Miskatonic Monday #35: Church of Chiropteran Wisdom

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 Repository.

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Name: Church of Chiropteran Wisdom

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sal North

Setting: England Jazz Age of the 1920s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 733.72 Kb seven-page, full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Shopping for sacrifices? 
Plot Hook: A missing person case points to a jewel on the English coast.
Plot Development: Several missing persons and a batty old shop.
Plot Support: Two NPCs, a new monster, and a Mask of the Crawling Chaos.

Pros
# Simple, location based scenario
# Easily adapted to other times and periods 
# One-shot or side-quest scenario
# Potential addition to Masks of Nyarlathotep

Cons

# Unedited
# Underdeveloped plot
# Paucity of clues
# Underwhelming hook
# Tamworth, ‘Surrey’?

Conclusion
# Underdeveloped 
# Needs editing
# A Keeper project to improve?

2000: Three Days to Kill

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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The year 2000 is significant in the gaming hobby because it marked the beginning of the ‘d20 Era’, a period of unparalleled creativity by publishers large and small—and tiny, as they used the d20 System to power game after game, scenario after scenario, supplement after supplement, genre after genre. Some new, some old, some simple reskins. And there are publishers twenty or so years later who are still writing using the d20 System. As much as publishers explored different worlds and settings using the d20 System and its System Reference Document, at its heart was one roleplaying game, launched in the year 2000—Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Just as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is the top roleplaying game today, Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition was the top roleplaying game of its day, and the advent of the d20 System let other publishers play in the Dungeons & Dragons sandpit, just as many had back in the early days of the hobby. The aim of this series of reviews is not to review Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition itself, for that would not necessarily make for an interesting review. Rather it is to look at some of the interesting titles which came out of the d20 System boom that started twenty years ago.

From the off, the d20 System allowed publishers to ride the wave of popularity that was Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and that started at Gen Con 2000 with adventures from publishers such as Atlas Games. Better known for roleplaying games such as Over the Edge and Feng Shui: Action Movie Roleplaying, Atlas Games would launch its Penumbra line of d20 System supplements with one of the very first adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition—Three Days to Kill. What is notable about Three Days to Kill—beyond the fact that it was the first scenario published for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, it that it was written by John Tynes, then better known as co-designer of Unknown Armies and the Delta Green setting for Call of Cthulhu. So what you had was a horror writer designing a fantasy adventure and that is evident in certain ‘Grim Dark’ tone to Three Days to Kill. The other notable fact about Three Days to Kill is that it sees me as a reviewer returning to where I started, having reviewed the scenario in 2001 at RPG.net. Of course this will be a more likely occurrence as we proceed into the next decade, but this does not mean that such titles are not worth reviewing or revisiting.

Designed for a party of player characters of First Level to Third Level, Three Days to Kill takes place in what is intended to be an isolated area in the Dungeon Master’s campaign. This is in and around the valley known as the Deeps, at the heart of which is Deeptown, a major stop along a long east-west trade route through a range of  mountains. The town’s primary interest is trade and supporting the constant movement of caravans which travel east and west along the trade road. The town council—as well as the Trade Circle, made up of Deeptown’s most important businessmen and which has a strong, if subtle grip on the town—are particularly concerned about maintaining the flow of goods and money through Deeptown. This includes accepting the presence of religions and faiths which would not be accepted elsewhere, such as the Sect of Sixty, which seeks to deceive and seduce through pleasure and hedonism. As long as no one temple or faith upsets the balance of trade through the town, they are allowed to continue ministering to their flocks. Upset or threaten that balance and the Town Council will see to it that the priests are driven from the town, the faith’s temple burned to the ground, and the faith banned in Deep Town. That is until the faith can renegotiate terms more favourable to the Town Council for the return of their priests to Deep Town.

Whilst there is an obvious balance being maintained in Deeptown, there is a more subtle counterpart beyond the earthen ramparts of the town. This is not maintained by the town council or the Trade Circle, but by a half dozen bandit ‘lords’ who prey upon the merchant caravans travelling in and out of Deeptown and the Deeps. They have learned to carry out well-executed assaults on the richer caravans, perhaps killing a few guards, but leaving travellers and merchants alive, in the case of the latter, perhaps to target them again on the way out of the valley or on a return journey. What they avoid is committing massacres. That only attracts the attention of the authorities in Deeptown and increases the likelihood of their retaliating.

