Ministerial Leagues

Have you had an encounter with the inexplicable and want answers? Have you been the victim of an evil magician and prevented his dominance over you through sheer willpower? Has your sister fallen foul of the influence of a blood sucking fiend? Have you foiled the perfidious plans of a perverse cult that threatened the security of the Empire? Did your esoteric research uncover truths which undermine your fundamental understanding of the universe? Are you a loyal subject of Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria? Then you sir (and madam, of course), may be just what we are looking for. Who are we, you ask? Why we are the Ministry of Unusual Affairs, and whilst Her Majesty’s government would deny the existence of magic, the supernatural, and such as folderol as the stuff of the tabloid press, charlatans, and mountebanks, privately it needs a body of men (and women) who attend to such matters with decorum and professionalism.

This, essentially, is the set-up for the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs, a supplement for Triple Ace Games’ Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration  and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror (and its expansion, Leagues of Cthulhu). Now at the core of Leagues of Adventure are the ‘leagues’, the exclusive or secret—or not so secret—society, such as The Alpine Club, the Epicurean Society, or The Temporal Society. Every character or ‘globetrotter’ in Leagues of Adventure is a member of one such league, with each league providing contacts, resources, and patrons that will call on the globetrotters just as the globetrotters can call upon the aid of their Leagues. For the most part, the various Leagues possess a friendly rivalry with each other where their interests conflict, but there exist villainous Leagues whose aims are far from honourable or enlightened. The Thuggee is one such villainous League, as is The Immortals Club, whose members seek ever greater power and the means to keep it for themselves. Of course, Leagues of Gothic Horror and Leagues of Cthulhu add further leagues. Now this provides a social framework for the player characters, but the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs provides a professional framework for both the player characters and the Game Master’s campaign.

The Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs is presented as informal introduction, one that you might receive upon your first day at work or at a prospective interview. So it opens with a history of the ministry, beginning with its origins as a cadre of witch-hunters under James I and the actions taken against Doctor John Dee, before going on to detail the investigations along the Severn Valley by one Ramsey Campbell, the truth behind the madness of George III, and the outbreak of Devil’s Footprints up and down the country, until last coming up to date with the invaders from Mars and the Ripper murders. At various points throughout the history, it mentions the founding of certain departments, such as the witch-hunters which were the basis of Department P. There are five departments, each with multiple sub-departments. So Department C—‘The Collection’—also includes The Black Archive, Department of Artefacts, and Department of Literature. The other departments include Department F—‘Foreign Intelligence’, Department M—‘Mythos’, Department P—‘Paranormal’, and Department—‘Science’.

Two of these departments are of particular note, though for different reasons. Department P includes sub-departments which deal with Apparitions, Vampires, Shapeshifters, Walking Dead, Mummies, Magic, Mentalism, and Cults. These enable the Game Master to plug other Leagues of Gothic Horror supplements into the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs. For example, the Guide to Apparitions and the Guide to Mummies support investigations and missions which dealt with by Sub-Department E1 and Sub-Department E5 respectively. This organisation means that the Game Master need only open up each department or sub-department when she wants to add the threats that each deals with to her campaign and so better pick and choose the supplements she wants to purchase and use. Until that time, of course, an agent of the Ministry of Unusual Affairs lacks the clearance to access that department. The other department is Department M—‘Mythos’. Now unlike the other departments, this one is entirely optional, since it deals with the Lovecraft Mythos, and that means that all of the other threats, whether that is vampirism or invaders from another world, pale by comparison. 

In terms of characters, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs points out that the Government Official is the most obvious type of archetype for a campaign revolving around its various departments. And certainly there is no harm in having such a character as one of the player characters. It suggests though, that since the ministry employs all types, there is room for military officers and big game hunters as much as there is alienists, clergymen, mentalists, and monster slayers, so there is plenty of room for flexibility. All new agents of the ministry receive get Rank (Ministry of Unusual Affairs) 0 for free, are assigned to a department of their choice and trained in a mix of standard skills for all agents and those taught by their department. Of course, having a number of different agents from different departments means that a team is better able to investigate and deal with a wider range of the unusual. As an agent is promoted, then he can be posted to other departments and so gain wider experience of the ministry’s operations. He is though, not given any training in the new department.

In terms of mechanics, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs details the Escape Artist Talent for agents with a high Acrobatics skill and Collector Mania as a Flaw, in which an agent succumbs to the urge to fill in the gaps and display cases in museums and libraries. Also detailed are the means to handle ministry budgets for missions, mundane gear like straitjackets, and weird science gear, like Coagulant Spray (useful for medical purposes, but not against vampires), Dig-o-Matic (for automatically disinterring graves without all of that messing about with shovels and getting dirt on your clothes), the Encyclopediamtica (a suitcase-sized device which contains hundreds of books miniaturised on small glass plates), and a Specimen Collection Vehicle (for collecting and transporting specimens and samples in relative safety). Fans of The Avengers—the British sixties television series, not the Marvel films—as will every well turned gentleman, will appreciate the inclusion of various modified umbrellas, including armoured, beguiling, and gas-launching. Rounding out this section is a complete list of the other weird science devices and creations to be found in other Leagues of Adventure and Leagues of Gothic Horror supplements, again enforcing the connection between this supplement and others in the line.

