Miskatonic Monday #440: Fallen from the Farthest Star

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Their arrival in Olympia, the state capital of Washington State, on Monday, August 20th 1877, begins with a bang. Or rather several bangs. As one Native American passenger alights and is distracted down a side street by another, the remaining passengers aboard the stagecoach are subject to a hail of gunfire from the surrounding buildings. Native Olympians pull out their own handguns and shoot back, and when they manage to get out of the stagecoach to look, it appears that their assailants are also Native Americans. The exchange of fire quickly fizzles out and if any of the newly arrived passengers go after the shooters, they quickly find themselves lost in the back alleys and side streets of the city, and before they know it, a gun is in the small of their backs. Within moments the passengers, captured at gun point, find themselves whisked out of the city, as is the Native American who was beckoned to from down an alley. In the chaos, one of the female passengers is spirited away by some men with Russian accents. Anyone left at stagecoach, is approached by a scruffy, oddly mannered man, apologising for the attack, explaining that the Native American attackers are Squaxin, one of many Indian tribes who have long lived in the area of the Puget Sound and some of the tribes have strange secrets. One is a very strange secret indeed. Something important is hidden nearby and they would do anything to protect it. Others have recently arrived in the city of search of the secret in order to take for themselves. The man, who introduces himself as Elwood Candy, tells the passengers that he wants to find out for himself and his employers, but will not say who those employers are, except that they are not the US government.

This is the action-packed opening to Fallen from the Farthest Star. This is also the messy opening to Fallen from the Farthest Star. The scenario is for use with Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West, the official Old West sourcebook for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Action-packed because it opens with a shootout, but messy because it is written as a narrative and there is a lot going on. In fact, almost too much for the Keeper to track of. The result is overwhelming, and arguably, whilst it should be overwhelming for the players and their Investigators, the same should not be case for the Keeper. Unfortunately, this is no error upon the part of the author, but rather by design. The aim is actually to split the party and for each Investigator to interact with the different factions involved in the scenario, including two different groups of Native Americans, some Russians, and the strangely singular Elwood Candy. The aim is that all together, they will have a greater understanding of the situation they find themselves in, but only if they can get together and relate what has happened to them in the meantime. What this means is that Keeper will be running longer solo narratives for her players than she might ordinarily do so for a Call of Cthulhu scenario. In several of the situations, the kidnapped Investigators will be asked if they have ‘it’. Which they do not, and further, do not know what ‘it’ is. In fact, ‘it’ turns out to multiple things, but the fact that Fallen from the Farthest Star is a multi-MacGuffin, will again, not become apparent until the Investigators are brought together and can share what happened to them. All this requires a degree of acceptance by the players. The opening and set-up for the Investigators in Fallen from the Farthest Star is anything other than a traditional one for Call of Cthulhu and to high degree, the players and their Investigators are being railroaded.

From this point, the Keeper is going to be switching back forth between the Investigators and the groups that they are with. In some cases, the Investigators are held captive, in others they have more agency, but all have opportunity to interact an NPC or NPCs and gain some information pertinent to the situation. There is chance here too, for some good roleplaying. So, what is going on? The Native Americans are guardians to an ancient mind-bending artefact called the Star Egg, that fell from the sky thousands of years ago, split into two factions who cannot agree what to do with it; the Russians are dissidents turned archaeologists and treasure hunters looking for Spanish silver; and everyone else? They answer to their own masters! The Investigators are part of a prophecy said to tell of a growing threat to the Star egg and are asked for their help. As the different factions discover more of the information they need, they will make their way upriver and inland to the site where the Star Egg is hidden. The Investigators are the catalysts here, ultimately deciding how the scenario plays out and who comes out on top. There are a couple of wildcards thrown into this mix and they may influence what happens next. Along the way, there are some entertaining scenes, including one with the ‘Greatest Thief in the World’ and revelations ahoy as to who Elwood Candy’s true masters are and what they are prepared to tell the Investigators.

Besides the NPCs and Mythos monsters, the scenario is supported with information about Olympia, its history and surrounds, plus information about the Mythos tome, El Naufragio de Nuestra Señora de Loreto, that drives part of the story, the various devices that the Investigators might get their hands on, and the alien ship itself. These are nicely detailed. There is also a timeline for the scenario; maps of both Olympia and its surrounds—for both the players and the Keeper; and floorplans for the various locations. The floorplans are period pieces and do vary in quality. The handouts include the colourfully bizarre pictograms as well as NPC pictures (some of which look not a little familiar) and details of two pistols new to Down Darker Trails. Lastly there are six pre-generated Investigators. They consist of a Hispanic gunfighter, an aspiring artist, a soldier, a Native American cowboy, and a dilettante would-be writer. The aspiring artist previously appeared in The Schoolmarm’s Ghost.

Physically, Fallen from the Farthest Star is generally well presented. However, the writing is not as clear it could have been in parts and the artwork for the pictograms cartoonishly contrasts the rest of the scenario. That said, the NPC portraits are all period photographs, as are the maps and floorplans, and they do add a degree of verisimilitude. The floorplans could have been clearer though.

Ultimately, the problem with Fallen from the Farthest Star is the writing. There is a lot of context and background up front, including some decent advice about adapting the scenario to other periods, and a detailed—likely overly detailed—history and description of Washington state, Olympia, and nearby—it throws the Keeper into the action without much thought or advice as how the set-up, let alone the rest of the scenario is going to play out.

Ultimately, the problem with Fallen from the Farthest Star is the writing. There is a lot of context and background up front, including some decent advice about adapting the scenario to other periods, and a detailed—likely overly detailed—history and description of Washington state, Olympia, and nearby—it throws the Keeper into the action without much thought as how the set-up, let alone how the rest of the scenario is going to play out. It is not until after the shootout and its aftermath is there any advice for the Keeper, who is told that the next(!) “…[S]ection of the scenario might be a little confusing.” By this point it might be too late. There is no denying the ambition of Fallen from the Farthest Star, but it really going to need an experienced Keeper to run well with its multiple moving parts, and even then, said Keeper will need to pull some parts of the narrative—the gunfight at the start of the scenario, in particular—apart and put them back together to her satisfaction to have them work effectively.

