Revenants in the Renaissance

The year is 1348 and mankind is subject to a divine punishment for its sins. For the last two years, all of Europe has suffered the devastating Black Plague which seems to spread fire and kills almost everyone it touches. The symptoms are easy to spot, black spots on the skin and swollen lymph nodes called buboes. Yet there is a second symptom, one that remains secret, one that the Papacy fights in a hidden war, and one it is desperate to eradicate—the Revenant Plague. Victims of the Black Plague are known to rise and not only spread its symptoms, but also feed upon the flesh of the living. The Papacy instituted the Ordo Mortis, a military order dedicated to not only fighting the secret war against the Revenant Plague, but also to keeping knowledge of the war against the Revenant Plague a secret. Word of it cannot spread, for it would weaken faith in the Catholic Church. It means that not only do all of the symptoms of the Revenant Plague have to be eradicated, but do any signs of infection and all knowledge of it. The members of the Ordo Mortis will face holy challenges in cutting down the risen revenants and unholy challenges in keeping its duties a secret. This is the set-up for Píaga 1348, a storytelling game from NEED! Games, the Italian publisher best known for the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG.

As a supernatural horror roleplaying game, Píaga 1348—meaning ‘Plague 1348—requires some choices to be made in terms of its set-up. To that end it includes a discussion of safety tools, though surprisingly without a reference to the X-Card. It suggests three options in terms of tone—‘Dramatic’, ‘Sinister’, and ‘Grotesque’—pairing them with the film, The Name of the Rose, the computer game Bloodthorne, and the films, Army of Darkness and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, thus effectively doubling as a bibliography. The tone is going to affect both the game’s style of play and its atmosphere, going from Greek tragedy to splatter punk with streak of black humour with creepy and mysterious in between. Further choices need to be made as to the nature of the world. This includes the size of the Revenant outbreak, the character and name of the Pontifex, the size and motto of the Ordo Mortis, and the nature and size of the missions that its soldiers—the Player Characters—are to be sent on. Lastly, the player who will take the role of the Ludi Magister—as the Game Master is known in Píaga 1348—is decided. This is important as the players will take in turn to undertake this role from one mission to the next. The process for this set-up is shared between the players.

A soldier in the Ordo Mortis will likely look like and be equipped any other knight, though he need not be. A Soldier is simply defined by several traits. These are the ‘Motto of the Ordo’; ‘Name’, including both full name and nickname, if any; ‘Description’; ‘Weapon’, which can either be physical or metaphorical (metaphorical is the better of the options here as it tends to be more flexible); and ‘Armour’, which should ideally be figurate rather than physical. These are the five core traits, but he also has entries for ‘What I Want’, ‘What I Don’t Want’, and ‘Traumas’, the latter physical, psychological, and social wounds suffered when a conflict is lost. A player simply has to define these traits in order to create his Soldier, either creating them or picking them from the suggestions included in the rulebook.

Name: Gunther of Cologne

Motto of the Ordo: Holy is our mission, unholy is their end

Description: An arrogant ex-tax collector with an eye for opportunity

Weapon: Everyone has a weakness and I will exploit every last one

Armour: Faith will only get you so far, money will get you further

What I Want: The favour of his Holiness, a penny in his pocket

What I Don’t Want: To die penniless

Once a mission has been decided upon, the player to the left of the Ludi Magister becomes the ‘Soldier on Duty’ and the Ludi Magister asks him what he perceives and based on those answers, frames the scene for her players, primarily the ‘Soldier on Duty’ as he will be leading the action for the scene and his player the conversation with the Ludi Magister. The advice for the Ludi Magister is to twist the interpretation of the senses that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ to make it dramatic and set the tension high from the start to reflect a world in crisis—physically and spiritually. The scene proceeds as normal until the point where something occurs that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ does not want to happen, in which a conflict ensues. When a conflict ensues, the player of the ‘Soldier on Duty’ decides what his Soldier wants to do and builds a dice pool based on his five core traits. For each of them that the player can persuade the Ludi Magister to include, a six-sided die is added to the pool. Every result of five or six counts as a Success and only one Success is required for Soldier to achieve the objective outlined by the player. The Ludi Magister will narrate the outcome of the dice roll, though if a failure because no Successes are rolled, the Soldier on Duty will suffer a Trauma.

Any excess Success go into the Morale Pool, which on subsequent turns, the ‘Soldier on Duty’ can draw from to increase the size of dice pool. Additional dice can come from the two sources. One is the other Soldiers, who can contribute dice based on their traits. The second is from a ‘Gamble’, in which the player adds a die of another colour to his dice pool. On a result of one, two, or three, nothing happens, but on a four, five, or six, the Soldier is ‘Exposed’. What this means that is a Soldier on Duty can still succeed—that is, roll a five or six—and still be ‘Exposed’. When ‘Exposed’, a roll is made on the ‘Gamble’s Outcome’ table. The result might be that a Soldier cannot use any further ‘Gamble’ attempts in the mission or that the Soldier is wounded and infected by a Revenant! Another way to gain more dice is for the Soldier to sacrifice himself, but will also result in his death. Whatever the result, the outcome is narrated by the player.

What is important here is there is an economy to a player’s use of his Soldier’s five core traits. If they can be used all in one go whilst a Soldier is the ‘Soldier on Duty’, then they can be refreshed to be used on subsequent turns. Whilst a Soldier can use them to help another Soldier who is the current ‘Soldier on Duty’, it will mean that he will have fewer to use when it is his turn to be ‘Soldier on Duty’. Running out of traits and having none to confront a situation when a ‘Soldier on Duty’ on Duty means that he will automatically fail. This forces a player to husband the use of those traits from scene to scene.

When a Soldier suffers a Trauma, it can be physical, psychological, or social, the nature of which is decided by the Ludi Magister. In general, the effect of a Trauma is more narrative in nature than mechanical, except under two circumstances. One is if a Soldier is either bitten, scratched, or wounded by a Revenant as a first or second Trauma, in which case the Soldier becomes a carrier of Revenant Plague. He can hide this, but if he dies, he will rise as a Revenant. The other is the effect of the third Trauma which will cause the Solder to exit the mission. How depends on the type of Trauma. A physical Trauma means he has died, a psychological Trauma pushes him into madness, and social Trauma makes him flee the Ordo Mortis all together. At this point, the Soldier can become a Tutelary, a dead soul watching and protecting the other Soldiers, or a Spectator, able to tell scenes from his former life that might give hints as to the current situation when it his turn to be the ‘Soldier on Duty’.

Play like this continues from round to round, with the Ludi Magister narrating another scene between them until the mission is over. At the end of a mission, the surviving Soldiers have a chance to reflect upon their actions and their successes—if any. At this point, the players have the opportunity to change various traits and even add another ‘What I Want’ or ‘What I Don’t Want’. After that, another mission, typically in another session, can be run by another player serving as the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 provides a lot of support for the Ludi Magister. This includes several good examples of play, hints in terms of framing scenes and the narrative, motifs of the Ordo Mortis, and suggestions as the nature of Revenants and the world. There are several scenarios too. These are not scenarios in the traditional roleplaying sense, but more a themed set of prompts and rumours that the Ludi Magister—whose ever turn it is—can use to set up a mission. Píaga 1348 comes to a close with a quick-start and some designer notes, but also includes an excellent appendix of ‘Historical Essays’ which are these for everyone to read. Covering such subjects as the power of the pope—Boniface VIII, warfare in the period, famine, pestilence, and the nature of death, these are short pieces, but useful and informative.

