality, whilst the Pyramid of Flesh is a fist-sized piece of russet flesh with one sticky side and closed eyes or mouths on the others. The mouths will bite if bothered, whilst the sticky side will readily and permanently adhere to flesh. When it does, it grants the ‘user’ limited regeneration, no need to eat or sleep, but it replaces their internal organs and sometimes it requires raw meat. If attached to the user’s head it also spews forth secrets, lots of secrets, that only the user can hear (a table is provided). Attach the disk to the pyramid—the hole is a perfect fit!—and well… Again this is one of those weird and wonderful things that mankind—or rather, the adventurers—should know better than to fiddle or experiment with, but idle curiosity always gets the better of them.

Daniel Sell’s contribution is ‘Wolfmother’. She is a primal wolf creature, a potential wolf bride to every unmarried man in Kairnlaw and any unmarried man who enters Kairnlaw—which of course, includes almost every adventurer! Those refusing her proposal may of course find a wife and marry in haste, but those that accept her gift, whether a bundle of nettles tied with a yellow ribbon or a staff to which a flock of seagulls is bound, are destined to become her mate and never be seen again. This is the shortest piece in The Undercroft, No. 6 and probably the simplest to implement as a piece of folklore in the region of the Referee’s choice. It at least adds to the culture of the setting, but it might just become something more, all depending upon the actions of the player characters.

‘Furnace Arthropoid’ is a strange, insectoid suit of armour that provides life support to a race of explorers from a distant planet which interacts with the inhabitants of worlds in odd ways. Via the suit, the operator compels them to undertake strange tasks—find it offerings, hug it, introduce it to certain persons, and so on—all in the name of exploration. Neither the suit nor the operator are evil as such, nor does it bear anyone it encounters ill will, but the effects of encountering such a suit are potentially dangerous as the suit is incredibly hot. Written by the designer of Crypts of Indormancy, Ezra Claverie, this is a strange encounter, one that is unlikely to bear explanation and indeed, nor does it provide one.

Rounding out the issue is Anxious P.’s ‘The Manifold-Crust Whippets, a Noble Giant Family’, which describes the author’s contact and interaction with a family of giants, who are noble of character and live quiet lives in a rural idyll. His first, wholly positive recollections of his encounter with these creatures is radically overturned upon the revelation of the rituals that the Manifold-Crust Whippets partake in to maintain their equilibrium and happiness. This revelation is in truth unpleasant and for that reason, a Referee may not want to add this giant family to his campaign, but if he does there are specific options for him to do so. If he does not, then other options are given terms of other noble giant types and their relationships with the local inhabitants, some worshipful, some guarded, some fearful. Included alongside these further options is a discussion of possible ritual practices for the giants. It is a pity that it is just a discussion. A few more options would have been welcome, certainly as alternatives to the unpleasant practices accorded to the Manifold-Crust Whippets. This is not a pleasant addition to any campaign, so the GM should consider its impact before adding it to his game.

Physically, The Undercroft, No. 6 is a neat and tidy affair. The issue is very light in terms of artwork and to be truthful, much better artwork has appeared in previous issues.

The Undercroft, No. 6 does not have a theme, but its contents can be divided into two camps. One presents objects or things that will have a profound effect upon a campaign—‘Furnace Arthropoid’ and ‘The Pyramid of Flesh and the Unknown Disk’—and those that will not, such as ‘Ludolf’s Folly’ and ‘Wolfmother’. In general, it is the latter articles which are not only the easiest to add to a campaign, but actually the more interesting to read. A decent mix of contents, The Undercroft, No. 6 is a reasonable issue of the fanzine.

Fanzine Focus V: The Undercroft, No. 5

On the tail of 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 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, such as The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published by the Melsonian Arts Council in May, 2015, The Undercroft, No. 5 follows on from engaging initial issue with its intriguing and useful material; the less than satisfying mix of content that constituted second issue; the decent medly that made up issue three; the solidly done issue four; and the entertaining scenario, ‘Something Stinks in Stilton’, that made up issue eight. Unlike these previous issues, The Undercroft, No. 5 comes with a definite theme—magical artefacts.

Now this being written for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, what this means is that these are not the magical artefacts of traditional sense of Dungeons & Dragons. None of the five items in the thirty-one pages of The Undercroft, No. 5 are safe. They do not simply provide some great magical bonus, but instead both great power or advantages as well as great disadvantages. There is a downside to each and every one of these five items. Further, their being written for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay means that they are truly great and powerful artefacts, ones that will not have an effect on the Referee’s campaign, but also upon the world that is his campaign. This effect may be weird, horrific, or both… Rest assured that these items are going to mess with your players and their characters.