1975: Boot Hill

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.

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Despite the analogy that roleplaying is like the games of cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians that we played as children, it is surprising that there are so few roleplaying games in either genre or that so few of these roleplaying games have been popular. Indeed, it would not be until the publication of Gangster! by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1979 that the hobby would have its first ‘cops and robbers’ (or cops and gangsters) roleplaying, whereas the first cowboys and Indians roleplaying game appeared in 1975, the year following the release of Dungeon & Dragons. There have been several Wild West roleplaying games published since, many of them, well-researched, well-designed roleplaying games, but few have been truly popular and when they were, it was with a big dash of horror. Boot Hill was the third roleplaying game to be published by TSR, Inc. Designed by Brian Blume and E. Gary Gygax, it was subtitled, ‘Rules for “Wild West” Gunfights and Campaigns with Miniature Figures on a Man-to-Man Scale’. That it does not say ‘roleplaying game’ is indicative of the nascent hobby into which it was released. The idea of roleplaying as a pastime in a shared world was new; many early titles that the hobby calls roleplaying games today had their roots in wargames and were seen as an adjunct to that hobby, rather than the separate thing they would evolve into; and the term ‘roleplaying game’ had yet to be defined. Boot Hill definitely had its roots in wargaming as its subtitle suggests, but was there more to it than that?

Unlike most wargames, the play of Boot Hill focuses upon the single figure, or ‘character’, each one controlled by a different player to recreate gun fights, barroom brawls, and other situations synonymous with the Wild West. The action is meant to be inspired by both history and Hollywood—both film and television. To that end, the book includes two scenarios, both historically based. One is the ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ and the other is the ‘Battle of Coffeyville’. However, Boot Hill can be played in a number of ways. One is as simple gunfights or shootouts, which are more akin to a traditional wargame, but played at a skirmish level with single figures. Another is as a freeform in which the players have roles assigned to them—represented by the figures—and they attempt actions that are appropriate to those roles. It is made clear that none of these ways to play require a Referee, the players being expected to resolve any rules difficulties between themselves. However, it is suggested that a “…[R]eferee is nice to have for some games…” Of course, a Referee can adjudicate the rules and she can also set-up the town for the freeform style of play and assign roles to the players. Boot Hill definitely makes clear that the game can be played using 25 mm or 30 mm scale figures, but advises strongly that the plastic figures from Airfix are not suitable as they are difficult to paint!

A Player Character in Boot Hill has four abilities. These are Speed, Personal Bravery, and Personal Accuracy, which are rated as percentiles, whilst Strength is rated between eight and twenty. To determine their values, percentile dice are rolled for each with results of seventy or below receiving a small bonus to the result. Personal Accuracy is rolled twice, once for thrown weapons and once for fired weapons. The process is very quick.

Nellie ‘Whip’ Woodard

Speed 65 (Very Quick)

Personal Bravery 64 (Above Average)

Personal Accuracy (Fired Weapons) 68 (Fair)

Personal Accuracy (Thrown Weapons) 98 (Crack Shot)

Strength 13 (Average)

The rules for Boot Hill are written as a wargame. Movement and range are measured in inches and the rules very much focus on combat. The outcome of a gunfight begins by determining who has the ‘First Shot’. Who can shoot first is determined by individual Speed ratings, weapon speeds, surprise, movement, and wounds suffered, as well as if a gunfighter is drawing two guns or shooting from the hip. Then, the chance To Hit is determined. This has a base value of 50% which is modified by the range, movement of the firer and the target, Personal Accuracy, Personal Bravery, Wounds suffered, and Personal Experience, that is, the number of gunfights that the induvial has been. Surviving a lot of gunfights gets a shooter a big bonus!

If the attack is successful, two means of determining damage and wounds suffered are provided. The ‘Fast Hit Location Method’ determines if the gunfighter has suffered a light or serious wound, or is dead—and there is a 15% chance of the latter happening! The second uses the ‘Exact Hit Location Chart’ and requires two rolls. Once to determine where a bullet has hit the target and the severity of the wound. Again, there is a chance that a bullet will kill the target straightaway, from 10% for a hit to the shoulder to 60% for a hit to head! Otherwise, damage reduces a character’s Strength, rendering him unconscious if reduced to zero, and slows his movement.

The brawling rules are simpler, but not quite as clearly explained. Instead of determining who has the ‘First Shot’, the players determine who gets to try and land the ‘First Blow’. The faster brawler gets to throw two punches or grapple, whilst the defender gets to defend himself by punching or grappling in return. The brawling rules allow for weapon use, though knives and cutting weapons use the tables for determining damage in gunfights. Blunt weapons simply do slightly more damage. Results can be a miss with no second punch, glancing blow, blocked, jab, hook, and so on.

The ‘Advanced Rules’ cover simultaneous, hidden, and vehicle movement, and options such as firing during movement and firing at horses. Minor character morale covers the response of everyone other than a player’s character and includes both cavalry and Indians. There is a list of ‘Miscellaneous Characters’, from Town Marshals and Deputies to Merchants, Clerks, and Saloon Girls. There is light guidance too, on setting up a town, suggesting what might be found within its boundaries, as a Mexican or Chinese quarter, and that the interiors of buildings should be mapped out as well as exteriors.

Optional rules suggest alternative rules for determining the ‘First Shot’, being a ‘Sharpshooter’ if the character has a very high Personal Accuracy, stunning attacks, the effects of intoxication, dynamite and possible injuries from dynamite, misfires, Gatling guns, and cannons. Particular attention is paid to the gambler, meaning that the actions of a character beyond combat is actually covered in Boot Hill. The gambler has a percentage score for his ability to manipulate cards and avoid being caught cheating. Gambling is handled by straight percentile rolls, highest roll winning, the gambler having a bonus. If a gambler wins too often, his fellow cardplayers get a chance to determine if he has cheated. The campaign rules expand play beyond the typical frontier town with rules for mapping, rules for posses, and tracking.

