2006: Hollow Earth Expedition

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

The year 2006 was a good one for Pulp Action roleplaying games. Spirit of the Century from Evil Hat Games delivered high Pulp Action in which Doctor Methuselah’s time-zeppelins assembled over the skies of Europe to rip open a path to a new future, Gorilla Khan, conqueror of Atlantis, marshals his armies to take all of Africa, and the threat of Fascism looms over the whole world. It would go on to win several awards, as did the other Pulp Action roleplaying game released in 2006. Hollow Earth Expedition from Exile Game Studio did not necessarily focus on high concept, over the top threats to world peace, democracy, and the social order. Instead, inspired by the works of Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the theories of astronomer Edmond Halley, and the oeuvre of Doug McClure, Hollow Earth Expedition concentrated upon the one theme and wanted to take you down and in. Down and into the interior of the Earth to lands where dinosaurs still roamed, eighteenth century pirates sailed the azure seas, and Amazon warrior women, ape men, and the vestiges of Atlantis could all be found. This was the Hollow Earth, a subterranean realm full of secrets, lost civilisations, and adventuring potential, whether that was making fascinating new discoveries or preventing whatever perfidious plans that the Nazis had of their own!

Hollow Earth Expedition starts by conflating a bit of polar exploration history by presenting the actual diaries from the Andrée-Strindberg-Frænkel Arctic balloon expedition of 1897. In our timeline, it would fail within months and the remains of the expedition members would be found on Kvitøya in 1930. The true diaries tell of how the expedition found itself off course and diverted into a wonderful tropical paradise where monsters roamed the land and its members accepted by a local tribe, before ultimately deciding to try and return home. Similarly, the fate of another polar explorer, Roald Amundsen, who disappeared in 1928 aboard a flight looking for missing crew members from General Umberto Nobile’s Italia air ship, will be revealed in ‘The Hollow Earth Expedition’, the introductory scenario at the back of the book. The North Pole is not the only known entrance to the Hollow Earth. Others include the South Pole, volcanos such as Mount Snaefell in Iceland, the region which would one day become known as ‘The Bermuda Triangle’, and even the fabled city of Shangri-La. What is interesting about the description of the Hollow Earth is that it is not described in terms of geography. This is not to suggest that it is not described at all, but rather that Hollow Earth Expedition focuses upon what might be found there in terms of peoples, threats, and other dangers rather than places, whether that is the Loch Ness Monster or other cryptids, or even flying saucers.

What Hollow Earth Expedition does tell the reader is how to get in and some of the best known routes; the extreme nature of its cosmology and geography, for example, it is constantly lit by its own Sun, so it is always noon, and Earth’s magnetic fields are disrupted, so radios and compasses do not work; and the strangeness of time with no day and night, and time also passes slowly than on the surface. Descendants of Romans, Mayans, Ancient Egyptians, and more can be found in the Hollow Earth, as can signs of the now lost Atlanteans and their civilisation. The possibility of discovering ancient Atlantean technology is one reason explorers enter the Hollow Earth and several examples of Lodestone, a piece of orichalcum which points towards the nearest source of metal, Telepathic Communicator, and more. The ‘Friends and Enemies’ chapter populates the Hollow Earth with native peoples such as Cargo Cultists, Noble Savages, Cannibals, Amazons, Pirates, and Beastmen (including Apemen, Lizardmen, and Molemen), plus creatures like dinosaurs, cave bears, giant apes, kraken, megalodons, rocs, sabre-toothed cats, and even giant sloths and unicorns! More details about the Hollow Earth can be found in Mysteries of the Hollow Earth.

Nor does Hollow Earth Expedition ignore the surface world. This is treated as recent history that a Player Character might know. First from twenty-five years ago, then ten, then five, and lastly a year ago with the default year for the roleplaying game being 1936. It does not delve too deeply into the Desperate Decade of the nineteen thirties, but does pay particular attention to the clash between Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, and Fascism, and gives a decent gazetteer of the world’s nations at the time. Of course, apart from the actual Hollow Earth, Hollow Earth Expedition is a historical roleplaying game, but the emphasis is more on what someone in 1936 might know rather than what we know in 2006 with the benefit of historians and hindsight. As it makes clear, Hollow Earth Expedition is not a roleplaying game of strict historical realism. Instead, history is there to provide backdrop and reason to adventure rather than to educate the players.

A Player Character in Hollow Earth Expedition has an Archetype, Motivation, six Primary Attributes, Skills, a Talent or Resource, and possibly a Flaw. There are fifteen Archetypes—Academic, Adventurer, Celebrity, Criminal, Doctor, Engineer, Explorer, Hunter, Missionary, Moneyman, Occultist, Reporter, Scientist, Soldier, and Survivor—which give some idea of what the Player Character is rather than any mechanical benefit. His Motivation, whether Duty, Escape, Faith, Fame, Greed, Love, Power, Revenge, Survival, or Truth, will drive the Player Character to act and gain him Style Points when roleplayed. The six attributes are Body, Dexterity, Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and Willpower, and typically range in value from one to five, but can go higher. Similarly, skills range from one to five, but can be higher, especially when specialities are selected. A lot of the Talents provide an attribute or skill bonus of some kind, whilst possible Resources include Allies, Artefacts, Contacts, Fame, and the like. Flaws are optional and not quite so prominent in the book, but include Blind, Deaf, Dying, Absent-Minded, Illiterate, and Overconfident. When a Flaw comes into play, it will also earn a Player Character a Style Point.

To create a character, a player assigns fifteen points to Attributes and then another fifteen to skills. A Specialisation costs half a point. A player selects a Talent or a Resource and can select another if a Flaw is taken too. The process is not difficult, but it is slightly fiddly, primarily because a player has so few points to spend. This also leads to a tight, quite restrained, and focused character type who is relatively component in a few skills. They are also mundane characters. Heroic, but mundane. The nearest Talent that Hollow Earth Expedition gets to being exotic is Psychic Sensitivity and whilst the roleplaying game does give a brief treatment of them in background, neither psychic phenomena nor spiritualism, magic, or sorcery really play a role in the Hollow Earth Expedition. What this means is that a player cannot create the equivalent of Doc Savage, The Shadow, or the like. For that, both Game Master and player are probably better looking at Spirit of the Century.

Name: Henry Brinded

Archetype: Academic Motivation: Truth

Style: 2 Health: 5

Primary Attributes

Body: 2 Charisma: 2

Dexterity: 2 Intelligence: 4

Strength: 2 Willpower: 3

Secondary Attributes

Size: 0 Initiative: 6

Move: 4 Defence: 4

Perception: 7 Stun: 2

Skills             Base Levels Rating Average

Academics               4          4 8 [4]

(History)                  4          1 9 [4+]

Art                             4          1 5 [2+]

Diplomacy        2          1 3 [1+]

(Etiquette)               1          2 4 [2]

Empathy        4          1 5 [2+]

Gunnery        4          1 5 [2+]

(Artillery)                 1          1 6 [3]

Investigation           4          1 5 [2+]

Linguistics               4          3 7 [3+]

(Deciphering)         1          1 8 [4]

Pilot                          2          1 3 [4]

Talents

Total Recall

Resources

Wealth 1

Flaw

Hard of Hearing

Alternatively, a player can pick one of the pre-generated sample Archetypes included in the book. There are twelve of them and they consist of Big Game Hunter, Dying Moneyman, Field Biologist, Fortune Hunter, Imperilled Actress, Intrepid Reporter, Jungle Missionary, Lost Traveller, Mad Scientist, Occult Investigator, Rugged Explorer, and Snooty Professor. These come complete with a background and roleplaying notes. They are also done in full colour on the roleplaying game’s colour inserts, its only use of colour.

