[Fanzine Focus XLI] LOWBORN Issue 3

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue 3 was published in November, 2020. It dives straight in with ‘The Spiral of Stress: An Alternative System for handling Disorders.’ Written by Irene D. B., it presents a different way of tackling the effects of shock and fear, avoiding the potential stigmatisation of mental health issues that more traditional rules systems do not always avoid. It even goes as far as using the Disorders section on the Zweihänder character sheet. Essentially, as a Player Character accumulates Chaos Ranks, his ‘Spiral of Stress’ also increases. When his ‘Spiral of Stress’ exceeds his Will Bonus, the Player Character is forced to retire. In between that, he will also gain general penalties to all of his actions. The suggested means of reducing a Player Character’s ‘Spiral of Stress’ is to go on a Personal Quest, which leads to interesting roleplaying and storytelling possibilities. The opening article is quick and dirty and could easy have been expanded to give some actual examples and perhaps to better explore the positive and (hopefully not) negative effects of undertaking a Personal Quest. This is interesting and useful where the fanzine’s regular cartoon, ‘Those Two Orx’ fails to do anything except take up space. Honestly, it if had to be kept, it could have been halved in size to double the humour, or if not, simply dropped and nobody would miss it.

Peter Rudin-Burgess’ ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ suggests another pair of alternative rules to handle the drama of play in a broad rather than a specific sense. The first is the sue of drama dice. Essentially, using a die to track the progress of the Player Characters’ failures and when the die number reaches a particular threshold, an alarm of some kind is triggered. The second is dice pools, the more challenging the situation, the fewer the number of six-sided dice in the pool. When a failure is rolled, the dice pool is rolled and any six rolled means that a die is removed from the pool. When it is emptied, the alarm is triggered. These are both quite serviceable, offering an alternative to the countdown clock device found in other roleplaying games and in the case of the dice pools, randomising it a little.

Later in the issue, Irene D. B. offers her own development of this with ‘Chaos Overclocked’. This is to roll percentile dice when the six face is revealed and an alarm is triggered, but instead of it being triggered, the Game Master rolls to see if its triggered. It is a counterpoint to the certainty of the alarm being triggered when the six face is revealed, but this really, is a boxed text for the first article given its own article, which seems unnecessary. Plus, ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ already provides a perfectly good random means of triggering an alarm or other effect with the dice pool idea.

The feature of the issue is ‘Cytoplasm’. This is a scenario by Ignacio M, a locked room mystery in which the Player Characters wake up to find themselves in the attic of a house which as they explore, they will find out that they are trapped. Designed as one-shot, but it could easily be added to any campaign, the Player Characters have to explore the house, examine its furniture and fittings, search for secret doors, and find clues as to where they are, what is going on, and how they get out. This is nicely detailed puzzle box of a scenario that includes decent floorplans of the house and good descriptions of each location. Although they do not know it initially, the Player Characters are up against the clock as the thing trapping them inside attempts to squeeze itself in through whatever gaps it can find. Fortunately, there are multiple ways of getting out if the Player Characters can find them or solve the puzzle. The scenario is let down by the fact that none of the rooms are marked with numbers to link them to their descriptions in the text, so it is just slightly more difficult to run than it should be. Anyway, good puzzle box adventure than relies on brains rather than brawn.

Irene D. B.’s ‘Perilous Tactics: The Death Hedge’ is the first in a series of article that examine the combat tactics for various creatures from the bestiary from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook. It breaks down and analyses the stats for the Death Hedge, an immobile, sweet-smelling rose bush, mutated by the Aether Winds into a deadly ambush predator. The author manages to get two tightly packed pages of material out of this one twisted plant, which surprising given that it only has the one attack, its flailing, thorny branches, does not tend to attack humanoids, and is otherwise, mindless. It is exhaustively overwritten and really could have done with advice on how to use it in a scenario as much as in combat. There are hints throughout, but really, this series could have better launched with an entry from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook that actually does use tactics and would be more of an interesting opponent than a flailing bush.

With ‘Elementalist Professions (Element Bending)’, Lilith Grishaw presents several Professions from her Homebrew Setting of Andelos. In the setting the Elementalist is an innate magic user who learns to harness control of abilities connected to a particular element— Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. Over time they can go on to embody their connected element as a Master of the Element, but their training also includes some martial skills too otherwise they would be vulnerable on the battlefield. As they further specialise, they become either a Master of Metal for an earth elementalist, a Moon Warrior for water elementalist, a Nomad of an air elementalist, or a Phoenix Lord for a fire elementalist. The article explores both the benefits and demands for each path and there is a lot to work with if the Game Master and her players want to have a combination of specialist spellcaster-warrior in their campaign. Further, despite it being taken from a specific setting, there is nothing to impede the Game Master adapting to her own campaign.

‘Grim & Perilous Mass Combat’ by A.R. Kavli gives rules for handling mass combat in Zweihänder, expanding upon a simple contested Warfare skill roll. It requires a small amount of effort setting up, considering scale, goals, the nature of the units and their Warfare values, and more, most notably the number of Success Levels required by each side in order to win. Exceptionally good and exceptionally bad rolls also necessitate a roll on the ‘Tides of War’ table that gives some random event. The Game Master is encouraged to narrate the outcome of any battle just as she would any individual brawl or skirmish, but the ‘Tides of War’ table gives a long list of options that will make the mass combat memorable.