Perhaps the most attention in Boot Hill is paid to the two scenarios, ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ and ‘Battle of Coffeyville’, which are given in the Appendices. This includes historical background, set-up, and stats for the various characters involved. Both come with rough maps of their locations. It is suggested that these can played over and over, perhaps a hallmark of a wargame rather than roleplaying game. Rounding out the appendices is a list of prices and wages as well as sample town map.

Physically, Boot Hill is plainly laid out, though readable. The artwork is scruffy and the maps are rudimentary.

Boot Hill is both more than a set of wargames miniatures rules and less than a roleplaying game. Its emphasis upon single characters, and their capacity for growth and the capacity for doing things other than gunfighting and brawling, if implicit rather explicit—except for the gambling rules, push it towards roleplaying, but the deadliness of the combat system and emphasis upon combat is definitely more akin to a wargame. What it is more akin to is a ‘Braunstein’, a wargame with players taking individual roles in a Napoleonic Germany, and then developed by David Wesely in the late sixties and later developed by Duane Jenkins into a Wild West ‘Braunstein’ set in the fictional, ‘Brownstone Texas’. This suggests that Boot Hill has the capacity for roleplaying and to be a roleplaying game, but it is very much reliant upon the Game Master and players to do that rather than the game itself encourage them to do so. Boot Hill has always been included in the canon of roleplaying games, but where the later editions of the game—published in 1979 and 1990—do qualify and count as roleplaying games, it can be strongly argued that its original, first edition version barely qualifies as a roleplaying game.

Miskatonic Monday #392: Calamity in Drywater Canyon

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Calamity in Drywater Canyon: A Wild West Call of Cthulhu Scenario

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Raul Longoria

Setting: Texas-New Mexico border, 1870s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 27.28 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Butchery in the Badlands will lead to blood!

Plot Hook: Opportunities aplenty, but frontier fears face the unwary

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, two handouts, two maps, and four Mythos monsters, and a horse.

Production Values: Serviceable

Pros

# Invasion of the cannibal zombies in the Wild West!

# Open rather than plotted investigation

# Can be run using Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West

# Combat focus suggests that Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos could be an alternative rules set

# Osophobia

# Speluncaphobia

# Kinemortophobia

Cons

# Open investigation will careful handling by Keeper

# No backstory for the Investigators

Conclusion

# Hell comes to take a bite out of Drywater

# Rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ brawlin’ showdown against the forces of evil!

Weird Out West

The hunter rides the range, armed with a Sharps Model 1874 rifle in the .50-90 Sharps, a gun big enough to take down Nightcrawlers, the twenty-foot long earthworms that wear the skin of past prey and burrow out of the earth to take down their new. As the vampire-lord looms over her on the ground, the gunslinger loads her last Hellfire round that will surely send the undead monster and its soul into damnation. The inveterate gambler stands up from the table and points at Robo Doc, Joe Bones, of cheating and having a hidden card slot. At high noon, the duellists face off against each other, one ready to pull a Colt Single Action Army, but wondering how much of a threat his Kengu opponent is with its daishō, from which it will draw a katana. The Concord stagecoach rides along its regular route, the bearded veteran sitting alongside the driver, holding a shotgun in his lap, loaded with holy shot lest the vehicle lose a wheel or a horse throws a shoe and everyone be swarmed by the zombies that linger just off the trail. Secret Service agents fly the night skies in their black Zeppelin, ready to respond to descend on the latest threat to the United States. The US Marshal dukes it out with the Hex Gunner that raiding trains all along the transcontinental route, ducking and dodging as the servant of Hell snaps off one shot after another from its demonic six-shooter, the bullets smoking with necromantic energy and screaming with hellish fury when fired in search of more souls to collect and send to damnation! The Risen claws his way out of the grave, bearing a demonic brand on his chest and swearing to take vengeance upon his former comrades who put him in the ground. The frontier of the West might well have once been wild, but now it has definitely turned weird and horrifying. This is not the set-up for one game—though it could be, but a range of options, and more, presented in the pages of High Noon at Midnight.

High Noon at Midnight is a genre supplement for the Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. Published by Monte Cook Games as part of the Knights of Dust and Neon project on Backerkit, it is inspired by the films Cowboys & Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Back to the Future III, television series such as The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., West World, and Firefly, comic books like Jonah Hex and Preacher, and even roleplaying games such as Deadlands. It is interesting to see the inclusion of Deadlands mentioned in the list of inspirational reading and watching for High Noon at Midnight, since it is from a rival publisher and it is the obvious roleplaying game when anyone ever thinks of the term, ‘Weird West’. After all, Deadlands was the first to really coin the term—right in its very subtitle—and it has dominated the genre ever since it was published in 1996. So, the obvious question is, “Why even look at High Noon at Midnight when Deadlands is not only easily available, but also richly supported?” The simple answer is, ‘setting versus tools’. Deadlands is a genuinely great, genre defining, and iconic roleplaying game, it is its own thing and its own setting. High Noon at Midnight is not that, but rather offers the tools and means for the Game Master to create and run games in a weird west setting of her own devising. It can do magic, horror, advanced and even alien technology, steampunk, time travel, and so on in the way that the Game Master wants rather than is given. This is not to say that either option of tools versus setting is better or worse than the other, but rather that they offer different choices.

