Miskatonic Monday #21: A Light in Darkness

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Depository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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 Depository.

—oOo—

Name: A Light in Darkness 

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matthew Puccio

Setting: World War II Pacific Theatre
Product: Scenario
What You Get: 4.45 MB, 39-page colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sound and fire, box and bell in the Pacific.

Plot Hook: ‘Can do’ Seabees must protect a mysterious box from Japanese counterattack and survive DAYBREAK.
Plot Development: Exhaustion and shellshock, madness and mushrooms, a race to find safety as the last men standing.
Plot Support: Linear plot, five maps, three handouts, weapon handouts, shellshock and insanity rules, and  eight pre-generated Naval engineers.
Production Values: Decent beyond a slight edit.

Pros
# One-shot
# One-session scenario
# Needs little preparation
# Desperate survival horror
# Convention scenario
# Suitable photo illustrations
# Works with Achtung! Cthulhu: Guide to the Pacific Front 

Cons
# Linear plot
# No female characters
# Murky maps
# No Engineering skill

Conclusion
# Good convention scenario
# Solid survival horror

Shadows in Darker Trails

Shadows Over Stillwater: Against the Mythos in the Down Darker Trails Setting is an anthology of scenarios and more for Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West, the post-American Civil War, Old West supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos. The collection includes a complete mini-campaign, a separate scenario, a campaign setting, and a scenario seed which has the potential to stir the heart of any veteran, probably jaded Keeper. Together they make up support for a campaign run in the south west of the United States of America, perhaps leading on from the description of the town of San Rafael and the two scenarios given in Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West. The fact that both Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West and Shadows Over Stillwater: Against the Mythos in the Down Darker Trails Setting share Kevin Ross as one of their authors serves to enforce the continuity between the two.

Shadows Over Stillwater opens with the three-part campaign, ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’, which consists of ‘Lazarus in Spades’, ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’, and ‘Shattered Earth, Poisoned Sky’. ‘Lazarus in Spades’ opens with the player characters being deputised and sent to the town of Stillwater, New Mexico, where Hank Hanratty has been sighted. Hanratty is wanted for shooting a marshal in the player characters’ hometown and they have been tasked with bringing him back to face justice. On the surface, this is a straightforward undertaking, but all is not well within the town—a missing girl, strange figures on the edge of town, earth tremors, the townsfolk all a dither, fireworks, and more—which will hamper the deputies’ search for the wanted man. As to what is causing the strangeness, the townsfolk are ready to blame the local Chiricahua Apache or the local Chinese laundry owner, but there are those who also distrust strangers, that is, the recently arrived deputies.

As much as this exposes the prejudices prevalent at the time, neither are responsible for the strange goings on in and around Stillwater. What is, is revealed in the second part of the campaign, ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’. There is no distinct cut-off point between ‘Lazarus in Spades’ and ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’, the actions of the deputies determining when the second part begins. By this point, ‘Lazarus in Spades’ has done a good job of describing the town of Stillwater, its inhabitants, and how they react as the events of the campaign begin to escalate. Ideally, the events so far should have intrigued the deputies enough for them to stick around and continue investigating the strangeness beyond the confines of the town. Out on the mesa they may find an ally if they really work at it, but more likely the investigators will discover the caves of the minions to the campaign’s antagonists, and then beyond that, the actual lair of the antagonists.

Built into the caves beneath the mesa, there is an almost dungeon-like feel to the lair, with finding and exploring this underground complex likely to be the climax of the scenario. It is entirely possible for the investigators to explore the caves unnoticed by the antagonists, but it is more likely that they will be discovered and as the antagonists defend themselves against intruding investigators, that the climax becomes a series of running gun battles. As well as encountering the antagonists, there is a lot to examine in the caves, hopefully giving some hint as to their plans for Stillwater and its surrounds.