As Three Days to Kill opens, neither of the top two bandit lords are happy with this balance of power. One has learned that his rival is seeking an alliance with outsiders to crush his forces and so take control of bandit operations in the valley. In order to counter this, he plans to hire a team of outside thugs, equip them, and have them assault the location where the rival is meeting his potential new allies. Not necessarily to kill, but to disrupt the meeting and in the process, undermine the alliance before it gets off the ground. Enter the player characters…

The player characters arrive in Deeptown almost like everyone else—accompanying or guarding a merchant caravan. They arrive just in time for the Festival of Plenty, an annual event put on by the Sect of Sixty. This is a pageant of wine, song, and ribald debauchery culminating in a performance of Passion of Arimbo, a popular folk tale about a farmer who follows a jolly devil into the rings of Hell. The player characters are free to participate in the festival or even work it as guards, and the scenario caters for either option. There is opportunity here for plenty of roleplaying for both the Dungeon Master and her players, enough for a session before the main plot comes into play. Alternatively, if the Dungeon Master wanted to run a shorter session, she could ignore the Festival of Plenty entirely and cut to the main plot. That though would be to miss a certain plot payoff if any of the player characters do get involved in the event’s debauchery, especially given who and what the Sect of Sixty actually worship.

The main plot to Three Days to Kill sees the player characters armed and equipped by one bandit lord to strike at another. The arming and equipping includes magical items as well as mundane ones, but the magical ones are very specific and for a specific purpose, all to be used during the assault. They consist of a Wand of Fireballs—with a single charge; an Orb of Sight—which provides low light, telescopic, and even X-ray vision; twenty Flare Pebbles; and a Sleep Arrow. A Wand of Fireballs with one charge rather than a Fireball Scroll because it models a rocket launcher; the Orb of Sight because it models low-light or IR Goggles; the Flare Pebbles because they model flashbang grenades; and the Sleep Arrow because it models a stun grenade or knockout dart. What this all models and what the climax of Three Days to Kill models—as it clearly states—is a Tom Clancy-style special ops mission in a fantasy setting. So the player characters will need to reconnoitre the villa where the meeting is taking place and plan how to carry out the assault. To that end the author includes advice on the strategies the player characters can use and their players can make skill rolls for their preparations as necessary.

Only on the journey to the villa will the player characters begin to learn that there is something amiss. There are others, priests of the Temple of the Holy Order from Deeptown, who were aware of the meeting between the bandit lord and his prospective allies—and they paid for it with their lives. However, this should not stop the party from continuing with its mission. And ideally, this mission should go as clockwork up until the point where it does not and all hell breaks loose—literally. For the truth of the matter is that the bandit lord is seeking an alliance with diabalists and when the player characters attack, they bring allies of their own. Ones that the player characters will not be expecting and are probably ill-equipped to deal with. And then there is the issue of just who killed the priests of the Temple of the Holy Order from Deeptown…

As written, Three Days to Kill consists of a simple background and a straightforward plot—at least as far as the player characters are concerned. In fact, the plot is quite complex and this will come out in play as it complications will disrupt the plans of the player characters, the bandit lord, and the Sect of Sixty. The background is detailed, covering the Deeptown and some of the surrounding Deeps valley, but is not specific, which has a couple of ramifications. One ramification is that Three Days to Kill is easily adapted to the setting of the Dungeon Master’s choice, or indeed the fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. This is because the author leaves plenty of scope for the Dungeon Master to supply that flavour, whether that is renaming the Sect of Sixty and the Temple of the Holy Order or relocating Deeptown to fit her own campaign world. The other ramification is that beyond a certain grim tone to the situation and plot, Three Days to Kill is lacking in flavour.

For the players, Three Days to Kill presents an interesting challenge, especially with low Level player characters. The instinct for players and thus their characters is to kill, after all, it goes to the heart of dungeoneering and thus Dungeons & Dragons. Now should the player characters decide not to obey their instructions and rush in, events are likely to backfire on them. Once they attack and events escalate, should they stay and fight, then again events are likely to backfire on them. Three Days to Kill is very much a get in, perform the strike, and get out again mission, just like the special forces missions it is modelling.

Physically, Three Days to Kill is well written and nicely illustrated. The artwork of  Toren Atkinson, Scott Reeves, and David White gives the book a gritty, grainy feel which hints at the dirty nature of the situation in and around Deeptown. Yet the layout does feel cramped and the maps—obviously done using Pro Fantasy Software’s Campaign Cartographer 2—do not match that style. Some of them do feel too clean and unfussy in comparison to the artwork and sometimes feel too big for what they are depicting. The rest of the maps are more detailed and convey more information.

At the time of its release, Three Days to Kill, looked rather sparse in comparison to other adventures. After all, there is not a lot of plot and what there is takes up barely a third of the scenario. Nor is there much in the way of flavour beyond the grim, dark tone. And yet there is both adaptability and utility in Three Days to Kill, it is easier to use because of it, and not only is both plot and assault on the summit well-handled, they are supported with further plot hooks and consequences which make the setting of Deeptown and the Deeps  easier to add to a campaign. Although Three Days to Kill might be more memorable for being the first scenario published for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, than for its adventure, it does mean that adventure is not handily serviceable.