Physically, Píaga 1348 is fantastically presented. The woodcut style artwork and the use of a Gothic fount very gives it a singular look and conveys a lot of atmosphere to the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 can be seen as the answer to the question, “What would a zombie uprising look like in the Middle Ages?” Which is as terrifying, if not more so, than it would today since it follows awful deaths by the Black Plague and it would be regarded as the vindication of the danse macabre and the triumph of death over life. It also places the Soldiers of the Ordo Mortis on a mission from God himself to wipe out not only death itself, but all signs and knowledge of this triumph of death. That means they have to kill the living too, including the innocent. What this means is that Píaga 1348 is a simple and oppressively atmospheric storytelling game with a brutal edge.

[Free RPG Day 2025] Píaga 1348 Quickdeath

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

—oOo—

The year is 1348 and mankind is subject to a divine punishment for its sins. For the last two years, all of Europe has suffered the devastating Black Plague which seems to spread like wild fire and kills almost everyone it touches. The symptoms are easy to spot, black spots on the skin and swollen lymph nodes called buboes. Yet there is a second symptom, one that remained secret, one that the Papacy fought in secret and one it managed to eradicate—the Revenant Plague. Victims of the Black Plague are known to rise and not only spread its symptoms, but also feed upon the flesh of the living. The Papacy instituted the Ordo Mortis, a military order dedicated to not only fighting the secret war against the Revenant Plague, but also to keeping knowledge of the war against the Revenant Plague a secret. Word of it cannot spread, for it would weaken faith in the Catholic Church. This is the set-up for Píaga 1348, a storytelling game from NEED! Games, the Italian publisher best known for the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG.

Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is the quick-start released for Free RPG Day 2025. It includes the core rules, three scenarios, and four pre-generated Player Characters. The core mechanics are simple and straightforward, but the roleplaying game is played with shifting focus on the Soldiers of the Ordo Mortis who take it in turn to be the Soldier on Duty, whilst the other Soldiers will provide him with support—if they can. A Soldier is simply defined by several traits. These are the ‘Motto of the Ordo’; ‘Name’, including both full name and nickname, if any; ‘Description’; ‘Weapon’, which can also be an ability; and ‘Armour’. These are the five core traits, but he also has entries for ‘What I Want’, ‘What I Don’t Want’, and ‘Traumas’, the latter physical, psychological, and social wounds suffered when a conflict is lost. A player simply has to define these traits in order to create his Soldier.

At a start of scene, the Ludi Magister—as the Game Master is known in Píaga 1348—asks the player whose Soldier is the Soldier on Duty what he perceives and based on those answers, frames the scene for her players. When a conflict ensues, the Soldier on Duty’s player decides what his Soldier wants to do and builds a dice pool based on his five core traits. For each of them that the player can persuade the Ludi Magister to include, a six-sided die is added to the pool. Every result of five or six counts as a Success and only one Success is required for Soldier to achieve the objective outlined by the player. The Ludi Magister will narrate the outcome of the dice roll, though if a failure because no Successes are rolled, the Soldier on Duty will suffer a Trauma.

Any excess Success go into the Morale Pool, which on subsequent turns, the Soldier on Duty can draw from to increase the size of dice pool. Additional dice can come from the two sources. One is the other Soldiers, who can contribute dice based on their traits. The second is from a ‘Gamble’, in which the player adds a die of another colour to his dice pool. On a result of one, two, or three, nothing happens, but on a four, five, or six, the Soldier is ‘Exposed’. What this means that is a Soldier on Duty can still succeed—that is, roll a five or six—and still be ‘Exposed’. When ‘Exposed’, a roll is made on the ‘Gamble’s Outcome’ table. The result might be that a Soldier cannot use any further ‘Gamble’ attempts in the mission or that the Soldier is wounded and infected by a Revenant! Whatever the result, the outcome is narrated by the player.

What is important here is there is an economy to a player’s use of his Soldier’s five core traits. If they can be used all in one go whilst a Soldier is the Soldier on Duty, then they can be refreshed to be used on subsequent turns. Whilst a Soldier can use them to help another Soldier who is the current Soldier on Duty, it will mean that he will have fewer to use when it is his turn to be Soldier on Duty. Running out of traits and having none to confront a situation when a Soldier is Soldier on Duty means that he will automatically fail. This forces a player to husband the use of those traits from turn to turn.

The aim in Píaga 1348, and thus the Píaga 1348 Quickdeath, is to tell a choral story of life and death in the Middle Ages. This need not be a wholly accurate treatment of the Middle Ages and the Ludi Magister is free to add whatever anachronistic elements fits her campaign. For example, one of the pre-generated Soldiers is a Plague Doctor, a decidedly seventeenth century figure, but still feeling appropriate to the secret world of Píaga 1348. The basic elements driving a story are the Mission itself and ‘What I Want’ and ‘What I Don’t Want’ for each Soldier. The Ludi Magister is provided with decent advice for what is a quick-start, a set of prompts to set up her Missions, and three ready-play scenarios. They include investigating a haunted villa where several nobles fled to avoid the plague, tracking down a strange group of knights in rusted armour, and even ascending into the Carpathians to confront Count Vlad III who is said to have survived the Plague and become something more. All three come with detailed backgrounds, locations, secondaries (as NPCs are termed), and rumours. Lastly, there are four pre-generated Soldiers ready to play. They include an actual knight, a noble nun, an ex-assassin, and a plague doctor!

Physically, Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is fantastically presented. The woodcut style artwork and the use of a Gothic fount very gives it a singular look and conveys a lot of atmosphere to the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is simple to play and easy to grasp. After all, it could be described as just another zombie apocalypse roleplaying game, but the setting is different and the inclusion of the Black Death makes it even grimmer than most zombie apocalypse roleplaying games. As does the need for secrecy, which might result in the Soldiers going to deadly lengths to carry out this part of their duty. Overall, the Píaga 1348 Quickdeath provides a thoroughly engaging introduction to the setting of Píaga 1348 and purpose of the Ordo Mortis, as well as a gaming group with three good sessions of play.

Revenants Return And Return Again

Beyond death there is a place of waiting, somewhere between the world of the living and the afterlife. This is Limbo and were it not for the fact that it is staffed by demons and ghouls, you would be hard-pressed to mistake it for anything other than a dentist’s waiting room, complete with beige walls and magazines and newspapers on the table. You are dead, but according to Greta, the administrative demon working your case file, not ready to pass on to wherever the soul goes to. You have a task to resolve. Perhaps you need to bring your own killer to justice, prevent an unexpected death, or complete some other unfinished business. Doing so will stop a Shattering Event that would otherwise trap you here permanently, and prevent you from passing on. Yet you only have limited time—four nights, each night awaking to find yourself back where you started—before that Shattering Event occurs and when you return you are still dead. Dead as the day your corpse was committed to the grave or left to rot undiscovered and missing. Thus, you must navigate the world of the living in the shadows as the undead, swathed in perfumes to hide the stench of decay and formaldehyde and wreathed in clothes to hide the signs. Worse, your memories have been disrupted and broken by your passing, and only by recovering what you cannot recall will come closer to preventing the Shattering Event. You are a Revenant and you have four nights in which to explore the last days of your life and stop the Shattering Event.