Mechanically, Hollow Earth Expedition uses the Ubiquity System and was the first to do so. It is a simple mechanic. If a player wants his character to undertake an action, he rolls a number of dice equal to double the Attribute or the Skill Rating. Every even result counts as a Success. The difficulty of a task determines how many Successes are needed, ranging from one for Easy to six or more for Nigh Impossible, with an Average Difficulty requiring two Successes. Modifiers will add or subtract from the player’s dice pool. If necessary, the Game Master can also determine how well or how badly the Player Character did, depending upon the number of Successes rolled. A critical failure occurs if no Success are rolled. In general, a player will be rolling a big handful of dice for his skills, especially for his character’s best skills. Further, a player can use any dice he likes or get away with just using six-sided dice.

Alternatively, Exile Game Studio also manufactured its own Ubiquity Dice. These are eight-sided dice, coloured white, red, and blue, numbered from zero to three, depending upon the colour of the die. The white die counts as a one-die, the red die as a two-die, and the blue die as a three-die. To use those, the player adds up the value of the Ubiquity Dice equal to the number of dice he needs to roll and the total result is the number of Success achieved. For example, to have Henry Brinded make a Linguistics skill roll, his player has to roll seven dice. Instead, with Ubiquity Dice, his player rolls two red dice and a single white die, adds the numbers rolled up and that is the number of Successes. Of course, rolling a handful of dice is simple, but the Ubiquity Dice are elegant. However, Hollow Earth Expedition was published in 2006 and Ubiquity Dice are very hard to find twenty years on.

In addition, the Ubiquity System does offer another pair of options to reduce dice clutter. One is to ‘Take the Average’. If the average number of Successes that a particular dice pool can generate is equal to or greater than the task Difficulty, the Player Character automatically succeeds. This both reflects the Player Character’s general skill level and eases speed of play by cutting out unnecessary dice rolls. The other option is for large dice pools of more than ten dice in which case the player will ‘Take the Average’ for the first ten dice and roll the rest.

A Player Character has access to Style Points. These are awarded for good roleplaying such as to a Player Character’s Motivation or Flaw; supporting the game out of game, such as keeping a game report; and even for hosting and providing snacks! They are spent to buy Bonus Dice, to Boost a Talent, and Damage Reduction. If a character has run out of Style Points, his player can ask for Chance Dice. These increase his dice pool, but also increase the Difficulty of the task involved, increase the number of possible Successes that can be rolled, and increase the possibility of failure, but not those Critical Failure, as more dice means a greater chance of rolling at least one Success. It feels like the Player Character is being a hero, pushing the envelope, pushing himself to succeed where others might fail…

Combat uses the same system of dice pools. Initiative is determined by the number of Success rolled and each combatant gets an attack action and a move action per round. An attack action can be a standard attack, but can also be aim, auto fire, block, called shot, and so on. The attack is resolved by an Attack Rating, which includes the attacker’s Attribute, Skill, and other modifiers, rolled against the defender’s roll of his Defence Rating which consists of his Passive Defence, Active Defence, and Size, and includes modifiers for cover, wounds suffered, and armour worn, Armour makes a target harder to hit rather than reduce damage, but if the Attack roll is successful, any Successes generated beyond the Difficulty number do count as extra damage. Damage can be lethal or non-lethal. If a defender suffers more damage in a single blow than his Stun rating, he is stunned and loses his next action, but knocked out if he suffers more damage in a single blow than double his Stun rating. Damage can also knockback or knockdown a defender. If a defender’s Health is reduced to zero by nonlethal damage, he is knocked unconscious, but disabled if the damage is lethal, and he will die if lethal damage lowers his Health to ‘-5’. The combat rules do account for massive size differences, such as facing a dinosaur (and the example of play includes a big game hunter going after a Tyrannosaurus Rex), but advises that it is better to use brains rather than brawn when dealing with them.

Hollow Earth Expedition includes an extensive list of equipment that might be found on both the surface world and in the Hollow Earth. Alongside this is the inclusion of some ‘Weird Science’ gadgets. The rules count these as Artifacts and in order for a Player Character to have one, perhaps because he is a mad scientist, he must have the Artifact Resource. This Resource ranges from Artifact 1, a useful item such as a lucky watch to Artifact 5 and a legendary and

extremely powerful, like a drilling machine. A rare and highly useful artifact, such as a jet pack is Artifact 2, whilst a one-of-a-kind and incredibly useful artifact like a mind control ray is Artifact 3. At starting level, a Player Character scientist or engineer is unlikely to be equipped with more than an Etheric Disturbance Monitor (which detects psychic powers), Spectrovision Goggles, or even a Jet Pack. What Hollow Earth Expedition does not include is rules for building such devices. If the Player Character does have access to bigger devices, at this stage of play, starting out, they are likely to be included for narrative effect rather than something that he possesses. (Full rules for weird science and gadgeteering appeared in Secrets of the Surface World.)

The advice for the Game Master covers genre conventions such as making the heroes larger than life, the villains villainous, and the good use of a cliffhanger or deathtrap. Alongside this, there is advice specific to Hollow Earth Expedition, including ‘Evoke a Sense of Discovery’, ‘Keep It Moving’, ‘Things Are Not Always as They Seem’, and ‘Make the Era Live’ as well as a look at its conventions. These are that ‘Getting In Is Always Easier Than Getting Out’ of the Hollow Earth, ‘Guns Don’t Kill Dinosaurs: People Kill Dinosaurs’, and that when asking the question, ‘Is it Science or Magic?’, it is likely to be the former than the latter, though some still do believe in latter. Notably, the advice covers fostering good communication with the players and talking about everyone’s expectations. The advice also covers campaign length and construction, how to handle and portray villains, and is backed up with some story seeds and campaign ideas. The advice is really very good, looking at both the broader nature of the Pulp genre and at the specifics of the lost world sub-genre, and it certainly has not dated. It would work as well in a contemporary roleplaying game as it did in 2006.

In addition to describing and populating the Hollow Earth, the roleplaying game also provides the Game Master with some allies and enemies from the Surface World to populate her campaign. They include secret societies, exploration societies, and government agencies. The Terra Arcanum was originally set up to guard Atlantean secrets and shepherd humanity, but has since developed into a network of puppet masters and powerbrokers in the mode of the Illuminati, whilst the Thule Society is a cult of militant Nazi occultists. The exploratory societies are the familiar National Geographic Society and Royal Geographic Society, whilst the government agencies are U.S. Army Intelligence and Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, in particular, Section Z, which investigates foreign occult activity. All six are accorded a lengthy write-up and details of both a notable NPC and a generic NPC. All six also feel more than suited to the genre and the two-fisted heroes of Hollow Earth Expedition are definitely going to want some Nazis to punch!

The Player Characters get a chance to punch some Nazis in ‘The Hollow Earth Expedition’, the introductory scenario in Hollow Earth Expedition. There is good advice on how to get the Player Characters motivated according to their Archetype, but what they will be doing is joining a U.S. Army Intelligence sponsored mission aboard an airship being sent after a secret Thule Society which it thinks is searching for advanced weaponry from a lost civilisation at the North Pole. It is a cracking little adventure, getting the Player Characters into the Hollow Earth in smart fashion, showcasing some of its dangers and wonders, revealing a secret or two, and putting them face to face with the Nazis. The roleplaying game is rounded out with a good bibliography and a glossary.