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John Tynes was kind enough to respond to my review when I tagged him on Twitter. He gave his recollections about how the scenario came about and thoughts about it since.

Reviews from R’lyeh thoughtfully reviews my #DnD adventure Three Days to Kill, the very first one published for 3rd Edition under the OGL twenty years ago this summer.

A short thread about this adventure. #WOTCstaff https://t.co/sq3jgzxIS2

— John Scott Tynes (@JohnScottTynes) March 23, 2020

Far Future Dungeon Delving

Far out beyond the Humanity Sphere lie the Glogotha. Located deep in the Dust Spheres, the remnants of alien civilisations ground up in the vast and ancient Everwar between the mysterious Erix Absolution and the powerful Concordant of Shelz, their names conjure up  images of wonder and great danger—the Paradox Spire, the Grove, the Resurrection Hive, the Delphia, the Glass Labyrinth… They are tombs of fallen cultures—mortuaries, amouries, data centres, research bases, and more. They can be surface facilities, or underground or under deep oceans of liquids other than water, orbital bases, ringworlds, or even dyson spheres. Many hold great secrets and ancient technologies which the Overseers, the caretakers of the Human Sphere, mysteriously covet. Recovering such technologies—fragments, baubles, and mechanisms—is the province of Scavengers.

Getting to the Golgotha requires permission from the Overseers as well as a Star Map. This is because they control access to the esoteric subspace fractures which enable Portal Ships to travel between worlds at faster than light speed—a science that along with true A.I. that mankind was unable to discover or develop before the Overseers made contact. Armed with a contract and a Star Map, the Overseers will plot a Scavenger team a course down the Fractureways out from inner machine planets, past the verdant pleasure worlds, sanctioned war worlds, and separatist fringe worlds to the dead empires of long ago where both the Erix Absolution and the Concordant of Shelz have forbidden humanity to go. Once they reach their target they have limited amount of time before either the Erix Absolution or the Concordant of Shelz becomes aware of their presence. Neither may notice every time a Scavenger team lurks on the fringes of their war, but when they do, the only thing the team can do is run. The technology of the Erix Absolution and the Concordant of Shelz is highly advanced and there is little that Humanity can do in the face of it. This is a danger that the Scavengers are likely to encounter as they are fleeing the Golgotha. There are other dangers they may face before then—the dangerous environments of each and every Golgotha, internal countermeasures and guardians of the facility where the desired mechanism is believed to be located, rival Scavenger teams, pirates, and other aliens with an interest in the Golgotha. And then there is the question of why a Scavenger team would go to such lengths and face such dangers to recover ancient technology for an incredibly advanced race? In the post-scarcity Human Sphere, simply enhancements to the personal genome—modifications, adjustments, and boosts—beyond human technology. The question is why? What does each Scavenger want from these enhancements? Who does he need to be better than?

This is the set-up for Golgotha: A Science Fiction Game of Exploration and Discovery at the Edge of Known Space published by Fire Ruby Designs following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a standalone Science Fiction humanocentric roleplaying game which uses The Black Hack for its mechanics. So it is an Old School Renaissance roleplaying game which uses simple, player-facing rules—that is, the players roll, but the Game Master never does—for faster play. Humans are the only player character species and the players have four Classes to choose from. These are Blade or warriors; Ghosts, adjusted by the Overseers to be capable of manipulating Glimmers, the remnants of Golgotha control architecture (this leaves them weak though); Pathfinders are scouts, navigators, pilots, and reconnaissance specialist able to spot ambushes and deal with Golgotha countermeasures; and Operators, who handle negotiations and similar situations, but also know how to make their escape. To create a character, a player decides on a concept, name, and past, and rolls three six-sided dice in order for the traditional six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—with any roll of fourteen or more meaning that the next attribute value is set at seven. A character also starts play with a Talent from his selected Class, a unique piece of gear, and a Drive. The latter is his motivation for becoming a Scavenger and once per session grants his player a reroll if he can persuade the Game Master that the Drive is relevant.

Name: Earond Jackson
Class: Ghost Level: 1
Drive: To discover the secrets of the Golgotha
Hit Points: 5

Strength 13, Dexterity 13, Constitution 13, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 7, Charisma 16

Ability: Use Glints (Advantage)
Talents: Decipher (+1)
Weapon Proficiencies: Small Weapons (d3)
Equipment: Condensed Needle Pistol, a couple of interesting hats

To the player-facing rules of The Black Hack, the rules in Golgotha add rules for Portal Ships—ships are treated the same way as player characters—and the dangers of both space and of Golgotha, such as Countermeasures, the traps left behind by the original builders or occupiers of the now sepulchral planets. When exploring Golgotha, the Ghost Class has some advantage in that he has been given the ability by the Overseers to access remnants of Golgotha technology known as Glimmers. These being able to observe other parts of a Golgotha, hide the presence of a Scavenger party, illuminate an area, and so on. In mechanical terms these are simple attribute tests as per The Black Hack, often at varying degrees of difficulty for different effects. So the Access Glimmer is a Wisdom check which lets a Ghost open any door he touches, but at a +3 penalty to remotely open any door he has passed through in a Golgotha, and at a +5 penalty to open any door he knows about in a Golgotha. 