Roughly half of the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs is dedicated to NPCs, agents and department heads of the ministry. Notable department heads and agents include Philomena Freeman, the cranky, bad-tempered, foul-mouthed, allegedly three-armed head of Department C who really hates lending anyone the objects and items in her department’s collection; Mina Harker, head of Sub-Department E2 and perfect for tipping a Leagues of Gothic Horror campaign into The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen territory; and Jerimiah Benn, an ex-actor whose skill in disguise is so good that he has fooled fellow agents and the members of the cults he infiltrates alike. All of these NPCs are nicely done, all different and memorable for the Game Master to roleplay, several of them suffering from the effects of years of service in the ministry. Lastly the sample characters provide a ready supply of generic NPCs and character archetypes, the latter either ready for the players to play as agents or the Game Master to develop as more detailed NPCs, the latter including Cover-Up Specialist, Field Agent, and Spiritual Guide.

Penultimately, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs provides some advice on handling investigations. Much of this is obvious, but one of the ministry’s missions is to prevent knowledge of the supernatural and the weird becoming knowledge, so understandably there is an emphasis in this advice on covering up signs and evidence of it. This includes containment, concocting cover stories, hiding the truth, handling witnesses, and pulling rank and status—of course a lady of good character or a gentleman who is a renowned big game hunter would confirm that what you saw was a wolf rather than a werewolf! Certainly all prospective agents should be aware of this given it is part of the ministry’s remit.

Physically, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs is generally well presented and written, though some of the artwork is disappointing. Unlike a lot of the supplements for Leagues of Gothic Horror, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs is not a must-have purchase. In comparison, if the Game  Master wants to focus more on vampires in her game, then she buys Guide to Vampires and if she wants to focus on werewolves, then Guide to Shapeshifters is an obvious purchase. Instead of providing supernatural threats to fight, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs instead gives a reason for the player characters to investigate and combat the unusual, a campaign set-up for the Game Master to work with, and a big cast of NPCs for the player characters to interact with. Overall, the Guide to the Ministry of Unusual Affairs is perfect for the Game Master who wants a campaign set-up with pulpy undertones and hopefully, there will be scenarios, perhaps even a campaign, supporting the activities of Her Majesty’s most secret ministry.

Miskatonic Monday #24: Dark Offerings

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: Dark Offerings

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rob Leigh

Setting: Modern Day (Any)
Product: Scenario
What You Get: 5.82 MB, 24-page colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The Wicker Man with added goat

Plot Hook: A missing daughter in a cult's clutches 
Plot Development: A missing cult, insular islands, even more insular islanders, and things that walk in the woods.
Plot Support: Decent maps, a new spell, twelve NPCs and monsters, seven handouts.
Production Values: Decent.

Pros
# Inspired by The Wicker Man and The Shadow over Innsmouth
# Lots of surly natives
# Hidden against the clock rescue mission
# Easily adapted to other periods
# Easy to add to a campaign
Cons
# No NPC illustrations
# Straightforward plot
# Tight time constraints for the expected travel
# No mutant goat stats

Conclusion
# Decent, detailed scenario
# Excellent inspiration, but not inspiring

DELTA GREEN's last charge

It cannot be stressed how radical Delta Green was when it was first presented in The Unspeakable Oath #7 in 1993 and then in 1997 in the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement, Delta Green. It updated the presence of the Cthulhu Mythos for the then present, explained how it remained hidden in the then and now, and gave a reason that explained why anyone would investigate it. Essentially it layered the Mythos behind various conspiracies, including that of the New World Order and a healthy dollop of UFOlogy, and then folded the investigators into another conspiracy that was investigating the other and its secrets. Published by Pagan Publishing, in the next nineteen years, Delta Green would be supported by more fiction than gaming supplements, an issue with the limits of licensing agreement with Chaosium, Inc., but following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Arc Dream Publishing is presenting the Delta Green setting anew, updating it for the new millennium with Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game.

The founding of DELTA GREEN is well documented, being born out of the 1928 raid by the Office of Naval Intelligence and the United States Marine Corps on the insular and inbreed Massachusetts town of Innsmouth and its strange batrachian inhabitants who have too much in common with the denizens of the terrible aquatic city of the New England coast—as explored in Chaosium, Inc.’s Escape from Innsmouth campaign. It went to war as DELTA GREEN, fighting both Nazi and Japanese occult operations under the aegis of the OSS before being shut down and then reconstituted in the wake of the US government’s contact with extraterrestrials. Yet it ignored the threat of ‘little grey men’, concentrating instead on the threats it had faced before—Deep Ones, Nazi occultists, cults, and more—and as the threat of the Cold War grew, the US government’s operations in Vietnam expanded, and strange new religions and cults sprouted along with the counterculture on home soil, so did DELTA GREEN’s remit. The existence of the Unnatural and the threat it represented to humanity could not be denied to the US government, but it could be denied to the population at large. DELTA GREEN is an off-the-books, fully sanctioned operation, its agents drawn from inside the US military and federal and intelligence agencies, given temporary identities for purposes of each operation, often able to operate under the guise of another legitimate operation which sometimes gave it access to incredible military firepower, its mission still one of investigation, containment, destruction, and denial. At all costs. At any cost. Yet by the end of the sixties, DELTA GREEN had been disbanded, shutdown after a disastrous operation that forced it to go underground, to operate as an illegal conspiracy within the Federal government without sanction—as detailed in 1997’s Delta Green supplement. To date though, the details of that operation have remained unexplored, that is until the publication of The Fall of DELTA GREEN.

