The Other OSR: Get It At Sutler’s

Shall we go shopping? Shopping can be a necessity, it can be a chore, and it can be fun. Whether online or in person, we need to shop for essentials, but there are times when it can be a pleasure. Perhaps browsing for a new book or looking for the perfect outfit for that big event. Shopping in roleplaying though? Exactly the same. For the Game Master, it can be an exercise in tedium as her players pick over the contents of the rulebook’s equipment list or the roleplaying game’s equipment guide. For the player, it can be all part of the roleplaying experience, building his characters with the right gear, whether for flavour or the right effect. It even has a certain mystique of its own, because in most cases, what a player is buying for his character, is not a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, and a box of tea bags, but everything he could never imagine buying for himself. A chain hauberk, a short sword, a silver mirror, sleeping furs, a bag of caltrops, a Geiger counter, a Bergmann M.P.18,I submachine gun, a vial of black scorpion contact poison, and whatnot and so on and so on… What then of the staff? The life of the shop worker is very rarely exciting, bar the occasional encounter with a shoplifter or a fire evacuation, but what if that was not the case? Could a day in the life of a shop worker actually be exciting, or even interesting? With Get It At Sutler’s, it could actually be both.

Get It At Sutler’s is a supplement for TROIKA!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. It is published by the Melsonian Arts Council, and much like the recent Whalgravaak’s Warehouse and The Hand of God adventures, it presents another aspect of the great city of Troika which lies at the heart of said multiverse. Its focus is firmly upon shopping, but firmly upon the staff perspective, and upon the hijinks and misadventures they have as employees of the greatest, the most fashionable, and the most prestigious department store in all of Troika. Whether it is Harrods, Liberty, Selfridges, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Le Bon Marché, and even Grace Brothers from the BBC comedy series, Are You Being Served?, the department store not only sells you everything, but it does also so with courtesy and a degree of prestige. Its halls are places to be seen and its name carries a certain cachet, and its always polite staff have a certain way of doing things, for a department store is a world unto itself. Sutler’s is no different. It is just a whole weirder—and it really, really specialises in fish.

There is no call for any particular character type for Get It At Sutler’s. The Player Characters have simply applied for a job at the department store and in this age of the gig economy, can put in a shift at any time of the day or night. Except bank holidays, when Sutler’s is closed. The management pays only for shifts worked. After all, a Player Character cannot spend all of his time adventuring across the multiverse and does have rent and food to pay for. Plus, all that time spent adventuring across the multiverse does not always pay for said rent and food. Putting in a shift at Sutler’s might just mean keeping the turbot from the door.

What Get It At Sutler’s is not is a complete guide to a department store, from the basement to the top floor, from department to department, from deliveries in to deliveries out, from just out the back to the department’s café where being seen is all that matters, from its prestigious food hall to the office of the night manager. Rather, it is an adventure or encounter generator. All the players have to do is to decide that their characters are to put in a shift and the Game Master can make a roll on the ‘shop business matrix’ to determine the time of year, how busy the shift will be, and what the most exciting thing that will happen to the characters on that shift. The six categories are ‘Quiet Day’, ‘Helping Customers’, ‘Stock Control’, ‘Feast Day’, ‘Tourists’, and ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’, the latter referring to a day when Sutler’s is very busy and the Player Characters are facing ‘Too Many Customers’.

For example, a roll for ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’ might be “A live-catch tank leaked overnight, and the stain looks like the gaping face of St Mungo. People looking for his blessings are queuing along every isle, mixed in with innocent fish buyers. Tensions flare.” whilst a roll for ‘Stock Control’ a day might involve, “The Society of Porters and Basin Fillers is on strike, meaning you must collect your own fish from the back warehouses. You may TEST YOUR LUCK or else get lost and trapped in the store overnight. Beware the Nightmanager.”

Beyond an adventure or encounter generator, What Get It At Sutler’s is also a bestiary of Enemies that the Player Characters might face on a shift at the department store. From the All-Terrain Shark, the Cutter Clam that can be used as weapons with their fleshy siphons, and the Palyngers, the city’s eels that are known to be incumbent souls standing ready to be reborn, but are still a staple food, to the members of Troika’s great and good, such as the Alcalde, the city’s unpredictable peacekeepers and spies commanded by the Great Cairo, the Cocksure Gamins, juveniles on great adventures of armies, kings, and queens, which actually look delinquency, and simply, Too Many Customers. There are also members of Sutler’s’ staff, such as the genial Daymanager, who everyone sees once, but rarely sees again; the long-legged, pinstriped Floorwalkers whose bodies lurk near the ceiling, only descending to deal with violent incidences; and the well-built and sunburnt barbarians who work as Florists despite their violent sense of humour and toxic work culture. Then there is the Nightmanager, the counterbalance and sinister shadow to the Daymanager, again rarely seen, but known to break the rules, replenish the stock, and creepily observe the doings of the department store. As you would expect from a Troika! supplement, these are all weird and odd and intriguing, and there are even mini-adventures or hooks, like those for the Disciplinary Ordeal, that can take place instead of a Player Character being fired!

Get It At Sutler’s closes with three appendices. In turn, these detail the Troikan year, a selection of fish products, and ‘Pisceans in the Second House – A Sutler’s Adventure’. This introduces Sutler’s and takes the Player Characters from their interview with the beatific Daymanager and into their first shift as a probationary member of staff. It is an unsettlingly fishy affair, and rightly so. The suggestion is that this could happen after the events detailed in ‘The Blancmange & Thistle’, the scenario in the Troika! rulebook. Of course, it would be fascinating to see an anthology of scenarios set just within the halls and departments of Sutler’s.

Physically, Get It At Sutler’s is a delightful book. Troika!’s art is always off kilter and Get It At Sutler’s is no different. In between, full page greyscale pieces capture the vastness and scope of the department store, as well as just how busy it can get.

Get It At Sutler’s is not a campaign setting or a sourcebook in the traditional sense. It does depict and describe a setting, but rather than simply laying out the details, it places them in encounters to be found by the Game Master, and then developed and presented to her players. It gives ideas and encounters—and lots of them—in a world within a world, that of a department store, that the Player Characters will visit when they need money or the Game Master wants to run something in between fuller, more traditional scenarios. Such traditional scenarios might even be run as ‘Disciplinary Ordeals’ since the management at Sutler’s is loath to truly fire anyone. The supplement is thus particularly useful when not all of the players are present or the campaign is between scenarios.