This is the set-up for The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City, a roleplaying game designed by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim—best known for the highly regarded Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall from Wet Ink Games—and Julie Ahern. Published by Van Ryder Games, a company better known for its Final Girl and Hostage Negotiator board games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed to be played by two to four players, plus a Fate Weaver (as the Game Master is known), aged fourteen and over. It is also a storytelling style game, using Powered by the Apocalypse, which can be played as a one-shot or as a mini-campaign of four, up to four-hour sessions. The core rulebook for The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City contains six scenarios that will play out in La Belle Époque Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, or in Jazz Age New York, which play out in and around the Paris Métro and the New York Subway.

The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set includes not just the core rulebook, but also a Fate Weaver Screen, maps of both Paris and New York, a Map of Intrigue for tying NPCs together, maps, a Loop Board, and six Playbook Boards. The Fate Weaver Screen lists the Fate Weaver’s Hard and Soft Moves, a Loop Event Generator, an NPC Generator, and a Location Generator. The maps of both Paris and New York are marked with their respective underground stations, whilst the Loop Board tracks the time clocks, events, and questions for the four Loops. It is double-sided, one side for a One-Shot, the other for a Mini-Campaign Loop. The six Playbooks are also double-sided and consist of ‘The Grizzled’, ‘The Compassionate’, ‘The Philosophical’, ‘The Diplomatic’, ‘The Hopeful’, and ‘The Glamourous’. Each of the Playbooks list the stats, Moves, and more, as well as having space for the player to fill out his Revenant’s background. Both the Playbooks and the Loop Board are write on/wipe off and The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set comes with several pens suitable for that purpose. There are also miniatures for the Watchers, the supernatural creatures who will dog the efforts of the Revenants and a Team Miniature used to track the progress of the players and their Revenants across the four Loops. The thirty or so Memory cards, many of them period photographs, will be used by the players to prompt their Revenants’ memories.

A Revenant in The Revenant Society looks similar to other Playbooks in Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games. He has four Stats—Resolve, Nerve, Calm, and Vigour—ranging between -1 and +2, and a set of four Moves. For example, ‘The Grizzled’ has ‘Browbeat’ for coercing answers out of an NPC, ‘Supernatural Strength’ when using his extreme physical strength, ‘Body Part Substitution’ for replacing a part of his body with an item to reduce damage taken, and ‘Clumsy Brawler’ for fighting. ‘Body Part Substitution’ is the Undead Move for ‘The Grizzled’ and each Revenant has its own Undead Move. Beyond this, a Playbook has a lot of background details that the player fills in during preparation for play. The only mechanical choice that a player makes is to choose a beginning Move. The other choices he needs to make deal with his background and relationships with the other characters. All six of the Playbooks are built on archetypes and inspired by film and media. For example, ‘The Hopeful’ is either a factory worker, a hairdresser, or a telephone operator, and is inspired by the anti-nihilist and fool tropes, Waymond Wang from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and Phil at the end of Groundhog Day.

The four Moves inherent to each Playbook are not the only Moves a Revenant has access to. Basic Moves include ‘Investigate’, ‘Blend In’, ‘Persuade’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Flee’, and ‘Dirt Nap’, and ‘Saving Grace’. ‘Dirt Nap’ is used when a Revenant wants to rest, whilst ‘Saving Grace’ is for helping another Revenant. There are also two Team Moves, ‘Burn This City’ and ‘Take Them Out’, which can only be performed when all of the Revenants are in the same location. They are drastic in nature, the first seeing the Revenants create a supernatural fire to disrupt the situation, the latter having the Revenants open a door to Limbo and push an NPC through and so kill them. The Fate Weaver has her own Moves, split between Hard Moves and Soft Moves. Both are designed to push the narrative along and might be to add a Watcher when a player rolls high on a Move, pass out a clue when a player is stumped, restart a Loop, and so on. Like the Revenants, Watchers have returned from Limbo, but they take pleasure in the Revenants’ failure. There can be up to four of these faceless creatures in play, their presence acting as a penalty on all dice rolls made by the Revenants and also highlighting the undead nature of the Revenants to the living.

Mechanically, The Revenant Society works like other Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games. A player chooses the Move he wants his Revenant to use, rolls two six-sided dice, and adds a Stat to the result. If a Revenant is at a location where he worked, he instead rolls three dice and chooses the highest results. On a result of six or less, the Revenant fails, and may take damage, but will gain a point of Experience; on a result of seven, eight, or nine, the action is a success and the player can choose one of the options listed for the Move; and on ten or more, the action is a higher success, and the player can select two options. However, a roll of ten or more also adds a Watcher to the Loop. Effectively, failure rewards a Revenant with a chance to learn, whereas a higher success grants greater benefits, but may attract the attention of the Watchers—some Moves include an option to not have a Watcher appear.

Set-up for The Revenant Society sees the Fate Weaver seed the Loops with Events and clues, some of which are Red Herrings, for the Revenants to discover. These can ones of a mystery that the Fate Weaver can create herself or one of the six included in The Revenant Society. Notably, these are seeded across only six locations across the Paris Métro or the New York Subway, the rest marked as under construction and inaccessible. This effectively focuses play, at least in a geographical sense. In Session Zero, the Fate Weaver introduces the game, sets expectations and responsibilities—both of which are neatly set out for Fate Weaver and players alike, sets the scene in Limbo, and then the players introduce their Revenants and fill out their Playbooks.

Play then begins with the Revenants awaking in the Subway or Métro. In the first Loop, the Revenants awake to find themselves in the dirt of a tunnel with a train bearing down on them, armed with only one Memory card. They will also have an Item card, representing an object that they will always wake up with at the start of a Loop. Their reaction, typically to use the ‘Flee’ Move, is designed to teach the roleplaying game’s mechanics. In subsequent Loops, the Revenants will awake in different locations around the underground. The Revenants will then proceed to explore the Location they are in, looking for Clues and responding to Loop Events and Fixed Events. Whenever they employ a Move—either Basic, Undead, or Team—they fill out a segment on the Clock for the Location. The number of segments on the Clock will vary according to the number of Revenants, but when the Clock is filled out, the Revenants move on to a new Location, a two-hour window of time, and a fresh Clock. This is done collectively. The Revenants cannot split up to go to different Locations, but they can split up to explore a Location. When they reach the end of a Loop, whether because time has run out or because a Revenant has taken too much damage, the Loop begins again. Although it starts in a different place under different circumstances, as the Revenants explore this Loop they encounter new Loop Events, but also Fixed Events that do not change from Loop to Loop. In effect, each Loop is a chance to reset the investigation and let the Revenants start again with the information they have found out so far and then go look for new clues. At the start of each Loop each Revenant will also have new Memory cards that will trigger further questions about who they are. As the Revenants explore Locations and look for Clues, the Fate Weaver will be keep track of both them and the connections between the various NPCs, one of whom will be the Culprit. The Map of Intrigue is used to record the connections where everyone can see and ultimately help the Revenants and their players identify the Culprit.

The investigation of a case should ideally culminate in the revelation as to who the Culprit is and the Revenants acting to stop him and so prevent the Shattering Event. Whatever happens, whether they stop either or not, the players have the opportunity to explain what happens to their Revenants. If they succeeded, are they are at peace and do they move on to the Afterlife? If they failed, what happens to them trapped endlessly in the Loop? There is even a possibility of setting up a sequel, so that the Revenants return to Limbo in readiness to go through another Loop, attempting to stop another Shattering Event.