Chuck Kranz’s ‘Random Sewer Encounters’ starts of silly with “Youthful sewer dwelling terrapin creatures” and “A rat-like master” and strays very far from that. The last quarter of Lowborn Issue 3 is devoted to ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ by A.R. Kavli which takes Zweihänder not back to its historical roots so much as the historical roots of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It is an exhaustive list of the Catholic, Protestant, and Pagan saints found in the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire amidst the Thirty Years War. There is guidance on how to proclaim a saint and petition a saint, and a a list of over one-hundred-and-twenty-five saints! The idea is that every Player Characters will have been dedicated to a saint at birth, but gains no bonus from doing so. However, by attuning himself to a saint, a Player Character can petition his saint to gain Fortune Points. These can go into a group pool shared by all of the Player Characters or be linked to a particular attribute favoured by the saint, or the Player Character might have to petition directly for a boon or blessing. All this requires a roll using the Folklore Skill Focus for the saint. Every one of the saints is associated with a feast day, a Fortune Point-linked attribute or skill, and what saintly gift the saint might grant. For example, Reinold is the Patron of stonemasons, a monk placed in charge constructing an abbey at Köln, but murdered by jealous stonemasons. His feast day is January 7th and he grants Fortune Points via the Tradecraft skill, as well as the gift of being able to “Flip to Succeed all Scrutiny tests to find hidden passages, traps, or other mechanical secrets for 24 hours.” There is a delightful variety to the range of saints and their gifts listed and this could easily be ported into a Zweihänder that does not have the ties to the Thirty Year War. The likelihood is that almost no-one would notice, but if they do, it would only be a matter of changing a few names to make the list fit the campaign world. Overall, a very nicely researched article that will add to the background of any campaign as well as the individual Player Characters.

Physically, Lowborn Issue 3 is decently presented. The layout is tight in palces, but the artwork is decent.

Lowborn Issue 3 is solid support for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG. In particular, the scenario, ‘Cytoplasm’, is a testing puzzle box, whilst ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ can be used as is or as a model for the Game Master’s own campaign. Either way, it can add further depth and detail to a campaign and make it more interesting.

[Fanzine Focus XL] LOWBORN Issue 2

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue 2 was published in August, 2020. The content begins with with ‘The Dark Order’ by Peter Rudin-Burgess. This is a scenario set in the chancery of Edessa, below the city of Outremer. This is a murder mystery set below the city where single-sex work gangs labour at feeding the great steam turbines. Gang Master Zangi leads a gang of twenty-four free women who, in turn, drive sixty female mutant slaves, all loading city waste into the furnaces. Gang Master Zangi has disappeared, but now her skull has been raked out of Number 2 furnace. Shortly after, a new gang leader is appointed, and then it happens again when another gang master is found boiled alive and a new gang member is also appointed. This is followed by the murder of a bar owner and then another gang master. The scenario is presented with a lot of set-up up front and then followed by the plot hooks and the various genres in which the scenario might be used on. The scenario needs a lot of work to run effectively with clues to connect the murders to the culprits and it is also only halfway through the scenario is it mentioned that it is for Dark Astral: Chapbook for ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG, the Science Fiction equivalent setting for the ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. It is mentioned on the cover, though. The map of the lair is by Dyson Logos, so good.

‘New Distinguishing Marks’ by Adrian Kennelly is literally that, a table of entries like ‘No chin’ or ‘Unbending knee’. Chuck Kranz’s ‘Random Space Encounters’ provides twelve encounters, again for Dark Astral: Chapbook for ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. For example, ‘Just like in the TV shows.’ expands to ‘A tear in space erupts of the port barely out of manoeuvring range, but a strong magnetic pull of the anomaly pulls your ship in. A voice in your head echoes, “I have such wonderful sights to show you.” The darkness takes you after being dragged through the event horizon. When you come to your ships nav-computers are not able to gain bearing on where you are… or when you are.” These are fine and again something that the Game Master will need to develop.

It is not quite clear what Sean Van Damme’s ‘Introduction to Assassinations’ quite is, initially, but what it turns out to be is a means of introducing options for the budding assassin. The Claw of Retribution is the largest guild of assassins in the great city and puts up notices on a board at the West Wind Pub, where the guild previously operated from, of small jobs, or rather, assassinations of minor folk that it has been hired to do. Its members can perform them, but it lets prospective members undertake them as a test. There are thirteen such tasks, not always hits or deaths, such as burning down a distillery that is not guild affiliated or forcing a member of the faith to stop preaching in the docks. The Game Master will need to develop the hooks, but there are some fun options here that will support a grittier, dirtier style of play for thug and thief type characters.

‘Order And Corruption: Purity Points’ by Lyle Hayhurst gives an extension to the Corruption Points of ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. Corruption Points are gained for immoral acts, giving in to personal weakness, and even being injured, and will potentially force a Player Character down a dark path. This article suggests another path that a Player Character can go up. By committing acts of goodness, being tolerant of those different to himself, protecting the innocent, giving to the poor, being merciful to a villain, and more, a Player Character can gain Purity Points. Like gaining Disorders for Corruption Points, he can gain Blessings for accruing enough Purity Points like becoming a ‘Friend of Animals’ or gaining a ‘Inner Glow’ of Purity. The article suggests that a Player Character can earn both Corruption Points and Purity Points and need to be tracked, and what this does is add some flexibility and complexity to the play and reward a player for good roleplaying whatever his character’s action.

Ignacio M. writes three entries in the issue. The first, ‘Learning from Different Arcanas’, suggests a way in which an Arcane Magick user can cast magick from a Wind other than his own. For each symbol that Player Character has to pass through to get between his Wind he has studied and the one he wants to cast from, there is a penalty to the Incantation test and if the Channelling test is failed, then extra Chaos dice has to be rolled. The rule is quick and simple and potentially dirty if thing goes wrong! He also suggests ‘New Combat Actions’ with ‘Oh No You Don’t’ which enables a Player Character to study the ebb and flow of the battle and interrupt the action of a foe; ‘Goad and Deter’ to slow a foe’s action down; and ‘Leave It Open’, in which he tricks a foe to gain a bonus on his next attack. These are decent additions.