After some explanation of what High Noon at Midnight is, that it is a non-historical treatment of the period and the genre, combined weird, and what that Weird West could be through various other different media, the supplement really begins looking at the tools that the Game Master is going to need to create her own weird west. This includes borrowing from different sources, such as Deadwood or the James Bond films, creating a brand new series based on alternate history, and keeping a setting mostly historically accurate, whilst still being weird. It explores the classic themes of the Wild West, or Old West, genres, such as justice, vengeance, redemption, freedom, and survival, as well as weird themes like magic, magic versus technology, and horror. Throughout there are pointers and suggestions, and tables of options, and this continues throughout much of the book. For example, the ‘Weird West Game World’ table suggests ‘West Mars’, a “[S]parsley settled Martian frontier, six-shooters fire laser rounds, water is as valuable as gold, and terraforming gangs fight for primacy.” and ‘Camelot Gunslingers’ with “Law-sworn knights with long rifles pursue outlaw wizards, despot dragons, and malign fey beings.” Furter tables suggest inflection points when the West changed, how pervasive the Weird is, what the Player Characters do, and lots of plots seeds. The Game Master is free to pick or roll on these tables, or simply use them as inspiration.

The Game Master advice suggests that ‘A little Weird goes a long way’, but gives a lot of Weird for her to choose from. Instead of horses, the Player Characters might be riding water buffalo, lions, ostriches, or even stegosauruses, or ogres, griffons, or hellfire steeds, or jet packs, hover cycles, or motorcycles. There is discussion to, of other forms of travel, including train and aerial travel, and supported by lists of Intrusions—the means by which the Game Master can challenge a Player Character, make a situation more interesting, and the Player Character can earn Experience Points—that the Game Master can use. Options are suggested in terms of what groups might be operating in the weird west, including the law, outlaws, and indigenous groups. Traditional groups include US Marshals and train-robbing gangs, but added to this are weird west groups. For example, a weird version of the Secret Service might use advanced technology or magic to protect the president and other important people from assassination or harm, let alone protect the currency, whilst the Pinkerton Rail Agency which rides five rail cars to protect the railways, he Dawn Rangers, who wear grave-stone shaped badges inscribed with RIP and are known for their arrogance, hunt the undead, and the Skinless Six, outlaws who messed with the wrong treasure and now hunt and gamble for new skins! Guidance on the role of the Native Nations and including the indigenous peoples is also given. There is also a lengthy section on locations in the wild west, from uncanny saloons, alchemist’s shops, and uncanny jails to the Badlands, prairies, and mines, all also uncanny, which provides the Game Master with some great places to set her weird west campaign.

Optional rules in High Noon at Midnight enable the Game Master to run Poker games with multiple NPCs as well as the Player Characters, including handling player versus character skill (necessary since not everyone plays Poker and it is not as commonly played outside of the USA) and resolving a game with dice rather than dice. The Hands of Fate actually adds a Poker mechanic to play, each player drawing a personal Hand of Fate, consisting of two cards, at the beginning of each game day. These cards can be combined with community Hand of Fate cards for various effects. For example, a Straight Flush earns the Player Character a point of Experience, whilst a Full House replaces any roll of the twenty-sided die with a roll of twenty. This enforces the wild (or weird) west feel, but the Game Master can go even further by replacing the need to roll a twenty-sided die to determine the outcome of a situation with a deck of cards. The two do complement each other, but do make play more complex and outcomes less obvious in comparison to the standard Cypher System.

As well as curses and the benefits of telling tall tales, High Noon at Midnight adds several Paranormal Vices that the Player Characters or NPCs can suffer. These are similar to curses, but provide both benefits and banes. Every time a Player Character uses one of the abilities associated with the Paranormal Vice, a Connection roll is made. If a one is rolled, the Connection is made with the Paranormal cause behind the vice and the Player Character suffers an associated Repercussion. The range also increases from one to one to two, and so on, each time the Connection is made, until it reaches six and the Player Character is overcome with the Paranormal Vice. For example, the Drinking Paranormal Vice grants Inebriate abilities of ‘Deadeye’, ‘Hair-Trigger Reflexes’, ‘Iron Liver’, ‘Mean Drunk’, and ‘Unflinching’, which might require a Player Character to throw back a drink or two, but Repercussions might be that the Player Character goes ‘Blind in One Eye’ or suffer ‘Retching Summons’ in which he vomits up a pile of gelatinous goo that animates into a horrid thing! Other Paranormal Vices are gambling and swindling, which either case, gives advantages, but not without dangers of their own.

Threats include environmental ones alongside a bestiary of new creatures and a list of entries from the Cypher Bestiary, which are given abbreviated descriptions in this genre supplement. Old NPCs from the Cypher Bestiary include Gunfighters, whilst the new here include Alchemist, Hex Gunner, and Forgeborn golem. New creatures include the Death Binder, alchemists risen from the dead who invest their souls in the bullets in their Soul Pistols, which have devastating effects, but if the sixth and final shot is fired, so is the Death Binder, so they use their Alchemical Pistol instead; Frostwalkers—compacted snow over amalgams of bone, antlers, limbs, and heads of men and animals who died in the cold; and the Hollowed Ranger, a travelling portal to ‘elsewhere’, formed from an innocent gunned down in cold blood and dumped into a shallow grave, and returned to wreak vengeance on all and everyone!

In terms of character options High Noon at Midnight suggests ways in which classic Wild West characters can be created by adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Commands Mental Powers”. Thus, a Lawman could be a Speaker with a combat flavour and a Swindler or Gambler could be an Explorer with a stealth flavour. Seven standard Descriptors and two Species Descriptors are added. The standard Descriptors are Grizzled, Laconic, Slick, Trailblazing, Trigger-Happy, Unforgiving, and Wily, whilst the Species Descriptors are Forgeborn and Risen. The Forgeborn is a figure of metal, reanimated flesh, or similar, often constructed by alchemists as guards, but since been emancipated or lost the desire to keep the alchemist safe. The Forgeborn is tough, but slow, hard to damage, but difficult to repair and knows its own kind well. The Risen has returned from the grave, bearing the sigil of a demon, tougher and able to comeback from the dead again, though not as supple and animals hate him.

Similarly, High Noon at Midnight provides new Foci as well as suggesting those suitable from the Cypher System. The new ones consist of ‘Blazes Paths’ (in the wilderness), ‘Collects Bounties’, ‘Gambles it All Away’, ‘Hits the Saloon’, ‘Rides Like the Wind’, ‘Spits Fire and Lead’, and ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’. ‘Spits Fire and Lead’ combines a love of fire (and possibly brimstone) with gunfighting, whilst with ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’, the Player Character has a supernatural connection to venomous snakes and applies that to his unarmed combat.