For both players and the Fate Weaver, there is solid advice on safety—particularly at beginning and end of a session, content warnings—in general and for each scenario, and the tools necessary to play. The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set includes an X-Card and an O-Card. The Fate Weaver there is background on both La Belle Époque Paris and Jazz Age New York, including both history and details of important locations in and around the Paris Métro and the New York Subway. There are notes on post-World War I Paris, but sadly not on pre-World War I New York. Over a third of The Revenant Society is dedicated to scenarios or cases, three per city, plus advice for the Fate Weaver on creating her own. They include the Revenants trying to find out how they died and how those deaths are related to a cult, to a fire, to an assassination, and so on. Each case clearly lists the objective for the Revenants, events at the start of each Loop, locations, the identity of the Culprit, the nature of the Shattering Event, and the various Clues and Events particular to that Loop. There is also a good guide for the Fate Weaver who wants to create her own cases, whilst the Appendix contains all of the roleplaying game’s printable content as well as the maps, Memory cards, and various Fate Weaver Moves for easy reference.

Physically, The Revenant Society is a lovely book, illustrated with period photographs and other images combined with an Arts Décoratifs—or Art Deco—style. All of the extras, including the dice—in The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set adhere to this style and are lovely. If The Revenant Society is missing anything it is an index and that is a major omission. A lesser omission, but one that would have been helpful, would have been an example of play.

The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City is a collaborative storytelling game, one of horror and tragedy and contrasts. Contrasts between the Living and the undead nature of the Revenants, and between the joie de vivre swirling around the Revenants and the grim nature of their task, all hidden behind a gilded façade of its very lovely period feel. In prior years, a storytelling game like The Revenant Society might have been self-published as a smaller book, a la indie style, but in this larger format, The Revenant Society has room to breath and cast more light onto the darkness of the Loops that the Revenants find themselves trapped within and what they need to do to escape. The result is that The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City is a rich and grimly atmospheric, yet familiar roleplaying game, telling a type of story we have seen before, but where the players and their Revenants are telling it working together with the Fate Weaver.

Your Walking Dead Guide Book

It seems surprising to realise that The Walking Dead is over two decades old. The comic by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore first appeared in 2003 and the resulting television series from AMC first aired in 2010 and has been followed with numerous spin-off series since. Both revitalised the zombie horror subgenre and the television series in particular, made zombies and horror acceptable to mainstream broadcasting like never before. Both comic book and television series tell the story of Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy from Cynthiana, Kentucky, who after being wounded in the line of duty, awakes to find his wife and family missing and the world very much changed. Society has collapsed, the dead walk and hunger after our flesh, a virus means that everyone will rise as a walker after death, and the survivors huddle together, co-operate and scavenge for supplies, and somehow make choices that will keep them alive. The walkers are everywhere, a menace that cannot be vanquished, but they are not the only threat. Some survivors are prepared to kill and steal from other survivors—and worse. It is into this post-apocalyptic world where the dead walk—there are no such things as zombies—that the Player Characters are thrust into The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules, published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, provides everything that a gaming group will need to roleplay in the world of The Walking Dead. The means to create characters, rules for scavenging and surviving in this post-apocalyptic world, dealing with encounters with the Walkers, building a community and sanctuary, and more. The community and sanctuary rules come into play in the second of the roleplaying game’s two modes—Campaign Mode. Where that is intended for long term play, the other mode, Survival Mode, is designed for one-shots, was presented in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set. So far, so good, but the obvious question that anyone is going to ask is, “What does The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game offer that other zombie-themed roleplaying games do not?” The most obvious answer would be that it offers the opportunity to roleplay in a setting that is not that far removed from our own and one that is familiar to anyone who has watched any of the television series. Much like any other licensed roleplaying game, but in terms of a zombie-themed roleplaying game, what The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game focuses on is survival against threats from without and within. The threats from without can, of course, include the Walkers, but in terms of storytelling, the real threats from without are other survivors outside of the Player Characters’ own group. Examples from the television series include the inhabitants of the town of Woodbury, the group called the Wolves, and, of course, the Saviors led by Negan. The threats from within are, of course, fellow survivors and what they might do to jeopardise survival of the group they belong to. The Walkers do remain an ever-lurking, constant threat, but unless their attention is aroused, they are not an active threat, more a passive one that is never going to go away. To that end, the roleplaying advises that the principles of the roleplaying game be made clear to new players, including, “Do whatever it takes to survive”, “Death is inescapable”, “You are never safe”, and so on. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is not like other ‘zombie’ roleplaying games in which the Player Characters go around slaughtering the undead.

A Player Character in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is first defined by an Archetype. This defines what the Player Character did prior to the apocalypse, as well as also the Player Character’s key Attribute and Skill, possible Talents to choose from, an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive, plus starting Gear and relationship to other Player Characters. The Archetypes are Criminal, Doctor, Farmer, Homemaker, Kid, Law Enforcer, Nobody, Outcast, Politician, Preacher, Scientist, and Soldier. He has four Attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits and Empathy. These range in value between two and four, as do skills, but the key Attribute and key Skill can be five. Health Points represent a Player Character’s physical health and cannot be higher than three. A Player Character also has an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive. An Anchor is another person—Player Character or NPC—that the Player Character cares about and who is used narratively to ‘Handle Your Fear’ and when attempting to relieve Stress. The Issue is a roleplaying hook, such as ‘You think you are better than them’ or ‘Unable to sit down and shut up’ that the Game Master can use to create interesting, typically challenging situations. Drive is what pushes a Player Character to grit his teeth and withstand the pain, like ‘You love your mother’ and ‘God put me here to save their souls’. Once a session, a Drive can be invoked to gain extra dice on a test. The Drive can also be lost, which triggers a ‘Breaking Point’ and if not regained or replaced, it can result in the Player Character being ‘Shattered’.

To create a character, a player selects an Archetype, distributes thirteen points between the four attributes, twelve between skills, and choses Issue, Drive, and Anchor.

Name: Brady Ferrell

Archetype: Farmer

Strength 5 Agility 3 Wits 2 Empathy 3

Skills: Close Combat 1, Force 4, Manipulation 1, Ranged Combat 2, Scout 2, Tech 2

Talents: Tough as Nails

Drive: I do what is right
Issue: Dogmatist

Gear: Toolbox, Jeep, Survival Equipment

Relationships: You are family

Mechanically, as with other Year Zero Engine roleplaying games, whenever a Player Character wants to undertake an action in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, his player roles a number of Base Dice equal to the attribute plus skill plus any modifiers from gear, Talents, help, or the situation. If a single six, a Success, is rolled on the Base Dice, the Player Character succeeds, although extra Success will add bonus effects. However, if no Successes are rolled and the action is failed, or he wants to roll more Successes, the player has the choice to Push the roll. In which case, the Player Character suffers a point of Stress and gains a Stress Die. The player must also explain what the character is doing differently in order to Push the roll. For the pushed roll, the player will roll all of the Base Dice which did not roll success and the Stress Die. In fact, until the Player Character finds a way to reduce his Stress points, his player will continue to add Stress Dice equal to his character’s Stress Points on every roll. Only one pushed roll can be made per action, but the danger of having Stress Dice is if their results should be a one or ‘Walker’ symbol. It means two things. First, if the player has not yet pushed the roll, he cannot do so. Second, whether or not he has pushed the roll, it means that the Player Character has ‘Messed Up’. Typically, this means that he increased the numbers of Walkers nearby and attracted their attention, turning up the dial on the Threat Meter. In other situations, a ‘Messed Up’ might mean the Player Character has got lost, lost his footing, said the wrong thing in a tense standoff, and so on. Other sources of Stress include being short on food and water, getting shot at, seeing someone in the group get bitten by a Walker, killing someone in cold blood, and so on.