Winner of the 2019 Gold ENNIE Award for Best Setting, The Fall of DELTA GREEN turns back the clock on Delta Green to explore its last hurrah, the decade of the swinging sixties in which the USA would land men on the Moon, but get mired in conflict in Southeast Asia, in which the optimism of hippism and free love would be marred by murder, and in which Delta Green would be overwhelmed by threats domestic and foreign—and its own hubris. It is an adaptation of Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game not just in terms of time frame, but also mechanics and publisher. The Fall of DELTA GREEN is written by Ken Hite and published by Pelgrane Press and uses the publisher’s house investigation-orientated GUMSHOE System, devised by Robin D. Laws and since used on roleplaying games ranging from Ashen Stars and Night’s Black Agents to Mutant City Blues and TimeWatch.

The GUMSHOE System is a simple enough system. It eschews the traditional attributes, skills, advantages, and disadvantages of other roleplaying games. Instead player characters have Investigative and General Abilities. The Investigative Abilities—divided into Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical, such as Accounting, HUMINT, and Traffic Analysis—are pools of points. In a scene where there are clues to be found, if a character has the Ability, then he gets any core clue to be found. His player can also expend points from the appropriate Ability to gain further information. General Abilities, such as Athletics, First Aid, and Preparedness, are also pools of points, but primarily expended as effort to overcome an immediate objective.

For the most, anyone who has played another GUMSHOE System roleplaying game will have no difficulty adapting to The Fall of DELTA GREEN. There are differences though, most notably in the lethality of the combat system to take account of modern firearms and support weapons. Obviously lethal to mankind, some of these weapons are also capable of killing creatures and things of the Unnatural—the equivalent of the Mythos in both The Fall of DELTA GREEN and Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game—but not all, some being resistant to damage, others simply being not quite of this mortal realm… In comparison to other GUMSHOE System roleplaying games—especially Trail of Cthulhu—The Fall of DELTA GREEN is deadlier in terms of its mechanics. Other changes, such as Bonds, are imported from Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game. They represent an Agent’s vital relationships—with loved ones, family members, and close friends—that connect him to his humanity and which can be strained, pulled, and broken as he goes on operation after operation, and is exposed to the Unnatural again and again.

The Fall of DELTA GREEN opens in 1961. The players take the role of Agents. They are typically current or ex-members of the military, veteran Agents even having served in World War II or Korea, or members of a Federal department, like the Atomic Energy Commission, Federal Bureau of Narcotics, or State Department. There is a wide range of options available, so one player can roleplay a Domestic Intelligence Division ‘Black-bagger’ of the FBI, another a Special Forces soldier of the US Army’s ‘Green Berets’ or the Navy SEALs, or another an Advanced Research Project Agency Researcher. This differs fundamentally from the Delta Green of 1997 where more Friendlies, non-Federal Agents, are recruited. It is entirely possible to play a Friendly, for example, an archaeologist or a gangster, but it is not the main focus of The Fall of DELTA GREEN. Agent creation is a matter of selecting one or two background templates and assigning the required to them. One represents the Agent’s military service—every American between eighteen and twenty-nine being subject to Selective Service conscription—the other his occupation after military service. Agents still in the military add an active service template the branch they are in. The Fall of DELTA GREEN does cover the gender and racial bias prevalent in the period, noting that addressing both and how should be up to the Handler and her players and whatever best supports their play experience.

Our sample Agent is Captain Lawrence Clark, a Nevadan who was recruited out of college by the United States Air Force to serve in Korea. There he flew Boeing B-29 Superfortress night bombing missions over North Korea. After the war, he was removed from active flight duties by a deterioration in his eyesight. After a number of support postings, Clark was reassigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations where he specialises in accounting audits, having trained as an accountant at college. When he flagged up accounting errors as funds being moved into untraceable accounts, he came to the attention of Delta Green. At the same time, an expected promotion has been put on hold, so he suspects that he is being punished for asking too many questions.

Captain Lawrence Clark
AFOSI Investigator, Air Force Office of Special Investigations

Academic Abilities
Astronomy 1, Criminology 1, Foreign Language 1 (Russian), Law 1, Military Science 2

Interpersonal Abilities
Accounting 3, Agency 4, HUMINT 2, Inspiration 1, Interrogation 1, Reassurance 3

Technical Abilities
Notice 1, Survival 1

General Abilities
Athletics 4, Bureaucracy 7, Conceal 2, Drive 2, Firearms 2, First Aid 1, Health 30, Mechanics 1, Network 5, Pilot 3, Preparedness 6, Sanity 6, Sense Trouble 7, Stability 5, Unarmed Combat 6

Bonds
My wife Gloria (4), my son Richard (4), my mother (4)