Unlike between ‘Lazarus in Spades’ and ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’, there is a distinct cut-off point between ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’ and the third part of the campaign, ‘Shattered Earth, Poisoned Sky’. This is because it switches location to a second town nearby, Santa Rosita. Like Stillwater, it has been beset by earth tremors and the walking dead, so the probability is that more of the creatures encountered below Knife Cut Mesa are responsible—and who has recent experience in dealing with them? Getting to Santa Rosita is not an issue, but getting into the town is, as its inhabitants have responded by imposing a quarantine. This nicely sets up a locked room situation rife with roleplaying under stringent conditions that some roleplayers may balk at, but if the investigators can prove that they are definitely not untrustworthy, they should be able to get into the nearby mountains and discover another lair, only this time, bigger, deeper, and of course, in a volcano…

Although ‘Shattered Earth, Poisoned Sky’ brings ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ campaign to a climax, it is actually the campaign’s second climax. The encounter under the mesa in ‘Trouble on Knife Cut Mesa’ is the climax to ‘Lazarus in Spades’ and so initially, would seem to be the finale to the campaign. View these first two parts as a dress rehearsal for the antagonists’ big plan and the third part as that big plan being put into action, and the campaign structure makes sense. Consequently, ‘Shattered Earth, Poisoned Sky’ is bigger, with a stronger threat, and more dire consequences should the investigators fail, and if played using Pulp Cthulhu mechanics, has just a hint of James Bond to it (well, it is set in a volcano…)

Still set in New Mexico, ‘Beneath the Burning Sun’ brings violence to the mining town of Shade. Again set in and around another nicely detailed town, the scenario’s bad atmosphere is shattered by a brutal bank robbery, a set piece whose aftermath will find the investigators as part of a posse racing into the mountains to capture the surviving perpetrators. The scenario ends in a bloody confrontation and an unexpected encounter beside a mountain top lake. ‘Beneath the Burning Sun’ is a horse opera, a nasty tale under the blistering sun, but not one that is necessarily easy to use. Suggestions are given as to how to link back to ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ or use it as a standalone affair, but options given are underwhelming. Nevertheless, this is at least a bruising scenario if played using Pulp Cthulhu, brutal if not.

With ‘Stonegarden, Arizona’, Shadows Over Stillwater switches states to describe a company mining town beset by anger and resentment—and more violence. It is another nicely detailed location, with plenty of interesting NPCs, a plague of rats, and a nearby mesa sometimes lit up at night by strange lights. Accompanied by a handful of adventure seeds, this is a campaign locale for the Keeper to develop and build scenarios around. 

Lastly, ‘The Devil’s Round-Up’ presents a set-up and an adventure seed still within the New Mexico Territory, but at a location whose very name should stir the jaded heart of every veteran Keeper—Castronegro. The town is the location for the scenario, ‘The Secret of Castronegro’. This classic scenario first appeared in the Cthulhu Companion, published in 1983, and subsequently appeared in Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition and Cthulhu Classics, and concerned missing academics, stolen cattle, and undying Mythos sorcerers. The adventure seed turns the clock back four decades for a tale of more missing travellers, American Indians, and cattle, but with added masked vigilantes in the night. Sadly, the town itself is not fully detailed and the prospective Keeper is advised to check out ‘The Secret of Castronegro’ for more information. It would have been fantastic to see the town given the full Down Darker Trails treatment, but at least ‘The Secret of Castronegro’ and the Cthulhu Companion is at least available to download.

The tone of Shadows Over Stillwater is not straight Call of Cthulhu, definitely not what might be termed Purist, but definitely leaning toward the Pulp. This is even before the Keeper decides whether or not to factor in the use of Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos, which there is a strong possibility of her deciding to do so, since many of the major NPCs in the scenarios possess Luck points and the Talents to spend that Luck on. Further, the use of Luck and Talents from Pulp Cthulhu will both put the investigators on an equal—and more likely greater—footing and enable them to cope with the brutal nature of the four scenarios, especially when it comes to combat. A great many of the NPCs in ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ campaign and the ‘Beneath the Burning Sun’ scenario are predisposed towards brutal, bloody violence, and given the prevalence of firearms in the period and setting, gun combat is common and nasty.

Naturally, scenarios and campaigns set in the Old West warrant the need of the Firearms skill, but ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ campaign warrants the knowledge of other types of skills not normally expected of scenarios set in the Old West. This stems from the nature of the horror in the campaign, more obviously Science Fiction in nature than the supernatural stylings of many other Call of Cthulhu campaigns, for the antagonists are scientists rather than sorcerers and the investigators will encounter all manner of devices throughout the campaign. The investigators will thus require technological and scientific skills that their players may not necessarily think of when creating them, at least not in the Old West setting. To that end, perhaps a set of pre-generated Old West investigators might have been a useful inclusion (or at least given as a download).