Lastly, ‘Carnival II’ continues the description of a magical carnival—a common trope in roleplaying games inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay such as Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG—begin in Lowborn Issue 1. However, unlike in many cases what lies behind the magic in the carnival is not necessarily dark or dangerous, but that rather its various members are all anthropomorphic animals. They include a middle-aged anthro-rabbit who controls his perfect puppets though his voice alone and Priscilla, middle-aged anthro-hedgehog who is also a very skilled physician, alchemist, and herbalist, and exotic dancers that somehow entice audience to buy the overpriced drinks at their show. The latter is perhaps the only real danger in the carnival, but others might see it differently and act accordingly. This adds another three tents and their occupants to add to the three previously described, so there is yet room for expansion. If there is an issue for the article, it is the inclusion of the anthropomorphic NPCs and whether that fits a Game Master’s campaign. She, of course, has the right to change such details and the various NPCs could be hiding something else instead. Bar some scenario ideas or hooks, ‘Carnival’ offers an intriguing and different type of circus, one with plenty of room for expansion and development.

Physically, Lowborn Issue 2 is a bit untidy and rough around the edges, plus it needs a slight edit. The layout is also a little tight in places.

Lowborn Issue 2 is a mixed bag with some content more useful and more interesting than others. ‘Introduction to Assassinations’ is packed with great hooks for a bruising lowlife campaign and like ‘Order And Corruption: Purity Points’, has plenty of roleplaying potential. Elsewhere, several of the articles are rough and could be clearer in their set-up, let alone their execution.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVII] LOWBORN Issue I

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue I was published in April, 2020. The content begins with a handful of small articles. They include ‘New Doomings’ by Adrian Kennelly. These are ways in which a Player Character might die in Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG. There are four tables here, one for each season, and they offer alternatives to those list in the core rulebook. ‘Those Two Orx’ is the regular cartoon rather than cartoon strip, but at a whole page, it is taking up space that could have been put to better use, especially given the desperation of the humour. Ingacio M.’s ‘Reaction Spells’ provides a handful of spells that are variants of several Generalist Spells. For an Action Point, they can be cast as a reaction and require a spellcaster to know the original spell and then expend Experience Points to learn these ones. They include Cack-Handed Grasp, triggered when someone moves towards the caster and makes the floor in front of the caster slippery enough that the person approaching the caster might fall over and Magick Missile, triggered when someone runs away, which stuns that person, though it does not work in darkness. This is a solid section of spells, all nicely detailed, which can easily be added to a campaign.

Ingacio M. is also the author of ‘100 One Attribute NPCs’. This is not a second set of tables, but rather one table providing the very minimum of details of one hundred NPCs, including

name, archetype, attribute (value), ancestry, age group, complexion, build, and social class, and divided equally between male and female. The Game Master only has to roll once to have an NPC with a few details ready to roleplay without her having to decide a bunch of details on the spot. Or, of course, the Game Master choose one or even roll for each category to add further flexibility—if she has time. Overall, useful.

‘One Roll Combat’ by Petter Rudin-Burgess offers two things. One is an analysis of three different types of combat in roleplaying games and the other is an alternative to the complexity of combat in Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG. In turn, the author looks at Dungeons & Dragons with its use of Hit Points as a measure of combat skill rather than fortitude or endurance, the simulationist nature of combat in Rolemaster, and the slightly more abstracted nature of combat in Zweihänder. What it highlights at the end of this is the length of time that these differing means of handling combat can take. What the author suggests as an alternative in shorter or smaller combat scenes where the action does not need to play out blow by blow, is to have the player describe what he wants his character to do, the Game Master assess and set the difficulty, and then the player roll, adjusting the result with Fate and Fortune points as necessary. The outcome of the roll determines the narrative. Perhaps a little overwritten, this is nevertheless, a useful suggestion that is worth a Zweihänder Game Master taking the time to look at.

‘The Bailiff of the Problem’ is the first of two scenarios in Lowborn Issue I. Written by Sean Van Damme, it is a short murder mystery that can be prepared and played in a single session. Although it is suggested that the Game Master use the Villagers & Villains – 40 NPCs From Humble to Heroic, it is not absolutely necessary. All that is necessary, is that the Player Characters be in their Basic professions. It starts with the Player Characters having been hired by a magistrate to locate a tax collector who has gone missing whilst collecting taxes from the tiny community of Labarn. On the road to the village, they discover the tax collector’s body which has suffered some odd injuries. The scenario really consists of an investigation in Labarn, centred on interviews with several of the inhabitants. Like a classic murder mystery, they all had reason to hate the dead man. There may be a little combat involved, but this is mainly an interactive and roleplaying scenario. It is quite detailed despite its brevity and so should not be too taxing for the players and their characters to solve. It is also left up to them to decide how they resolve the situation. This is short and sweet, its brevity making it easy to add to a campaign.

‘Carnival’ by Ignacio M. is intentionally and magically odd. Descriptions of carnivals or circuses, typically the façade for a dark cult are a common trope in roleplaying games inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay such as Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, but this is different. It is enveloped by magic even to the extent that the wagons and tents are arranged like a magical circle. What that magic hides and embraces is that the operators are all anthropomorphic animals. So, they are different and they are also not members of a dark cult. Many of the wagons and tents are, in their own way, expansive. One offers a library of thousands and thousands of books, and more—if one knows the right incantation to open up the stacks, whilst the House of Mirrors contains a labyrinth of mirrors that in turn can teleport the viewer to a desired location or give a view of a particular person and enable the viewer to cross over to them spiritually for a short time. Only three of the tents or wagons are described, so there is scope for expansion here and also, there are no stats for any of the NPCs. If there is an issue for the article, it is the inclusion of the anthropomorphic NPCs and whether that fits a Game Master’s campaign. She, of course, has the right to change such details and the various NPCs could be hiding something else instead. Bar some scenario ideas or hooks, ‘Carnival’ offers an intriguing and different type of circus, one with plenty of room for expansion and development.