Get It At Sutler’s is a delightfully unconventional framework and book of encounters and hooks for the Game Master to develop and so bring to life, the world of the department store, in true Troika! style. It is a world of piscine peculiarity and harrowing hierarchy, one that gives the Player Characters something to do and somewhere to be, on their quite literally, odd offdays.

The Other OSR: The Hand of God

Troika! is both a setting and a roleplaying game. As the latter, it provides simple, clear mechanics inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books, but combined with a wonderfully weird cast of character types, all ready to play the constantly odd introductory adventure, ‘The Blancmange and Thistle’. As the former, it takes the Player Characters on adventures through the multiverse, from one strange sphere to another, to visit twin towers which in their dying are spreading a blight that are turning a world to dust, investigate murder on the Nantucket Sleigh Ride on an ice planet, and investigate hard boiled murder and economic malfeasance following the collapse of the Scarf-Worm investment bubble. At the heart of Troika! stands the city itself, large, undefined, existing somewhere in the cosmos with easy access from one dimension after another, visited by tourists from across the universe and next door, and in game terms, possessing room aplenty for further additions, details, and locations. One such location is The Hand of God.

The Hand of God is the second entry in a new series of scenarios for Troika! from the Melsonian Arts Council begun with Whalgravaak’s Warehouse. This is the ‘1:5 Troika Adventures’ series, which places an emphasis on shorter, location-based adventures, typically hexcrawls or dungeoncrawls, set within the city of Troika, but which do not provide new Backgrounds for Player Characters or ‘Hack’ how Troika! is played. The Hand of God lives up to these tenets, in that it is a dungeoncrawl that takes place in the upturned hand atop the tallest statue to a god in the temple district of the city of Troika. The Player Characters are plucked from their dreams and the scenario opens with them waking to find themselves atop the extended index finger, in the giant nest of THOG, the demon bird. It is a strikingly silly and utterly appropriate cold opening for the Player Characters and the scenario, and it makes the scenario incredibly easy to slot into a campaign. The Players Characters fall asleep one night and when they wake up, there they are. What the Player Characters can see below them is the fingers of the hand, a gondola spanning the distance between the index finger and the thumb, bridges between the other fingers, a tower on the middle finger whilst water rushes out of the tip of the finger to fall to a lake below, a ramshackle wooden town on the little finger, and far below on the palm, forests and mountains surrounding the lake, and even perhaps a way down. It is a wondrous vista, a sight unlike that in any other roleplaying game and The Hand of God never lets the Game Master or her players forget it. There are constant reminders of what the Player Characters can see throughout the adventure.

The Hand of God is a pointcrawl, consisting of locations linked by specific routes and connections, making deciding where to go from one location to the next easy to decide. It is literally laid out in front of them, like the palm of well, a god’s hand. As the Player Characters descend, they will encounter the denizens of the hand, like the Goblins at the Gondola Station led by Frenki, the elderly radical mazematician ostracised for his experimental maze design, and Skink, the priest from Jibberwind Temple, currently riding the gondola back and forth in silent contemplation, who could be provoked enough to start a fight—and would quite like it if you did. In a cave down the thumb, the sleazy, flat cap-wearing Crenupt the Undead, who has been thrown out of Jgigji, the tumbledown town of living dead on the little finger, who might have goods to sell that he very likely stole and if that fails, the means to take revenge by stealing everything from the town if the Player Characters will help him. All he wants is a lot of wine. A lot of wine. The index finger is scored and scarred by Sofia the Giant Serpent as she endlessly circumnavigates the finger, her iron scales cutting deep into the stone of the finger, whilst just above in the crags, three Harpy sisters all want food, but one also wants to hear fine music, another to see beautiful paintings, and a third to read beautiful words, and they all hate each other!

The hand has several major locations. They include Jibberwind Temple, which is home to the cult of the Perfect Fingers, dedicated to Thog, its looping corridors acting more as wind tunnels and its treasure vault the target of many an inhabitant of the hand, whilst Thark Village is being put to the torch by Automonous Arrests and Adjudication Inquisitorial sect of The Indelible Order of Allotted Idols as the villagers huddle in the crypts below and attempt a ritual which might save them. Elsewhere, there is Jgigji, the town of drunken undead, a wizard’s tower/folly where the wizard’s work is likely the actual folly, and a community of Parchment Witches—one of the signature character types in Troika!—who set snares and net traps for beast and intruders, using the skins of the former to create some of the best parchment across the spheres whilst squabbling about anything and everything. All of these locations and their various factions are interlinked and many of the people that they meet will share information or ask for help in return for it, pushing the Player Characters onwards in their exploration of the statue. The descriptions of the scenario’s many NPCs do vary in detail, but all are going to be fun for the Game Master to portray, some of the less detailed ones really leaving room for the Game Master to develop how she wants to portray them and make them memorable.

Escape is the ultimate aim for the Player Characters in The Hand of God. But there are also plenty of mini-locations and dungeons to explore, treasures to find or steal, and of course, there is the view to look at. Other options are suggested as to why the Player Characters might want to go to The Hand of God, whether that is find one of the treasures in the statue, locate a curse-eater, or discover their future from Vow, the Spider-God who can read the threads of fate. Many of these reasons might also explain why the Player Characters might want to return to The Hand of God in the future.

Physically, it all helps that the content of The Hand of God is presented in very accessible fashion. The maps are great and the adventure is decently illustrated. The scenario needs a slight edit in places.

The Hand of God manages to feel big, but is delightfully self-contained, more or less in the palm of a god’s hand, a pointcrawl as memorable for its location as its content, such that it is more of a ‘handcrawl’ than a pointcrawl. The Hand of God is fun, easy to drop into a campaign, and like any good Troika! scenario is weird and wondrous.

The Other OSR: Whalgravaak’s Warehouse

Troika! is both a setting and a roleplaying game. As the latter, it provides simple, clear mechanics inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books, but combined with a wonderfully weird cast of character types, all ready to play the constantly odd introductory adventure, ‘The Blancmange and Thistle’. As the former, it takes the Player Characters on adventures through the multiverse, from one strange sphere to another, to visit twin towers which in their dying are spreading a blight that are turning a world to dust, investigate murder on the Nantucket Sleigh Ride on an ice planet, and investigate hard boiled murder and economic malfeasance following the collapse of the Scarf-Worm investment bubble. At the heart of Troika! stands the city itself, large, undefined, existing somewhere in the cosmos with easy access from one dimension after another, visited by tourists from across the universe and next door, and in game terms, possessing room aplenty for further additions, details, and locations. One such location is Whalgravaak’s Warehouse.