Motivation: Patriotism

The Fall of DELTA GREEN does add a number of odd skills or Abilities. For example, Fringe Science represents expertise in experimental, eccentric, if not impossible science, whilst The Unnatural represents knowledge, even understanding of the secret nature of the universe. It can be used to recall information from DELTA GREEN case files or tomes of The Unnatural as well as to intuitively piece together terrible conclusions about an operation or cult or… The Hypergeometry Ability not only grants the capacity to understand the universe, but also manipulate it—otherwise known as magic! Both The Unnatural and Hypergeometry cost both Stability and Sanity to use. Like all roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, The Fall of DELTA GREEN has rules for handling the loss of Stability—an Agent’s ability to withstand psychological trauma, and Sanity—an Agent’s capacity to retain his humanity in the face of exposure to The Unnatural. Whether losing Stability and Sanity from Violence or Helplessness, it is possible to adapt to either, but not to The Unnatural. Another carry over from Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game is the inclusion of an Agent’s Bonds, his personal relationships, which can actually be damaged by his experiencing shocking events, his carrying the trauma home with him after an operation. At the same time, it is possible to strengthen (or recover) Bonds which have been damaged by the Agent’s mental trauma. Such actions are only possible between operations. What they represent are not just fantastic models of an Agent’s ongoing trauma and how it affects just more than him, but also great opportunities to roleplay.

For ‘Spy-Fi’ fans, The Fall of DELTA GREEN includes an excellent chapter on gear and how to be a spy, or at least, a DELTA GREEN Agent. There are guidelines on obtaining equipment, necessary because DELTA GREEN does everything off the books and so has borrow, build, or buy much of its needs, as well as descriptions of what that equipment might be. Useful because this is, after all, decades before the Digital Age. Actual Tradecraft covers how to run an operation, including staying clean and hidden from other agencies or interested parties, conducting a stakeout, handling an interrogation, and so on. It culminates in a solid essay of advice for the players, which includes not The Moscow Rules because Moscow is a lesser threat, but The Innsmouth Rules. Every Handler—as the Game Master is known in The Fall of DELTA GREEN—should make these available to her players.

Over half of The Fall of DELTA GREEN is for the Handler’s eyes only. This includes a complete history of both DELTA GREEN and MAJESTIC, the latter being DELTA GREEN’s fellow off-the-books agency. They are rivals, MAJESTIC focusing on extraterrestrial threats and turning any recovered technology to the advantage of the USA, whereas DELTA GREEN focuses on Earthbound threats and would rather see recovered artefacts and technology destroyed lest it fall into the wrong hands. If DELTA GREEN is old school, then MAJESTIC is a new school, cooler, better funded rival to DELTA GREEN and not the deadly enemy it will become following DELTA GREEN’s fall. The departments and major personalities for both are detailed, and along with a detailed year-by-year timeline of the sixties, provide the Handler with the more ‘mundane’ background to The Fall of DELTA GREEN. Included in the timeline are options for how the Agents might become involved in some of the agency’s biggest operations of the decade.

Almost a third of The Fall of DELTA GREEN is devoted to The Unnatural. It takes in a huge amount of information, not just the dread tomes that humanity has penned about the true nature of the universe in the last few thousand years, but also the nature of Hypergeometry, its spells and rituals, and its expression as the Psionic powers discovered by the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program and MAJESTIC’s various projects; it goes to hidden places such as Irem and the Nameless City and Leng, and beyond; and the specific threats faced by DELTA GREEN. These include particular aliens like the Colour Out of Space, Deep Ones, and Great Race of Yith, and the great entities known as the ‘Great Old Ones’, but perhaps more suggestively categorised as the ‘ones of the stars’, ‘ones of the earth’, and ‘ones of dream’.

Throughout, this is presented through the lens of DELTA GREEN perspective, rather than just as another roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. So there is more of an emphasis on the Deep Ones, the Mi-Go, and the Tcho-Tcho than in other roleplaying games that see the player characters confronting the Mythos, reflecting what both DELTA GREEN and MAJESTIC have traditionally investigated and seen as a threat. To that end advice is given to the Handler as to how to make such ‘familiar’ races of The Unnatural horrifying once again. Other entities it reinterprets, for example, Y’golonac as the Headless One. What all this does is attempt to recast the Mythos afresh as The Unnatural, to make it unfamiliar once again, and so make it more of a mystery and support the players’ efforts to reflect that unfamiliarity and that mystery. In addition, particular avenues of investigation and their associated Abilities, such as Forensics highlighting the dry, scaly, brittle, and sunken skin found in those men and animals exposed to a Colour Out of Space or Notice to spot the round furniture and food in a room when tracking signs of a Hound of Tindalos. More familiar threats are presented in terms of the worst or foolish of humanity prepared to worship The Unnatural, also many familiar from ‘future’ iterations of Delta Green. These include the Cthulhu Cult which DELTA GREEN has been fighting since 1928; the Karotechia, the last remnants of the Nazi occult programs; the Fate, the New York-based occult network which all but runs the Mafia for fun and profit; and the Cult of Transcendance, an Illuminati-like network which operates a global conspiracy. The Fall of DELTA GREEN makes clear that in some ways, humanity is a bigger threat to itself than The Unnatural, whether that is being prepared to adopt and adapt the power it offers to ‘benefit’ mankind, to benefit select individuals, or to use it to fight other threats represented by The Unnatural.