There are several means of getting rid of Stress. Primarily, these consist of a Player Character connecting and interacting with his Anchor, and at the end of the day, simply getting a good night’s sleep and plenty of rest. Whilst interacting with an Anchor can be during play, at the end of each session, a Player Character has to deal with the dreadful things that he has seen and done that session. This is done via the ‘Handle Your Fear’ mechanic and is triggered if the Player Character has suffered a Breaking Point like his Anchor being killed or disappearing, brutally killing or beating someone who is defenceless, is Broken by damage, suffers five Stress Points, and so on. At this point, the player rolls Base Dice equal to either his character’s Wits or Empathy, with a bonus for any Anchors who are still alive. This roll cannot be pushed, needs only one Success to succeed, but if failed, causes the Player Character to become Overwhelmed, meaning that he loses his Drive, becomes mentally Shattered, or his Issue is changed or added to.

Combat scales in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game depending upon who or what the Player Characters are facing. Duels are one-on-one attacks handled via opposed rolls, each combatant hoping to gain more Successes than the other. Brawls handle combat between multiple participants in which the Leadership skill can be used to hand out bonuses to allies in the fight. Combat is deadly though, a Player Character only possessing three points of Health and once they are lost, the Player Character is Broken, gains a point of Stress, and his player must roll on the Critical Injuries table. The lack of Health in comparison to other roleplaying games is compounded by the limited access to medical care. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is deadly.

A setting which is already deadly due to low health and lack of healing, is compounded by the presence of the Walkers. They are a constant, lurking presence in The Walking Dead Universe, in game terms that presence is typically written into a scenario at a particular location or encounter, as you would expect, but also brought into play randomly whenever a player rolls a ‘Walker’ symbol on a Stress Die. Narratively, this could be as simple as the Player Characters opening a door to discover a room full of Walkers or a Walker bursting out of a bush to attack the Player Characters. The presence of the Walkers is tracked by the Threat Meter, which ranges from zero and ‘You are in a cleared area and safe. For now.’ to six and ‘The dead are in your face, surrounding you.’ The Threat Level is raised by rolling a ‘Walker’ on a Stress Die, failing a skill roll to avoid Walkers, doing something in the game to attract their attention, and so on. Ideally, the Player Characters will sneak around them as they scavenge buildings and search locations, but of course, that is unlikely. At low levels on the Threat Meter, it is possible for the Player Characters to go quiet and wait it out until the Walkers have either wandered off or gone quiet themselves. At higher levels, the Player Characters will need to find a way to distract the Walkers and make them go elsewhere or fight them. Encounters with a few Walkers are possible and these can be engaged in ‘Single Walker Attacks’, but Walkers congregate and then they fight as Swarms. Fights against Swarms are group endeavours, the aim being to roll more Successes than a Swarm to first reduce its size and then escape it. If a Player Character or Player Characters lose against a Walker attack, there is a table of very nasty and brutal ‘Walker Attack’ effects which will have the players wincing when they hear the results. The rules cover sacrificing another, brawling amidst a Swarm, clearing out an area, and lastly, amputation, the latter the last desperate result to resolve after a Walker bite…

One of aspects of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game that it shares with many other Year Zero roleplaying games, and that is its community rules. In roleplaying games such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Player Characters begin with a community that they can improve through play and so gain rewards and advantages that will benefit both the community and further play. In The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, the Player Characters have a Haven rather than a community. It is where as survivors, they can live protected from both Walkers and predatory humans, grow food, undertake projects to improve the facilities, and go out on supply and scavenging runs. A Haven is defined by its characteristics, its Capacity and Defence, and its Issues. The characteristics are its description, answers to questions such as “Where can you post lookouts?” or “What characteristics of the haven annoy you or make people irritated?”, whilst Capacity measures the maximum number of people who can live there and Defence its ability to withstand an attack—whether from Walkers or other humans. Within the Haven, both Player Characters and NPCs can pursue projects such as creating an apiary or setting up a simple alarm system, teach skills to NPCs, and build and repair gear. However, all Havens have at least one Issue that will cause problems for the inhabitants, such as “Something regularly draws walkers to this location” or “Rats everywhere”. Worse, some Issues will be secret and can only be discovered during play. Issues will drive some of the story and plot to any campaign of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game. How these play out will affect the Haven’s Capacity and Defence—for good or ill—and ultimately, whether both it and its inhabitants will fall.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game offers two modes of play. One is Survival Mode, suitable for convention play or one-shots. The other is Campaign Mode, further divided into two sub-modes. In Free Play, the game is a played as a standard campaign, dealing with the survival of both the Player Characters and their Haven in the long term over a wide area. Season Mode is designed to emulate the television series more than Campaign Mode, structuring the campaign story around particular threats, locations, issues, and in particular Challenges, all of which will change from one Season to the next. Of course, the Player Characters will face Challenges in all three modes and there is advice for the Game Master on how to create and escalate them as needed. Similarly, there is good advice for the Game Master on running the game, creating factions, handling NPCs, scenes, and the horror at the heart of the game. This is all supported with numerous tables of content and possible encounter ideas, as well as two scenarios.

Both scenarios complete with pre-generated Player Characters, detailed descriptions of their set-ups, and good write-ups of the various NPCs and factions and they want. The Survival Mode scenario is ‘The Golden Ambulance’, which is set between Seasons Two and Three of The Walking Dead. The Player Characters go out in search of much-needed medicine and discover an abandoned ambulance which seems to contain some ready to scavenge medical supplies. Is it too good to be true? Add in the tensions between the pre-generated Player Characters and this is a tight, fraught affair. For the Campaign Mode, the ‘Atlanta Campaign Set-Up’ provides the Game Master with everything she needs for a campaign set after the events of The Walking Dead.

If there is one thing missing from The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, it is the stats and write-ups of the NPCs from the various television series. Some do appear in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, but anyone coming to this roleplaying game from the television expecting to see the heroes and villains from the series will be disappointed. That said, this is a roleplaying about The Walking Dead Universe, not any one television series and its cast. The setting content in the roleplaying game is also post Series Eleven after the protagonists of The Walking Dead have left the Atlanta area.

In addition, there are rules for Solo Play in which the player works to ingratiate himself in a Haven that he has recently arrived at. A Player Character for this is slightly more skilled than standard beginning Player Characters. The Player Character will also be accompanied a Companion NPC. The rules are very serviceable and even suggests that the player play himself as a Player Character, but given the brutality of the roleplaying game, the player had best get used to the idea that he might die in the process!

Ultimately, the issue with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is its brutality and the grim nature of the world it depicts. By design, neither this brutality nor the grim nature are wholly externalised as you would expect in a survival horror roleplaying game. They occur within the Haven where the Player Characters have taken sanctuary as well as the outside world. Issues within the Haven—both personal and integral to the Haven—will instigate and drive conflict, not just between the Player Characters and NPCs, but also between Player Characters. This is even shown in the examples of play that run throughout the book, which from a reading standpoint, will make you hate the character of Hannah. In terms of play, it demands a maturity of player to handle that and the necessity of Safety Tools. The discussion of the latter and of the possibility, even likelihood, of Player Character versus Player Character conflict and Safety Tools could have been better handled.