Lastly, there is the issue of similarities between Shadows Over Stillwater: Against the Mythos in the Down Darker Trails Setting and The Two-Headed Serpent: An Epic Action-Packed and Globe-Spanning Campaign for Pulp Cthulhu. These come from the fact that the ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ campaign and The Two-Headed Serpent campaign share the same antagonist with settings and aims that are not dissimilar. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this and there is no question that the authors have copied each other, but rather that after nearly forty years of Call of Cthulhu, it is not as easy to come up with fresh or unique ideas, especially if drawing from the same sources. Yet were a Keeper to run either Shadows Over Stillwater or The Two-Headed Serpent, and then run the other, then the similarities might be all too readily apparent and detract from the enjoyment of the players in playing that other.

Physically, Shadows Over Stillwater is up to the high standards set by previous supplements for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Some of the artwork is perhaps a little murky, mostly depictions of book’s many NPCs done in scratchy sepia tones, but much of it is fully painted in glorious colour and to be blunt, wasted on just the Keeper—the players deserve to see these illustrations as much as she does. At the appropriate time in each of the scenarios, of course. The cartography is also good and overall, this is a pleasing hardback.

If Shadows Over Stillwater has a single weakness, it is the underwhelming nature of the hooks for some of the scenarios—not ‘The Shadow Over Stillwater’ campaign itself, but individual parts and the separate scenario definitely. A good Keeper and willing players should be able to cope with this issue though. This aside, the supplement provides the Keeper with something to run and something to develop, all arguably better suited to the action and tone of Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos, for it may be too brutal and bloody for a non-Pulp campaign. Shadows Over Stillwater: Against the Mythos in the Down Darker Trails Setting serves up a campaign, a scenario, a setting, and a seed strong on Old West standards before injecting them with weird horror, bloody violence, and sun-blanched Sanity losses.

Mother's Embrace

Published by Just Crunch Games, Mother’s Love is an anthology of three scenarios for The Cthulhu Hack. As its title suggests, the three involve investigations at the root of which stands Shub-Niggurath, ‘The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young’, ready to ensnare the unwary in her fecund embrace, wrap her woody branches around them, and perhaps, grant them rebirth. All are modern, but one is set in 1950s Canada, whilst the other two take place in the Mediterranean in the relative here and now. All three are essentially one-shots and whilst they do require preparation upon the part of the Keeper just as any other scenario, the rules for investigator generation in The Cthulhu Hack make it easy for the players to create their investigators and get playing. All three are also fairly light on mechanics, making their plots and set-ups easy to adapt to the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror of the Keeper’s choice.

The trilogy opens with ‘Deep Roots’ which sees the player characters investigate a double murder and apparent abduction of a child in 1950s Canada. Written by Chloé Germaine Buckley and Jonathan Buckley, it casts the investigators as members of law enforcement or Child and Family Services, the first because of the murdered couple, the second because the abducted child had recently been adopted by the murdered couple. The child was adopted from The Rainy River Home for Foundlings and Orphans, located in an isolated town in northwestern Ontario, and the investigators will quickly learn that another child adopted from the orphanage—which has recently been shut down—was also involved in a violent incident. So the question is, are the cases involved? Further, just what might have been going on at the ramshackle and rarely inspected home for children?

Answers of course lie at the orphanage, although there is much information to be found in the nearby town of Lake of the Woods by talking to the inhabitants or checking local records. The orphanage, naturally—or is that unnaturally?—stands on the edge of a dense forest that the locals, including members of the nearby First Nation reserve, avoid. There is definitely a sense of the gothic to both forest and orphanage, of the forest as a force beyond nature, and of protecting its own. What it is protecting should be fairly obvious, but why is left up to the Keeper to choose one of three options given. Once chosen, the Keeper only need use the elements for the selected option given in the rest of the scenario. This gives the Keeper some flexibility in how she runs the scenario and some of the options could actually work together as well as stand on their own.

If there is an element in ‘Deep Roots’ which could have been better handled, it is the link from the murder (and the other violent incident) to the orphanage. It feels slightly too tenuous for the investigators to want to go there based on the information they have at that point. Some players, having learned of the link, may simply decide to follow it up anyway, but others may need more of a reason and the Keeper should probably be prepared for that just in case. Overall, ‘Deep Roots’ does a solid job of presenting Shub-Niggurath as a maternally protective presence and there is a nicely creepy atmosphere to the scenario, one that plays upon our fear of children as malicious beings and our fear of the woods.