Additional threats come in the form of fellow scavengers like the Octos, who always operate in the armoured environment suits which contain the liquid atmosphere they need to survive and who strip and break down Golgotha to rebuild shell-like installations; Sharks, another aquatic species which needs breather masks to survive and goggles to protect their delicate eyes, which take any species it can as slaves; and the Goblin-like pirates with their multifaceted eyes and weird gait. Although the Scavengers are unlikely to encounter either the Erix or the Shelz, they may well encounter their client species. The Erix client species have an insectoid look to them and are typically led by the diamond-hard Erix machines, whilst the Shelz client species have a demonic cast to them. Whilst the client species are easy enough to use, the independent races are more difficult to bring into play, primarily because their motivations are not really developed. For example, the Goblins are described as pirates, but pirates for whom, why are they pirates, and what do they do with the captives and plunder they take?

The point of visiting the Golgotha is of course to find ancient, alien technology. Here Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law which states that ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ comes into play, the Game Master being advised to handle the various fragments, baubles, and mechanisms hopefully waiting to be found in the Golgotha as flavour  and as mystery rather than something quantifiable. This might not work in other Science Fiction roleplaying games, but in Golgotha the point is that such technology is not intended to be used by the player characters as in those other roleplaying games, but handed over to their Overseer patrons in return for upgrades. 

A typical Scavenger mission follows a three act structure. Taking up the contract and getting to the Golgotha, exploring the Golgotha itself, and then escaping before either the Erix or the Shelz become aware of the Scavenger’s presence. The design of Golgotha, much like the Scavengers’ exploration to find particular artefacts—or magical items—shows all of the hallmarks of the dungeoneering style of play and design of the ruleset the roleplaying game uses and inherited from the very first roleplaying game. Yet it differs in that obtaining the artefacts is for their use as currency with which to purchase upgrades—as opposed to straight Experience Points—and in that the design of Golgotha is done more by node than by room after connected room. This does not mean that travel between locations is necessarily ignored, but rather that it can be used for purposes of drama or flavour, and further, that Golgotha can be designed without needing to draw maps. Golgotha does include a few tables to help the Game Master design her own in terms of architecture and location, but these are more spurs for the imagination. Once a delve into a Golgotha is complete, it is time for the Scavengers to make their escape to the nearest fracture in space in the last act, and this is made all the more dramatic by the possibility that the Erix or the Shelz might appear. This is handled with a timing die, rolled as  a Usage die—beginning with a twenty-sided die and reduced to the next smaller die type on a roll of a one or two down to a four-sided die—which the Game Master has been rolling since the start of the mission whenever seems appropriate. Once one or two is rolled on the last die one or both of the combatants in the Everwar comes to investigate the intrusion in what it regards is its territory. 

If the Scavengers are successful, the Overseers will reward them with upgrades and genetic augmentations. In game terms, this is essentially a player character going up a Level, but thematically it is a nice explanation. However, it is not without its problems, and Scavengers may be left with genetic quirks as well as upgrades.

Rounding out Golgotha is a selection of example Golgotha, including the Hall of Whispers, a series of blisters on the wall of a chasm of the third moon of the gas giant Pellos, where physically dense memory core may be found, and the Inseminator, an industrial complex buried under acidic, toxic sludge in the crust of a greenhouse planet in the Suul system where an A.I. which controlled a massive breeding programme is believed to be found. Each of the twelve Golgotha, all written by Kickstarter backers, includes a summary, a description of its structure, function, quirks, guardians and other dangers, example encounters, and what might be found there. All are ready to run with some preparation upon the part of the Game Master, but all together, the dozen can serve as the basis for a campaign.

At its heart, Golgotha is an excuse to do dungeon bashes or delves in space. After all, it is a Class and Level system and the Golgotha are abandoned tombs or crypts—but with an advanced technological look and feel. Golgotha does not go out of its way to hide this, but instead presents a compelling set-up and thus the reasons why for its playing style. Apart from the Golgotha, the setting is only given cursory detail, leaving the Game Master to develop that herself. In fact, she has carte blanche and scope to develop the universe of Golgotha as she wants. Yet if there is anything really missing from Golgotha it is inspiration for player character motivation. There is mechanical motivation provided—that is, get artefacts, get augmented, go up a Level, but not personal motivation in the context of the setting. Instead it leaves it up to the player and the Game Master to decide what such motivations might be, and whilst that is obviously possible, it does feel as if both are coming to the decision cold. Thus some examples, some context, could have made the process easier. Similarly, some of the motivations of the various independent races could have been better developed and given context. 