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is the start of a new series of scenarios for Troika! from the Melsonian Arts Council. This is the ‘1:5 Troika Adventures’ series, which places an emphasis on shorter, location-based adventures, typically hexcrawls or dungeoncrawls, set within the city of Troika, but which do not provide new Backgrounds for Player Characters or ‘Hack’ how Troika! is played. Whalgravaak’s Warehouse lives up to these tenets, in that its dungeoncrawl takes place in a large, in places, impossibly large interdimensional warehouse that served as major import/export house for the city of Troika. Whalgravaak was once known as the cruel, but efficient logistics wizard who could get anything from anywhere and ship anything to anywhere, which made him and clients rich as the city became a shipping nexus between the spheres without the need or the expense of training staff to crew and maintain the golden barges that still traverse between the spheres today. However, Whalgravaak grew paranoid in his old age, destroyed the instruction manual to the great device by which goods were transported, and retired. When the device became a threat to the city of Troika, the Autarch ordered Whalgravaak’s Warehouse permanently closed and locked. That was centuries ago. Whalgravaak is long dead. His warehouse still stands, a looming monolithic presence in a bad part of the city. Nobody goes in and nobody comes out. Though some claim there is movement on the room. Now, someone wants something from inside and have decided that the Player Characters are best equipped to find their way in and navigate its darkened offices and deep storage bays with their vertiginously stacked crates, which surely must still contain something interesting after all that since Whalgravaak himself died?

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse gives one main reason why the Player Characters might want to break into and explore the warehouse. This is to locate a book called The Tome of Sable Fields, for which they will be paid handsomely, but there are others and the Game Master can easily come up with more. Finding a way into the warehouse is a challenge in itself, but inside, the Player Characters will find strange worm-headed dogs gone feral, creeping bandits and burglars looking for goods to fence or places to dump bodies, cultists who worship the still breathing nose of a titan, a clan of dustmen sieving the heaps of dust on the expansive roof of the warehouse where the air glows aquamarine like the Dustmen of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, and more. There are rooms full of great lengths of rope that are mouldering into slime, a vegetable store where an onion has become an Onion Godlet, a room of sponges so dry it will suck the moisture from anyone who enters, and a set of employee records laden with bureaucratic despair… The roof is a post-apocalyptic hexcrawl of its very own, a separate environment that is essentially a desert of dust, marked only by the flickering head of one the giants that still work in the warehouse below and an Oasis of Tea, that will take the Player Characters days to explore. They had better come prepared for hot weather!

Locating The Tome of Sable Fields is a relatively simple matter and the Player Characters may do so relatively quickly, but actually getting hold of it is another matter. It is actually suspended over the very means by which Whalgravaak transported goods from one dimension to another by a crane. Unfortunately, none of the parts of the crane are talking to each other and the only way to get the crane operating is to get them to talk to each other. Essentially one bit of the crane is more noble than the other and the Player Characters will probably need to persuade them to overcome their individual problems and snobbery. This will drive them into exploring the warehouse further in the hopes of finding the means of getting each one to co-operate.

As part of the ‘1:5 Troika Adventures’ series and thus a dungeoncrawl, although one in a warehouse, Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is designed to be played like a dungeon and explored like a dungeon. Thus movement, noise, and resources become important, the Player Characters need a source of light and the scenario is played out in ten-minute turns in true Old School style Dungeons & Dragons. This also means that Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is played differently to other adventures for Troika!, with less of an emphasis on narrative play and more on environmental, location-based exploration. In keeping with the style, the adventure is perhaps deadlier and more challenging than the typical Troika! adventure, requiring more caution and care than a Troika! player might be used to.

Physically, Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is very well presented. The artwork is as weird and wonderful as you would expert, the cartography is decent, and the layout is clear and easy to use. There is also good advice for the Game Master on how and why she should use Whalgravaak’s Warehouse, and a clear explanation of what is going on in the warehouse.

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is a great set-up for an adventure. Take the warehouse of an interdimensional import/export house, abandon it for centuries, and then turn it into an industrial dungeon with weird Dickensian undertones. The result is eminently entertaining and constantly going to screw with the heads of both the players and their characters as they discover one example of industrial decline after another and just what happens when you leave a dangerous interdimensional magical industrial complex alone for far too long.

The Other OSR: Bridgetown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other OSR: Slate & Chalcedony

The land where the two towers now stand was bright and clean. Then they appeared and from their base grew a circle spreading blight which destroys all that it touches, creating a zone where nothing lives and nothing grows. The rivers are poisoned and empty. No birds fly overhead. Armies have been sent to assault and topple the towers to bring an end to the spreading blight. None have returned. The blight continues to grow. Will the world become a jet-black desert or can anything be done about it? Perhaps brave adventurers will venture forth and investigate the towers? Perhaps they have their objectives—to recover an object from inside one of the towers, to access a gateway to another world inside, to kidnap or rescue someone from inside the tower, and so on… The two towers are not what they seem, though they are the source of the blight. They are the bodies of two powerful sorcerers who travel from world to world, drawing energy from each one, but rarely staying long. The question is, what is it that keeps them in this world? Although each tower is actually the body of a great sorcerer, each is occupied—by sorcerers, Apeman guards, staff, and the occasional monster. Each can be fully navigated and each is full of mysteries.