Physically, Hollow Earth Expedition is a great looking book. It is well written and actually an engaging read, but what really stands out is the artwork. Or rather, what really stands out is the artwork, the black and white artwork in particular. This is not to say that the colour artwork of the book’s colour inserts is poor. In fact, it is very good, capturing that vibrant colour of the cover of pulp paperbacks. However, the black and white is superb, again and again evoking a sense of wonder about the world, both the Surface World and the Hollow Earth.

Hollow Earth Expedition is a roleplaying game in a hurry and that is the cause of its problems. It really wants to get the Game Master, her players, and their characters into the Hollow Earth as fast as it can. Which is good. However, it rushes the reader into the rules and character generation without a lot of explanation. It is there, but a bit more explanation would have prepared the reader better. It also has to straddle two worlds—the Surface World and the Hollow Earth, when really it wants to focus on the Hollow World. Which it does. So, it leaves a lot of character elements behind, especially in terms of Talents and Resources, when the Player Characters reach the Hollow World. In a pulp action roleplaying like Hollow Earth Expedition, this means that some Player Characters are going to feel underpowered. There is also very little in the book on the occult or weird science and given that these are mainstays of the Pulp genre, their relative absence is notable. Lastly, players wanting high Pulp Action are going to be disappointed. Hollow Earth Expedition does deliver on both the Pulp and the action, but very much at the lower end of the scale. Lastly, for the Game Master wanting more ready to play and use content, Hollow Earth Expedition is lacking. Hollow Earth Expedition does give all of the elements, but as a setting, the Hollow Earth Expedition Game Master is going to have to put a lot of effort in to create the Hollow Earth as a realm that her Player Characters explore and adventure . However, if she does, then she will definitely make it her own.

Hollow Earth Expedition was released at the ebb of the d20 System. It would win the Silver Medal for Best Cover Art at the 2007 ENnie Awards and be a Finalist for Roleplaying Game of the Year in the 2007 Origins Awards. Its Ubiquity System would go on to be used in roleplaying games such as Desolation, A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy from Greymalkin Designs and the version of Space: 1889 from Uhrwerk Verlag under its easier to pronounce Clockwork Publishing label.

Hollow Earth Expedition is not perfect and it is not the perfect pulp action game. There are elements missing from it to be an all-encompassing treatment of the genre and the Player Characters are likely to feel underpowered. However, it is not meant to be an all-encompassing treatment of the genre and does not try to be, and the fact that its Player Characters feel underpowered shifts it to a ‘Lost World’ roleplaying game of not quite ordinary men and women thrust into action in a land of wonder and discovery. As a pulp action roleplaying game, Hollow Earth Expedition is very much punching above its weight, but the Ubiquity System is solid, the writing is great, and the artwork excellent, and all together, they invoke a delightful sense of awe and wonder about the Hollow Earth and what might be found there.

A Campaign of Leagues

For over a decade, there is something that Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! has been lacking. The roleplaying game of globetrotting adventure and mystery set during the ‘Gay Nineties’ at the end of the nineteenth century is published by Triple Ace Games and in its time has been very well supported with numerous supplements, including Leagues of Gothic Horror, which took it into the realm of classic horror and Leagues of Cthulhu, which took it into the far realms of Cosmic Horror. However, in that time, what it has not had, is a campaign. That all changes with the publication of The Great Campaign – A Globetrotting Campaign in Four Glorious Parts. Inspired by the works of Joseph Conrad, in particular, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent, as well as H. Ridder Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, even a little Indiana Jones, and a big fat serving of treacle sponge history covered in lashings of occult custard and radical political thought, The Great Campaign will take the Player Characters—or Globetrotters—from a missing persons case in Cambridge to the ‘Roof of the World’ via assorted assassinations, anarchy in the UK, a journey to the Russian Wild West, and the ‘Great Game’. Throw in a mix of steampunk technology and what you have in The Great Campaign is an over-the-top, unashamedly Imperialist, pulpy campaign that delivers murder, mystery, intrigue, corruption, and more, but ultimately, just one big ripping yarn.

The Great Campaign – A Globetrotting Campaign in Four Glorious Parts, published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, can be played using just the core rules for Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! even to the point of playing using the seven pre-generated Globetrotters in the book, plus their followers. There are several supplements which will prove useful to run the campaign if the Game Master has access to them. These are The Globetrotters’ Guide to Expeditions, Leagues of Gothic Horror, Globetrotters’ Guide to London, The Globetrotters’ Guide to Dramatic Developments, and the character collection, Dramatis Personae. Of these, Leagues of Gothic Horror adds rules for Corruption and Sanity, the former earned and the latter lost for vile deeds and suffering the travails of journeys beyond the borders of civilisation. Both Corruption and Sanity are included as part of The Great Campaign, but only come into play if Leagues of Gothic Horror is being used. Their inclusion does suggest an interesting possibility though. Though The Great Campaign is not a cosmic horror campaign, through Leagues of Gothic Horror and then Leagues of Cthulhu, it connects to Cthulhu by Gaslight, the Victorian era supplement for Call of Cthulhu. Should the Game Master—or rather Keeper—have a mind to, The Great Campaign could be adapted to run with Cthulhu by Gaslight, though the use of Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos is highly recommended should she decide to do so. Another option would be run the campaign using the Ubiquity system version of Space: 1889, though the Game Master will need account for aerial vessels in the third and fourth parts of the campaign. Perhaps by having the Czar impose an aerial interdiction in the region?

The campaign opens in late 1891 with ‘The Dreaming Spires’ which takes place in Cambridge (rather than Oxford and its dreaming spires). Sir Reginald Ponsonby and his wife, Lady Fenella, are worried about their son, Edmund, who has gone missing after having been sent down from Trinity College, Cambridge. Hunting for clues as to his whereabouts reveals that Edmund Ponsonby had got himself mixed with a bad lot—foreign radicals (but not French!) and Socialists to boot. The trail leads away from the college to a house in the fens and back again. By the time the first adventure is over, the Globetrotters should have stopped one anarchist plot—here in Cambridge—and gained hints of another, playing out far away in Central Asia, and gained the Ponsonbys as patrons. The last few scenes should ideally involve a race back to Trinity College and a desperate search for its hidden secrets, but there is also an exciting chase across the rooftops of the university to get the heart racing a little earlier.

If they are successful in ‘The Dreaming Spires’, by the time of the second part of the campaign, ‘The Emerald Scarab Conspiracy’ in late November of 1891, the Globetrotters will be famous enough to be invited to a grand Christmas ball to be hosted by the Russian Embassy aboard by HMS Hrimnir, the ice leviathan capable amphibious land and sea movement, especially on the ice. Before then they are asked to investigate the death of a prominent rocket scientist, which will draw them into London’s Russian immigrant community and bring them into contact with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. All quickly too quickly, someone takes a violent interest in the Globetrotters’ investigation, but before they can find out the Globetrotters must attend the grand ball. With numerous members of different governments in attendance, the event does not end with the Prussian Princess Charlotte ending up dead and the gift she has just been given—the Emerald Scarab of the title—in the possession of one of the Globetrotters. If an international incidence is to be avoided the Globetrotters need to think and investigate fast. Fortunately, their good reputation should be enough for them to avoid incarceration, but that is not enough for the true culprit who will strike first at the Globetrotters in classic location before launching an even bigger attack elsewhere, hoping to bring the major powers of Europe to the brink of war and beyond. As with ‘The Dreaming Spires’, ‘The Emerald Scarab Conspiracy’ is a pacey affair which ends in a race to save the day, but much more scaled up.