Physically, Golgotha is a well presented book. It is well written and comes with a lot good full colour artwork that captures the feel of exploring and plundering the abandoned worlds of ancient civilisations. Overall, Golgotha: A Science Fiction Game of Exploration and Discovery at the Edge of Known Space combines the simple mechanics of The Black Hack with a compelling set-up which brings classic dungeon delving style of play—with its mysteries and dangers—to a high Science Fiction setting.

All Aboard for Autophagia

In Call of Cthulhu, sea voyages are never the restful trips that a sea cruise would suggest. Ever since ‘The Mauretania’ from Asylum & Other Tales, passenger liners have been hotbeds of Mythos activity, whether a passenger is inadvertently transporting an artefact of great importance and cultists want it back, the passengers are being prepared as a sacrifice to the Elder God of a madman’s choice, or the ship comes across some strange island or ship which just should be there. Simply put, in Call of Cthulhu, sea travel is never safe. Especially not sea cruises. But what if the investigators had to get aboard a vessel which had already suffered such a disaster? What if it was already in port and under quarantine and they just had to get aboard? This is the situation at the start of Autophagia: Fear & Infection in from the High Seas.

Published by Stygian Fox, Autophagia is essentially a mash-up between The Poseidon Adventure and The Thing From Another World. It is set in the roleplaying game’s classic era of the Jazz Age and does deal with mature themes—often in interesting historical context—which will require players to take an equally mature attitude when playing through the scenario. Its story and events are all confined to the middle of the New York harbour. Here the Essexia, sister ship to the Mauretania and Lusitania, has been placed under quarantine and ordered to anchor offshore, following reports of an outbreak aboard ship of a disease which has already caused the deaths of several passengers. It is designed to be run as a single session of claustrophobic horror aboard an oddly deserted vessel. The first problem for the investigators is getting aboard, but the scenario more or less handwaves this. Similarly, it all but handwaves anything that the investigators do before anyone aboard—crew or passengers—spots them, reports their presence, and they find themselves being interviewed by the ship’s captain in his cabin. The question is why bother spending so much time discussing either, even in such a cursory manner before dismissing both, if the point of the set-up is to get the investigators to the actual start of the scenario in the captain’s cabin? 

Alternatively, why not include some hooks and thus sufficient reasons for the investigators to want to commit an act which would break international law—that is, break a quarantine almost on the high seas? Then, why not follow it up with some challenges for getting aboard ship and once aboard, for getting around unnoticed—for a time—trying to achieve something related to their reason for being aboard? Not necessarily for the investigators to fail, but rather to add drama and tension to what is a dramatic and tense situation. In fact, what is actually a clever and interesting, even novel set-up, but one that is completely, utterly, disappointingly ignored by the scenario.

Once aboard though, the captain—who is more than a little reminiscent of the captain of the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, though he has a cat rather than a rubber duck—will more or less gives his permission for the investigators to help the ship’s doctor, who has been overwhelmed by outbreak of the strange disease and subsequent events. What they discover is a ship almost in lockdown, the ‘almost’ being determined, naturally, by social class, and then by whether or not the passenger is suffering from the strange illness which has beset the ship. Thus the ill of First and Second Class, along with everyone of Third Class have been confined to Third Class cabins. This gives the Essexia a strange, even unnerving deserted feel when normally its halls and desks would throng and bustle with passengers. 

The unaffected of First and Second have greater freedom of movement, including spending time and eating in the dining hall. This presents the opportunity to investigate and interact with a number of the passengers and so learn more of what has been happening aboard. It also gives the Keeper a few nicely done and each very different NPCs to portray and roleplay. Of course, as the investigators proceed apace with their enquiries, there is a countdown ticking away in the background, the likelihood of even more passengers coming down with the strange sickness aboard the Essexia, which exhibits as a strange desire to gnaw and pick at your own flesh. And of course, the possibility that the investigators might come down with it themselves...

Autophagia is decently presented, a slim full colour book illustrated with a mix of period photographs and the occasional piece of artwork. Period deck plans are also included, alongside floor plans of various cabin classes. A menu adds an element of verisimilitude, since the investigators are likely to be spending time in the First Class Dining Hall. Unfortunately, the editing feels rushed and underwhelming.

Autophagia is not a scenario for the inexperienced Keeper, for whilst there are only three acts, once the investigators have been let loose by the ship’s captain, it is fairly freeform in nature. As a one-night mystery, the Keeper may need to rush things towards the scenario’s climax, but run over more sessions than just the one and she will have to improvise a little more. Despite the disappointing failure to initially capitalise on the novelty and challenging nature of its set-up, Autophagia: Fear & Infection in from the High Seas is a decent scenario, delivering a vile dose of masticating horror.