Physically, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is a superb looking book, although no photographs are used from The Walking Dead television series, so fans may be disappointed. That said, the artwork, done in the house style for Free League Publishing is very good and fits the world very well.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is a really tight, sparse design, feeling quite light in comparison to other core rulebooks and more so in comparison to core books for other licensed roleplaying games. That though, is really due to the lack of background or setting material, and the need for background or setting material. After all, this is a roleplaying game set in our world just a few months from now and it is both a genre and a setting that we are familiar with. Thus, the Game Master has everything that she needs to run a post apocalypse game, whether that is as a one-shot or campaign, or even a solo game. A gaming group had better be prepared though, for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game and the world it depicts is bleak, unforgiving, and brutal, forcing the players and their characters to make some very tough choices.

Your Walking Dead Starter

It seems surprising to realise that The Walking Dead is over two decades old. The comic by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore first appeared in 2003 and the resulting television series from AMC first aired in 2010 and has been followed with numerous spin-off series since. Both revitalised the zombie horror subgenre and the television series in particular, made zombies and horror acceptable to mainstream broadcasting like never before. Both comic book and television series tell the story of Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy from Cynthiana, Kentucky, who after being wounded in the line of duty, awakes to find his wife and family missing and the world very much changed. Society has collapsed, the dead walk and hunger after our flesh, a virus means that everyone will rise as a walker after death, and the survivors huddle together, co-operate and scavenge for supplies, and somehow make choices that will keep them alive. The walkers are everywhere, a menace that cannot be vanquished, but they are not the only threat. Some survivors are prepared to kill and steal from other survivors—and worse. It is into this post-apocalyptic world where the dead walk—there are no such things as zombies—that the Player Characters are thrust in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is published by Free League Publishing and provides an introduction to roleplaying in The Walking Dead Universe, with a simplified version of the rules, a complete scenario in the Survival Mode, and everything necessary to play that scenario. This includes two sets of dice, four maps, ten pre-generated Player Characters, and the Threat Meter. Everything is presented in full colour, though no photographs are used from The Walking Dead television series, so fans may be disappointed. That said, the artwork, done in the house style for Free League Publishing is very good and fits the world very well.

So opening up the box, the first things to be found in the box are the dice and the Threat Meter. The dice consist of two different sets. The black Base Dice are marked with a ‘target’ symbol on their six faces to indicate a Success when rolled, as are the red Stress Dice. However, Stress Dice also have a ‘hand’ symbol on their one faces. When these are rolled after a Pushed dice check, they indicate that the Player Character has ‘messed up’ and attracted the attention of the Walkers. This, of course, is a bad thing. The Threat Meter is a simple dial that goes from one to six—it should actually go from zero to six—that is used to indicate how active the Walkers are and how many are present. The higher the number on the Threat Meter and the greater the number of Walkers and the more active they are. Below this are the pre-generated Player Characters. Six of these are standard Player Characters as you would create using The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. Each has full stats, skills, a Talent, an Issue and a Secret which could get them into trouble, as well as some background. These six—plus one for an NPC—are designed to be used with ‘The Wolves’ Den’, the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, and are given both male and female names to give the players the choice. The other four are characters from the television show, and they consist of Carol Peletier, Glenn Rhee, Michonne, and Gabriel Stokes. These four are done in full colour as opposed to tan tones of the other six. The four maps are done in full colour on very sturdy paper. One is double-sided and depicts north-east Georgia on one side and south-west Virginia on the other. The other three depict locations for ‘The Wolves’ Den’ scenario.

The ’Rules’ booklet explains everything about characters, combat, and Walkers. Anyone who played a year Zero Engine roleplaying game will be familiar with most of its contents. A Player Character has four attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy—rated between one and five, and each attribute has three associated skills, for a total of twelve in the game. These are rated between one and six. In addition, a Player Character has a Talent, such as ‘Eye on the Ball’ which enables a Player Character to relieve a point of Stress when a threat or enemy is defeated or overcome or Scavenger, which enables the Player Character to find more rations or food when scavenging. Health Points represent a Player Character’s physical health and cannot be higher then three. A Player Character also has an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive. An Anchor is another person—Player Character or NPC—that the Player Character cares about and who is used narratively to ‘Handle Your Fear’ and when attempting to relieve Stress. The Issue is a roleplaying hook, such as ‘You think you are better than them’ or ‘Unable to sit down and shut up’ that the Game Master can use to create interesting, typically challenging situations. Drive is what pushes a Player Character to grit his teeth and withstand the pain, like ‘You love your mother’ and ‘God put me here to save their souls’. Once a session, a Drive can be invoked to gain extra dice on a test.

Mechanically, as with other Year Zero Engine roleplaying games, whenever a Player Character wants to undertake an action in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules, his player roles a number of Base Dice equal to the attribute plus skill plus any modifiers from gear, Talents, help, or the situation. If a single six, a Success, is rolled on the Base Dice, the Player Character succeeds, although extra Success will add bonus effects. However, if no Successes are rolled and the action is failed, or he wants to roll more Successes, the player has the choice to Push the roll. In which case, the Player Character suffers a point of Stress and gains a Stress Die. The player must also explain what the character is doing differently in order to Push the roll. For the pushed roll, the player will roll all of the Base Dice which did not roll success and the Stress Die. In fact, until the Player Character finds a way to reduce his Stress points, his player will continue to add Stress Dice equal to his character’s Stress Points on every roll. Only one pushed roll can be made per action, but the danger of having Stress Dice is if their results should be a one or ‘Walker’ symbol. It means two things. First, if the player has not yet pushed the roll, he cannot do so. Second, whether or not he has pushed the roll, it means that the Player Character has ‘Messed Up’. Typically, this means that he increased the numbers of Walkers nearby and attracted their attention, turning up the dial on the Threat Meter. In other situations, a ‘Messed Up’ might mean the Player Character has got lost, lost his footing, said the wrong thing in a tense standoff, and so on. Other sources of Stress include being short on food and water, getting shot at, seeing someone in the group get bitten by a Walker, killing someone in cold blood, and so on.

There are several means of getting rid of Stress. Primarily, these consist of a Player Character connecting and interacting with his Anchor, and at the end of the day, simply getting a good night’s sleep and plenty of rest. Whilst interacting with an Anchor can be during play, at the end of each session, a Player Character has to deal with the dreadful things that he has seen and done that session. This is done via the ‘Handle Your Fear’ mechanic and is triggered if the Player Character has suffered a Breaking Point like his Anchor being killed or disappearing, brutally killing or beating someone who is defenceless, is Broken by damage, suffers five Stress Points, and so on. At this point, the player rolls Base Dice equal to either his character’s Wits or Empathy, with a bonus for any Anchors who are still alive. This roll cannot be pushed, needs only one Success to succeed, but if failed, causes the Player Character to become Overwhelmed, meaning that he loses his Drive, becomes mentally Shattered, or his Issue is changed or added to.

Combat scales in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set depending upon who or what the Player Characters are facing. Duels are one-on-one attacks handled via opposed rolls, each combatant hoping to gain more Successes than the other. Brawls handle combat between multiple participants in which the Leadership skill can be used to hand out bonuses to allies in the fight. Combat is deadly though, a Player Character only possessing three points of Health and once they are lost, the Player Character is Broken, gains a point of Stress, and his player must roll on the Critical Injuries table. The lack of Health in comparison to other roleplaying games is compounded by the limited access to medical care. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is deadly.