‘The Emerald Scarab Conspiracy’ climaxes with the Globetrotters thwarting the plans of the anarchist cell in London and hopefully, defeating its leader. It leaves the matter of N.F. Fyodorov, who is somehow connected to the anarchists and their plot, but is far away in Central Asia. Of course, if that is the case and the man is dangerous, could India, the Empire’s jewel in the crown, be danger. As a part of a ‘Justice Expedition’, the third part of the campaign, ‘Journey to the Roof of the World’ quickly takes the Player Characters across Europe in comfort and style on the Simplon-Orient Express, but once in Constantinople, that is where the comfort and style ends. From Batum to Baku across Transcaspia, across the Caspian Sea—where of course, the Globetrotters might run into the ‘Pirates of the Caspian’—to Krasnovodsk, and from there fabled Samarkand, and beyond into the Pamirs, said to be the ‘Roof of the World’. Unlike the first two scenarios which were quietly tightly focused in their storytelling, ‘Journey to the Roof of the World’ opens up and is more episodic in nature, focusing on the travel and its possible difficulties, having to deal with both the region’s Russian overlords and the native peoples, and in the process discover some of the secrets of the region.

The campaign comes to a close with ‘Paradise Lost’, the title hinting at what the Globetrotters will find at the ‘Roof of the World’. Once past the native peoples protecting farther progress, they must climb the mountainous glacier high into the Pamirs. Here, in an isolated valley, the Globetrotters have the opportunity to locate and apprehend N.F. Fyodorov, hopefully discovering whether he was connected to the anarchist plots back in England, and possibly secrets that go all the back to the Garden of Eden. It is a classic climax to this type story, revealing the secrets to a big mystery like that of Eldorado or Atlantis.

Besides the seven pre-generated Globetrotters and their cohorts given in its first appendix, The Great Campaign comes with another four appendices providing further support. This includes sixty-one additional Followers, for the Game Master who needs a Bagpiper or a Mime; eight additional Globetrotters; Professor Pennyworth’s Catalogue of Gadgets, such as an Endless Chain Saw, Enhanced Itching Bomb, Targeting Monocle, Aquatic Tripod, and Clockwork Soldier; and More Leagues of Adventure, from the Alpine Horticultural Society and the Author’s Club to the Tobacconists Club and The Turkophile Society. In fact, not all of it directly supports the campaign, but Globetrotters and Followers are useful as a source of replacement characters and the devices for the scientist or engineer to design.

Physically, The Great Campaign is ably presented. Much of the artwork is decent and the cartography clean and easy to read. However, the layout is busy, often relying on a lot of bold text especially when presenting NPCs and interrogations of NPCs. This very much a case of the style for Leagues of Adventure, but it can be a lot to take in.

The Great Campaign – A Globetrotting Campaign in Four Glorious Parts is the campaign that Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! wanted and needed. It certainly has plenty of opportunities for both rip-roaring and derring do, along with the investigation and the exploration. The Great Campaign – A Globetrotting Campaign in Four Glorious Parts is a classic campaign of Victorian adventure, torn from the pages of Victorian novels and the film cells of the silver screen.

The Worst Game at Gen Con 2022

The Strange Land is a scenario for Space: 1889. First published by Game Designers’ Workshop in 1989, it was the first Steampunk roleplaying game. Inspired by the works Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle, it presented an alternate past of Victorian-era space-faring, in which Thomas Edison invented the ‘ether propeller’, a means to propel space vessels through the ‘luminiferous aether’ to first the Moon, then Mars, and later Venus and Mercury. All are proven to be inhabited, Venus by Lizardmen and dinosaurs, but Mars by Canal Martians, Steppe Martians, and High Martians, and the world itself was arid and dry, its cities connected by a network of canals that had been seen from Earth. Mars was also the source of Liftwood, the mysterious tree cultivated for the antigravity properties of its wood, which could be used to keep sky galleons and then when Earthmen arrived, their armoured, steam powered flyers aloft. The great powers rushed in make trade deals and ultimately establish colonies on the Red Planet, just as they would on Venus. In the two decades since Edison landed on the Moon and then on Mars, all of the Imperial tensions of the age have been brought to Mars and exacerbated by the lay of the land of the new world.

Space: 1889 would not remain in print for very long. Game Designers’ Workshop cancelled the line in 1990, but Heliograph, Inc. would reprint many of the titles at the turn of the century. In 2010, the Pinnacle Entertainment Group published a Savage Worlds edition of the game called Space 1889: Red Sands. More recently, in 2015, German publisher Uhrwerk Verlag/Clockwork Publishing published a new edition using the Ubiquity System, originally seen Hollow Earth Expedition from Exile Game Studio. Notably, this edition emphasised the role of the European powers, especially Prussia under Bismarck, in the setting, as opposed to the role of the British Empire in the previous versions. The Strange Land is available for both the Ubiquity System of Space: 1889 and the Savage Worlds rules for Space 1889: Red Sands. It is the latter version of The Strange Land that is being reviewed here.

The Strange Land concerns the fate of the young Canal Martian boy, Kime, and is divided into two parts. The first part is set on Earth and is an investigation into his kidnapping which leads into industrial unrest, whilst the second part takes place on Mars, and more directly involves industrial unrest. The scenario can be played straight through, but ideally, the second part should take place later in the campaign some time after the first. In particular, it is suggested that the Player Characters for the first part be from Novice to Seasoned Rank, and from Season to Veteran in the second part. The scenario also suggests that the Player Characters, or at least a few of them, be British. The scenario has a nice sense of historicity and although the scenario calls for more middle- and upper-class character types initially, any working-class character, or a character with radical leanings will have much to do in the scenario.

The Strange Land opens with the Player Characters invited to stay at the Hampshire estate of Lord John Feltam-Hithe, where at the end of a lengthy dinner, his young ward, an orphaned Canal Martian named Kime, will perform an amazing feat—he will levitate into the air! The Player Characters have the opportunity to interact with the other guests, including an explorer, an industrialist, a businessman, a poetess, and others, but after performing for the night and retiring, Kime has disappeared. Lord Feltam-Hithe presses upon the Player Characters that the boy is in danger and must be found. Their investigations lead first to one of the staff and from their to decidedly rotten circus, which has pitched its tents outside the nearby town. The circus owner is a vile piece of work, poorly treating both staff and exhibits, including, it turns out, one John Merrick! Who proves to be the most noble amongst all of the NPCs that the Player Characters will encounter as they conduct their investigation, which will also reveal more about Lord Feltam-Hithe’s parlous financial situation.

In the third scene of the first part to The Strange Land, the Player Characters literally follows the tracks to London and get involved in the London Dock Strike of 1889. In the setting of Space: 1889, this is exacerbated by taking place on the Southern Aerial Docks, which is currently being occupied the striking dockworkers. Rumour is flying about an ‘Angel of the Docks’, a figure who has become a figurehead to the striking dockworkers. Could this be Kime? If so, the Player Characters need to find a means to ascend to the Southern Aerial Docks. Here the author provides several NPCs which can become potential contacts for the Player Characters, including a historical figure or two, along with several means of accessing the Southern Aerial Docks. These means are inventive and the author is clearly having some fun with them. Ultimately, which should happen is standoff between the striking dockworkers and the strike breakers, with both Kime and the Player Characters sort of in the middle, and the situation getting resolved one way or another.