This is the set-up for Slate & Chalcedony. Slate & Chalcedony is both the names of the two wizards and thus the two towers and the name of an adventure for TROIKA!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. Published by the Melsonian Arts Council, it presents the twisted towers, along with the NPCs and monsters, new spells, and prophecies, as an environment in which to explore and roleplay. Notably, both towers are presented in cross section as a whole, rather floor plans, level-by-level. This adds a certain degree of childish wonder to the weirdness and whimsy that pervades the two towers. This starts from the moment that the Player Characters enter either tower. In Slate they will find diplomatic Delegates in Pressure Suits who have been so harassed by the porcine Gentle Hurmin the Familiar that they have forgotten their purpose; a sphere of black liquid which collates prophecies that can be collected by the mouths in the room below and if drunk, will grant the imbiber some of those prophecies and possibly kill them; a would-be apprentice who specialises in magical dentistry and is so bored, she lets her teeth grow and replenish consistently; and more, whilst overhead Pig Harpies circle and inside the tower, Apemen formidable and loyal patrol and protect the tower, sometimes guarding, sometimes grooming, sometimes curious, sometimes hooting. In Chalcedony, Brain Clusters spark and flash on a great tree, but cannot seem to work or communicate together; Boneroach nests infest the walls; and the tower seems to breath through great gill slits that also happen to be very convenient for climbing. Slate is more extensive, more developed, and more detailed than the other, in places possessing the feel of strange rocket ship or upright submarine, whilst Chalcedony is less developed and not as extensive, being a rougher combination of stone and flesh.

There are short incident or encounter tables for both towers, whilst the first of several appendices provides stats and details of all of the ‘New Enemies’ to be found in both towers. These include the Apemen, Boneroaches, Cerebral Spiders, the Chalcedony Wizard, and a lot more. Their entries include Mien tables too, so that encounters with the various creatures can vary from one encounter to the next. This is especially so with the porcine Gentle Hurmin the Familiar, who can be encountered in either ‘Malevolent’ or ‘Benevolent’ mode. The new spells are inventive, but as weird and as icky as you would expect. Emetomancy forces vomiting and consumption of the result, Megadonsy causes teeth to grow and replace older teeth for as long as the caster wishes; and Metonomasy forces a name change on a victim and it sticks until the caster decides. It should be noted that the lightness of the mechanics to TROIKA! means that Slate & Chalcedony is easily adapted to the Old School Renaissance retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

Physically, Slate & Chalcedony is very well presented. Even the cover—slate grey on one side and shot through with the red of carnelian on the other half—presages what lies inside, which is illustrated with rich colours. The illustrations are excellent and the cross sections of the two towers present a surprising amount of detail. The writing leans towards the succinct where necessary, adding more detail depending upon the location.

Where Slate & Chalcedony comes up short is in the ‘What If?’. It does not discuss the consequences of the Player Character actions or how exactly they go about preventing the spread of the blight emanating from the two towers. So, no mention of what happens if they stop the blight or what happens if they fail to stop the blight. Options are mentioned in the text, but not developed, leaving the Game Master with a number of questions to answer herself in preparing the scenario. More so than ideally should be necessary. Another issue is that some of the locations within the Slate tower are only accessible via the network of vents, but it is not made clear how those vents are accessed.

Slate & Chalcedony takes the fantasy motif of twin towers and twists them to the weirdness and wonder of TROIKA! The scenario provides a great set-up and situation, and if it does not develop any possible outcomes as it really should, it does in the meantime deliver two wondrous and strange environments for the Player Characters to explore and interact with and so provide several sessions of rich adventure.

Whimsy & Weirdness

TROIKA! is the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of weird and whimsical adventure across the universe and beyond. Originally published by the Melsonian Arts Council in 2016, mechanically, it is inspired by the most British of roleplaying games—the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books—and fiction as diverse as Jack Vance’s Dying Earth tales, Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius adventures, and the baroque future of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. With no limit as to where, and possibly even when, the Player Characters can go—whether by eldritch portal, non-Euclidean labyrinth, or golden-sailed barge from crystal Sphere to another, they are essentially the flaneurs of the far future. The game combines simple character creation and easy rules, but with rich character ideas. However, what strikes you about the new edition of TROIKA! is its format: a light softback book with spine cover unglued so that the front cover folds out and sits flat to show the map of ‘The Blancmange & Thistle’, the hotel that is the site for the adventure of the same included in the book. Not only does the front cover sit flat, so does the book as a whole on the table, making it physically very easy to read. That is in addition to the fact that TROIKA! itself is easy to read and digest.

TROIKA! begins with character creation. A Player Character is defined by his Skill, Stamina, and Luck. A player rolls for each of these, notes his possessions, and then rolls for his Background. Each Background provides several Advanced Skills, which can be actual skills or they can be spells. There are thirty-six of these, ranging from the ordinary to the outré—and there are definitely more of the latter than the former. So the ordinary include the Burglar, the Chaos Champion on a sabbatical from plunging worlds into chaos and speaks Kurgan no less, the Member of Miss Kinsey’s Dining Club whose members will and can eat anything that can be imagined edible, and Questing Knight, whilst the outré includes the Befouler of Ponds, high priest of the Great Toad and his reed filled waters; a Parchment Witch’ long dead sorcerer who wraps herself in perfectly beautiful paper skin; and many more.

Name: MacKack
Background: Monkeymonger
Skill 5
Stamina 19
Luck 6

ADVANCED SKILLS
Climb 4, Trapping 2, Club Fighting 1, Knife Fighting 1

POSSESSIONS
Knife, rucksack, lantern, flask of oil, provisions (six), 4 silver pence, monkey club, butcher’s knife, pocket full of monkey treats, five small monkeys

Mechanically, TROIKA! is very simple. To undertake an action, including casting a spell, a player rolls two six-sided dice, the aim being to roll equal to, or less than, his character’s Skill attribute. If the character has an appropriate Advanced Skill, the player adds that to his character’s Skill attribute. A roll of two sixes always indicates that the action fails. In contests, such as a race or a combat, the combatants roll two six-sided dice each, and each add any appropriate bonuses or Advanced Skill. The highest roll indicates the winner. Luck is tested when a Player Character is subject to fate. It is reduced by one no matter whether the test is a success or a failure. It can be recovered after several hours of rest.

Combat uses the same mechanics except initiative. This requires a lot of different coloured tokens and a container or cloth bag. The players each then add two dice of the same colour, but different to the other players, to the bag. The Game Master also adds a number of dice equal to the total enemy initiative. One last token, of an entirely different colour, is also added to the bag. This is the ‘End of Round’ token. All together, this is the called the Initiative Stack. When a token is drawn from the container, the NPC or Player Character whose token has been drawn, gets to act. When the ‘End of Round’ token is drawn, the round ends. This has an interesting range of effects. Players no longer know when their characters are going to act and may face innumerable actions upon the part of the enemy, before they have the opportunity to act. Further, they may not even get to act before the round ends. Opponents can have multiple tokens in the stack, perhaps because they are faster, more cunning, or better prepared, or have fewer tokens in the stack, because they are slower, cowardly, uncertain, and so on. It can also mean that the same opponent acts multiple times in a round, though this really applies to bigger or more powerful monsters, for example, a dragon, who have multiple options in terms of what they can do or attack with. (As an aside, this has a side effect of TROIKA! not being easy to run online.)