Friday Filler: The Forest Dragon: Bang & Twang

In 2017, Jon Hodgson, Ben Hodgson, and Rory Hodgson published The Forest Dragon: A Card Adventure Game, a simple, fantasy-themed push-your-luck style card game. Despite its simplicity, it enabled players to tell tales of forest exploration and proved to be a delightfully charming filler. In 2018, the young and old followed it up with a second game, not quite as simple, but still set in the same world as The Forest Dragon and a good little filler. This is a second game is The Forest Dragon: Bang & Twang, a game of pattern matching and tune twiddling with take that elements in which musicians gather at crossroads and campfires throughout the forest, get out their instruments, tune them up, and not only play, but play to out play everyone against a tune which is constantly changing!

Designed to be played by between two and six players, aged eight and over, Bang & Twang can be played in just ten minutes. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it consists of sixty-seven cards divided into three types. The first are the ‘Bang’ and ‘Twang’ cards. These are double-sided ‘Riff Cards’ which have ‘Bang’ on one side and ‘Twang’ on the other along with illustrations of their instruments. They form the Riff which players are trying to match with the sixteen Sequence cards and will constantly be flipped and changing place in the sequence. Each Sequence Card displays a sequence of the ‘Bang’ and ‘Twang’ cards, which if a player can match with a sequence of the Riff cards, will award him the Victory Points on the Sequence Card. The third type of card is the Tune Card. They come in sets of eight, there being eight sets, each of a different colour in the game. Each set of Tune Cards does something different. So the green Tune Cards let the players steal Sequence Cards from each other; the red Tune Cards let players flip and switch the Riff Cards; and the yellow Tune Cards lets players interrupt each other.

Game play is simple, but is only ever done with the Riff Cards on the table, the Sequence Cards, and one set of Tune Cards. The Riff Cards are laid out to display either three ‘Bangs’ or three ‘Twangs’. The Sequence Cards and the selected set of Tune Cards are shuffled together and each player receives two cards. On his turn, a player is trying to bank a Sequence Card towards his Victory Point total. He does this by matching a Sequence Card with the current sequence of Riff Cards. If they do not match, a player can flip a Riff Card to its other side or move a Riff Card so that it does match and if they now match, the player can bank the Sequence Card. Alternatively, a player can play a Tune Card, which lets him do something special depending upon the colour set chosen. Ultimately if a player can do none of these, he can just flip a Riff Card.

Play continues like this until the deck of cards runs out. The player with the highest score wins and, well, that is that. Bang & Twang is simple. In fact simple enough for younger players to pick up and play with older players, but possibly too simple for more experienced players. So it works better as a family game. And whilst the different types of Tune Cards do add some variety in terms of replay value, but each set is too one note to replay too many times. One option here is to mix and match the Tune Cards, perhaps two sets at a time? Certainly there are not enough Sequence Cards to mix them all in, which might have made for more varied play.

Physically, The Forest Dragon: Bang & Twang is bright and breezy, illustrated in the same style as The Forest Dragon. So very much like the illustrations of children’s storybooks. And that is charming. The rules themselves do feel as if they are written for adults rather than the younger age range the game is designed for, so for younger players, an adult or older player may want to supervise or teach the game.
The Forest Dragon: Bang & Twang is not without its charms—though nowhere as many as The Forest Dragon: A Card Adventure Game—but it is probably too light for hobbyist gamers to play too many times. Ultimately, The Forest Dragon: Bang & Twang is a decent family filler.

Jonstown Jottings #9: Stone and Bone

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Stone and Bone is a short scenario set in Dragon Pass wherever Shamans may be found.

It is a twenty-four page, full colour, 20.30 MB PDF with a one-page, full colour 2.79 MB addendum.

Stone and Bone is well presented with decent artwork and clear maps. It needs a slight edit in places.
Where is it set?
Stone and Bone is set in Prax amongst the Straw Weaver Clan of the Bison tribe during the dry season. Notes are included to enable the Game Master to set it elsewhere.

Who do you play?
Praxians who are members of the Straw Weaver Clan. A shaman and at least one Storm Bull worshipper will be useful. Notes are included to run the scenario using other character types, including non-Praxians.

What do you need?
Stone and Bone requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Access to the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary may be useful for information about Scorpion Men, but is not essential to play.

What do you get?
Stone and Bone is a scenario with a strong focus on survival, stealth, and combat. It takes the form of a guard mission to accompany the clan’s shaman, Erhehta, on a journey to a ritual place in the No Salt There hills. The crotchety old sod will not reveal the exact reasons for the journey, nor will he prove to be particularly quiet—he is festooned with bones, and they rattle—or helpful. If necessary, the reasons will be revealed and if the player characters seem reluctant, there is room for negotiation in terms of reward.