It is at this point that the scenario could have ended and nobody would have been the wiser. However, The Strange Land has a second, much shorter part, which takes place on Mars, a year or two after the events of the first part. The Player Characters are sent to the aid of a hill station towards the edge of the British sphere of influence on the Red Planet. A local noble, Shune, wants the help of the commander of the hill station in ending a labour strike at the nearby pumping station, Astolor Station—which helps keep the waters flowing through the canals of the dying planet. The commander of the hill station would rather not get involved, and certainly not involve the British residency on Mars, but there are rumours too that a British hostage has been taken as well. So a labour strike, a kidnapping, and an unpleasant, condescending Martian noble, but how are they all connected? This is a simpler situation than in the first half of The Strange Land, but not as linear and more open in how the Player Characters approach the situation. Whether they decide to give help to Shune or negotiate with him, or storm the pumping station or parlay with the strikers, there are consequences to their decisions. The various options are discussed and supported with details of the situation’s major NPCs, so rather than running her Player Characters through the plot as in the first half, the Game Master will primarily reacting to their decisions.

Physically, The Strange Land is a short book. It needs a slight edit in places, but the few pieces of artwork and the single map—that of the Southern Aerial Docks—are all decent. However, it would have benefitted from a few more thumbnail portraits of the NPCs, and definitely more maps. Whether that is of Lord Feltam-Hithe’s estate, the region around Astolor Station, and of Astolor Station itself. If not that, then at least an illustration.

Whether written for use with Space 1889: Red Sands or the original Ubiquity System version of Space: 1889, The Strange Land is a solid little scenario. (With a little effort, it could no doubt be adapted to new version, Space 1889: After, currently being Kickstarted by Strange Owl Games.) It takes the Player Characters to the highs and lows of society on both Earth and Mars, and the first half, set on Earth could easily be run without the need to run the second half. There is an enjoyable sense of working-class radicalism to both halves and together they allow The Strange Land to explore the underside to Victorian life the reform movement in Space: 1889.

—oOo—

The Strange Land was the worst scenario we played at Gen Con 2022. This is not to say that the scenario itself is bad. In fact, given its author, it is no surprise that it is a decent, playable, and enjoyable scenario—as written. Yet, of all the gaming experiences we had at Gen Con 2022, it was the worst. Attending Gen Con as a group, we signed up to play a total of five games and got into four of them. These were, in chronological order, Pirates of the Shattered World, X-Crawl, Delta Green, and Space: 1889. Of these, Delta Green was a blast, Pirates of the Shattered World entertaining if crowded, X-Crawl disappointing, and Space: 1889 utterly dreadful. This is despite the fact that our X-Crawl game, which was due to take place in Goodman Games’ Wizard’s Van, was to be run by the game designer, and was an event that we were really, really looking forward to, was cancelled—with good reason. So yes, a gaming experience which was cancelled and thus involved no gaming whatsoever and meant we did not meet the game designer, was a superior gaming experience than the Space: 1889 game.

So why was it so bad?

It took too long to get started and too long for the Game Master to explain the rules. It took too long to get to the hook for the first half of the scenario—the disappearance of Kime—and thus get us involved. When we wanted to roleplay, the Game Master would attempt to move the plot on and when we attempted to investigate, the Game Master would ignore our efforts. The Game Master added a couple of scenes and details that having read and reviewed the scenario are implied, but not really suitable additions given that the scenario is being run in a convention timeslot. So, we felt unengaged in the scenario and grew increasingly bored over the course of the session. In fact, we were communicating this to each other via our Whatsapp group, to the point where we agreed two things. First, it looked like the session of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition session that the Game Master’s wife was running on an adjacent table, was a whole lot more energetic and fun, and that we wished that were playing that instead. Second, when towards the end of the session when the Game Master announced that the scenario was not yet finished, but could be if we decided to stay after the session was supposed to end if we had no pressing appointments, we all agreed that we really, really needed to be somewhere else.

All of which would be exacerbated by ‘Red Hat Guy’. The gaming group of consisted of myself and four other friends. The sixth player was ‘Red Hat Guy’. So named because he wore a red baseball cap. He sat down, selected a character, did not want to know who we were or who our characters were, and only seemed to come alive when there was combat involved. He made no contribution to the investigation or the roleplaying, what little of it we were allowed to do, and said virtually nothing for the whole of the session. However, he proved to be as bored as we were. Towards the end of the session, the player sat next to him sent the following message on our Whatsapp group: “Red hat is skimming through boob pictures. My game is now complete.”

Now in hindsight we should have done something about this. We should have told Red Hat Guy to stop or gone to the Gen Con organisers. We did not. Why not? We were in shock at the audacity of anyone doing such a thing. Had we done so, it would have upended the game, disrupting it, and somehow that did not feel right. Had the one female player been sat next to Red Hat Guy it might have been a different matter. He might never have begun browsing pornography on his mobile phone and the session would have slouched to its end, with none of us the wiser as to how he was feeling. If he had, then she would have very likely, clearly asked him not to, and that probably would have brought the gaming session to end.

Even to this day, we are still in shock even now at what happened with Red Hat Guy. Thankfully, we did not see him again and if we did, we would not want to game with him again. His actions capped what was already a terrible gaming experience, one that we really wanted to get away from, but are never going to forget.

—oOo—

A coda to this terrible gaming experience came at Gateway Strategicon, a convention held over Labour Day weekend 2023 in Los Angeles. One of our number ran The Adventure of the Sword Tournament, the quick-start for Pendragon, Sixth Edition and ‘Red Hat Guy’ had signed up to play. The was no sign that he recognised the Game Master, who had also been a player in the Space 1889 game at Gen Con and who had no idea that ‘Red Hat Guy’ had signed up to play. Although he did not commit the faux pas of watching pornography in public, ‘Red Hat Guy’ committed the gaming faux pas of refusing to engage with the scenario or the game world. Instead of playing an Arthurian knight, he wanted his character to walk the land and meditate. Kung Fu this was not and David Carradine he was not. Rather than engage in the scenario, he decided his knight would sell his arms and armour and horses, and then sit outside the city of London praying. For a full four-hour session. The only times he stirred were for the tournament when there was going to be some (mock) combat and then at the end when everyone swore fealty to the newly anointed King Arthur. The first of these he was unable to do because of course, he had sold all of knight’s arms and armour and horses and so could not participate. As for the second, he was able to swear fealty to King Arthur, but literally last and right from the back of the crowd as he rushed in from outside London’s walls to the square where the sword in the stone was. 

Leagues of Mythos Miscellanea

Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it expands greatly upon the information and details of the Cthulhu Mythos given in the previous supplements. It describes new bloodline Talents and Leagues, a wide array of rituals, tomes, locations, and dread horrors, expanded advice for the Game Master running a Leagues of Cthulhu campaign, and more. In fact, that more is a detailed exploration of the mystical Dreamlands, including rules for dreamers and altering the landscape of the Dreamlands, rituals and tomes unique to that fabled land, a complete gazetteer, and a bestiary of its notable human and inhuman denizens. This is a first for Leagues of Cthulhu, but in effect, the section on the Dreamlands is a supplement all of its very own. Literally, because its chapter numbering starts anew! In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.