Armour is classified as either light, medium, and heavy, and reduces damage suffered by either one, two, or three points respectively. If a Player Character’s Stamina is reduced to zero, he is dying and his fellow Player Characters have roughly a round or so to act before he actually dies.

Casting a spell in TROIKA! costs the caster points of Stamina and also requires a Skill roll. A rolls of two ones always succeeds and a roll of two sixes not only fails, but necessitates a roll on the ‘Oops! Table’. The spells again range from the ordinary to the outré. The ordinary includes Darkness, which creates a sphere of blackness, and Find, which enables the castor to locate a lost object. Examples of the outré include Coal Resolve, which turn the target’s heart into a burning ember of grief which captures his entire focus, rendering him immune to mind control or physical pain, and Thought Vapour, which grants the caster’s nose a multidimensional presence enabling it to smell emotions, attitudes, and thoughts, though strong smells can block this effect.

Enemies in TROIKA! are simply defined. An Enemy’s Skill covers everything it can do, including the equivalent of a Player Character’s Advanced Skills as well as covering Luck, Stamina is generally lower to encourage faster combat and play, Initiative indicates the number of tokens that the Game Master adds to the Initiative Stack, and Armour indicates how much its protection, whether thick hide, worn armour, or incorporeality, reduces damage suffered. The damage an enemy can do is random, but the range determined by its size. Every one of the enemies described in TROIKA! is given a Mien table to help indicate its behaviour. And again, just like the spells and the Backgrounds, Enemies include the ordinary and the outré. There are Boggarts, Cyclops, Dragons, Goblins, and Harpies, but also Khabits, the cloned handmaids and officers of Exultants, used to fill out the attendance at parties and often as a source of spare organs for their clone-parents, but really want to replace or inherit from them; Notules, formless and freezing star-creatures which are sometimes used as a means of murder by targeting a victim to have their warmth sucked out to leave behind an unmarked corpse; and the Sympathy Serpent, which does not aggressively constrict its prey, but takes them in a gentle embrace and soothes them reassuringly that life is indeed soul-crushingly awful whilst swallowing them whole…

Rounding out TROIKA! is the introductory adventure, ‘The Blancmange and Thistle’. It is as weird as the Backgrounds that the Player Characters are likely to have. They arrive at their hotel to discover that it is hosting the Feast of the Chiliarch on the top floor, the consequences of which are there is only one room left in the hotel and it too, is on the top floor. Getting to their hotel room is a challenge and the meat of the scenario. The primary routes are by the Mandrill-operated lift or the stairs. There are some absolutely terrific encounters here, such as a Sweet Old Lady who asks lots of questions and the process gets the players to think about and describe their characters, rewarding their characters with magical bonbons; a Gas Form alien whose presence will drown the Player Characters, essentially forcing them to deal with an environmental threat; let them go shopping and peruse the wares of a Pushy Wall merchant; and more. There is an entirely different set of encounters on the stairs. This a genuinely fun adventure, for player and Game Master alike, well designed with just about the right level of oddness without overwhelming the players.

Physically, TROIKA! is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is cartoonish, mixing humour and weirdness in equal measure. The book itself is very light in the hand.

TROIKA! combines very quick and easy to learn and play rules with a set of fantastically entertaining and enticing choices for both for the players and the Game Master. These choices are wonderfully weird and whimsical in a very British way, slyly humorous, and all in readiness to explore the Crystal Spheres starting with the really fun scenario in the book.

Your Own Private Arcane Academy

Academies of the Arcane has a problem. Or rather, the subject matter of Academies of the Arcane has problem. Academies of the Arcane is a roleplaying supplement about creating and playing in your own school of wizardry. Which means that it draws comparisons with the series of novels starring Harry Potter and set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and by association, the contentious views of the series’ author, J.K. Rowling. Academies of the Arcane and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are about academic institutions modelled on British boarding schools with their own peculiar practices and traditions where magic is researched and taught. That though, is where the comparisons end. For although there is nothing to stop a Game Master and her players using Academies of the Arcane to create and roleplay a game similar to that of the Harry Potter, should they so desire, that is not its raison d’etre. In fact, doing so would actually be to ignore the possibilities and options that the book presents that enable the Game Master and her players to create their school of magic and everything associated with it—school uniforms, school houses, teachers, locations, events, classes, and more—and roleplay their students’ time at the school.

Academies of the Arcane is a supplement for Troika! Numinous Edition. Published by the Melsonian Arts Council following a successful Kickstarter campaign, presents some forty or so tables, over a third of the supplement, for creating numerous different aspects of an institution dedicated to the teaching of magic. Academies of the Arcane does not start there though. It begins with advice and suggestions for the Game Master on how to use the book and the types of campaign frameworks and framework elements it can be used for. These include using the magical school as a place of intrigue, betrayal, and treachery; as a base of operations from which the students can set out to undertake the very dangerous process of learning magic—at the school and beyond; to explore the pride and factionalism of the board school model and its houses, but with wizards and magic; and play not as young students, but as graduate students or members of the faculty, or interlopers at the school with a mission of their own. None of these concepts are explored in any great detail, but they are solid starting points from which Game Masters and players can develop their own frameworks, aided of course, by the familiarity of Academies of the Arcane’s subject matters and settings.

Academies of the Arcane provides some thirty-six student Backgrounds. These begin with the Prodigal Magus—who just happens to have an interesting birthmark or scar that glows when he casts spells, and the Warlock of the Withered Ouroboros, who is trying to avoid the fate of being consumed by his own magic. All have several possessions and several advanced skills, including spells, as well as a special ability. Others include odder creations such as Tiger Conceptual, Worm Troll, Printer’s Devil, and Precocious Ooze. These is a fantastic mix of the ordinary and the outré, and whilst a player can choose one from the thirty-six available, rolling for his character’s Background as intended adds to the challenge. Added to this are some ninety or so spells, from Acumen, Alignment Language, and Astral Parasite to Window-Weald, Word Feaster, and Wormcast. The spells are as weird and wonderful as the Backgrounds, such as the Word Feaster which enables the caster to eat the vocabulary of another wizard and effective silence them temporarily; Discordance which disrupts time with the terrible singing of the cosmos and upends the initiative stack in combat; and Manifest Doubt, which reveals a flaw in a personal philosophy, forcing the victim to collapse into painful introspection or double down on his belief. The spell notes that no philosophy is truly pure and so there is always a flaw to take advantage of.