The second scenario in Lowborn Issue I is Peter Rudin-Burgess’ ‘The Bloody Jack’. It takes place in the village of Gürdenstein where the inhabitants have become wary of strangers. This is not for usual reasons found in roleplaying games, but rather because they are being taken advantage. Recently, Erik Hecher arrived in the village with nothing more than a few coins in his pocket and the rough clothes on his back, but in the few weeks since, he has greatly improved himself—new tailored clothes, a haircut, and so on. He has taken up residence and similarly improved the house he has moved into. The monies for this have come from his successful gambling. There is something odd going on and it will not take much for the Player Characters to discover that Erik is in league with a demon! Upon this revelation, the villagers, incensed at their gambling losses, take their revenge on him in an act of mob violence. Unfortunately, this unleashes a curse, one that the Player Characters are in the best place to help lift. This involves a journey to a nearby monastery and the Player Characters will be plagued by demons who still want their revenge for Erik’s death. Puttng aside the question of quite where the villagers got the money that Erik was fleecing from them, the Game Master will need to provide stats and perhaps it would have been good if the Player Characters were given more of a chance to interact with Erik Hecher to learn his story. Otherwise, this is a decently dark and nasty scenario, very in keeping with the ‘Grim & Perilous’ tone the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG.

Physically, Lowborn Issue I is a bit untidy and rough around the edges, plus it needs a slight edit. That said, it is a first issue, so there are bound to be teething problems.

Lowborn Issue I is an impressive first issue. It has decent content, which includes two, very playable adventures. And the truth is, both of those scenario would work just as well with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition (or whatever ‘Grim & Perilous’ roleplaying game the Game Master is running) and not just Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG.

Grim & Perilous Lite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other OSR—Warlock! Kingdom

Warlock! Kingdom is a supplement for Warlock!, “A Game Inspired By The Early Days Of British Tabletop Gaming”, in particular, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. It has Careers—Careers such as Agitator, Boatman, Grave Robber, and Rat Catcher; it has two attributes, one of which is Luck; and it has a Warlock! running around an unnamed, humancentric kingdom causing mayhem. Although mechanically much lighter than Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, it is nevertheless intended to be grim and gritty, a world of adventure and peril, but with mud aplenty—or worse—underfoot and a certain, sardonic sense of humour. However, beyond there being a marauding Warlock!, and gods, such as the beloved Thrice Blessed, the bloody Red King, and the reviled Dragon, there is unfortunately very little in terms of background in Warlock!. This is an omission that Warlock! Kingdom aims to rectify.

Warlock! Kingdom is published by Fire Ruby Designs and is very much a book of two halves. The first is a Gazetteer of the Evening Lands, which provides an overview and entails of the western part of the Kingdom, whilst the second is a guide to Grim Biskerstaf, a thriving port city on the mighty river Vessen. Both sections are for the most part systemless, so that a Game Master could easily take the descriptions and content found here and adapt to the roleplaying game of her choice, be it Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Zweihander: Grim and Perilous, or something else.

Warlock! Kingdom opens up with the ‘Kingdom Gazetteer’, which details the Kingdom, which feels fairly generic in its fantasy. It has great forests, mighty mountain ranges, rolling hills, broad meandering rivers, deep lakes, busy cities and towns with wide swathes of untamed wilderness in between, the settled areas populated by Humans, but also Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. It stands on a peninsula, though this is not described. After this description, the book seems to go awry with a table of cultural events for the Player Characters to encounter and involve themselves in. It is a really good list, ranging from harvest festival to a funeral to dancing bear to Gerarix Stonecast with a mutated uman to exhibit, but feels too early in the book when you really want to know particular details of the country—languages, religion, and whatnot. Similarly, the discussion of the Royal Family and the Traitor, the latter the former chamberlain to the King whose worship of the demon Delock would lead to an unleashing of dark forces and precipitated a war that nearly shattered the kingdom. And also the fact that since the war against the Traitor, the King himself has not been seen, and that it appears that his wife the Queen and the King’s chief advisor are in charge given his absence. No suggestions are made as to why the King is missing or why, so there is plenty of room there to speculate—both in game and out.

Fortunately, Warlock! Kingdom settles down after that and guides the reader around the Evening Lands. This focuses on particular geographical locations like the Black Spine Mountains and the Golden Cave, the former riddled with caves and tunnels that are home to tribes of Goblins and clans of Dwarves, the latter a site of pilgrimage to the martyr, Saint Agarix, the current priest of which at the cave is probably living off the proceeds from the pilgrims’ donations. Many of these various location descriptions are accompanied by a table of random elements. Thus for the battlefield of Pomperburg, where the largest battle against the Traitor took place and which remains a place of horror to this day, there is a list of unusual items to be found on the site still. Not every location has such a table, but in each, they add a little bit of extra flavour and detail.

The bulk of Warlock! Kingdom—almost two thirds, in fact—is devoted to Grim Biskerstaf, a city on the kingdom’s south coast at the mouth of the Vessen River. In the wake of the war with the Traitor, though thriving, the city is in decline, its ruler, Lord Kelberond ineffectual and perpetually confused; the city guard forced to operate on a shoestring budget whilst the Peacock Guard, whose members protect Lord Kelberond, strut about the city as if they own it; the harbour the site of ongoing squabbles and fights between the Fish Speakers and the Dockers as to who controls trade on the river; and religious dissension growing as the Red King’s Men, worshippers of the Red King ejected from Fesselburg, the Kingdom’s capital, have taken up residence in the city—some actually devout, others little more than thugs. Then there is the Blight. This is a ghastly disease which turns the sufferer’s skin a sickly green and makes it break out into open sores. No one knows the source or cause of the Blight, but of late, the river has turned into sludge and it only affects the lower classes—so at the moment, the Blight is not all that important.