The second scenario takes place at a specific time and location—Malta and 2016, the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. In Keris McDonald’s ‘Ġgantija’, a local expat thespian has decided to stage a special performance of The Tempest held in the Neolithic Temples at Xaghra. Unfortunately, the rehearsals take a turn for the worse when one of their number is found dead and after going to the police, the player characters, or actors, find themselves chased by something beyond their imagination, from island to island. The set-up for this scenario is absolutely fabulous, any roleplayer should relish the opportunity to play a cast of plummy-voiced, luvvies and the like, overdoing the acting before confronted by murder, a weird cult, and a curse. Designed ideally for four or so players, it is a pity that Ġgantija did not come with a list of actor archetypes for the players to create and really ham it up with before it becomes bloody and undulating.

From this somewhat BBC Sunday night drama-style beginnings ‘Ġgantija’ quickly turns up the weirdness before adding in a dash or two of conspiratorial elements. These manage to feel both unexpected and unsurprising at the same time, being a radical plot twist on the only island it could take place on. Overall, this is a fun adventure, one that portrays Shub-Niggurath as a primordial, vengeful mother figure.

The third and final scenario in Mother’s Love is ‘Gifts of the Flesh’ by Kathryn Jenkins. This casts the investigators as members of Protectors of Mistreated Animals (PMA) setting out to break into an abattoir on a tiny Greek island, which is the source of a highly successful ‘luxury’ organic boar meat business. As animal rights activists they want to confirm their suspicions that ‘Kronos Meats’ are using chemical enhancements to produce such good quality meat. The investigators will need to sail to the tiny island where the company is based, make their way past its one town, and from there break into the abattoir. 

Unfortunately, ‘Gifts of the Flesh’ is linear in structure and more obviously so, and whilst there are clues to found, it never really feels as if the investigators can do very much, except push on. For the players to want to have their investigators to push towards the climax of the scenario, a strong sense of motivation will be needed. More than any of the three, ‘Gifts of the Flesh’ would probably have benefited from pre-generated investigators. There is a thick, oppressive atmosphere to the scenario, which transforms Greek myth into the Mythos and casts Shub-Niggurath as a transformative figure—there being a lot of change in the scenario—capable of giving rebirth. There is also a lot of background to the scenario and anyone with a keen interest in Greek myth may make the connection between myth and Mythos fairly quickly. Again, there are notes on how to obfuscate the links.

Physically, the three scenarios and Mother’s Love as a whole is well presented. The hardback has a decent full colour cover and the internal artwork is decent too. The three scenarios are generally written with a reasonable amount of advice for the Keeper to help in their staging. Some of the maps could have been more sharply produced though.

Mother’s Love is a solid collection of scenarios, each easy to run, each easily adapted to the mechanics of the Keeper’s choice, and each entry exploring a different aspect of Shub-Niggurath. None of the three is unplayable, but ‘Ġgantija’ is the standout, presenting opportunity aplenty for some great roleplaying, almost like actors being offered juicy roles. 

Gibsons 100: L'Attaque

Gibsons is one hundred years old. Founded as H. P. Gibson & Sons Limited in 1919, it is the oldest manufacturer of board games in the United Kingdom as well as a noted manufacturer of jigsaws. In its time, it has been famous for publishing the classic strategic games of the 1970s and 1980s—Civilisation and Kingmaker—but before World War II, it was famous for publishing a quartet of early military strategy games. Known as the ‘big four’, the quartet consisted of Dover Patrol, L’Attaque, Aviation, and Tri-Tactics. Of these four, Gibsons has published L’Attaque in a brand new edition to celebrate its centenary. Originally marketed as the ‘game to rival chess’, L’Attaque is an abstract war game designed for two players, aged eight and up. The new edition remains relatively unchanged bar the inclusion of a set of the rules rewritten for clarity and a facsimile of the original 1925 rules.

Originally, a French game designed by Mademoiselle Hermance Edan who received a patent for a ‘jeu de bataille avec pièces mobiles sur damier’ (a battle game with mobile pieces on a game board) in 1909, the game was named L’Attaque by its French publisher, Au jeu retrouvé, before H. P. Gibson & Sons Limited purchased the English language rights to the game and published it in 1925. In this game two armies will face off against each other over a set of three rivers. In the original, the opponents were the English and French armies, but they have since been simply named the red and the blue armies. Played out on a nine by ten grid of squares with three rivers at its centre, the aim of the game is to defeat your opponent by either capturing their Flag or forcing him into a stalemate where he cannot move his pieces.