Then Academies of the Arcane presents the tables needed to create an academy. This starts with the name such as ‘Father Ankou’s Cage of Arcane Triumph’ or ‘Drimcliff University of the Torment Eternal’. After this, rolls are made for campus appearance, interior and exterior, nearby notable locations, school uniform, history, recent troubles, and rumours. There are tables for creating houses and their mascots and mottos, notoriety and troubles, and for the classes and subjects that the Player Characters can take and study. As well as tables for creating members of the faculty, there is guidance for running classes and the school itself, and even a wizarding competition. Rounding out the book is a wild selection of interesting magical items such as familiars, The Adder-Skin Book of New Fate, Ancient Indelible Foods of the Gods, and more, all of which be used to drive stories at the wizarding school.

Although Academies of the Arcane is designed to be played used Troika!, a Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness, it need not be. Both Academies of the Arcane and Troika! are Old School Renaissance adjacent, in addition to being British Old School Renaissance in its inspiration. The simplicity of the mechanics Troika! and Academies of the Arcane—the latter’s spells in particular, combined with the lack of mechanics in its numerous tables and the prompts they contain, mean that the supplement is easy to use as a framework in another roleplaying game. This could be generic like the Cypher System or Savage Worlds or a retroclone like Old School Essentials. Either way, Academies of the Arcane is sufficiently generic to make adapting to another set of rules or a setting relatively easy.

Physically, Academies of the Arcane is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is excellent whether of the inclusive nature of the student body, the wonder of the arcane, or the exquisite nature of the magical items. The clarity of the design to Academies of the Arcane means that it has few problems and even then, they are minor at best. One is the size of the book, larger than that typical of supplements for Troika! Then again, getting all of the supplement’s tables into a digest-sized book and making them useable would have been challenging. The other is perhaps the brevity of the content, but then that content is designed as an extensive series of prompts to push the Game Master and her players to create their own arcane academy. However, that leaves one element of the genre unaddressed and likely intentionally so. Academies of the Arcane focuses on the fantasy of the magic and learning the magic and ignores the ordinary aspects of living in the equivalent of boarding school (for magic). So, there is no contrast between the ordinary and extraordinary, no push and pull between the two. The problem with doing so of course returns Academies of the Arcane to the problem of its subject matter and comparisons with Harry Potter, which could have been contentious. Thus, the aspect of the setting is left unmentioned and unexplored and in the hands of the Game Master and her players should they decide to include it in their game.

Ultimately, Academies of the Arcane provides everything the Game Master and her players need to run a game set at a sorcerous school, but not just any institute of invocation. Instead, an academy of the arcane that they create and make their own, telling the stories of their students, their studies, their rivalries, and adventures, and that is what makes Academies of the Arcane the toolkit of choice for its genre.

The Other OSR—The Big Squirm

Troika City is rocked by scandal! The wealthy families and institutions of Downgate Arches, where their homes and headquarters hung suspended over a great toxic gas-filled chasm, have lost enormous sums of money with the collapse of the Scarf-Worm investment bubble—and no one knows who is responsible! Worse, the uncertainty and recriminations have unleashed a war of assassins across the district, adding yet further to the chaos and uproar. Yongardy House of Law wants the war to assassination to end so that the process of legal murder and trial combat can resume. The House of Peace & Love is aghast at the outbreak and wants it to end, including sending out its own Executor-Executioners to bring that about. The Lodge Half-Sinister Twistblade wants better regulation of the war of assassins. The Crew of the Floating Autonomous Zone Orb has mutinied against its captain and thrown him overboard after discovering he put their pay into  Scarf-Worm investment bubble and now want to find the culprits and get paid. The Bank 10,082 Stepped Heaven want the Scarf-Worm investment bubble investigated since so many of its clients have lost money. The Left Yellow Gang is annoyed because it was making money selling fake Scarf-Worms. The Prodrumus family has disappeared aboard its golden barge, Nargeboll, and The Band of the Wandering Plume is having a party with themselves that has so far lasted several weeks… And the Scarf-Worm? It is warm, fuzzy, and quiescent creature the fur of which transcends the concept of colour and so is in much demand as a fashion statement. Enter the Player Characters.

This is the set-up for The Big Squirm, a scenario for Troika!, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness published by the Melsonian Arts Council. It is a rococo noir inspired by Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep as much as the historical South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Tulip mania of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively in which the Player Characters are hired by one of the factions to determine who was responsible for the speculative run on the Scarf-Worms, or at least bring about an end to the War of Assassins, or even just to ensure that they are definitely, absolutely not responsible for the situation. The Player Characters are investigators, but can be of any character given in Troika! They are free to proceed how they want according to the wants of their client and this leads to the obvious problem with The Big Squirm—where to begin.

The Big Squirm is written as a toolkit. This toolkit consists of some twenty-three locations, each drenched in dissolution, couched in corruption, invested with intrigue, and described in detail; seven factions, each with its own goals, methods, and rewards; and six rival detectives, working for rival factions and desperate to out do each other and the Player Characters. The mystery itself is bound up in some nineteen facts—or clues—and their individual sources and locations—which can be rolled for or picked from the ‘d66 Facts’ table as necessary by the Game Master. Not only will the players and their characters need to track the clues, but so will the Game Master, not just to note which facts the Player Characters have acquired, but also because the value of the information in a clue degrades within a few days and becomes general knowledge. They will also have to track the relationships between the Player Characters and the various factions and investigators wrapped up in the mystery. The format means that The Big Squirm does not have an easy beginning, middle, or end, and whilst the middle and end are going to be determined by the actions of the Player Characters, the lack of easy beginning means that starting the scenario needs some set-up upon the part of the Game Master.