In the main, the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is for the Game Master, but there are a handful of elements for the player too. These include the new Hobby Skill, which can include things like Cartography, Fossil Collecting, or Numismatics, and new Bloodlines and new Leagues. The new Bloodlines include LeBlanc, which provides political Contacts, and Northam, which provides Status, as well as dire effects detailed later in the book. The new Leagues include the Elder Club whose members possess sufficient status to keep the truth of the Mythos from society at large and the Elder Race Society, which holds that Human history is far longer than is normally accepted. Various Mythos languages are discussed, such as Aklo and Yithian, and there is a list of Manias to have the Globetrotters suffer, and glorious new Flaws like Blabber Mouth, Fainter, and Screamer!

The content for the Game Master begins with ‘Magic & Manuscripts’ and provides several new Rituals. With Drain Life a caster can inflict lethal damage upon a target to heal his nonlethal wounds (or downgrade a lethal wound to the nonlethal); with Mark of Madness he can inflict Sanity loss upon a victim; and even gain protection against the fell beasts which hunt down along the angles with Sign of Tindalos. The forty or so Eldritch Books—or Mythos Tomes—are all new and are nicely detailed such that the Game Master can draw inspiration from and further, ties into further content elsewhere in the supplement. For example, The Assassin’s Creed: An Expose of the True Hashshashin is a diary of conversations between a crusader and a fellow prisoner about the true nature of the Old Man of the Mountain and details the links between both the fabled and feared assassins. It is not a little tongue in cheek, but does tie into the extensive entry on the Templars, the possible nature of the order’s actual treasure, and the description of what they do in the modern day of the Purple Decade given in the lengthy ‘Gods, Monsters, & Cultists’ chapter. As you would expect, each Eldritch Book description includes its language, author, date of publication, Complexity, Horror, and Mythos values, and contents in terms of spells. This is accompanied by a decent description as to the origins and history of the volume, plus what it actually describes. For example, The Serpent Through History is in English, was written by Sir Reginald Grosvenor and published in 1818, has Complexity 2, Horror 2, and Mythos 1, and contains the spells Commune Yig, Summon Child of Yig, and Summon Serpent Men. It is an examination of snake cults throughout history, including the Voodoo loa Damballa, cults in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and Mesoamerica, plus numerous snake spirits known to American Indians and the nagas known in Indo-China. Grosvenor makes it clear that the presence of so many snake cults is no coincidence, that they are linked to an ancient race of serpent people and that behind it is a universal cult—or at least a cult which set the pattern for those to come—dedicated to an entity that he names as Father of Serpents.

The Eldritch Relics are given a similar treatment, such as Aladdin’s Lamp, which unlike the late addition to the Arabian Nights tells, was discovered in Iram of the Pillars and does not contain a genie. Instead, greatly enhances—almost automatically—the user’s ability to summon a Flying Polyp! Woe betide any daring Globetrotter who decides to give it a rub in case of three wishes… One or two of the items here are not new, such as Liao, which when injected grants the user the capacity to understand the mathematics of traveling through time if not the means, plus items such as the Fungi Brain Cylinder and the Gnoph-Keh Horn Dagger. Or rather, they are not necessarily new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, but new to Leagues of Cthulhu. Which still leaves a lot which is new to both.

The trend of the mix of the new to Leagues of Cthulhu, but not new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying continues with the gazetteer. Thus as it guides us around the five main continents—and beyond, it takes us to such well-known places as the original Dunwich, Kingsport, Ponape, and Roanoke Colony, along with innumerable lesser-known locales. All are quite lengthy descriptions, especially the counties of Somerset and Cumbria in the United Kingdom, which is no surprise that they have been previously explored in the supplements Avalon – The County of Somerset and Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria and thus in more detail. The principality of Wales receives some attention too, whether it is the dark history of Anglesey—also known as Yns Dywyll or the ‘Dark isle’, the sparse are of the Cambrian Mountains identified as the ‘Desert of Wales’, or St. Brides Bay with its sea-caves with tunnels which are said to run deep under the sea, bulbous-eyed, wattle-necked inhabitants, and the ancient, inscribed menhir that it is said the locals dance and cavort around. What this highlights is that Call of Cthullhu—or at least Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—deserves its own supplement devoted to Wales. This section is a good start though. Further, all of these locations are accompanied by an adventure seed that the Game Master can develop.

Perhaps the longest chapter in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is devoted to ‘Gods, Monsters, and Cultists’, a collection of new creatures and entities of the Mythos, such as the Beast of K’n-Yan and Courtier of Azathoth, alongside the old like the Serpent Man and the Tcho-Tcho, all joined by the Giant Albino Penguin. However, these are minor additions in the face of the nineteen cults described in the book, all of them accompanied with write-ups of two NPCs, one a typical NPC cultist, one a named member. For example, the Order of the Fisher-God is a quasi-Christian cult which began as a secret society on the Society Islands before adopting Christian beliefs, whose practice of child sacrifice led it to be driven from the islands and forced to adapt in distant lands. Members seek ascent to a higher plane, which includes transformation to forms better suited to life under the sea, and so their cultists preach those parts of the Bible involving the sea. Thus, the sample NPC, Pastor Andrew, is a popular figure and preacher along the docks. Also included is a discussion of Scaninavian cults as they relate to Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, and Shub-Niggaurath. Here perhaps Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil may diverge from how some Keepers view the Mythos, whether they necessarily equate certain entities of the Mythos with real world gods—Azathoth as Odin for example, or even Nyarlathotep as Loki (although actually, that would not be wholly inappropriate). Of course, such an interpretation is up to the Keeper to include or ignore, and it is only one of multiple cults presented in the supplement. Other cults include a new take upon the Thuggee—complete with an entertaining nod to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the aforementioned Templars, and The Universal Hive, a bee cult with some decidedly fungal infestations… Rounding out the chapter are descriptions of various notables from Lovecraft’s stories, many of them, like John Raymond Legrasse, appearing in earlier incarnations than their appearances later in the fiction. All useful should the Game Master want them in her Leagues of Cthulhu set in the 1890s.

In addition, boxes throughout Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil add further detail and flavour. This includes trapped tomes and self-activating spells, the exact meaning of Nephren-Ka’s name, the nature of genies in the Mythos—Flying Polyps or Fungi from Yuggoth?, and Sherlock Holmes and the Mythos. This provides some of Holmes’ cases which might be developed into Mythos mysteries, rather than suggesting how the great detective might become involved in confronting the Mythos.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil sort of ends at this point, yet there is more in the volume. ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ starts the numbering of the chapters again and presents a four-chapter exploration of the Dreamlands for Leagues of Cthulhu. As well as suggesting the stories which the Game Master should read as inspiration, it provides new Globetrotter options, details the means of entering the realm of sleep, and gives a gazetteer that covers the places, peoples, and monsters of the Dreamlands. It includes the Dreamlands Lore skill, the Adept Dreamer Talent and the Dreamlands Persona Talent—the latter enabling a player to create a second character specific to the Dreamlands, and Leagues such as the Feline Club whose members might just follow the cats into the Dreamlands and the Morpheus Club, whose members learn to shape dreams. Archetypes like the Addicted Artist, Friend to Cats, and Seeker of Justice provide ready-to-play Globetrotters (or NPCs if necessary), whilst the gazetteer takes the reader from the entryway that is the Cavern of Flame and the magnificent port of Celephaïs to the Plateau of Leng and the port of Dylath-Leen with its thin basalt towers and berths to the much feared, black-sailed galleys whose crews are never seen. Gods include Bast and Nodens, the creatures Ghasts, Ghouls, and Gugs, and of course, Zoogs, and the NPCs, Kuranes, mysterious king of Celephaïs, and both Nasht and Kaman-Thah, guardians of the Cavern of Flame. 

‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel out of place in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil. Not just the fact of the separate numbering, but really an abrupt and unexpected switch in subject matter. This is not to say that the material is neither good nor informative—it is. More so at the time of publication when there is limited information available for the Dreamlands for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, whether for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or other roleplaying games. So then it may perhaps be seen as an unexpected bonus, but still, at almost a third of the length of the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil, ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel as if it should have been a Leagues of Cthulhu: The Dreamlands supplement of its very own (perhaps with the addition of an adventure or two).

Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is well written and presented, although there are few illustrations to break up the text, so it is fairly dense. It does lack an index—for both parts—and so that density is not ameliorated.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil contains a huge amount of lore and ideas, along with cults and monsters and items of the even weirder science found in Leagues of Cthulhu, adventure seeds, NPCs, and more. It could be argued that this one volume is the equivalent of both The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1 and The Keeper’s Companion vol. 2, such is the richness of its content. Even discounting ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’—which is a bonus, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a cornucopia of Cthulhoid content, containing a wealth of material for Leagues of Cthulhu that will provide the Game Master of any roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror with support and ideas until almost the stars come right...

Leagues of Infidels

As the title suggests, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it presents a guide and a gazetteer to the little understood country of Afghanistan in the Late Victorian Era, not just the history and the geography, but the Mythos and the folklore, and more. Although it is not a comprehensive guide—being relatively short at just forty pages—it presents more than enough information to bring a campaign to the British Empire’s North-West Frontier, whether a supernatural campaign for Leagues of Adventure or a Lovecraftian investigative horror campaign for Leagues of Cthulhu. In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan explores a country which has been much contested over its long history, many times conquered, including by Alexander the Great and the Mongols, but never truly tamed. Sat on the Silk Road between the East and the West, it has been an important crossroads for both Central and South Asia, not just for trade, but also for learning and faiths. Previously a great centre of Zoroastrian and Buddhist learning,  in more recent times the Emirate of Afghanistan has become known as a fiercely independent Islamic state which despite defeating the British Empire in the First Anglo-Afghan War has become a British protectorate under the sway of the British Raj in India following its defeat in the more recent Second Anglo-Afghan War. Essentially Afghanistan has become a buffer state between the British and Russian Empires as part of ‘The Great Game’. Though mountainous and remote, with only one real point of access—up the Khyber Pass after a thousand mile journey by rail north from Bombay, what this means is that the crossroads of Asia are open to the intrepid explorer, adventurer, historian, and archaeologist, should they be brave enough to traverse its dense mountain ranges and deep valleys, all the whilst minding their Ps and Qs, and doing their very best not to offend local customs.

Of course, the region has a history older than some mere ape descendants, and in most cases, older than some mere ape descendants can imagine. In the long geological past, it has been home to an Elder Thing city, whilst in the more recent geological past, the Serpent Men settled in Afghanistan’s lower lying regions, and to this day, the Mi-Go continue mine the country’s higher peaks for rare minerals. In more recent times, Alexander the Great campaigned against the worshippers and entities of the Mythos, but in the millennia since his death, dark faiths, dark entities, and dark artefacts have been traded back and forth along the Silk Road. Many found a home in Afghanistan and almost as many were destroyed by the wave after wave of invasions the country would suffer in the course of its history, most notably under the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Fragments of these cults, the subjects of their venerations, and their blasphemous objects and texts remain; in the libraries of religious scholars, amongst the wares of curio dealers on dusty backstreets, in the ruins of ancient cities and monasteries, and carved into the walls of buildings usually avoided by the local inhabitants or into the rock high up on the side of remote valleys. Some will be familiar to scholars, but some maybe new, whilst others simply hint at something else or something older… Worse still are the secrets that some tribes hide or at least do not talk about. Often things best left assuaged through sacrifice or locked or buried away, not through ignorance, but fear for family and tribe—and more should such things be free once again to ravage the Earth. Though not all such tribes act to protect the world, some do, whilst other tribes and cults are true worshippers, reviled and feared by other Afghans in equal measure.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan opens with an introduction to the country. This covers its history, both the outré and the ordinary from prehistory to the modern day of the Mauve Decade; explains how to get there (starting with an airship since Leagues of Adventure and Leagues of Cthulhu are steampunk roleplaying settings); and provides an overview in turn of its geography climate, peoples, cuisine, economics, entertainment, and more. A lot of this will add flavour, such as the dishes that the Player Characters will likely eat, but details such as the lack of ready information sources, that is, no newspapers except those which are weeks old from outside the country, and Pashtunwali, a guide to Pashtunwali, the code of conduct that the Pashtuns adhered are more likely to have an impact upon play and what the Player Characters say and do. Much of this is straight background material, but elements of the fantastic are added in sections of boxed text also. For example, The Book of Arda Viraf is a Zoroastrian Mythos tome, Pashtunwali is detailed as a Code of Conduct, and a new League of Adventure is described. This is ‘The Alexandria Club’, whose members are dedicated to locating and excavating all of the many cities built across Asia by Alexander the Great.

The Gazetteer covers just some of the various ancient sites, monasteries and temples, rock inscriptions, natural features—from the Hindu Kush Mountains to the Khyber Pass, and settlements to be found across Afghanistan, all given a paragraph or two each, and a rating for their Eerie Atmosphere, with most accompanied by an adventure seed. For example, the Mountain of Genies, lies in south-eastern Afghanistan, its barren heights inhabited by a tribe known locally as the Sky Devils, feared for their stealth and their propensity for stealing away animals and people without trace, though sometimes mutilated bodies are found in the valley below. The disappearances include British troops committed to the region during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and almost every expedition since has failed to reach or map the mountain and its surrounds due to disaster and mishap. Indeed, the adventure seed involves a member of one such expedition staggering into Kabul, raving about “winged devils”, “monoliths from beyond time”, and so on. Elsewhere, the members of the Prospectors’ Club have explored too deep below Mes Aynak, which sits atop the country’s largest deposits of copper and come across the last remnants of a very ancient and alien civilisation, whilst Zorkul, a lake in the Pamir Mountains lying on the contested border with Russia, was noted by a Chinese explorer as containing an idol of sea-green stone depicting a ‘water dragon’. Perhaps the lake was the site of ill-fated Sarnath and when rumours spread of a ‘dragon’ statue seen in the lake following a drought, perhaps the Player Characters have the opportunity to confirm this?

The Mythos itself is kept fairly light in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan. Mentions are made of various entities, such as knowledge of Shub-Niggaurath having been brought into the region with the Persians and Yog-Sothoth via the Zoroastrians. Two or three cults are mentioned, such as the Cult of the Black Hand which works to set the Russians and the British at each other’s throats and the Illuminated Fraternity of the All-Seeing Eye, which seeks world domination, but these are mere mentions and left wholly undeveloped. The Cult of the Silent Fire, whose members take a vow of silence to violent, self-mutilating extremes, is given a more detailed wrote-up, as is one of its leading cultists, and also a Mythos horror, the Darkness from the Void, a collective intelligence which takes the form of a thin, black sludge which comes down from space and infects organism after organism. The Cult of the Silent Fire seeks to spread its inner truths to all those who will listen and then learn the reality, whilst the Darkness from the Void seeks to infect all in an attempt to acquire all knowledge and come to a true understanding of the universe. That all said, the author also simply advises that at times, the monster need be no more than a tentacle, whether emerging from some cold deep lake, or the blackness of a tunnel.