As well as all of the background and the means for the Agents to investigate The Unnatural, along with a solid biography, the Handler is given some excellent advice on running The Fall of DELTA GREEN. It highlights the uncertainty, the lack of control, and the reactive nature of DELTA GREEN investigations, as well as providing solid advice on building threats, constructing cults, creating operations, and running the game. It backs this up with ‘Operation’s Aladdin’s Cave’, a mission which takes the Agents for ‘A Day at the Races’ in Vietnam to investigate a potential outbreak of The Unnatural and exposes the Agents to a healthy dose of inter-agency paranoia as they try and find out what is going on. The scenario does not feel wholly original, but the other, similar scenario is not specifically Lovecraftian, so may well be somewhat obscure for many to know of it.

Physically, The Fall of DELTA GREEN is superbly presented—for the most part. It needs a light edit here and there, but is generally well written and highly readable. The layout is built around a lot of period photographs and documents, typically laid out as collages in a style that gives the book a thoroughly authentic feel of the period. Where The Fall of DELTA GREEN is disappointing is in the artwork, which in places feels disappointingly amateurish.

One quibble might be that the focus of The Fall of DELTA GREEN is too much on DELTA GREEN and Vietnam, as opposed to the wider world and allied agencies investigating The Unnatural. Some attention is given to those operating in both Canada and the United Kingdom, enough that the Handler can involve them or take her Agents on operations in either country. To be fair, the emphasis on DELTA GREEN and Vietnam is wholly understandable given that this is a roleplaying game about the agency’s last hurrah and like the country it served and protected, that last hurrah would come in Vietnam.

The Fall of DELTA GREEN is a superb reimagining of Delta Green, one which wraps the unreal history with the real, to explore a period long talked about, but never fully explained. That explanation is a Spy-Fi technothriller, a Cold War era fight against a threat bigger than the Cold War, a paranoia-infused series of clean-up and knowledge denial operations that escalate into brushfire wars. Ultimately, The Fall of DELTA GREEN is a roleplaying game about the horror of hubris as much as it is the loss of humanity.

A Motley Ordeal

Changelings are those who were abducted by the Faerie, underwent a great ordeal whilst in Arcadia, and returned changed, their eyes open to the Magic of the world, partly fae, but still human enough to want to tell a story that is theirs. The Gentry, the Faerie, have not forgotten the children they abducted and made into their families, twisting them into roles they could play in the same story over and over, and so send Huntsmen through the Hedge of thorns that separates the mortal realm from the Faerie to recapture what is theirs. Forever on the run, the Changelings have seen the beauty and the horror of both worlds, can see the fantastic which hides behind a mask everywhere they look, and as much as their memories draw them back to the mortal realm, they are forever separated from their pre-abduction lives by their time in Arcadia. Hunted and both blessed and cursed by what they endured, Changelings band together in Motleys, providing each other solace and support in the face of shared memories. Each Motley is part of a Court, which provides defence and support in a region or freehold, each Court having a seasonal aspect—Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter—and there will be one of each within a freehold.

This is the set-up for Changeling: The Lost Second Edition, the roleplaying game of mortals kidnapped by the fae and returned to the mortal realms published by Onyx Path Publishing as part of the ‘Chronicles of Darkness’. It is also the set-up for Hearts on Trial, a jump-start and introduction to Changeling: The Lost Second Edition, presenting a preview of the rules for both Changeling: The Lost Second Edition and Chronicles of Darkness, rules for creating and playing changeling characters, extra Contracts, and a complete adventure which comes with five pre-generated player characters.

Both Changeling: The Lost Second Edition and Hearts on Trial uses the Storytelling mechanics. This means rolling dice pools of ten-sided dice, with results of eight, nine, and ten counting as successes. Rolls of ten allow rerolls as long as a player keeps rolling ten. Anything more than five successes counts as an exceptional result. Under certain situations this grants a character a beneficial condition, such as Informed or Inspired. Penalties reduce the number of dice that can be rolled, but never below a single die. This last die becomes the chance die and only a ten counts as a success on the chance die—and cannot be rerolled—whereas a roll of a one on the chance die counts as a dramatic failure. Alternatively, a player can have his character voluntarily fail and gain a point of Willpower (this differs from Changeling: The Lost Second Edition wherein it grants Beats, used to advance a character’s traits and powers, but omitted for ease of play in this jumpstart). Willpower is also gained when a player roleplays his changeling’s Thread or Needle, when a character fulfills an Aspiration or resolves a Condition—beneficial or bad, which might be Frightened, Oathbreaker, Wanton, and so on. Willpower can be expended to add three extra dice to a dice pool, to increase a character’s Resistance to an effect, and use certain abilities.