Once the scenario has started though, the contents of the toolkit the Game Master is presented with is rich, weird, and diverse. Downgate Arches consists of the mansions of the rich suspended on massive chains, whilst the servants and their families, as well as the rest of the district’s populace reside in blocks which cling precariously to the walls of the chasm. Access to the mansions and other buildings is primarily via barges, although the daring—including the various guild assassins—might climb down the chains. The highlight is the description of a family estate, fastidiously ornate and opulently cluttered, its security handled by some very caring robots—in fact, too caring as there is the danger of a ‘TPK’ or ‘Total Party Knockout’ if the players are not careful—and its care by concerned staff. All this whilst the family pets sue for autonomy! The estate is at heart a dungeon, but one designed with thick carpets, silk hangings, tasteful lighting, and multiple kitchens. Whole sessions of a playthrough of The Big Squirm will involve exploration of the house and interaction with its various denizens.

Besides the richly detail locations to describe, the Game Master also has a great cast of grotesques and odd personalities to portray. These include Xloss Sanss, a fur coat wearing Slough Lizard accompanied by four Orcs, who stores the facts of the case as murder-sculptures made from mammalian pets and Maciej, a vicious little tyke who is pandered to because he is believed to have the gift of prophecy. The others include the complete crew of the golden barge, the Floating Autonomous Zone Orb, fractious and undecided on what to do, and the Graneneck Hotel, the floors of which are grandiosely themed, and its guests, such as the Goblin King and The Porcelain Speaker, an ancient skeleton encased in a porcelain exoskeleton.

Physically, The Big Squirm is beautifully presented. The advice for the Game Master is decent, the book is well written, and the artwork painted to match the tone and nature of the descriptions. Again and again, the Game Master is going to want to show the book’s illustrations to her players as they encounter an NPC or visit a location. The look has the look and feel of thirties futurism, but seen through a byzantine lens.

The Big Squirm is a big adventure, a dark, twisted, and intriguing investigation across a bizarre landscape and through a baroque society that will confound the players and their characters again and again with one strange encounter or location after another. It is an impressive set of tools for running a fantastically weird mystery, but does require a bit more set-up than is given for the players to get their characters involved, but as soon as they are, they will find themselves in a brilliantly recherché, delightfully outlandish noir.

The Other OSR—Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs

On the glacier moon of Myung’s Misstep, perpetually enshrouded in ice and snowstorms, the Player Characters have been contracted to transport and guard a locked box from Out of Order, the site of the moon’s still not functioning space elevator to the water-farm town of Plankton Downs. The safest means of travel is aboard a low-bodied hovercraft fitted with a heat spike it can use to anchor itself when a severe storm strikes. The Player Characters are booked aboard the Nantucket Sleigh Ride, one of these vessels with an adequate record in terms of punctuality, safety, and comfort. If the Player Characters are expecting a thoroughly uninteresting journey, then they are going to be disappointed. Amidst all of the colonial cyborgs, Martian nuns, alien tourists, and macrame owls aboard, a body is found missing its head! Then another one! And the way they died, their heads are all mangled... Could a monster out of galactic myth be stalking the halls and cabins of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride?

This is the set-up for Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs, a scenario for Troika!, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness published by the Melsonian Arts Council. It is a whodunnit in the mode of Murder on the Orient Express or ‘Robots of Death’ for classic Doctor Who, but here infused with a sense of the weird or the unknown a la the episode ‘Squeeze’ from The X-Files. With the crew ill-suited to conducting anything beyond attempting to implement security measures, it falls to the Player Characters to conduct the investigation. To that end, the Game Master is provided with a break-down of the scenario’s plot and a detailed description of the antagonist and its motives. In addition to the isometric-style cutaway deck plans of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride, the Game Master is given stats and details for the passengers and crew aboard the vessel. All twenty-five crew are named, whereas only a handful of the twenty-one Martian Orthodox nuns, twenty-four water farmers—including children, twelve ice-miners, and four glaciology graduates are treated in similar fashion. Fortunately, a set of tables inside the back cover can be used to determine names, precoccupations, and distinctive features for any of these NPCs. There is also a weather table, mostly containing weather events which will delay the journey of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride even further, giving more time for the murderer aboard to strike again…

In addition, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs also includes seven new Backgrounds that can be used describe some of the passengers aboard the Nantucket Sleigh Ride or future NPCs, as well as possible replacement Player Characters, should one of their number fall victim to the murderer aboard the vessel. The new Backgrounds do include the suitably weird, such as Astropithecus Truckensis, a colonial cyborg of Old Mars attended by an Interpreter Parrot and several Martian Rhesus Macaques as attendants or Macramé Owl, which defies explanation. Others are prosaic and are related directly to the setting of the scenario, such as Ice Miner, Misstep Monastic, and Scud Miller.

Physically, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is presented in a swathe of vibrant, gauche colours. It needs a slight edit in places—one of the tables is mislabelled in particular, but is otherwise engagingly written. The art is excellent, having a distinctly European feel to it. The deck plans of Nantucket Sleigh Ride are also decently done and are accompanied with detailed descriptions of each deck and location.

Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs can primarily be run in one of two ways. As a one-shot, it makes for a weird whodunnit on a strange world for Troika! set in a classic closed environment as the murderer picks its victims off one-by-one. As part of a campaign, it is a short interlude between other adventures or a reason perhaps to get the Player Characters to Plankton Downs. Whatever that reason—and the Game Master will need to devise that, just as if necessary, she will ned to decide what is contained in the locked box the Player Characters have been contracted to transport. This might be the element that ties the scenario into a campaign. Whatever way it is used, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs should provide a session’s worth of murder investigation, perhaps two at the very most!

Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is short, combining elements of both scenario and toolbox. The brevity of the writing means that there is a lot of room in the scenario for the Game Master to improvise and make the scenario her own. However, the scenario has a lot of atmosphere, a sense of rundown drudgery and people going about their daily job or just waiting for the journey to end so that their lives can continue. Overall, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is a lovely little book which provides the means to stage a weird, claustrophobic whodunnit that can be played through in an evening and ideally on a cold and wintery one at that.