There is a full list of equipment in High Noon at Midnight, but more importantly it explains how Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the Weird West genre of High Noon at Midnight. In this setting, there is no one way to handle Cyphers, but it depends how weird the Weird West that the Game Master wants to create and run actually is. Cyphers can either be Subtle, perhaps good fortune, inspiration, an occult or alien concept, a blessing, an ear worm, or the like, or Manifest, such as an alchemical potion, a clockwork device, a demonic scroll, and so on. A Weird West setting can use one or the other or a mix, and it is suggested that there is a geographical limit of Cyphers, Manifest Cyphers being harder to find in more remote locations rather than civilised ones. It also adds Power Words for one of the settings in the supplement as a memetic means of presenting Cyphers both Subtle and Manifest, and describes a range of different Cyphers, including a wide range of alchemical rounds and slugs, and Weird West Artifacts, such as the ‘Deck of Second Chances’, ‘Demon Pistol’, ‘Philosopher Gun’, and ‘Shadow Duster’. In fact, there are more Weird West Artifacts given than there are new Cyphers.

High Noon at Midnight details one setting, ‘The Ghost Range’. This is a Weird West setting, but not a historical one. Magic pervades The Ghost Range and demons, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures stalk its Badlands and beyond, whilst Dustfalls occur at night and can be predicted with some accuracy according to the almanacs owned by certain alchemists. Such Dustfalls are of Stardust, sometimes used as currency, but is mostly used by alchemists in their concoctions and designs. Where exactly Stardust originates and what it is, is the subject of much speculation, but prospectors go out of a night in search of it, knowing that its presence keeps demons away, though there is the danger of becoming mesmerised in an active Dustfall. In millennia past, two mysterious races, the Ilu and the Nihilal, warred with each other, and the Ilu left behind hollow cavities in the earth containing strange devices, weapons of war, and even prisoners still held captive. These are known as ‘Proscribed Zones’, and whilst access to them is not strictly prohibited, the indigenous peoples who on the range and beyond, even on the Moon, advise against it.

Midnight is the only city on the Ghost Range, notably home to the Trail’s End Cantina, where demons, vampires, and other supernatural creatures can be seen as long as they adhere to the Ghost Accords, which keeps them from being attacked. The city is nicely detailed as are the Outer Range and Otherlands which lie beyond its outskirts. In the latter can be found the Moon upon which can be seen a tribe of natives living there and the town of Perdition, populated by demons hiding behind a façade and which stands on Hell’s doorstep. Worse is the Tomb Moon, which rarely shares the same sky and never the same orbit, its appearance sparking off an outbreak of undead activity.

‘The Ghost Range’ setting is further supported by three full scenarios and two Cypher Shorts. They include being formed into a posse and investigating a shootout outside the premises of Midnight’s preeminent alchemist and following the trail out of the city in search of the outlaws responsible; getting involved in a poker tournament at the Trail’s End Cantina and investigating a treasure map; and even travel to the Tomb Moon to prevent a notorious warlock from bringing about the end of the world! The two Cypher Shorts are within the genre, but more generic in nature, though they could easily be used in ‘The Ghost Range’. One sees an undead outlaw return from the grave for revenge against the Player Characters, whilst the other casts the Player Characters as outlaws attempting to rob a train. Both Cypher Shorts could also be run as one-shots or even demonstration scenarios.

Overall, ‘The Ghost Range’ provides High Noon at Midnight with a detailed example of a non-historical Weird West setting. It is an intriguingly different setting that enables the exploration of the genre without of the potential controversies of a more historically based setting. Now whilst ‘The Ghost Range’ setting is well supported with plenty of detail and three decent scenarios, it does mean that there is no space given to other possible settings, so that High Noon at Midnight does not fully showcase the genre with examples as fully as it could have done. This does not mean that it does not suggest other possibilities, in fact, it suggests a lot of them through its many tables of prompts and ideas, but it does not develop them. As a consequence, High Noon at Midnight explores some of the genres associated with the Weird West genre better than others. These are horror and magic, both closely associated with the Weird West genre, whereas steampunk, Science Fiction, time travel, and so on, do not get as much attention. Although ‘The Ghost Range’ is done well, this is nevertheless disappointing and it would be interesting to see these other associated genres given their due in an anthology of settings for the Weird West.

Physically, High Noon at Midnight is very well presented. It is also well written and the artwork and cartography are both excellent.

High Noon at Midnight does showcase the potential of its genre in a well realised and supported setting in the form of ‘The Ghost Range’, but not quite as fully as it could have done. Nevertheless, High Noon at Midnight is a solid introduction to the Weird West genre and its potential with lots and lots of ideas.

Year 1873

The year is 1873. Ulysses S. Grant begins his second term as President of the United States. There is no let up in the Indian Wars on the new American frontier as barbed wire, denim jeans, and the 1873 model Winchester rifle, ‘The Gun That Won the West’, are all invented. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the Sioux and P.T. Barnum’s circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, debuts in New York City. The wounds of the Civil War remain and in the wake of the economic crisis that followed, an ever growing number of people have fled west into the newly American territories of Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, along with parts of New Mexico and Colorado, looking to find new lives for themselves in what were once part of Mexico. Settlers, prospectors, miners, cattlemen and herders, businessmen and women, farmers, outlaws and lawmen, all seeking their fortune one way or another in the new lands. There they bring strife and they find strife, with each other and with the peoples already there, which includes the Native Americans and the Hispanics. Greed and prejudice still drive some men. Others want to avoid such concerns and to live a good life, to make a good life for their families and for others, and to protect themselves and their homes.