The journey itself will be challenging and the player characters will need the Survival skill and hunting-related skills as it does take place during the height of the dry season, so there is little water to be found or food to be foraged. The likelihood is that this will place them at a disadvantage when they find something blocking their path—an old mining village cut literally into the rock of a ravine which has been occupied by a brood of Scorpion Men. One option would be to sneak their way through the village, but the player characters will have to do this on the way to the ritual site and on the way back… If they fail, a fight or a chase scene may ensure, but anyway, who wants a nest of Chaos on their doorstep?

The Scorpion Men-occupied village is the key action scene for Stone and Bone and so is described in some detail and accorded a nicely done map. There is solid advice for the Game Master on running encounters both in and out of the abandoned village, enabling her to scale them according to the danger encountered by the player characters so far. Along with a full write-up for Erhehta—an experienced NPC, Stone and Bone includes stats for some bothersome NPCs, the scenario’s antagonist, and some scuttling monsters.

The extra PDF lists adaptations to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha of Bagog Rune spells taken from the RuneQuest Classic supplement, Cults of Terror. These are spells used by the protagonist in Stone and Blood.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Stone and Bone is a well written, useful, and challenging scenario if you are running a campaign set amongst the Tribes of Prax. Especially if the player characters include a shaman amongst their number.
No. If your campaign is not set in Prax, then Stone and Bone is harder to use, especially as the time of year and the environment plays a strong role.
Maybe. Stone and Bone is flexible enough to be set elsewhere away from Prax, and there is advice and suggestions to help the Game Master adapt the scenario to her campaign, although she will have to provide the specifics.

Leagues of Monsters & Places

Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion is a supplement for Leagues of Gothic Horror, itself a supplement for Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration  and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age!. This is Triple Ace Games’ roleplaying game of globetrotting adventure and mystery pushed into that most melodramatic genre, full of legends, ghosts, vampires, dark magic, great evils, sinister villains, and even romance—gothic horror. Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion adds an array of new character options, a whole new culture, haunted upon haunted locations, and new monsters, NPCs, and heroes. There is a wealth of content in this supplement which will support a campaign for some time.
The options in Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion open with new Talents for the player character, including Corruption Resistant, Evil Eye—which lets a character place a minor curse on others, (Monster) Hunter—which grants a bonus when hunting and investigating specific types of creature, and Past Life—provides access to a skill that the character may not have, but the ancestor might. Flaws range from Slow Healer to Opinionated and include genre standbys, Screamer and Fainter. Both pure Hammer Horror! Of the two new Leagues, Fairy Investigation Society is perfectly in keeping with the Victorians’ fascination with fairies, whilst the Gypsy Lore Society ties in with the background information given about the gypsies in the book’s second chapter. There is just the one new Ritual, that of Nightmare, which inflicts a terrifying dream upon the victim.  

The selection of new Weird Science devices showcases a pleasing degree of invention, such as Ecto-Armour which protects against ghostly attacks and Etheric Purgative Tablets which can expel a possessing spirit from its host, whilst many a player character is going to want a Miniature Gatling Gun. Unfortunately, it is only available from the Ministry of Unusual Affairs! Similarly, the Specimen Collection Vehicle, an internal combustion powered vehicle designed to safely collect and transport supernatural creatures and evidence, is also only available from the Ministry of Unusual Affairs. Both add a certain muscularity to a Leagues of Gothic Horror campaign a la Torchwood. As well as devices,  Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion gives numerous occult relics. So the Babel Stone Amulet adds a bonus to the Linguistics skill, the Kladenets is a ‘self-swinging’ sword of Russian fairy tales, the Ghost Shirt and Fumsup both protect against bullets, genuine Lucky Heather does provide a luck bonus, and the Witch Pin can be used to determine if someone knows magic (though not if they are a witch). Witch hunting dominates the list of new occult tomes, such as Compendium Maleficarum, Daemonolatrione Libri Tres, and De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus. This a good selection of things to add to a campaign, giving the Game Master lots of potential and pleasingly, if there is a focus on Europe in the relics and tomes, it is tempered by a few interesting entries from elsewhere round the world..

Any coverage of the Gypsies—or Romany—is covering potentially contentious ground, but fortunately, ‘Gypsies & Szgany’ provides both their history and their background as well as ways to bring them in a game of Gothic Horror. It highlights how throughout their history, the Gypsies have been distrusted and discriminated against, with reputations for enacting curses and cheating and thievery. What the chapter does is separate the Gypsies into two groups—Gypsies and Szgany. In particular, it makes clear that it is the Szgany who are responsible for the poor reputation that Gypsies have in general. Whereas the Gypsies are sworn to defend all of humanity against evil, the Szgany have long fallen from grace, corrupted by supernatural horrors native to the Balkans, having turned to superstition rather than faith and sold their loyalty for gold, including knowingly vowing their loyalty to powerful vampires. This includes the ultimate vampire lord himself, Dracula, a la Bram Stoker’s novel. What this means is that the Game Master can still be seen to use Gypsies as villains and henchmen, so adhering to their role in the genre, whereas the Szgany are the true villains. At the same time, the Gypsy way of life and their culture can also be brought into play, whether that is as a Gypsy globetrotter player character or Gypsy rituals, and so on. 