Subaquatic Skeletal Adventure

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

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

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

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

Wilf

Background: Junker

Base Skill: 4

Stamina: 19

Luck: 9

Drive: To Salvage

SKILLS

5 Taking Things Apart

2 Inventing

2 Spell – Torpedo Throw

2 Spell – Protection from Rain

1 Gadget Fighting

POSSESSIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grim & Perilous Lite

In the Long Sixteenth Century all that stands between chaos and disorder is the Empire. The Empire is the bastion of law and order, but it is a law for those who can afford it and an order which keeps the citizenry in its place. Chaos comes in the form of all that would disrupt this law and order. Plague wends its way back and forth across the land. Feudalism has been displaced by the rise of the burghers and the wealthy middle class and the role of mercenaries on the battlefield, which have made the role of the knight irrelevant. Religion has become more than a matter of just faith with the schism the church. Adhering to one faith and not the other can get you butchered, letting getting caught up on the battlefield, whether as conscript or mercenary. The poor, the labouring classes, and the craftsmen all look to the Empire for stability and their safety, but yearn for something better knowing they are unlikely ever to truly gain it and so change their lot in life. The Empire wants them kept in their place, their labour making the rich even richer, their taxes filling the crown’s coffers, and their bodies, willing or unwilling, ready to be thrown into the quagmire of war against the enemy which threatens from without… Yet there is no great Chaos. Instead, there are the men and women who stand up and decide that theirs is not a life as dictated by the Empire. They seek lives of adventure and change, wanting to make difference in their lives first, but perhaps the lives of others too. As much as their agency can lead to their being employed by the wealthy, they can become a threat to the natural order. This is the setting for Kriegsmesser, a roleplaying game best described as Troika! meets Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Kriegsmesser is written and published by Gregor Vuga following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest #3. It offers a range of character types with a light set of mechanics predicated on degrees of failure, solid advice on running the game, and a very much implied setting. That setting is one akin to Mittel Europe, roughly at the time of the Thirty Years War, so akin to that of the Empire and the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Although there is no specific setting, where Kriegsmesser differs from the original roleplaying game of ‘grim and perilous adventure’ is that it is humanocentric—there are no rules for playing anything other than Humans, there is no such thing as Corruption or supernatural Chaos, and so no bestiary of supernatural creatures. This is because the Player Characters are the chaos, though if the Game Master wants to include it, there are rules for Corruption which have a corrosive effect upon a Player Character, all too likely driving him into the clutches of Chaos.

A Player Character in Kriegsmesser is defined by a Career, four or five skills and some possessions. He also has ten points of Toughness and six points of Luck. To create a character, a player rolls ‘d66’ and notes the details of the character down. He then chooses a name. The options include the Street Rat, the Starving Artist, the Labourer, the Charlatan, the Revolting Peasant, the Vermin Snatcher, the Clueless Noble, and more. Each one of the Careers given in Kriegsmesser is accompanied by a short, but engaging piece of flavour text.

Helena Perun
Career: Slayer
Skills: Read Signs (Demonic) 3, Notice 3, Fight (Monsters) 2, Gossip 1, Track 1
Toughness: 10
Luck: 6
Possessions: Kickass Hat, Holy Water, Silver Knife

Mechanically, Kriegsmesser uses its own dice pool mechanics rather than those of Troika! Whenever a player wants his character to do something and the character has the relevant skill, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the skill and looks for the highest result. If the highest result is a six, then the character succeeds without incurring any trouble. If the result is a five or four, then the character succeeds, but incurs some trouble. A roll of three or less is a failure. What form the trouble takes when a player rolls a four or five, can be anything from a weaker or partial result to bowing out gracefully or a complication. The Game Master is encouraged to present the player with a couple of options and essentially bargain with him as the possible trouble his character suffers. If a character does not have an appropriate skill, then his player can spend points of Luck to have dice to make the skill test. Luck can be recovered through rest, through prayer, or through some festive or merrymaking activities. Luck then forms an important resource and something that a player needs to expand with a care. Of course, every roll in Kriegsmesser should be important, but when or where, Luck is even more important.

Combat in Kriegsmesser is intended to be nasty and brutal, favouring characters—Player Characters and NPCs—who are combat trained. Otherwise, a Player Character has to rely upon his Luck and an NPC, a single die. Often, it is enough to draw a sword to persuade an NPC or possibly a Player Character to back down in the face of potential violence. Kriegsmesser does give more optional rules if the Game Master and her players want a less narrative influenced combat system. These cover initiative, armour (which reduces damage), various weapon types (from warhammer to pistol), mighty blows (bonuses to the base damage if sixes are rolled in an attack), and vantage (having a higher vantage grants a bonus die). Once a Player Character loses all of his Toughness, the next blow will probably kill him, but another option allows for Terrible Injuries, like losing multiple toes to one foot, a blow to the fleshy soft bits which forces the Player Character to double over in pain and vomit, or a strike which smashes the skull and damaging the brain, leaving him to collapse to the floor, dead. (No head flying off several feet in a random direction, sadly.)

For the Game Master, there is advice on the running the game, in particular, making the world real and the lives of the Player Characters exciting, being generous with information, and imagining and conveying a darkly humorously dark tone. There is advice too on how to interpret rolls, in particular, various forms of trouble if a Player Character does not roll a complete success. There are quick and dirty rules too to create and run NPCs, as well establishing relationships between them, as well as creating scenarios around towns. These tables are fairly short and are likely to be used up quickly. Six sample NPCs are included as potential encounters, which are nicely done. Rounding out Kriegsmesser is a discussion of the period in which it is set and ideas as to where it be set outside of a Holy Roman Empire-like setting. The latter is perhaps the least interesting or useful section in Kriegsmesser, but the inclusion of a decent bibliography makes up for it.

Physically, Kriegsmesser is decently presented, making good use of period woodcut artwork. The fanzine is general well written, but could have done with a slightly better organisation in places.

Kriegsmesser is Troika! meets Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, in terms of its simplicity and stripped-down style of play. Yet whilst it is by design set in a world similar to that of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, it shifts its window upon that world. Traditionally, the Player Characters are caught between being in society of the Empire and not, but by not having an ‘other’—typically Chaos in one form or another—Kriegsmesser pushes them into being that ‘other’ and as a consequence the roleplaying game echoes the politics of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, First Edition (if not its setting and history). If there is an issue with this, it is that without a setting of its own, Kriegsmesser never gets to show this off properly.

If the Game Master can provide a setting, then there is plenty of scope in Kriegsmesser to provide an engagingly light and simple option for grim and perilous adventure.