The American frontier of 1873 is the setting for Tales of the Old West. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign and published by Effekt, this is a roleplaying game which returns to old genre, that of ‘Cowboys & Indians’, combining a mature approach to both the subject matter and the history with the application of the Year Zero engine. This means that it uses the same mechanics first seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, all roleplaying games published by Free League Publishing. It also means that it has a familiar mechanical structure and design. It uses six-sided dice—here of two colours, one for Trouble dice and the other for standard dice—with the aim being to roll a single six as a success. Each Player Character has an Archetype, an Age which determines the points to be assigned to the four Attributes and Abilities, which is what Tales of the Old West calls skills (a younger Player Character have higher Attributes and lower Abilities, older have lower Attributes and higher Abilities), one or more Talents derived from the Archetype (there are other generic Talents available when a Player Character gains experience), a Faith or belief that sums up their outlook on life, a Dream which will drive the Player Character to act, and together with other Player Characters, a town or settlement where they live and which they try to improve. Each Player Character will also have Relationships with his fellow Player Characters, one of whom he will regard as his Pardner. Talents, Relationships, and Faiths are all suggested by the Archetypes. Then, Tales of the Old West has a set of community rules which first see the Player Characters invest in a business and then in the long term, are used track the growth and prosperity of the town or settlement where the Player Characters live. As the seasons pass, the town provides hooks and opportunities for adventure and roleplaying and can be used to drive the ongoing campaign forward.

A Player Character in Tales of the Old West has four attributes—Grit, Quick, Cunning, and Docity. Of these, Docity is the ability of a character to learn. He has an Archetype, of which there are ten. These are Gentlefolk, Grifter, Homesteader, Labourer, Lawman, Outlaw, Prospector, Ranch Hand, Tracker, and Trader. Some of these are quite broad. So, Gentlefolk includes artists, journalists, teacher, entertainers, politicians, and so on, whilst Grifter covers swindlers, cardsharps, thieves, and the like. The Archetype sets the base value for attributes and skills, and provides options in terms of Talents, Dream, and Faith. For example, the Prospector suggests the Talents of Brawler, Engineer, Guard Dog, and Herbalist, whilst his Dream might be ‘“There’s gold to be found in them thar hills” and it’s all going to be yours’ or ‘The railroad will build a new civilisation in the west, and you will be the architect’, and his Faith, ‘God’s design is all around me, and he has a design for my fate too’ or ‘The Strength of the land itself keeps me on my feet.’ Faith need not be religious faith—although religious, Christian faith, prevailed during this period and often drove the expansion west, but can instead be a firmly held belief.

Tales of the Old West provides two means to create a Player Character. In the quick method, a player selects an Archetype and modifies it according to the age—Greenhorn, Tested, and Old-Timer—of the Player Character. He then selects one or more Talents, according to age, and then a Faith and a Dream, chooses some equipment. Lastly, he decides on the Relationships his Player Character has with the others.

Name: Virgil Bruce

Archetype: Trader

Age: Greenhorn

Grit: 04 Labour 1 Presence 1 Fightin’ 0 Resilience 0

Quick: 03 Move 0 Operate 0 Shootin’ 0 Light-Fingered 0

Cunning: 04 Hawkeye 0 Nature 0 Insight 2 Animal Handlin’ 0

Docity: 04 Performin’ 2 Makin’ 2 Doctorin’ 0 Booklearnin’ 2

Talents

Lawyer

Big Dream

‘Where there is opportunity, so comes law, and by the Lord this town needs a judge in good standing—that will be you.’

Faith (4)

‘Money talks. Always has, always will.’

Gear

$45

Ounce of gold

Roper repeating shotgun and D6 rounds

The other method is to use the Lifepath system included in Tales of the Old West. This provides a more detailed Player Character, determining where he comes from and what his family is like, and then what he has done. This is how he has made his Living, up to three times, depending upon his age. This provides far more flavour and detail.

Name: Deborah Leung

Archetype: Trader

Age: Tested

Place of Birth: China

Upbringing: “You come from an old sea-faring family. It is said your forefathers traded across the Pacific long before the Europeans discovered that coast. If it’s true, it made them rich. Gain +1 point of Capital.”

What Of The Family You Left Behind?: “Your family was big until the curse. Death, madness, and foolishness reduced them all to ruins, and you had no choice to leave those who still survived behind.”

Livings: Frontier Folk (‘You used to come into town just to sell your furs. But it’s warmer to sit and sell those furs. So now you sell clothes for the discerning outdoorsman. Make your next Living roll on the Trader Living Outcome Table.’)

Trader (‘You make the most of the influx of single men coming to the town by advertising “employment opportunities for young women” back east. Your successful bordello earns you the respect of a town elder. Make your next Living Roll on the Gentlefolk Living Outcome Table.’)

Grit: 04 Labour 0 Presence 4 Fightin’ 2 Resilience 1

Quick: 02 Move 0 Operate 0 Shootin’ 0 Light-Fingered 0

Cunning: 04 Hawkeye 2 Nature 0 Insight 3 Animal Handlin’ 0

Docity: 04 Performin’ 4 Makin’ 3 Doctorin’ 0 Booklearnin’ 1

Talents

Knife Fighter

Charming

Big Dream

‘Where there is opportunity, there is a woman. I will make my way to respectability in this town and beyond.’

Faith (4)

‘Money talks. Always has, always will.’

Gear

Knife

Outfit: Store with 1 Capital

Outfit: Salon with 1D3 Capital

Capital: 1

Harford Coach Gun & 2D6 Cartridges

$28

Mechanically, Tales of the Old West uses the Year Zero engine. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to a combination of Attribute and Ability. The pool of dice consists of ‘Trouble’ dice and standard dice. There will always be ‘Trouble’ dice in the dice pool, up to five. A single roll of a six on either die type indicates a success. Multiple successes improve the outcome and allow the Player Character to perform stunts. In combat, these might be to inflict extra damage or inflict a critical injury, but for other Abilities, Stunts include giving a bonus on subsequent rolls, completing a task quicker, impressing someone, and so on. If no sixes are rolled, the action fails. If ones are rolled on the ‘Trouble’ dice, these have no effect unless the player decides to ‘push’ the roll. This enables him to reroll any dice that did not roll a one or a six. However, if there are any ones remaining after the roll has been pushed, even if the Player Character has succeeded, they trigger a check on the ‘Trouble Outcome Table’. There is a ‘Trouble Outcome Table’ for conflict and physical situations and for social and mental situations. The effects vary depending how many ones have been rolled.