Hearts on Trial covers combat, objects, and building equipment in a smart fashion, along with entering into Goblin Contracts and acquiring Goblin Debt (the danger being that acquiring too much and the changeling with transform into a Hobgoblin), making oaths, and the dangers of entering the Hedge, before moving onto character traits. Characters themselves are mechanically defined by nine attributes—Composure, Dexterity, Intelligence, Manipulation, Presence, Resolve, Stamina, Strength, and Wits—and skills in three categories—Mental, Physical, and Social, all ranging between one and five. Similarly, they have Merits (the equivalent of advantages and disadvantages) which are rated on the same scale. Characters also have a Needle, a Thread, a Seeming, a Kith, and a Court. The Seemings are Beast—clever, wary, crude, and aggressive; Darkling—silent outsiders with a love of riddles; Elemental—alien forces of nature transformed into living plants, bonfires, storms, and so on; Fairest—adored whose judgement carry great power; Ogre—blunt and ugly, heroes and bullies; and Wizened—busy finding solutions to crises and vexing issues. Needle is a character’s personality like Daredevil or Teacher; Thread his motivation, like Revenge or Friendship; and Kith what he was transformed into by the Gentry, such as Brightone, a passionate changeling with shining soul who cannot help but attract attention, and Playmate, a loyal changeling whose healing power makes him a steadfast companion.

Changelings also have a true face—or Mien—showing their fae nature, which they hide behind a Mask of human appearance. All fae creatures can see through the Mask, which does not work in the Hedge. Their Wyrd represents his power and how much fae magic he can draw from, whilst his Glamour is drawn from strong human emotions—literally harvested from them if the changeling is close enough, and actually powers his fae Contracts and tricks. For example, the Autumn’s Fury, a Contract which can only be made by members of an Autumn Court, either causes heavy rains and heavy winds which can affect everyone around the changeling who invokes the Contract, or storms that strike with lightning. This costs the changeling either two or three points of Glamour, with the lightning strike needing an attack roll. Every Contract has a Loophole. So for Autumn’s Fury, the changeling lifts a metal pole into the air and points it at his foes.

Having presented the mechanics and the background to Changeling: The Lost Second Edition, the jump-start presents the eponymous adventure, ‘Hearts on Trial’. It takes place on South Street in Philadelphia, a bohemian district of the city where the motley has found a home in the Nevermore freehold after having escaped from their durance in Grandmother, Grandmother’s Cabin where she molded them into the ‘perfect’ family. In Nevermore, they are in the middle of a negotiation with a rival freehold when a young girl taunts them with riddles and hints at things that the motley might have left in the Hedge. Getting through the Hedge is a challenge in itself, but then the young girl decides to hold her own special court at which the members of the motley are her very special guests… 

Hearts on Trial is just four scenes long and so does feel somewhat short. Nevertheless, it presents some solid opportunities in terms of roleplaying and action for the changelings and their players, whilst the Storyteller will have fun portraying the young girl and playing with the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and candyland imagery that runs throughout the adventure.

Hearts on Trial comes with five pre-generated changelings. They include a Wisecracking Vizier, who played the black sheep in Grandmother, Grandmother’s household and who is now a tinkerer; a Cheerful Diplomat who was Grandmother, Grandmother’s golden child; a Bellwether Beast who was many creatures in Grandmother, Grandmother’s household and has now become an urban legend; a Relentless Constable who was a wooden doll for Grandmother, Grandmother, but full of fury whilst becoming the fashionista she once was; and a Restless Skater, forever the forgotten middle child. Each is given a full character sheet, a full page of background, and an explanation of their Seeming, Blessing and Curse, Kith Blessing, Mantle—Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and unaligned, and both Needle and Thread, as well as Contracts known. 

Physically, Hearts on Trial is well presented and well written. It is also decently illustrated with some really nice pieces of artwork, all done in green tones. Overall, this is a nice booklet which will sit well alongside the Storyteller’s other Changeling: The Lost Second Edition books.

If there is an issue with Hearts on Trial it is two-fold. First, there really is not a means of creating changeling characters in its pages as is claimed on the back cover. Second, it includes a high number of different terms—Needle and Thread, Seeming, Blessing and Curse, Wyrd, Glamour, and more—that not only the Storyteller has to learn, but also teach to her players. Perhaps a cheat sheet might be useful for the Storyteller to prepare prior to running Hearts on Trial? Get past this though, and mechanically, Hearts on Trial is quite straightforward and easy to grasp, whilst also giving its players some nicely detailed pre-generated changelings which come with plenty of roleplaying hooks in terms of their background, their Needle and Thread, Seeming, Blessing and Curse, and so on. Overall, Hearts on Trial presents everything a Storyteller and her players needs to begin a Changeling: The Lost Second Edition chronicle—rules, characters, and set-up—along with a demanding scenario. Or at least give them a taster.

Friday Fantasy: She Bleeds

Having reviewed Going Through Forbidden Other Worlds and seen the effects of Obscene Serpent Religion 2, we move onto the effects of She Bleeds. This is one of four short scenarios and supplements for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay released by Lamentations of the Flame Princess at Gen Con 2018. It presents a path to female—and male, if they are ‘brave’ enough to follow it too—empowerment through menstruation and worship of an otherworldly feminine deity in a lunar cycle and so has a subject matter which may not be to everyone’s tastes. In fact, copies of the supplement were famously destroyed by a British distributor, as reported by Geek Native and covered in more detail by Tenkar’s Tavern, because its subject matter was deemed to be ‘disgusting’. Now some may find the subject matter of She Bleeds—which at no point is obfuscated, starting with the front cover and carried through to the back cover—to be in poor taste, to be too uncomfortable to deal with round their gaming table, to be unsuitable for their game, but that is very much all in the eye of the beholder. Rather, She Bleeds is a supplement which takes a subject matter and a biological process that is typically seen as disgusting and distasteful, as making a woman weak, and so on, and turns it into a means of empowerment.