A setting which is already deadly due to low health and lack of healing, is compounded by the presence of the Walkers. They are a constant, lurking presence in The Walking Dead Universe, in game terms that presence is typically written into a scenario at a particular location or encounter, as you would expect, but also brought into play randomly whenever a player rolls a ‘Walker’ symbol on a Stress Die. Narratively, this could be as simple as the Player Characters opening a door to discover a room full of Walkers or a Walker bursting out of a bush to attack the Player Characters. The presence of the Walkers is tracked by the Threat Meter, which ranges from zero and ‘You are in a cleared area and safe. For now.’ to six and ‘The dead are in your face, surrounding you.’ The Threat Level is raised by rolling a ‘Walker’ on a Stress Die, failing a skill roll to avoid Walkers, doing something in the game to attract their attention, and so on. Ideally, the Player Characters will sneak around them as they scavenge buildings and search locations, but of course, that is unlikely. At low levels on the Threat Meter, it is possible for the Player Characters to go quiet and wait it out until the Walkers have either wandered off or gone quiet themselves. At higher levels, the Player Characters will need to find a way to distract the Walkers and make them go elsewhere or fight them. Encounters with a few Walkers are possible and these can be engaged in ‘Single Walker Attacks’, but Walkers congregate and then they fight as Swarms. Fights against Swarms are group endeavours, the aim being to roll more Successes than a Swarm to first reduce its size and then escape it. If a Player Character or Player Characters lose against a Walker attack, there is a table of very nasty and brutal ‘Walker Attack’ effects which will have the players wincing when they hear the results. The rules cover sacrificing another, brawling amidst a Swarm, clearing out an area, and lastly, amputation, the latter the last desperate result to resolve after a Walker bite…

There is good advice for the Game Master including how to make it scary and how to include the characters from the television series as NPCs, and to not cheapen the lives of the Player Characters and the NPCs. All this complements the Principles of the Game given at the start for both players and the Game Master. These are to do whatever it takes to survive; death is inescapable, the Player Characters are never truly safe or alone, and that in terms of game play, everyone is telling a story and fiction comes first. There is advice too on running the game mode for the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set. This is Survival Mode, typically a scenario with pre-written events and locations which can be played in a session or two, as opposed to Campaign Mode, played in multiple sessions with a more open storyline.

The scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is ‘The Wolves’ Den’. This is written around two other aspects of The Walking Dead Universe—that the stories are not about the Walkers, but about the survivors and often, other survivors are more of a danger than the Walkers. It is written around the six pre-generated Player Characters included in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set and opens with them searching for two of their number who have eloped, breaking up a relationship in the process and taking some valuable equipment, including a vehicle and weapons, with them in the process. The scenario gets nastier and nastier as it progresses, building from creepy to in-your-face horror, culminating in a confrontation with a band of The Wolves, the violent group of survivors encountered in the fifth and sixth seasons of The Walking Dead television series.

Physically, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is very well presented. Everything is of a very high quality, especially the maps which can be used beyond the play of ‘The Wolves’ Den’, as can the Threat Meter. However, the books need a slight edit in places and not everything is quite as clearly explained as it should, such as handling NPC skills.

If there is a problem with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, it is that it only has the one scenario, ‘The Wolves’ Den’. Essentially, once the scenario has been played through, the obvious value and utility of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is not as great as it should be. However, look at The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set instead as a toolkit and it is actually more useful than it first appears. It has official dice for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and the Threat Meter is a useful tool to have sat on the table, the maps are great, and the pre-generated Player Characters are useful for when running The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. It is disappointing that there is only one scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, but there is a lot that is useful too.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is a very good introduction to The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and roleplaying in the brutal world of The Walking Dead.

[Free RPG Day 2022] Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Loke BattleMats, a publisher best known for its maps for roleplaying games, such as The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, and The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, the scenario takes place in the same setting as the Box of Adventure 2: Coast of Dread. It involves pirates, a cemetery, a curse, and undead in short encounter which easily be played in a session. It comes with four pre-generated Player Characters of Second Level as well as a doubled-sided map and a sheet of counters, both on heavy cardboard. The adventure involves a good mix of combat, interaction, and a big puzzle, and is highly thematic, but in terms of its plotting, it needs a bit work.

In Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew the Player Characters are members of the privateer, Dread Marsh, who have been sent on a mission by the ship’s quartermaster, Axell. They were to acquire the Emerald Eye, a great gem, said to be held in the tomb of the legendary pirate, Foxbeard, which is in the Windward Cemetery. As the scenario opens, with Axell’s advice, they have successfully entered the tomb and exited with the Emerald Eye in hand. Yet as soon as they make their exit, the tomb entry slams shut, a mist surrounds the cemetery, and their very flesh begins to rot. It appears that they have been afflicted by the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’

So the Player Characters begin the scenario being dead! Which brings with it a host of problems—terrible speech, looking and smelling like a zombie, a vulnerability to Radiant damage, and being unable to benefit from any type of Rest, as well as being unable to leave the cemetery. Their first problem though, is that the cemetery watchman along with his dog, Snuffles, arrives to keep an eye on the place overnight. Fortunately, he is short-sighted and so will not spot that they undead so easily. This is not the only difficulty the Player Characters will face as a torch and pitchfork-wielding mob will turn up from the nearest village, but for either encounter, there are plenty of options detailed, so the players can approach them in numerous ways, not necessarily via combat. Similarly, the two locations of the scenario—Windward Cemetery and Foxbeard’s crypt—are both nicely detailed.

In the second part of the scenario, arcane symbols light up around the entrance to Foxbeard’s Crypt. These are part of puzzle which must be solved before the Player Characters can get back into the crypt, but surely, they would have solved that when they broke into the tomb the first time? Inside, they face Foxbeard himself, wanting revenge for their having stolen the Emerald Eye, as well as members of his undead crew. Also, why did Foxbeard not rise and take his revenge when they were they broke into the tomb the first time? The obvious solution would be for the Player Characters to have been brilliant when they originally plundered the tomb and not disturbed the dread pirate in his final resting place  and then forgotten the solution to the puzzle as a result of their suffering from the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’ The Dungeon Master may instead come up with a solution of her own, but either way, it is a problem in terms of the narrative.

All the while this is going on, the Player Characters are under the effects of the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. If they kill anyone in the cemetery—and there is a warning to found if they search the cemetery—the Black Mark on their hand will grow. Kill too many persons and the Black Mark will grow and grow until they are permanently transformed into one of the undead. There is a means to lift the curse to be found, but that means entering the tomb of course.

The four Player Characters include a Fighter, a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Wizard, all Second Level. All come with a back story, a thumbnail portrait, and a tracker for the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. The latter s nicely done as a hand, but there are no other mechanical effects as the Black Mark grows. It might have been fun if there had been to help enforce a sense of impending doom if there had been.

Physically, Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is decently presented. The scenario booklet is general, well written and laid out. It lacks a card cover and so is flimsy. The double-sided map is done on sturdy card and in full colour. One side depicts the cemetery and the entry to the tomb, whilst the other shows the tomb proper. Both maps are easy to use with either the included counters, or with miniatures if the Dungeon Master and her players have them. The counters are decently done, but do need to be cut out carefully.

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is potentially a lot of fun and it takes the classic combination of pirates and the undead and does something different with it. The scenario also contains some nicely scenes as a consequence, such as making friends with a dog when you appear to be undead and persuading a baying mob that you are actually alive. Whilst the scenario can be played straight as written, it does have some plot holes which the Dungeon Master will have to fix to really bring out the fun to be had in Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew.