Both armies are identical, consisting of thirty-six pieces made up of the following in ascending order of value and rarity: Scout (2), Sapper (3), Sergeant (4), Lieutenant (5), Captain (6), Major (7), Colonel (8), Brigadier (9), and Commander In Chief (10). Each army also has a several Mines and a Flag. Although the artwork on the front of the pieces is the same for both sides—essentially an interwar period style English army—the backs of the pieces are either plain blue or plain red. A higher value piece beats a lower value piece, but several pieces have special moves. Thus, the Spy is easily defeated by every other unit, but defeats the Commander In Chief; when revealed, a Mine blows everyone up in adjacent squares, except a Sapper who defuses the Mine; and Scouts have unlimited, orthogonal movement. All other units are capable of moving just the one space, either backwards or forwards, left or right.

Set-up is simple enough. Each player takes his army and places its pieces on his side of the board, keeping all of the fronts and thus the types of pieces facing him, and the plain, coloured back facing his opponent. He is free to place his pieces where he wants, although Mines cannot be placed near the rivers. In general, each player will place his Flag at or near the back of his forces, as far away from his opponent’s forces as possible, protected by one or more Mines. On his turn, a player moves one piece. If it is in front of an opposing piece, then the player can declare an “Attack!” When this happens, both attacker and defender reveal the attacking and defending pieces, the highest ranked piece typically beating the lower ranked piece. Pieces of equal value defeat each other. The beaten piece or beaten pieces are removed from play, but a good player should endeavor to remember which pieces have defeated his own and so work to bring a piece of a higher value to defeat them. During the initial stages of the game, the two armies will be probe each other’s forces attempting to defeat or determine which pieces are which, whilst in the later stages, players will bring up their heavier units to defeat their opponents’ stronger defenders.

Some pieces are easier to identify than others, of course. The Scout is easy to identify simply by his extended movement, so a player may want to be more circumspect in revealing that until necessary. Similarly, Mines and Flags can be identified by the fact that neither moves, but that sets up the possibility of a trap. A player could keep a high value unit immobile throughout a game to lure his opponent in and so eliminate a piece attempting to locate and capture his Flag or locate a Mine. This can be effective if the attacking unit is a Sapper, which would deny a player the all important ability to defuse Mines. Once this trap is sprung, the high value piece is free to move and openly attack and defend.

With a playing time of twenty minutes, L’Attaque is surprisingly playable for a game that is over a century old. It is not a sophisticated game by modern standards, but it has given rise to many imitators, most notably Stratego, and was highly popular in its day. Nor is it a particularly deep game and the suggestion that it is a ‘game to rival chess’ is really hyperbole upon the part of the publisher.

Physically, the production values of the centenary version of L’Attaque are really quite lovely, whether that is the rich red box, the artwork on the playing pieces, and the heavy mounted board. The rules are printed on a slim, but heavy card sheet, whilst the inclusion of a facsimile of the original rules is a nice touch.

Of course, there is a wonderful sense of nostalgia to L’Attaque and this centenary edition does much to enforce that. As an artefact in itself, the game is nice celebration of the publisher’s birthday, but L’Attaque can still serve as an introduction to both early games and to wargaming, to bring new players into the hobby, and with a short playing time, to serve a diversion between longer games too. L’Attaque is a lovely piece of history—both gaming and ordinary history—which plays up to our nostalgia.

Free RPG Day 2019: Starfinder Skitter Crash

Now in its twelfth year, Saturday, June 15th is Free RPG Day and with it comes an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Starfinder Skitter Crash is a scenario for Paizo Inc.’s Science Fantasy Roleplaying Game, Starfinder. It is a scenario for four players and comes with four pre-generated characters, and further, it is a sequel to the publisher’s release for Free RPG last year, Skitter Shot.  At just sixteen pages, Starfinder Skitter Crash, like Starfinder Skitter Shot is a short adventure, playable in a good session, specifically designed for use with Starfinder Alien Archive, the supplement which details some eighty life-forms, twenty Player Character races, alien technology aplenty, and more.