From the start, She Bleeds is not obviously written as a gaming supplement. It is written instead as a secret manual handed from woman to the next, explaining the rituals involved in the worship of an otherworldly deity known only as ‘She’ or ‘Her’ and the gifts that she grants. Once infected by She, the woman—and it is primarily a woman, although it is possible for a man to follow this path—who has the honour of bearing her, will return again and again to enact rituals at eight different phases of the Moon. Now one of the ‘Blooded’, in return for completing the ritual, the woman is granted a new power associated with her flesh or her blood. Some of the rituals grant different powers depending on which of the two Avatars of Her the woman selects. For example, in the first ritual at the Full Moon, the woman accepts her role as a host to Her, drinks the saliva of a young woman and an old, and after completing the ritual, either selects ‘By gentle kiss’ or ‘By force’. The former grants the woman’s saliva the power to hear as she licks the wound, the latter makes her saliva poisonous that can be licked onto weapons. Such gifts are not permanent, and to refresh them, the woman has to enact the ritual again. These are the slightest of the gifts that She grants, and as the woman enacts further rituals under different phases of the Moon, she is granted more powerful abilities, her blood coming alive until she can become an avatar of Her. A man can also follow this path, but as he accepts the infection that is She and enacts ritual after ritual, his genitalia changes and he too comes to menstruate—and in the process, would gain access to the spells and magic presented in Vaginas Are Magic. That though, would be a path all of its very own…

Only at the end of She Bleeds, after each of the rituals has been presented is the nature of She presented, almost as a final revelation. She has no form but sacrifice and comes to those in pain and suffering, offering her solace and power three times. Should Her chosen accept, then she is infected and becomes an Initiate of She, compelled to enact the first of the lunar rituals—the first of many.

Similarly, the introduction to She Bleeds comes at the end, an afterword rather than an introduction. Here she states that, “Writing a piece about periods is tricky.” before adding that, “No monthly event in my life has made me feel more weak or, at times, more powerful. There’s something integrally beautiful about menstruation and something terrifyingly brutal—much like being a woman—much like playing Lamentations.” She Bleeds is a response to that, a way to make the experience gameable, but without descending into prurience or making it purely about empowerment. There is empowerment here, very much so, but it does not come without cost, for the rituals, repeated over and over, changes the Blooded. There then lies the allegory at the heart of She Bleeds.

Physically, She Bleeds is neatly presented. It maintains a sharp separation between the in-game description and the technical rules description of the rituals presented in the book. The writing needs editing in places and the artwork matches the adult tone of the writing, but is anything other prurient.

Where the difficulty and complexity comes in She Bleeds is in both Referee and player of the woman infected by She keeping track of the calendar as the phases of the Moon change. A simplified method is provided as an easier alternative, but it is not that much less complex… But whatever the method, the point of a player keeping track is to involve him and his character more fully in the turn of the Moon and the powers being granted. To get the fullest out of She Bleeds, that player and his Referee needs to embrace both the nature and process of becoming one of the Blooded, and in doing so, it enables their game and their gaming experience to explore an issue that many might not otherwise. 

Ice Cool School 2

Launched at the UK Games Expo 2016, Ice Cool was not just a big hit, it would go on to win the 2016 UK Games Expo Best Children’s Game Winner and the Kinderspiel des Jahres—the children’s game of the year award, similar to the Spiel des Jahres—in 2017. It was the biggest, coolest penguin flipping, fish grabbing, trick shot-taking game on ice ever, and that in a field of flicking games like Rampage or Terror in Meeple City and Flick ‘em Up! Now all that changes, with publisher Brain Games returning to UK Games Expo in 2019 to release Ice Cool 2. With Ice Cool 2, the flicking game goes back to school again, all the way down to the South Pole, and lets the players—or penguins—run round and jump about it as they race to grab fish before the hall monitor can grab them and steal their ID Cards! Played over multiple lunchtimes, the penguin player who gets the most fish and the most Hall Passes is the winner.

Ice Cool 2 is both a standalone game and an expansion to the original Ice Cool. As a standalone game, it is designed for between two and four players, aged six plus, plays very much like Ice Cool, and shares many similarities. The first of these is the ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up. Open up the box and nested inside are several smaller box lids. These together with the box base that Ice Cool comes are laid out and clipped together—using the tan fish (plastic in Ice Cool 2 rather than wooden as in Ice Cool)—to form the school and its rooms. Between each of the rooms there are doors and over some of these doors are clipped the fish that the penguin pupils are after.

The second is the penguins themselves. The stars of Ice Cool and thus Ice Cool 2, they are made of plastic, each with a round bottom with a ball bearing weight inside it. A bit like a Weeble. What this means is that when flicked, a penguin will roll. Of course a penguin can roll straight, but flick it from behind on the right hand side and a penguin will curve to the right and flick it from behind on the left hand side and a penguin will curve to the left. Which means that it can go round corners! Yet if you flick a penguin in the head, you can get him to jump, even jump over the walls of the school!