[Free RPG Day 2021] Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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It is more common for roleplaying games to get turned into board games, for example,
Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun for the Exalted roleplaying game from White Wolf Entertainment and Grand Tribunal, the board game set in the world of Atlas Games’ Ars Magica, but that trend is on the turn. Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games is based on Leder Games’ Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right, whilst the popular Zombicide board game from CMON Global Limited now has its own stand-alone roleplaying game in the form of Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game. For Free RPG Day 2021, CMON Global Limited released the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet. This contains a trio of short scenarios which can either set up or continue a post-apocalyptic campaign in which the dead rise, walk, shamble, or even run, and want to munch on your brains. However, it does not contain any rules from Zombicide: Chronicles—for that the Zombie Master will need to download the Zombicide: Chronicles Quick-Start, which has everything necessary to play through the three scenarios in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet.

The first of the three new missions in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Cruise of the Dead’. This is a solid campaign starter with the Player Characters thrown together as Survivors aboard a classic cruise ship complete with its own promenade deck, swimming pool, night club, grand ballroom, and more. Whether as former members of the crew or passengers, the Survivors must battle across the decks of the Childlike Empress and up to the bridge where perhaps they might be able to get a message out and someone can come and rescue them! There are some entertaining scenes here, whether on the promenade deck and in and around the swimming pool, the nightmare blaring lights of the ship’s night club, or the remnants of a magician’s stage show in the grand ballroom, and the author lays on the cheesiness you would expect aboard a cruise ship. This is very much a combat-focused scenario combined with some elements of stealth, so it feels very much like the board game that Zombicide: Chronicles is derived from. Nevertheless, its big action and big battles combined with a narrow focus—well, it is set aboard a cruise ship—does mean that it works as a good campaign opener. Plus, the ship can reach land wherever the Zombie Master wants and so continue the campaign from there.

The second mission, ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ takes place at a celebrity health spa and clinic run by actress Willow Rhiannon Meagre, who is best known for her restorative goo known as Slop. In the wake of the zombie rising, there is a rumour that Slop can be applied to zombies to cure them! So the mission opens with the Survivors outside the city’s Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre, which caters to often famous clientele, all ready to break in, grab some pots of Slop and perhaps run into a celebrity or two—whether they are still alive or have been turned into zombies! The centre is nicely detailed, complete with a surprisingly deep Zen Garden, a hot sauna, brochures with a complete guide to the best and most effective places to apply your Slop, and probably the best use of adult toys in a zombie roleplaying game—ever! Being for Zombicide: Chronicles, the scenario involves a lot of combat with the members of the corpse cortege, but it involves some investigation too, and there is a bit more story involved too. ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ does not so much as ladle irony and splatter bloody satire around the Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre as generally slop it everywhere it can. It contains some very obvious knowing digs at a certain celebrity, social media conspiracies, and more recent events, and is fairly tongue in cheek. Or is that tongue in cheek and out the other side? ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ is great fun and very silly.

The last of the three missions in in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Third Level Underground’. This is definitely a city-based mission which begins with the Player Characters, having learned that there is a delivery van full of medicine on the third level of a multi-storey car park nearby. Are they prepared to descend into the darkness below, not knowing what might be down there, break into the van, and get out again? This is primarily a stealth mission, with the Survivors creeping down into the car park’s lower levels, trying to take advantage of the many unlooted vehicles still parked, whilst avoiding any encounters with the cadaver cavalcade which bound to be down there. If that sounds all too simple, then you would be right, but not that much more simple. There are the broken facilities of the car park to work around, a reluctant survivor to encounter, and something quite fun for the Zombie Master to throw at the Player Characters. ‘Third Level Underground’ is a fairly straight forward encounter, one which is relatively easy to drop into a campaign or city set scenario.

Physically, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is breezily presented with plenty of the cartoon artwork taken from the Zombicide board game. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is very easy to read and understand, such that the preparation time for any one of its three missions is actually fairly low.

The Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is mixture of fun, clichés, satire, and classic zombie action. The mechanical elements to the three scenarios are incredibly light, such that the Zombie Master need not have a copy of Zombicide: Chronicles to run any of three. A little adaptation and the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet would work with any zombie roleplaying game or any modern roleplaying game to which zombies can be added. Above all though, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is solid support for Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game, especially if you want a campaign starter and something to run later in the campaign

Jonstown Jottings #14: Night of the Quacking Dead

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the  Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford's mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?
Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is a short supplement which presents undead Ducks and their consequences for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a nine page, full colour, 4.86 MB PDF.

Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is well presented and decently written.

Where is it set?
In and around the Upland Marsh in Sartar.

Who do you play?
Adventurers of all types would work with Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead, but Humakti character would be an appropriate choice. A good Duck would leap—just not very high—to strike back at the nefarious plans of the Necromancer of the Upland  Marsh.

What do you need?
Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead requires both RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary. Both the  supplement, Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and the magazine, Wyrms Footnotes #15, may be of use for their further background to the Upland Marsh.

What do you get?
Behind its cartoonish cover, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead gives an introduction to the Upland Marsh, a scenario seed and associated NPC, and three undead creatures, all of an anatine un-nature.

The introduction examines the relationship that the Ducks—or durulz—have with the Upland Marsh and the unspoken truce they have with the Delecti the Necromancer. It also provides rules the environmental effects of fighting in the marsh which will be important should the Game Master develop the scenario seed in Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead. This has the newly declared Sword of Humakt, Orlaventus Great-Bill, putting the call out for adventurers to join him on an excursion into the marsh. He wants to locate and destroy those members of his family who were killed by the undead whilst the Ducks were taking refuge in the marsh as a result of the Lunar Duck Hunts and who have themselves raised from the dead. For the adventurers he makes promises about finding legendary treasure. Unfortunately, this hook for the player characters is undeveloped, leaving the Game Master to come up with ideas herself. At the very least, one or two suggestions would have been helpful.

The main focus of Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead though, is on presenting undead Ducks. This includes both the Duck Zombie, which unlike most undead, has the advantage of being already adapted to the terrain, and the Duck Skeleton. Lastly, the Duck Goliath is literally a ‘Frankenduck’s Monster’ of a creature, stitched together from the body parts of various, typically ill-suited creatures, but always with the head of a Duck. Facing a Duck Goliath would be a suitable encounter for the given scenario seed—or make for a bizarre encounter anywhere in or near the Upland Marsh.

Again Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead falls into the category of ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’ and is a very specific—geographically specific—addition. Ultimately, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is of limited use, but if a Game Master wanted to use it, it is a pity that the scenario seed was not quite as developed to help the Game Master a little more.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. If you are running a campaign or adventure set in Sartar and are planning for your adventurers to venture anywhere in or near the Upland Marsh, then Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is worth your time and interest. The Duck puns are just a bonus.
No. If your campaign or adventure is not set in Sartar and will not going anywhere near the Upland Marsh, or Ducks do not play a role in your campaign, then then Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is unlikely to be of interest to you. The Duck puns may also be off-putting. 
Maybe. A devout Humakti warrior would travel far to strike at the unwholesome undead of the Upland Marsh and who knows what such a warrior would encounter when he got there, let alone what he might have been sent to retrieve? Yes, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is very specific in terms of its geography, but a Game Master could develop reasons for the player characters to travel as far as the Upland Marsh. The Duck puns are just silly and you should be fine with that.