The description of Grim Biskerstaf follows the format used for the Kingdom in the first half of Warlock! Kingdom. Each of the descriptions of the city’s thirteen important locations is accompanied by two things. One is a snapshot from the main two-page illustration/map of the city, and the other is a table. Similarly, the descriptions of the city’s various organisations and notable figures are also accompanied by their own tables, which in each case adds further detail and flavour. Thus, outside the cathedral to the Thrice Blessed stands a tree and on that tree—in very Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fashion—are nailed notices of employment described in a pair of tables, whilst along the city’s famous red stone walls, built by an Elven queen a millennium ago, stand a series of great towers, many of which have fallen into a state of disrepair and rumoured to have been occupied by persons other than the city guard. Who exactly occupies a particular tower can be determined by a roll of the die and reference to the accompanying table.

Grim Biskerstaf’s organisations include the Little Council, which supposedly governs the city and has table of its various plans; the College of Doors, its school of magic whose entrance changes regularly and is actually located in a hidden magical dimension, and its table suggests where the entrance door may be found that week or so. Its notable citizens include the wizard, Dolkepper, who when not studying the universe, is crabbily ruminating on which of the city’s citizens has slighted him and then tetchedly complaining about it. Who exactly, of course, is detailed on the accompanying table. In addition to the table, all of the descriptions are full of detail and flavour that the Game Master can bring to her game.

Rounding out Warlock! Kingdom is ‘So, You’re a Local?’, which gives a sextet of new Careers for Grim Biskerstaf. These are Docker, Fish Warden, Mudlark, Night Watchman, Publican, and Servant, but to be fair would work in almost any port city or town. Alternatively, they could serve as the basis for Player Characters in a campaign or scenario set entirely in Grim Biskerstaf! All of these have tables answering a couple of questions such as ‘What have you found?’ or ‘What have you seen?’, which further tie them into the city. As well as potential Player Characters they could also form the basis for NPCs too. Finally in Warlock! Kingdom, there is another pair of lengthy tables. One of hirelings, the other of adventure seeds. There are no stats with the hirelings, but the adventure seeds are nicely detailed and could keep a campaign in Grim Biskerstaf going for a while.

Physically, Warlock! Kingdom is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. The cartography is nicely done, but the book does need a tighter edit in places.

Warlock! Kingdom begins in underwhelming fashion, the description of the kingdom at least feeling underwritten before it settles down and starts telling you interesting stuff. It really picks up with the description of Grim Biskerstaf, a city full of secrets and dirt which could be dropped into any campaign, which is made all the easier because like much of the book, it is systemless. Pick it up for overview of the kingdom, but definitely stay for the write-up of the Grim Biskerstaf in Warlock! Kingdom, which is perfect for any Grim & Perilous setting or roleplaying game, not just Warlock!

The Other OSR—Warlock! Compendium

The Warlock! Compendium is the first supplement for Warlock!, the Old School Rennaisance-like Career and skills roleplaying game whose inspiration is a hybrid of Fighting Fantasy a la The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Published by Fire Ruby Designs, it complies the first four expansions for Warlock!, each of which adds flavour and detail to the core rules, particularly when it comes to Careers and magic. In turn, adds new Careers for the non-human races of the Kingdom—or wherever the Game Master’s campaign is set, new magic, rules for magic from old body parts, and rules for what happens if you entreat the unholy powers.

The Warlock! Compendium opens with ‘Part 1: Different Paths’, in particular, ‘Community Careers’. One of major omissions in Warlock! was a lack of Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. ‘Community Careers’ amends that with an expansion of the Career table in the core rules, which a player rolls on to determine his character’s first Career. This table extension adds six more, such as Dwarf Inventor, Elf Kin Guard, and Halfling Gong Farmer, which when rolled determine both a character’s first Career, but also his Community. This does not necessarily replace a player’s option to choose his character’s Community, but rather means that the character will definitely be a member of one if the right roll is made. Some of the Careers, such as Dwarf Tunnel Fighter and the Advanced Careers of Dwarf Slayer, Elf Champion, and Halfling Burglar, all feel very much inspired by a certain British fantasy roleplaying game. Warlock! however, is not a fantasy roleplaying game in which one Community is mechanically any different from any other, but ‘Community Careers’ adds potential flavour without adding any undue mechanical complexity or advantage.

‘Part 2: The Grimoire’ is all about magic. It starts by adding advice for discovering spells—essentially research, research, research—and copying scrolls. The latter is particularly trying, costing a wizard stamina which cannot otherwise be recovered. Now whilst this can be done, it definitely feels as if the author is persuading the wizard against such a rash action, suggesting instead that he concentrate upon exploration and the search already completed scrolls rather than create his own. This is followed by some forty spells, from Beam, Bleed, and Curse to Tremor, Whisper, and Yearn. These all fantastically gritty and down-to-earth, such as Dry, which protects the caster and anyone nearby from the rain, but makes all incredibly thirsty, or Glamour, which grants a bonus to the target for all actions where beauty is involved, but makes the target ugly and repulsive for several hours after the spell’s effects have worn off! ‘Rods, Staves, and Wands’ cover a wizard storing spells in them, whilst ‘Rare and Wondrous Artefacts’ adds a handful of magical items, typically with a sting the tail, such as the ‘Boots of Striding’ which enable the wearer to leap great distances, but with the chance that one boot will be left behind, the other at the destination, and the wear equally as split! ‘Lost Relics’ provides rumours of a handful of missing items, whilst ‘Community Spellcasters’ adds Advanced Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings capable of using magic, such as the Dwarf Runeforger, Halfling Conjurer—street magicians who use illusion and beguilement, and Elf Druid—who can sacrifice of the blood of sentient species for a much darker version of the Druid typically seen in fantasy roleplaying. 