For example, if a Player Character has generated three ones in a conflict, the outcome might be “You’re shaken and shocked. For the rest of the scene, you suffer -2 to all rolls using the ability that suffered the Trouble” or “Your gun explodes, your weapon breaks and slices into you, or your blow catches something sharp. You suffer a 6 dice attack, either with Damage and Critical rating of your weapon or Damage 1, Crit 1.” The roll can have a straightforward outcome, but it can also escalate from one column to the next if a player rolls high enough.

Pushing a roll costs a Player Character a point of Faith, of which he has four at the start of every scenario, and ideally, the reason for Pushing a roll should tie in with the Player Character’s Faith statement. Faith can also be spent to buy off Trouble dice showing a one. It is better to do this before a roll is pushed as it still allows the dice to be rolled as part of the Push attempt, but negates the dice if done after the Pushed roll. Faith can be recovered for making good rolls without Pushing, or for undertaking actions such as a Player Character saving his Pardner, praying, or taking revenge, and for performing rituals like cleaning a weapon, grooming a horse, going to church, and so on. Faith can be lost, though this is a roleplaying choice rather than a mechanical one.

Conflict in Tales of the Old West uses the same core mechanics. Initiative is determined by drawing cards from a deck of ordinary playing cards, whilst in combat, a Player Character can act twice per round. This is either a fast action and a slow action, or two fast actions. A Slow Action might be ‘Shoot’, ‘Melee Attack’, and ‘Mount’, whilst a ‘Fast Action might be ‘Quick Shot’, ‘Aim’, and ‘Draw Weapon’. The rules cover brawling, the use of the lasso, as well as gunfights, including, of course, duels. As expected, duels are a step-by-step process, beginning with the face-off and then going through the draw and the shoot-off to see who is left standing. Other combat rules cover fanning, overwatch, cover, and ammunition. All weapons inflict a minimum amount of damage, applied directly to the defender’s Attributes. Damage done to Grit is called Hurts, if to Quick it is Shakes, to Cunning it is Vexes, and to Docity, it is Doubts. If reduced to zero, an Attribute is Broken. However, if the number of Successes rolled on an attack equal the Crit Rating of the weapon used, then a critical attack has been made. Critical hits are inflicted if either Grit or Quick is Broken. Overall, combat is fairly quick and brutal. Weapons are quite detailed and include a variety of historical models, noting in particular the difference between single action and double action pistols, the former being slower, but lighter and more accurate, the latter being heavier, but faster.

So far, so good. Tales of the Old West can do all of the things that you expect of a Wild West roleplaying game. Duels, gambling, chases, cattle rustling, bank robberies, and more. However, where it really begins to shine is in its support and capacity for long term play. This can start during Player Character creation with the players deciding upon a group concept. Suggestions include lawmen and bounty hunters, outlaws, ranchers, farmers, business owners, vaqueros & cowboys, and mountain folk. Selecting a concept suggests the type of campaign that the players want to roleplay as well as granting their players bonuses in terms of equipment and money. Whatever the campaign concept, what Tales of the Old West really encourages the players and their characters to do is to earn sufficient dollars to make enough Capital, which can then be invested in a business. This can then generate further monies to make more Capital and so on. This gives both the players and their characters a personal attachment to the town. Alongside this, with the Turn of the Season, as well as potentially, from scenarios, the players earn Settlement Points, which can also be invested in the town. The progress and growth of the town itself is tracked in six ratings—Farming, Mercantile, Natural Riches, Law, Civic, and Welfare. The Settlement Points are spent on amenities that will adjust the various ratings. For example, holding a Season Fair will increase Farming and Mercantile both by one, Civic by two, but reduce Law by one. The combination of town prosperity, the Player Characters’ business outcome, a personal fortune roll, and the amenities added with the expenditure of Settlement Points, and what the Game Master has is a set of prompts around which she can design adventures, roleplaying opportunities, and themes. However, whilst a town can grow and prosper, it can also decline and fail, as can a Player Character’s business, the latter especially if the Player Character gets into debt, whether through gambling or other causes.

This is supported by a discussion of possible themes for a campaign and fifteen detailed story seeds. In terms of setting, Tales of the Old West provides an overview of the Wild West and its frontier, but focuses very much on the New Mexico territory, presenting a description and a history as well as a campaign framework set in the southwest of the territory. This is ‘The King of Santa Fe’. Set across three fictional towns, it focuses on the machinations and corruption in the Santa Fe Ring, the cadre of politicians and businessmen which dominate the corrupt politics of the territory and circle the governor, Marsh Giddings. All three towns are described, including the mining and lumber town of  Steaming Rock, the hunting town of Carson’s Folly, and ranching and mining town of Jornada Springs. All three towns include descriptions of its most notable citizens, and come with several campaign adventure outlines, two of which are the campaign starters and the campaign finishers. This is in addition to the descriptions of the territory’s major towns of cities of Albuquerque, Lincoln, Silver City, and even Las Vegas. Rounding out the support is a starting scenario, ‘Patience is a Virtue’.

In terms of tone, Tales of the Old West advises player and Game Master alike that the American West of the period is challenging in terms of both history and roleplaying, given the social attitudes of the period. It addresses in turn the status of women, Native Americans, the Hispanics, Chinese, and African Americans, clearly stating that participants should be respectful of the history and the diversity of the various peoples living in the setting it depicts, acknowledging the prejudices of the period, rather than embracing or revelling in them.

Physically, Tales of the Old West is a buff-coloured hardback with spots of muted colour that echoes classic depictions of the Old West. It is well written, easy to read, and a good looking book.