Whether a haunted house or castle, the decaying mansion of a devil worshipping despot or a blood covered Aztec altar, or a vampire’s crypt or werewolf-stalked forests, supernatural sites in Leagues of Gothic Horror are meant to be special and should ideally offer the Game Master solid roleplaying potential which she can work up into a good encounter, scenario, or mystery for her players. Besides generic locations, the Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion offers over fifty such supernatural sites, from Australia and Austria to Russia and the United States. Each comes with a suggested antagonist from Leagues of Gothic Horror or from one of the other supplements such as Guide to Apparitions or Guide to Mummies, plus a suggested number of bonus Style points for those using the optional Dark Places rule. Optional rules allow for Corrupted Sites where even just spending time in them means that a Globetrotter might accrue Corruption Points and Eerie Atmosphere which penalises a globetrotter’s Horror checks! Under these rules Castle Dracula is not a place you want to visit just because…! Finally every location comes with an adventure seed, suggesting how the Game Master might use it—which means fifty over adventure hooks.

The sites themselves include Devil’s Pool, reputably the most haunted site in Australia; Houska Castle in Bohemia, constructed over a void known locally as ‘the Gateway to Hell’; and Farringdon Street Station in London, an underground said to be haunted by a ‘Screaming Specter’. It is fair to say that the majority of the supernatural sites described do come from the United Kingdom, which does have a reputation of being particularly haunted, yet this is also in keeping with the Victorian focus of Leagues of Gothic Horror and Leagues of Adventure. It also addresses one of the issues with Leagues of Gothic Horror and that is a lack of supernatural places.

The longest chapter in Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion is ‘Things That Go
Bump in the Night’, so monsters. Or rather some forty or so ghosts, monsters, greater horrors, unique villains, and more. The ghosts are categorised as types, such as the strong motive of the Avenger, the hope-sucking Leech, or the forlorn Lost, but also include variants like the Clanker, effectively a weaker, noisier poltergeist, or an alternative, spirit-like version of the Wendigo. The monsters include classics likeAnimated Armour and the Hangman Tree as well as more specific beings like the raven-swarm Sluagh of Scottish and Irish folklore, which rip the souls from the near dead. Greater horrors take a step up in terms of power and evil with demons such as Baal who grants or curses invisibility and Focalor, a duke of Hell specialising in the sinking of battleships, and then unique villains tie back in to several of the supernatural sites detailed earlier in the book. For example, Black Annis, the crone who lurks in the wilds of the Dane Hills of Leicestershire and is known to have a predilection for the flesh of children, and then Doctor Henry Howard Holmes, the infamous serial killer of 1890s Chicago. Doubtless though, the Game Master will have fun with Igor, a scientist henchman who keeps working for scientists already on a dark path over and over… Similarly Doctor Who fans will take a certain pleasure from encountering the giant, two-hundred-and-fifty pound rat known as the Mudger, lurking in London’s extensive sewer system. In addition to ghosts and monsters, Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion includes two cults—the Benevolent Society of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Cult of the Horned God—both suited for longer term play and both suitably gothic in their origins. Certainly, the Cult of the Horned God echoes the stories of Dennis Wheatley, but both feel inspired by Hammer Horror.

Lastly, Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion includes heroes both ordinary and unique. The latter includes Andrei the Bear, a Gypsy monster hunter, and Penny Dreadful, a masked avenger who hunts werewolves and vampires. Plus there is a whole of ordinary NPCs, including Gypsy Horse Dealer,  Gypsy Storyteller, and Reformed Szgany to tie back into the ‘Gypsies & Szgany’ chapter, and several sample, ready-to-play player characters, such as the Cursed Clergyman, Folklorist, Fortune Teller, Scarred Survivor, Stage Magician, and Werewolf Hunter.

Physically, Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion is surprisingly all text—there are no illustrations. That aside, it is neatly laid out, the writing is good, and despite the lack of index, the contents are relatively easy to reference.

At its most basic, Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion expands on the dearth of supernatural locations detailed in Leagues of Gothic Horror. Indeed, fifty or so adds a great number of them, but that is only a quarter of the book! Plus you do get a scenario hook with every location. In fact, half of Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion is dedicated to new monsters and ghosts, NPCs and cults, plus new player character types. Which is exactly what a roleplaying game of gothic horror really needs and that is in addition to new character options and a nicely done treatment of the Gypsies! All together, Leagues of Gothic Horror Expansion is useful companion to Leagues of Gothic Horror, but the new supernatural locations make it an essential supplement.