‘Part 3: Necromancy’ presents the dark arts of dealing with the dead and the undead, practitioners often beginning with contacting the spirits of the departed to learn their secrets and then it is a slippery slope to degradation and terrible power. Of course, in the Kingdom, the art is forbidden and outlawed. From Bind Spirit and Create Guardian to Spirit Speak and Summon Dead, some eight necromantic spells are given as well as detailing the dangers of necromantic miscasts and some necromantic artefacts.

‘Part 4: Corrupted’ covers the effects and consequences of the dark arts, another slippery slope to power for ambitious—or foolish!—wizard, but does actually detail how a wizard might take such a path. With the inclusion of the Cultist and the Death Knight—a sorcerer who has fallen under the influence of a demon, demonic marks and gifts bestowed upon such Death Knights, along with  demon swords, demon goblins, and descriptions of such demon masters as the Cthulhu-like Delock, Lord of the Depths and the demon lord of war, Pazaali, the Warlock! Compendium strays ever closer to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in emulating its inspiration.

Physically, the Warlock! Compendium is a handy, digest-sized hardback. It is decently illustrated throughout, the occasional roughness of the artwork contributing much to the British Old School style and look that Warlock! seeks to evoke. The book is well written and an engaging read, and everything within its pages is easy to grasp and pull out into a game.

Although it offers a little more than that, the Warlock! Compendium is very much the magic supplement for Warlock!, adding new spells, magical Careers, necromancy, the dark arts, magical monsters, and so on. As useful a set of additions and expansions as they are, it is the six Careers—the Community Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings which feel the most useful addition in the Warlock! Compendium, for in giving them something that is intrinsically theirs, they flesh out the core game rather than just adding to it. Plus, they do it without adding to the rules or mechanics—just the setting. The Warlock! Compendium is overall, a solidly sorcerous expansion for Warlock!

The Other OSR—Warlock!

At first sight, Warlock! looks like just another Old School Renaissance Retroclone—and it is, but not the sort you might be thinking of. Published by Fire Ruby Designs—previously best known for Golgotha, the Science Fiction retroclone of far future dungeon scavenging in shattered battleships—Warlock! quickly makes its inspirations known with the strap line, “A Game Inspired By The Early Days Of British Tabletop Gaming”. As much as Warlock! is a fantasy roleplaying game replete with Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings, warriors and wizards, and so on, it only draws upon Dungeons & Dragons as far as that, and no more—just as inspirations for Warlock! did. Instead, Warlock! has Careers—Careers such as Agitator, Boatman, Grave Robber, and Rat Catcher; it has two attributes, one of which is Luck; and it has a Warlock! running around an unnamed, humancentric kingdom causing mayhem. The inspiration for Warlock! is thus Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. However, Warlock! is very much lighter than Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, at least mechanically, though mechanically more complex than Fighting Fantasy. In tone though, Warlock! is intended to be grim and gritty, a world of adventure and peril, but with mud aplenty—or worse—underfoot and a certain, sardonic sense of humour.

Warlock! is a Career and Skills driven game rather than  a Class and Level game. A Player Character has two attributes—Stamina and Luck, as well as a Community. This can either be Human, Halfling, Elf, or Dwarf. These grant societal benefits rather than mechanical ones. He also has thirty-two base skills, ranging from Appraise, Athletics, and Bargain to Survival, Swimming, and Throw, and all of which range in value from one to twenty. To create a character, a player rolls dice for the two attributes, selects a Community, and sets ten skills at a base level of six and another ten at level five. The rest are set at a base level of four. The player then rolls four six-sided dice. These generate the four choices he will have in terms of Basic Career for his character. Once selected, a Career provides four things. First a quintet of skills which can be increased during play whilst the Player Character remains in that Career and a maximum level to which they can be improved, either ten or twelve. For example, the Pedlar receives Ostler 10, Streetwise 10, Appraise 12, Bargain 12, and Repair 12. The player divides ten points between these skills up to their maximum given values. Second, it provides a sixth skill, named after the Career itself, the level for this Career skill being the average of the other skills the Career grants. Third, it provides some standard equipment, and fourth it gives a pair of background elements specific to the Player Character’s time in that Career, both of which are generated randomly. For example, a Pedlar’s two die rolls would determine what he sold and where he has been. Lastly, a player picks three personality traits for character.

Name: Gottschalk Einstein
Community: Human
Career: Raconteur
Past Careers:

STAMINA: 17 LUCK: 13

ADVENTURING SKILLS
Appraise 07 (12), Athletics 05, Bargain 06, Blunt 05, Bow 04, Brawling 06, Command 04, Crossbow 04, Diplomacy 05, Disguise 04, Dodge 09 (10), Endurance 06, History 07 (10), Incantation 04, Intimidate 04, Language 06, Large Blade 04, Lie 08 (12), Medicine 04, Navigation 05, Ostler 05, Persuasion 06, Pole Arm 04, Repair 05, Sleight of Hand 04, Small Blade 05, Spot 06, Stealth 05, Streetwise 06 (12), Survival 05, Swimming 06, Thrown 04

Career SKILLS
Raconteur 7

POSSESSIONS
6 silver coins, backpack, three days’ foods, waterskin, eating knife, jaunty clothes, and boots.
A bottle or two of something strong and a few ‘relics’ of your past exploits, impressive but worthless.

WEAPONS
Arming sword

TRAITS
Charming, Enthusiastic, Lazy

SPELLS
None

NOTES
What tales do you tell? – The latest tales from the capital.
Where have you been? – Here and there. Buy me a drink?