Respectful of the history, Tales of the Old West gives players and Game Masters alike the means to run and play more than a black and white, Cowboys & Indians game, a detailed, roleplaying campaign where the Player Characters are part of a community and building a better place. Modern, accessible, and playable, without being overly complex, Tales of the Old West is a thoroughly engaging and earnest treatment of the Old West.

Miskatonic Monday #360: Buffalo Bill & the Southsea Horror

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Buffalo Bill & the Southsea Horror

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: C.M. Arnold

Setting: Ewardian Portsmouth

Product: Scenario for Cthulhu by Gaslight and Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West
What You Get: Fifty page, 13.33 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Cowboys & Indians & Rhinoceroses, oh my!”

Plot Hook: Why is patronage in Portsmouth so poor?

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, no NPCs with stats, eight handouts, one map, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Adequate

Pros

# Marvelous sense of period parochialism

# Nice period handouts

# Culminates in a Wild West Shoggoth Showdown (hoedown?)

# Possible sequel to Pilgrim’s Hope?

# Zoophobia

# Megalophobia

# Plokámiphobia

Cons

# No Investigator backgrounds
# Needs an edit

Conclusion

# Cowboys & Indians & a Cthulhu Confection, OH BOY!

# Short, single session period piece

Miskatonic Monday #347: The Demon of the Deep Leads

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: The Demon of the Deep Leads

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author David Waldron

Setting: Ballarat, 1854

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty-three page, 21.49 MB PDF

Elevator Pitch: The Blue Mountains panther hunts by night

Plot Hook: Hunt for a missing man in time of chaos
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, two maps, four NPCs, one non-Mythos monster, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Reasonable.

Pros

# Combines Cthulhu by Gaslight and Call of Cthulhu: Darker Trails, but in Australia!

# Engaging historically based scenario

# Solid interaction investigation

# Straightforward, uncomplicated

# Can be run as a non-Mythos horror scenario

# Ailurophobia

# Teratophobia

# Amychophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit

# No pre-generated Investigator backgrounds

# Underwritten introduction

Conclusion

# Uncomplicated scenario against a chaotic background

# Engaging sense of history combined with an urban legend

The Other OSR: Omega City

In the far future of broken landscapes, stretched landscapes, and lost landscapes there is often only the appearance of the Gunslinger and the power of his Gun to bring order to the mouldering settlements and ruins of the uncertain past, to drive back the strange creatures, lurking, ready to pounce and rend the unwary, and to stop the ambitious and the foolish attracted to the power of magic which threatens what remains. The Gunslinger is a wanderer, a member of a brotherly order, arriving unbidden one day, dispensing justice and order, stopping the monster, perhaps engendering a little hope, all before finding the next Slip Door and the next world. Their peripatetic existence is the only constant and perhaps the only certainty they know. This is the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in a post-apocalyptic dark and weird west that combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is the first supplement for We Deal in Lead and presents something very different, almost a point of permanence, even though, like much of the Drifted World, it is subject to decay and decline. It arose out of the Dungeon23 challenge, the aim of which was to design a mega dungeon in one year, one room per day, over twelve levels. Each day creators would add something to their dungeons, but creators also switched format, one of which was ‘City23’. Omega City was born of this switch, a city inspired by two things. One was the city of Lud from The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, part of the series that inspired we We Deal in Lead, and the other was the author’s home city of Edmonton, Canada. This being the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, the universe is still breaking down and so this supplement mixes more than it matches its various locations, drawing on a wide variety of locations, situations, and creatures from different time periods and genres. In this instance, the actual setting and its disparate nature means that the designer had more freedom of design than his counterparts working on a more traditional Dungeon23 creation.

Omega City does not so much detail individual locations within a city, but provide small regions—a total of twelve—each with five or six buildings, locations, and landmarks. These are presented over a two-page spread, with the places listed on the left-hand page and a corresponding map on the opposite side. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. For example, Region 9 has five locations, a ‘Shanty Town’, a ‘Cracked Riverbed’, a ‘Lumber Mill’, a ‘Colossal Skeleton’, and a ‘Writhing Mass Grave’. The Shanty Town is described as a “Collection of lost souls and broken travellers”, being home to “Residents from different worlds and times, the languages spoken number in thousands”, and the inhabitants suffer as “More and more victims vanish each night, lost to the red claws in the sands”. Meanwhile, the Lumber Mill is “Overgrown with pungent thorns that ooze vicious orange liquid”, as “Flies swarm constantly, adding to the ooze”, and “Great grey swarms cover the dead trees of the nearby woods”. All of the entries are like this, a clash of the old and new, of the ordinary and the outré.

However, amidst the ‘Burned Out gas Station’, ‘Pitted Gibbet’, ‘Spiral Slough’, ‘Corpse-Corrupted Reservoir’, ‘Flesh-Warping Runoff Pond’, and ‘Partially Phased Office Building’, there is no room for the individual. There are groups of people, such as at the ‘Shanty Town’, but no individuals, and also no hooks. The individual descriptions are intriguing, but possibly not quite enough to get the Gunslingers to investigate every case. Also, ‘Omega City’ itself does not have an overview or broad description. To be fair, both are due to the intermittent nature of the creation process involved in Dungeon23, the creator coming back to the process day-by-day rather than sitting down and working at it. On the other hand, this nature means that lack of connections between locations means that the Warden—as the Game Master is known in We Deal in Lead—can pull them out and insert them into her own content as much as she can develop her own hooks to them.

Physically, Omega City is not yet fully formed. Only an Ashcan version is available. It is handwritten and not always easy to read, whilst the map, though serviceable, are rough. The writing though, is by intent short and punchy, often spurring more questions than answers.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is by its very nature rough and ready, but it does present some sixty or more locations that present mouldering mysteries and decaying dangers in a minimalist fashion that the Warden can use and interpret as is her wont. In this way, Omega City – Ashcan Edition can serve as a series of prompts for the Warden’s own city or prompts for her own version of ‘Omega City’.