Ice Cool is played in rounds, one round per penguin. In each round one penguin is the Hall Monitor. His job is to catch the other penguins who are trying to get through the doors with the fish and so claim the fish. When a penguin goes through a door with a fish of his colour, he grabs that fish and a Victory Point card. If the Hall Monitor touches another penguin, then he confiscates that penguin’s I.D. Card. Everyone continues flicking their penguins around the school until either one penguin has grabbed all of his fish from over the appropriate doors or the Hall Monitor has confiscated all of the other penguins’ I.D. Cards. At the end of the round, the Hall Monitor receives a Victory Card for each I.D. Card he confiscated. Then the I.D. Cards are handed back and another round begins with play continuing until everyone has been the Hall Monitor and the game ends. The penguin with the most Victory Points wins the game.

The Victory Point cards are worth one, two, or three points. A penguin—whether a penguin or the Hall Monitor—can use pairs of Victory Cards of the same value to activate special abilities. Pairs with a value of one and marked with an image of skates have two uses. The first is to allow a penguin to have another go at the end of his turn, and as long as he has pairs of cards marked with a one and skates, he can keep having another go at the end of his turn. The second is for the penguin—but not the Hall Monitor—can attempt a task. There are three types of task—jump over a wall into another room, pass through two doors in a single flick, or bounce off one wall and pass through one or more doors. Successfully completely a task and a penguin can draw another Victory card. A penguin can use  pairs of cards marked with a one and skates to do either, but not both of these actions. Pairs of Victory cards marked with a two can also be used to move a fish of any colour from atop one door to atop another. The only limit is that it cannot be moved to a door adjacent to a room in which there is a penguin of a matching colour.

The use of the Victory cards not only score a penguin points for the end of the game, but as pairs, they add a tactical element to play. Not just taking another turn, but also taking trick shots to score more Victory cards and to move his rival’s fish, forcing his rival to change plans. Now for younger players, these tactical elements in Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2, may well be too complex or too adversarial, but that is very much down to the judgement of the adults playing with the younger players. This reflects nicely how Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2 can be adjusted to suit both older and younger players, because strip away those tactical aspects and what you have is a flicking game that anyone can play because it relies upon personal skill.

Just as with Ice Cool, Ice Cool 2 is an attractive game with physical presence. It looks great on the table and it really is simple to play. The rules themselves are easy to grasp, but they are not written for the young audience that the game is aimed at. So an adult will need to read through them and teach them to younger players, but they are simple enough to both teach and play. Having done, what players young and old will find is that Ice Cool is fun. The design of the penguins means that skill and trick shots can be taken to get the rolling fish fiends to curve and jump to grab the fish and avoid the Hall Monitor. This physical element means that young and old can play on a level ice field and younger players have a good chance of beating adults. Both of course can get better and better with practice.

As a standalone game, adults will enjoy Ice Cool 2 as much as children, despite it being a children’s game. It provides the same fun as Ice Cool, whilst adding the tactical element, and if you were choosing between purchasing Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2, then Ice Cool 2 would be the better choice. That though, is as a standalone, for Ice Cool 2 shares the same issue as Ice Cool and that there is just the one layout that can be created using its ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up. It would have been fun if the game allowed for a variety of school layouts to be created. As standalone games, neither Ice Cool or Ice Cool 2 allow for that option. Ice Cool 2, as an expansion to Ice Cool 2 though…

Included in Ice Cool 2 is a second rulebook, ‘Ice Cool + Ice Cool 2’. When played on their own, both games are designed for between two and four players, but combined, they allow up to eight penguins to flick riot around the school to get fish. This is made possible because the penguins in Ice Cool 2 are of a different colour to those in Ice Cool. They allow the boxes of ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up of Ice Cool to be combined with the boxes of ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up of Ice Cool 2 to allow different layouts and even sliding boxes which move every turn! They add a new game type, ‘Race Game Mode’, which is really a team mode, with penguins dividing into teams of two to race round the school and collect all of their fish. Any of the layouts suggested in the ‘Ice Cool + Ice Cool 2’ rulebook can be used in ‘Race Game Mode’. (An alternative might be for each player controlling two penguins as a team so that even with just three or four players, they get to play with everything from both Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2.)

Ice Cool is heaps of fun, a game that can be enjoyed by young and old, making it a terrific family game. Ice Cool 2 is heaps of fun, a game that can be enjoyed by young and old, making it a terrific family game. Ice Cool and Ice Cool 2 is together better, providing a bigger game for more penguins and more fun.

Miskatonic Monday #23: Visceral and Emotional Damage

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: Visceral and Emotional Damage

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jon Hook

Setting: Any
Product: Reference
What You Get: 1.02 MB, 10-page colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: No more flesh wounds!

Plot Hook: Damage should not just be numbers, but hit locations and injuries.
Plot Development: Lost toes, shattered kneecaps, lost fingers, perforated intestines, pierced lungs, jugular slashed, Sanity loss.
Plot Support: Hit location table, injury location tables, gore descriptors.
Production Values: Decent.

Pros
# Inspired by The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, Episode #143
# Plenty of gore
# Wounds and Sanity losses

Cons
# When is too much detail, too much detail?
# Unsuitable for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos

Conclusion
# Works in any period.
# Ow! Ow! That hurts.