Character generation is for the most part straightforward, as is character progression. A Player Character should receive one, two, or three advances per session. Each advance will increase one of a Player Character’s Career skill by one level, up to the maximum allowed by the Career. As a Player Character’s Career skills rise, so will his Stamina, representing him becoming tougher and more experienced. When a Player Character reaches the maximum skill level, he can change Careers—this will cost him a total of five advances. Whilst this grants him access to other skills, it will not increase the cap on the ones he already has. For that, he needs to enter an Advanced Career, such as Assassin, Bravo, Merchant, or Wizard. This raises the maximum skill levels to fourteen and sixteen rather than ten and twelve for Basic Careers. There are sixteen Advanced Careers in Warlock! and twenty-four Basic Careers. In general, a Player Character will be undertaking two or three Basic Careers before entering an Advanced Career—probably ten or fifteen sessions of play or so, before a Player Character is in a position to do that.

Mechanically, Warlock! is simple. To undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the value for appropriate skill or Career and aims to roll twenty or higher. More difficult tasks may levy a penalty of two or four upon the roll. Opposed rolls are a matter of rolling higher to beat an opponent. Luck is also treated as a skill for purposes of rolling, and rolled when a character finds himself in a dire or perilous situation where the circumstances go in his favour or against him. Combat is equally simple, consisting of opposed attack rolls—melee attacks versus melee attacks and ranged attacked versus the target’s Dodge skill. Damage is rolled on one or two six-sided dice depending upon the weapon, whilst mighty strikes, which inflict double damage, are possible if an attacker rolls three times higher than the defender. Armour reduces damage taken by a random amount.

Damage is deducted from a defendant’s Stamina. When this is reduced to zero, the defendant suffers a critical hit, necessitating a roll on a Critical Hit table. Warlock! has five, for slashing, piercing, crushing, and blast damage. Of course, roleplaying games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had more, and more entries on them, but for a stripped back game like Warlock!, they are enough—and they are brutal. Damage below a defendant’s Stamina acts as a modifier to the roll on the table, so once dice are rolled on the critical damage tables, combat takes a nasty turn.

For example, Gottschalk Einstein is heading to his lodgings after a night on the town when he is attacked by a couple of thugs—Wilmar and Bruna, thinking that the worse for wear gentleman will be an easy mark. Both have clubs, 14 Stamina, and a Blunt skill of 3. The Game Master states that in his inebriated state, Gottschalk will be surprised. This means that the thugs can act first and have a +5 bonus to their rolls. Gottschalk’s player will roll normally, but will be using his Dodge skill of 9. Against Wilmar’s roll of 10, Gottschalk’s player’s roll 13 is good enough—the raconteur sees the attack coming and just steps out of the way. Bruna is more successful though, as the Game Master rolls a total of twenty against Gottschalk’s 15. The Game Master rolls 1d6-1 for her club and inflicts four points of Stamina damage, which Gottschalk suffers because he is not wearing armour—a poor way to impress the ladies! On the next round, the Game Master has everyone roll for initiative, a simple roll of a six-sided die. Gottschalk’s four beats the thug’s two, and drawing his arming sword, he swings at the nearest thug, which is Bruna. Unfortunately, Gottschalk is slightly drunk and the Game Master levies a -2 penalty to his Large Blade skill—reducing it to two (who said Gottschalk was a fighter?). His player rolls a total of 12 versus Bruna’s 8, and so hits. Gottschalk slashes at his assailant and inflicts nine damage on her, reduced by one for her padded jerkin. Bruna now has six Stamina. Wilmar attempts a second attack, and whilst Gottschalk is at a penalty on his Dodge roll, his player rolls 16, three times Wilmar’s roll of 1 which means not only that he misses, the Game Master rules that he falls flat on his face!

On round two, Gottschalk continues slashing at Bruna, his player rolling a total of 21. The Game Master rolls 18, which is not good enough and his drunken swings are enough to inflict another eight points his blade slashes open her padded jerkin. This reduces Bruna’s Stamina to -2, necessitating a roll on the Slashing Critical table. Gottschalk rolls two six-sided dice and adds two to the result for an average result of seven—which means that he has sliced at least one of her fingers off! She drops her club and clutches her hand in pain. She thinks better of her action and dashes for the alley. Meanwhile, her cohort, Wilmar manages to get to his feet and hefting his club suddenly realises he is facing a drunk with a bloodied sword in hand and his cohort has scarpered! Wilmar has a moment to think about his current Career choice…

Magic in Warlock! can be cast by either priests or wizards, but both use Incantation skill to cast, have to be cast from scrolls, and require the expenditure of Stamina to power. Spells can thus be cast so long as the caster has Stamina. However, a caster will suffer ‘Wrath of the Otherworld’ should his player roll a one, followed by a second failed Incantation test. This results on a roll on the Miscast table, leading to results such as the caster’s skin being bleached white or their face frozen in a grimace for several days. It is even possible for non-priests or non-wizards to cast spells, that is, read them off the scrolls. However, the likelihood of such spells being successfully cast is relatively low given that every Player Character will have a four in his Incantation skill… Some thirty-six or so spells are listed, from Alarm and Banish to Swarm and Unseen. Magic items in Warlock! essentially model the effects of spells, either without the need for an Incantation check, or with the Incantation check, but without the Stamina cost.