Starfinder Skitter Shot introduced everyone to the cheerfully manic, gleefully helpful, vibrantly coloured, six-armed and furry creatures known as Skittermanders. It came with pre-generated Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx—who then served as the crew of the Clutch, a salvage ship captained by their Vest boss, Nakonechkin Ginnady. Out in the Vast beyond the Pact Worlds, the crew of the Clutch, searching for ancient battleships and space stations to salvage, came across a derelict ship, large, ornate, and with brass accents, looking to be very much out of place... The adventure had them go in search of Captain Nakonechkin Ginnady and attempt to effect a rescue. The adventure left them in command of the spaceship they now named The Helping Hand and in search of further missions and excitement.

As Starfinder Skitter Crash begins, the crew of The Helping Hand have made a successful salvaging mission, but as they are celebrating, calamity strikes! They are hailed and then boarded by angry space pirates bound on revenge—who could have foreseen that after the events of Starfinder Skitter Shot? Then calamity strikes again! Something causes both ships to collide with each other in a really weird fashion and it becomes a race to abandon ship before it crashes into the planet below. Coming to on the strange new world, they find themselves amidst boggy surrounds, unsure of where they are, if any pirates survived their crash, where their ship is, and of course, if it managed to come down in one piece. So what the player characters will need to do is find their ship, effect repairs, avoid any piratical entanglements, and blast off back into space! Of course, it is not as easy as that. A couple of clues point to nearby encounters, one with a strange energy signature and another at a monitoring platform, the latter indicating that the planet is home to, or at least visited by, intelligent life. Of course contact will be made with said intelligent life, and the outcome of both this encounter and the previous two encounters nicely influence the outcome of the next, a juicy bit of roleplaying where Skittermanders have to be persuasive rather than just their rambunctious selves. If they can get help, then the Skittermanders should be able to get back into space and doing what they do best…

Starfinder Skitter Crash is different to Starfinder Skitter Shot in that it is not quite as linear, although still fairly linear given that it is designed to be played in a four-hour or so time slot. It is also a bit more complex in the story it is telling and there is more roleplaying involved than in Starfinder Skitter Shot. One issue with that is the rambunctious nature of the Skittermanders may play against the roleplaying required here, but the players should work all the more harder to achieve to overcome that. Other than that, there is plenty for the player characters to do, whether that is investigating or fighting, and although the scenario ends in a big confrontation, fighting it out is not the only solution covered. 

The adventure is challenging, but certainly rewarding if the players go at the adventure with the energy of the Skittermander pre-generated characters. There are four of these provided for use with Starfinder Skitter Shot. They include a Priest Mystic, a Xenoseeker Mystic, a Spacefarer Soldier, and a Scholar Mechanic, all Third Level (up one Level from Starfinder Skitter Shot). Each is detailed on a full page, complete with background and a really nice illustration, as well as the stats. Players will need to refer to the Starfinder Alien Archive for full details of the Skittermanders, but really, they should be played as they appear—bumptious, gleeful, up for a challenge, and manic!

Physically, Starfinder Skitter Shot is very nicely laid out and presented. The artwork is excellent, the writing clear, and the maps easy to use.

Starfinder Skitter Crash is a fun adventure. It throws the Skittermanders into a situation they are unprepared for, but gives them the means to get out of it and make a few friends along the way. Although Starfinder Skitter Crash can be run as a one-shot, it really works best as a sequel as some of its set-up will not quite have the same impact if the players have not played Starfinder Skitter Shot first. With a little effort, the Game Master could easily expand this adventure, but as written, Starfinder Skitter Crash is easy to run and grasp, which once again provides a few hours of play with some bouncy, energetic, and lovable player characters.

[Free RPG Day 2019] The Witcher: Easy Mode

Now in its twelfth year, Saturday, June 15th is Free RPG Day and with it comes an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. The Witcher: Easy Mode – An Introductory Booklet to the Witcher TRPG is a quick-start for The Witcher, the pen and paper roleplaying game based on The Witcher series of novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., it set on ‘the Continent’, a region which was long ago beset by the Conjunction of the Spheres, a collision of the realms which opened rifts which let chaos and magic and monsters into the world. Witchers were created and trained to combat these monsters and break curses, but their strangeness and powers led them to be distrusted and even hated. Along with a great many of the non-human races, such as Elves and Dwarves. This is compounded by the Nilfgaardian Wars, as the nation of Nilfgaard expanded north and captured country after country and founded the Empire. As the scenario—‘Still Waters’—in The Witcher: Easy Mode – An Introductory Booklet to the Witcher TRPG opens, the Third Nilfgaardian War has begun, the Empire’s troops are marching north, and refugees, including the player characters, are fleeing before their advance…