The issue begins with Chris Lawson’s ‘Smiling Goat Horn’. Formed from the mummified skull and horn of goat, when blown it drives all farm animals to acts of larceny for the horn-blower and acts of constant and incessant praise of the horn-blower, all the whilst being stalked by timber wolves. This is an absurd, not to say insane object, best added to only the weirdest of campaigns. This is followed by ‘The Washer Woman’ by Oliver Palmer. This appears to be a simple piece of statuary depicting a woman washing laundry, but where the Smiling Goat Horn will instantly irritating, this ornament will at first appear innocuous, but then odd and eventually irritating. Wherever the owner put it last, it will always turn up about his person or nearby; it will even replace an item he has about his person. The owner will soon regret taking it as the statue will do its very best to prevent it being left somewhere or being passed to someone else, some of them quite disturbing… That said, there is neither any advantage nor any disadvantage to owning the statute, just as long as the owner definitely decides to keep it upon his person.

The second entry from Chris Lawson is actually useful. ‘The Opticaphobicascope’ is a monocle that enables the wearer to discern another’s true intent, reveal details about the wearer’s surroundings, and even glance at the notes of the wearer’s Referee! The downside is that it screws itself into the wearer’s eye socket and cannot be removed as it essentially replaces the wearer’s eye. That is of course, if he can follow the instructions and install it correctly. Then again, this is not the only downside, but that should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay—there is no such thing as a free lunch! In being able to see more than he usually can, the wear of ‘The Opticaphobicascope’ comes to feel that there is still things that he cannot see and even things that are being hidden from him. This feeling will grow and grow, the rules for the device providing for this escalation.

The centrepiece to The Undercroft, No. 5—and at eleven pages out of the issue’s thirty-two, also the longest—is Frank Mitchell’s ‘The God of Seven Parts’. This details the seven parts of a deity known as the ‘Sundered God’ that perhaps may have been Baphomet, which is said to have been worshipped by the Knights Templar. The seven parts are the head, the left and right arm, the left and right leg, the phallus, and the torso. As well as providing advice on how to succeed in all of his endeavours, the Head of the Sundered God will urge its owner to seek out the other parts of its body, all missing and scattered across the world. Looking for each of these parts can be an adventure in itself and even be something that a campaign can be built around. Each of the parts is individually described and detailed, each having its own powers and abilities. For example, ‘The Left Arm of the Sundered God’ can be wielded as a club and inflicts both damage and a save versus Poison to the target, but wielder has to save versus Poison in order to wield the Left Arm and again if the target is successful in making the save. Further, each of the parts can be grafted onto the body of anyone missing said body part. For example, when grafted onto the stump of a severed arm, ‘The Left Arm of the Sundered God’ grants the wearer all of its abilities, all of the time. So the wearer has to wear a glove to stop involuntarily using its Poison effect…

Each of the seven parts is an artefact in its own right which can be wielded on its own, grafted on to replace a body part of any humanoid, or it can be combined with other parts to reform as the Sundered God. Much like a ‘Gattai Robot’ of Japanese Anime, when the seven parts of ‘Baphomet’—if that truly is his name—come together, he has greater control of each of the parts’ powers. He also turns into a nigh unstoppable world conqueror. Stopping him would be a campaign in itself, but should the player characters actually assemble the Sundered God, then the consequences are entirely their fault… 

‘The God of Seven Parts’ is a grand artefact in the mode of Eye of Vecna and Hand of Vecna, though not quite the Head of Vecna. It will have a profound impact upon any campaign that it is added to.

Lastly, Daniel Sell’s ‘The Precocious Abundance of Holy Mountain’ is a twist upon  Arthur C. Clarke’s adage that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The sacred mountain is actually an ancient war fortress of the Ven and is the source of ‘Aqua Gravis’, the heavy water that fuelled the Ven war machines as well as the fortress itself. Other technological devices described include the Ven worker Custodians, the gates through which the Ven may return from the end of time, things constructed by those that came immediately after the Ven, and even the ‘Slaughtergrid’, the Ven warmachines buried and concealed where they might need them again. ‘The Precocious Abundance of Holy Mountain’ is not just a selection of artefacts, but also a framing device for a campaign, suggesting both an ancient history and a future history. That said, of all the artefacts in The Undercroft, No. 5, these have the least sting in the tail.

Physically, The Undercroft, No. 5 is a neat and tidy affair. The few illustrations are excellent, though perhaps the issue could have benefited with a few more.

The Undercroft, No. 5 is the most coherent issue of the fanzine reviewed to date. Of course, that is because it has a singular subject matter and the artefacts in question all possess a sting in the tail particular to such devices in Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. The downside to this is that not all of the five items in the issue are necessarily going to see play because of the potential havoc they have to wreak on a campaign. Of course, the Referee is free to pick and choose, and of course, take the consequences of the stings in these tails.