Warlock!’s bestiary includes all of the usual suspects, from Chimera, Dire Wolves, and Demon to Wight, Wraith, and Wyvern. Advice for the Game Master highlights the deadliness of the combat, the low power of the magic and its potential accessibility by everyone, and whilst the monsters are not necessarily evil, they may act as such. It also states that the way to become powerful in terms of magic is to specialise, but there are no rules for that. The major piece of advice for the Game Master is that Warlock! is designed to be hackable, and given how light the mechanics are, that is certainly the case. There is advice too, on handling the expectations that the players have in coming to a scenario and building an adventure around those. However, there is no scenario included which would showcase what the designer expects to see, and this is not helped by the lack of background to Warlock!. What there is, is very lightly sketched out. There is a marauding Warlock! of course, and the gods, such as the beloved Thrice Blessed, the bloody Red King, and the reviled Dragon, but nothing beyond that... 

Warlock! is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. It is very handy and especially combined with the lightness of its mechanics, makes it easy to reference and to run from the book.

The danger of being inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fighting Fantasy is that Warlock! could have been fairly complex, but in taking concepts and structures from both—the Careers in particular of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the simplicity of Fighting Fantasy, the result is something that is leaner, faster, but still as brutal and as grim. Plus it is light enough for the Game Master to easily develop her own content. Overall, Warlock! is easy to pick up and play, presenting a quick and dirty fantasy roleplaying game that will tick many a gamer’s sense of nostalgia.

Fear and Loathing in the Fenlands

Fever Swamp is a sandbox adventure published by the Melsonian Arts Council following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Designed for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay—but compatible with other retroclones—Fever Swamp is a hexcrawl which takes the player characters into the thousand square miles of a foetid, forsaken, disease ridden swamp, itself known as the ‘Fever Swamp’. Perhaps to gain the reward for the safe return of the imperially sanctioned occult scholar, Gert von Hemmer; possibly to confirm the fate of the lost imperial river galley, the Wasser Koenig; or even go in search of a great evil rumoured to stalk the waterways and mires of the fever swamp. They will face constant moisture, unrelenting heat, droning insects, the danger of disease and wounds that fester rather than heal, strange tribes, and the dregs of society.

The player characters will first come to Clink, the village on the edge of the swamp and the last bastion of civilisation for many, many miles. It is riven by undercurrents of religious tension and potential heresy, rampant alcoholism, and fear of what the swamp hides. Here a party are likely to hire a boat, find a guide, and pick up what few supplies they can before punting and rowing into the mire. Out there, there are ‘The People’ to encounter, the native inhabitants of the swamp with their strange practices—from wearing masks of animal totems or deities dedicated to the plague, sharpening their teeth, and being constantly pregnant (men, women, and children) to hiding their skin, missing all the same limb, and never talking. Each tribe of The People is different. There are the corpse bodies of gods to plumb, mad men and mad women to run afoul of, strange ruins to explore, and something out there in the damp, sweaty, sodden flora that threatens to shamble out of the Fever Swamp…

Unlike the first scenario published by the Melsonian Arts Council via Kickstarter, Crypts of Indormancy, there is no hinterland, no world beyond the limits of Fever Swamp. What Crypts of Indormancy hinted at was a world beyond its island archipelago setting, once a colonial possession of an empire of Elves, now occupied by twelve tribes of Island People. The Elves lost their empire long ago, whilst the folk memory of the Island People leaves them with a cultural dislike of the Elves. In comparison, Fever Swamp suggests the existence of the Nilfenberg empire from where settlers and fugitives have come to the village of Clink, either to stay, or make their way into the swamp. Plus of course, the scholar, Gert von Hemmer, and the lost imperial river galley, the Wasser Koenig. No details of the Nilfenberg empire are given, but it could easily be the Empire of the Old World, so that with some effort upon the part of the Game Master, Fever Swamp could be adapted to run with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or the ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG. Whatever setting a Game Master uses, the Fever Swamp needs to be placed suitably far away from the empire itself.

Fever Swamp is slim, twenty-six page hardback done in full colour—mostly green. It has no given guide for the character Levels required to play the scenario, though most foes they will face are of low levels. That said, push too far, explore too far, and there are some truly monstrous creatures to be encountered in the Fever Swamp. Besides describing the fifteen or so locations, it details the various NPCs, encounter tables, new monsters, and rules necessary to handle boats and disease in the swamp. Boats are the only viable means of getting around the swamp and the chances of catching a disease in the swamp are unfortunately high. In addition, Fever Swamp includes two new Classes. One is the Transfiguration Host, a Specialist-type character who is host to a Transfiguration Worm, a creature which seeks new experiences and which grants the host a new ability each time he acquires a new Level. This might be for example, learning a random arcane spell, acquiring razor sharp canines, growing a toxin gland, which enables the host to spit poison, and reversed knees like a bird giving the bird increased speed. The Transfiguration Host is a random character Class in effect, but hosting the Transfiguration Worm and its desire for new experiences does mean that the character has reason to want to leave the swamp, unlike its other inhabitants. The second Class is a treatment of the Shaman, a Cleric-type Class who binds a randomly determined spirit to his service each Level. Each spirit can perform a service for the Shaman once per day, for example, a Tree Spirit who will read the bark of nearby trees to learn of events in the past or recently passed by animals, or a Rot Spirit capable of decaying wood utterly or warding against decay. These Classes are a source of fresh player characters should any die in their exploration of the Fever Swamp as are possible inhabitants of the village of Clink.

If there is an issue with Fever Swamp, it is the way into the sandbox, what gets the player characters involved, is underwritten. The likelihood is that the Game Master will need to create his own and strengthen the ones suggested in the opening pages of the book as the player characters very much need a reason to visit and explore the Fever Swamp. 

Like any sandbox or hex crawl, Fever Swamp is a player-led mini-campaign, which means that the Game Master will need to put a bit more in effort into adjusting to what the players want their characters to do. The small size of Fever Swamp—both as a book and a geographical area—and the self-contained nature of its foetid, boggy, environment, means that this is not as daunting a task as it might have been. The small size also means that Fever Swamp is easy to drop into almost any campaign and with a little preparation, ready to take the player characters into a heart of darkness.