The Witcher: Easy Mode opens with a succinct explanation of this background, which nicely sets up the situation at the beginning of the scenario and gives enough information for both Game Master and her players to start running and playing the quick-start. Then it is straight onto the rules. The Witcher is written to use the Fuzion system, the generic mechanics that are a melding of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Interlock System—as seen in the classic Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. roleplaying game—and Hero Games’ HERO system—as seen in Champions, the classic superhero roleplaying game, and the first twenty-one pages of The Witcher: Easy Mode's thirty-two pages are devoted to. This begins with a complete guide to a character sheet in The Witcher. So Race—including Witcher, since Witchers are mutants, Profession, Statistics (base and derived), Health and Stamina, Skill Bases, Armour and Armour Values, Weapons, Abilities, and Possessions and Magic are clearly marked and given a quick explanation before The Witcher: Easy Mode delves deeper into the rules.

Characters in The Witcher and The Witcher: Easy Mode are first defined by their Race and Profession. The Races in the quick-start are Witcher, Human, Dwarf, and Elf, whilst the Professions are Witcher, Mage, Criminal, Men At Arms, and Bard. The full The Witcher roleplaying game adds Craftsmen, Doctors, Merchants, and Priests. A character also has nine statistics—Intelligence, Reflexes, Dexterity, Body, Speed, Empathy, Craft, Will, and Luck—each rated roughly between one and ten, although some of the pre-generated characters do have higher statistics. Skills, ranging from Alchemy, Archery, and Athletics to Swordsmanship, Tactics, and Wilderness Survival, are accorded a similar scale. Each character has a number of abilities, for example, the sample pre-generated Witcher has Enhanced Senses, Resilient Mutations, Dulled Emotions, and Lightning Reflexes, as well as Witcher Training. So Enhanced Senses enables the character to see in dim light, gives him an improved Awareness skill base, and enables him to track by smell alone, whilst the Witcher training lessens he suffers whilst in hostile environment or difficult terrain and substitutes as his Monster Lore skill. A character wears armour on his head, upper body, and lower body, for example, Double Woven Gambeson provides eight points of Armour Value, and carries a number of weapons, each possessing a Weapon Accuracy (typically applied to missile weapons), damage rating (measured in handfuls of six-sided dice, from one for a dagger to four for a steel two-handed sword), and an effect (such as non-lethal for a punch or armour piercing for the steel two-handed sword). All five pre-generated characters in The Witcher: Easy Mode—the Witcher, Human Mage, Dwarf Criminal, Human Man At Arms, and Elf Bard—are very clearly laid out and easy to read. Included with the sample player characters is an excerpt from the core game’s Lifepath, the means of creating a complete backstory for each and every player character, but here each player can with five rolls determine their social origins and family and parental status. 

For a character to undertake an action, his player typically adds a statistic and a skill together, such as the Craft statistic and the Crafting skill or the Will statistic and Spellcasting skill, then adds the result of a ten-sided die to beat a Difficulty Check, with 14 being Average and 30 being Nearly Impossible. Rolls of ‘1’ and ‘10’ explode. Rolls of ‘1’ require further rolls which actually detract from the skill check, whilst rolls of ‘10’ require further rolls which add to the skill check. Combat is fairly complex, allowing for a range of tactical options, such as taking an extra action at the cost of a character’s Stamina (a measure of a character’s fatigue), taking a fast (or two) or a strong (single attack for double damage) attack, both melee or ranged attack, and so on. Damage can be blocked, dodged, or avoided by repositioning, but if successful, damage is modified by hit location, and if an attacking player rolls higher than the defending player by a factor of ten, then a critical strike is made. This inflicts both an extra five points of damage which ignores armour and an effect, associated with either the weapon used or the spell cast. For example, a poniard inflicts 2d6+2 damage and has the Bleeding Effect (25%), which means that is the chance it has of inflicting a bleeding wound on a successful attack, but if a critical strike is inflicted, the chance of the wound continuing to bleed is automatic. 