Numerous stock NPCs are detailed, such as Afghan Craftsman, Russian Spy, and British Junior Official, whilst Afghan War Veteran—very Doctor John Watson, and Correspondent-at-Arms are written up as sample Player Characters. Perhaps the most entertaining NPC detailed is one Peachy Carnehan, an ex-British army sergeant, Freemason, and adventurer, now a crippled and scarred beggar wandering the streets of Kabul with a strange bundle in his arms. Devotees of Rudyard Kipling and likely Sean Connery and Michael Caine will enjoy this inclusion.

Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is decently done. It needs a slight edit here and there and whilst light on illustrations, it at least comes with a map or two. These are very useful, especially given the lack of familiarity that many a reader of the supplement is likely to have with Afghanistan during this period. It would have been useful if the previous region guide, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, also had such maps.

One obvious issue with Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is that its subject matter is likely to be contentious, since it deals with the Imperialism and racism of the period. Fortunately, the author addresses these issues and handles them with some care. For example, it is suggested that the attitudes of the Victorians towards the natives be reflected not in actual expressions of racism, but rather that all Afghans initially suffer a Bad Reputation Flaw because of the poor attitudes and ill-informed opinions of the British and other Europeans towards them. Then this can be roleplayed initially, but as the Player Characters interact, they can learn otherwise and it effectively fade into the background and not be applied. The other advice is for the game play to be respectful of ruins and holy places, lest offence—in game and out—be caused. Overall, simple, but justified advice.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan has much in common with the earlier Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria in that it combines a solid overview of the region and its people with the Mythos worked deep into the fabric of the country. However, there is less of an emphasis upon folklore and myth and superstition behind which the Mythos can be hidden than there is in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, perhaps because of the lack of familiarity and far away strangeness of the setting. Most of the manifestations of the Mythos in Afghanistan are relics from its long and ancient past, though there are some which are active, but whether relic or active, they are underwritten and will need no little development upon the part of the Game Master or Keeper to turn into a full mystery and bring to the table. The disappointing lack of a bibliography will not help the Game Master to that end. 

Overall, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is an interesting and informative introduction to Afghanistan during the late Victorian era, especially given our general lack of familiarity with both period and region. There is no denying that Afghanistan deserves its own supplement for Lovecraftian investigative horror, but in the meantime, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a good, if imperfect, starting point.

Leagues of Gammerstangs

As the title suggests, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it presents a guide and a gazetteer to the English county of Cumbria in the Late Victorian Era, not just the history and the geography, but the Mythos and the folklore, and more. Although it is not a comprehensive guide—being relatively short at just thirty-two pages—it presents more than enough information to bring a campaign to England’s North-West, whether a supernatural campaign for Leagues of Adventure or a Lovecraftian investigative horror campaign for Leagues of Cthulhu. In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or even Liminal.

(Note: ‘Gammerstang’ means awkward person in the local dialect.)

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria details an area of the north of England, bordering Scotland, which is best known as the Lake District—for the lakes Windermere, Coniston Water, Ullswater, Buttermere, Grasmere, and many others, and as the home of the ‘Lake Poet School’ whose members included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. Since the Victorian period it has been primarily been seen as a tourist destination, but prior to that, it was a source of worked-flint, a frontier of the Roman Empire, a frontier region between England and Scotland, a rural backwater, and more recently, with the coming of the railways, an industrial centre. Yet in ages past, races of the Mythos like the Elder Things and the Fungi from the Yuggoth operated in the region, whilst with the coming of mankind, the Deep Ones migrate to the Cumbrian coast and begin interacting with them. The Celts brought worship of the Shub-Niggurath and avatars of Nyarlathotep to the region, whilst the Romans also imported the worship of dark gods from the far edges of their empire.

Now despite its title of Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, the supplement actually describes not the county of Cumbria as it is today—which only dates from 1974—but rather Cumberland, Furness, and Westmoreland. (For ease of play, the supplement simply uses Cumbria.) It covers the region in three chapters. The first of these introduces the area and gives its history, geography, a guide to getting there and what to find when you do, the latter including cuisine, entertainment, policing, and so on. The inclusion of a guide to toponyms—Cumbrian place names, the local dialect, folk remedies, and general superstitions all add a pleasing degree of verisimilitude. In game terms, it suggests various Leagues of Adventure faculties to be found in the region, for example, the Anglers’ Club, Bath Club, Mariners’, and Society of Aquanauts share a clubhouse in Bowness-on-Windemere. (The presence of the latter a knowing nod—backed up by an even more of a nod in an adventure seed to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.)

The second chapter is the gazetteer and forms the heart of the supplement. It covers ancient sites, natural features, Roman sites, and settlements, many of which are accompanied by adventure seeds. Thus, the Castlerigg Stone Circle outside of Keswik, whose number of stones is said to be uncountable and at the centre of which is a firepit which when unearthed was a blob of “some dark unctuous sort of earth.” The adventure seed for this suggests that this was the remains of a Black Spawn of Tsathoggua. The natural features include the region’s various caves and lakes, the Roman sites of two major forts in the area, whilst the settlements cover its towns and villages, from Ashness Bridge and Aspatria to Whitehaven and Workington. It describes the Dacre family, a prominent Cumbrian family which in the past was split between its worship of Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath, and supports this with a new Bloodline for Leagues of Cthulhu. Tying back to the Lakeland poets and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a notable narcotic ‘Kendal Black Drop’ of the period, better enables users to enter the Dreamlands or simply opens them to the thoughts of the Great Old Ones…

The third chapter presents denizens of the region. They include lists of dignitaries—aristocrats, bureaucrats, clergymen, and Members of Parliament—all names which Game Masters and Keepers will want to research before bringing into their campaigns. The only famous person fully detailed is the bon vivant Earl Lonsdale, known as the ‘Yellow Earl’ for his favourite colour. This may or may not signify something… Lastly, the supplement details a cult, the Brotherhood of the Maimed King. Linked to Arthurian myth, this is horridly both fecund and bucolic and is the content in the book which is probably the easiest for the Game Master and the Keeper to develop into a scenario. 

Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria is a plain affair. It is simply laid out, there are no illustrations, and there are no maps. The latter is more of an issue than the former, forcing even the most casual of readers to do some research to give context to places and features described in the text. That said, any good Game Master or Keeper will probably do more research if she is going to run a scenario or take her campaign to Cumbria, so maps are not as much of an issue as they could be. Still, it would have been nice if there had been one included.

Anyone coming to Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria expecting the Mythos to be running wild across the rolling hills, up and down the fells, along the long the deep valleys of the region, conspiracies of worshippers working to bring about some grand plan to end the world, will be disappointed. Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria is not that supplement. It is broader in its over overview of the region, encompassing the supernatural as well as the Mythos, but layering it under folklore and myth and superstition. What manifestations of the Mythos there are in Cumbria are holdouts, relics from the ancient past, perhaps best left to linger and die off rather than arise again due to some meddling from all-too inquisitive Globetrotters or investigators. Anything in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria will need some development upon the part of the Game Master or Keeper to turn into a full mystery, but is still worth keeping on the shelf as reference or just in case the Globetrotters or investigators feel like a holiday in Wordsworth country.