Overall, the combat rules in The Witcher: Easy Mode are quite straightforward and do give a handful of tactical options, though of course, the full roleplaying game has more. One issue is that whilst the means of making attack rolls is clearly labelled, the means of making defence rolls is not and any Game Master looking to what a player needs to roll does need to pay a bit more attention than is fully necessary. Where combat gets a whole six pages, magic just gets the two. Casting magic is a matter of knowing the spell, making the casting roll, and expending Stamina to fuel the spell. There is a limit to how much magic a Mage or other spellcasting character can cast, cast beyond their Vigour Threshold and they will suffer Hit Points. It is possible for spells to inflict critical wounds, and there a greater range of effects for spells, each depending on the spell of course. For example, Cadfan’s Grasp is a fire spell and so there is a chance that it will set a target alight. Rolls of ‘1’ on a spellcasting roll mean that the spell is fumbled, which can lead to the casting character suffering simple damage, suffering elemental damage, or even causing an explosion of energy which inflicts damage on everyone nearby. Most direct and area effect spells can be defended against just as attacks in combat can.

Lastly, in terms of mechanics, The Witcher: Easy Mode includes short rules for crafting. This is an important part of the setting for The Witcher roleplaying game (and the computer game of the same name), but much like the rest of rules in this quick-start, the version of the crafting rules here are much simplified. Here it is a mix of healing powders and ammunition for missile weapons. The single page of GM Advice emphasises the toughness of the setting and the possibility of characters suffering from serious wounds, the morally grey nature of ‘the Continent’, and that the power struggles and rivalries of the region can give rise to evil as much it is home to ‘evil’ monsters.

Rounding out The Witcher: Easy Mode is the adventure ‘Still Waters’. The player characters are refugees from the nation of Temeria, fleeing an invasion by the Empire. They have reached the swampy banks of the Pontar River, which if they can cross, then they might find sanctuary in Redania. In searching for a way across, the player characters encounter Scoia’tael archers, Elven warriors who hate humans. This may result in a fight, but the player characters can parly and either way, the Scoia’tael will lead them back to their base in a fortified village which sits on a ferry crossing. With some persuasion—and good roleplaying—or offer of some help, the Scoia’tael commander will allow the player characters to cross the river. Alternatively, the player characters could just force their way into the village, drive everyone out, and then move on…

‘Still Waters’ is not a bad adventure, but it is not really an adventure at all. At best it is half an adventure, consisting of just two encounters. The player characters face very little in the way of peril or challenge, and it is possible that the player characters could introduce themselves, encounter Scoia’tael archers and persuade them to take them back to the village where they persuade the Scoia’tael commander to let them cross the river. That could take as little as half an hour, but no more than an hour. That is just not enough of an introduction to the world of The Witcher and The Witcher roleplaying game—and as a quick-start, it is woefully inadequate.

Physically, The Witcher: Easy Mode is very nicely presented in full colour. The few pieces of art are excellent and the one map is lovely. The book is well organised and for the most part, the contents are easy to read. One oddity is that the NPCs for the adventure are given backgrounds, but the pre-generated adventurers are not.

Unsurprisingly for a quick-start entitled The Witcher: Easy Mode, and whilst they are of course, not the full rules, the rules in The Witcher: Easy Mode are easy to grasp and understand. An experienced roleplayer will read through this and be able to choose a character ready to play very quickly. A roleplayer with less experience will find it slightly more daunting to read, but a careful readthrough will solve that issue. Unfortunately, experienced and less experienced players alike, let alone the Game Master, will find the adventure a disappointment. ‘Still Waters’ needs more pages, more content, more challenges, because as written, it leaves the The Witcher: Easy Mode – An Introductory Booklet to the Witcher TRPG simply quick and devoid of adventure.

Miskatonic Monday #20: Of Wrath and Blood

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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 Depository.

—oOo—

Name: Of Wrath and Blood

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jon Hook

Setting: Jazz Age Baltimore
Product: Scenario
What You Get: 6.96 MB, 24-page full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A sequel to ‘The Haunting’, the Classic Call of Cthulhu scenario, which achieved second place in the ‘And Theeeennn?’ competition in 2010.

Plot Hook: Two boys go missing after their family is driven from a haunted house
Plot Development: Two newspaper morgues, a maddening visit, and some lost boys in a twins showdown.
Plot Support: Straightforward plot, a new spell, six reasonable handouts, and three maps.
Production Values: Decent beyond a slight edit.

Pros
# Sequel to ‘The Haunting’
# Lots of roleplaying investigation
# Nice cover

Cons
# Workmanlike plot
# Denouement needs stronger foreshadowing
# Lacks information on 1920s Baltimore
# Weak hook for a standalone scenario

Conclusion
# Workmanlike sequel
# Much desired sequel, but not the ‘official’ sequel