[Fanzine Focus XX] Crawl! Issue Number Four

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

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

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was something of a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 was a surprisingly focused, exploring the role of loot in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and describing various pieces of treasure and items of equipment that the Player Characters might find and use. Similarly Crawl! #3 was just as focused, but the subject of its focus was magic rather than treasure. Unfortunately, the fact that a later printing of Crawl! No. 1 reprinted content from Crawl! #3 somewhat undermined the content and usefulness of Crawl! #3. Now Crawl! Issue Number Four is just as focused as the second and third issues, but the good news is that its contents remains its own. It also differs in content from earlier in presenting the one thing—and that is a scenario.

Published in September, 2013, the whole of Crawl! Issue Number Four is devoted to Yves Larochelle’s ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’, a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game for characters of Fifth Level. From the start, you can tell that Crawl! Issue Number Four is an Old School Renaissance scenario, since it comes with a loose cover on the inside of which the scenario’s area map is printed. The village of Thorum has recently suffered a rash of strange occurrences—the holy symbols of the Goddess of Justice have been stolen, damaged, and destroyed; bodies have been stolen from the village graveyard and been found disfigured in the nearby river; the brother of the local head cleric has been kidnapped; and a group of bandits is known to operate near the village. The question is, are these facts and events all connected? The Player Characters are asked to investigate and determine exactly what is going on.

Essentially ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ does the traditional ‘Village in Peril’ set-up, but for mid-Level characters rather than low-Level characters. It presents numerous avenues of  investigation for the Player Characters to look into and follow up. The Player Characters should be able to grab a lead or two and perhaps gain an ally or two whilst in Thorum. The village itself is lightly detailed, so the Judge might want to develop it some more herself. Certainly, the Judge may want to provide floor plans of the local Church of the Goddess of Justice, but for the most part, she can make it up as the Player Characters conduct their investigation. Ideally, they should find the leads pointing towards the perpetrator of all of this, though there is the possibility that they circumvent much of the investigation and cut to the chase—the dungeon!

Consisting of just fifteen locations, ‘Macrobius’ Dungeon’ is fairly linear and for the most part, fairly uninteresting. The maze in its midst is really superfluous and some of the locations really deserved  more description. There is a nasty deathtrap though—well, what would be the point of a deathtrap if it is not nasty?—which the Judge will have fun with, as she will with the scenario’s antagonist, Macrobius, a wizard whose ambition and greed has led him to turn to evil. As is traditional.

‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ is slightly oddly organised in that the scenario’s major NPCs are kept separate from the locations and potential scenes where they are encountered. What this means is that the Judge will need to flip back and forth from locations to NPCs, and although that may not slow the running of the adventure down too, it is slight awkward. In addition, the scenario includes its own ‘Appendix H’ and ‘Appendix N’. The first details a river dragon which the Player Characters may encounter and is likely to be more of a hindrance for them if they engage with it, whilst the latter details a couple of magical items both of which play an important role in the scenario.

Physically, ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ and thus Crawl! Issue Number Four, is neat and tidy. It is light on artwork, but the few pieces are rather nice, and the writing is generally clear and easy to read. The two maps feel a bit heavy in their style and the dungeon map feels rather cramped, especially given how little information it has to convey. The format with separate is a very knowing, lovely touch.

‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ is reasonable enough adventure, with some good investigative links and some accompanying NPCs who should be fun to portray. However, the scenario feels underwritten and underwhelming in places—the dungeon in particular—and the Judge may want to develop just a little bit further. Even without that development, ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ should provide a session or two’s worth of play, but with that development, the scenario may be a little more flavoursome and a little more engaging. Overall, ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’ is an okay dungeon, which means that Crawl! Issue Number Four is an okay issue of the fanzine.

Beyond the Moldvay Way

In a recent conversation on Twitter, a poster asked the question, “What’s a good retroclone based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons?” Various answers were given, most notably OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy. My response was that in most cases, retroclones start with a version of Dungeons & Dragons or Basic Dungeons & Dragons and then build up from there to emulate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Certainly, this is the case with Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Labyrinth Lord. It is also the case with Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steve Marsh. With Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy presents options which emulate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons whilst restraining them in order to avoid the complexities of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy actually consists of two separate books. These are Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells. Now the two books complement each other, but also work on their own—though only to an extent. This is because some of the Classes from Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules use some of the spells from Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells, but simply the Magic-User from Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy could use the Illusionist spells from Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells and a game of Old School Essentials using Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules could be run without using the spells from Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells or without using the Classes that use those spells. However, Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells really work together and ideally the Referee should combine both if she wants to run Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy.

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules provides Referee and her players with some fifteen new Classes. In keeping with Old School Essentials, nine of these Classes are Human-only Classes. These are Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Illusionist, Knight, Paladin, and Ranger. What is interesting here is the inspiration for these Classes. Not just Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but with the inclusion of the Acrobat, Barbarian, and Knight—as nods to the Thief-Acrobat, Barbarian, and Cavalier respectively—Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules actually draws upon that most contentious of supplements for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, that is, Unearthed Arcana. The other six Classes are Demihuman Classes and in keeping with Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy with ‘Race as Class’ rather than Player Characters possessing both Race and Class. The six are Drow, Duergar, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Svirfneblin, and again, in bringing these to Old School Essentials, the supplement draws heavily upon the Unearthed Urcana. The inclusion of the Drow, Duergar, and Svirfneblin also draws from the Underworld of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, which Old Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules also add to Old School Essentials as an adventuring environment. What is clearly missing from these fifteen new Classes is the inclusion of the Monk as a new Class, but the publisher aims to include that in a supplement to mythical Asian adventures, what will likely be the equivalent of Oriental Adventures for Old School Essentials.

For the most part, the Classes in Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules will be familiar. So the Acrobat and the Assassin are like the Thief Class, but lack skills such as Pick Pocket, Find Trap, and so on. Instead, the Acrobat focuses on jumping, tumbling, and evading, whilst the Assassin focusses on kills by stealth. Similarly, the Barbarian has some stealth skills in the wilderness, fears all use of magic, and can eventually strike otherwise invulnerable foes. The Knight adheres to a chivalric code, always attempts to wear the best armour and wield the best weapons, is a good horseman, and is immune to fear. The Paladin casts divine magic, can lay on hands to heal and turn or destroy undead. The Ranger is rarely surprised, casts Druidic spells, can track, and also perform surprise attacks in the wilderness. The Bard is different in that it can cast Druidic spells from the Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells, charm and fascinate an audience with his music and singing and learns languages and lore. Druids are of Neutral Alignment, also cast Druidic spells, can Pass Without Trace in the wilderness, rarely get lost in the woods, and can eventually shape change into animals. The Illusionist is like the Magic-User, but casts spells from Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells.

Of the six ‘Race as Class’ Classes, the Drow are like Elves, but know Divine rather than Arcane spells, suffer light sensitivity, and have an affinity for spiders. Duergar are like Dwarves, but suffer from light insensitivity and notably have mental powers like Invisibility and Enlargement that can be used daily. Gnomes cast Illusionist spells, but can wear armour and also speak with burrowing animals. Half-Elves can all use all weapons and armour and can also cast arcane spells, though not as many as an Elf or a Magic-User. The Half-Orc can use all weapons and light armour and has a number of Thief skills, whilst the Svifneblin can blend into stone, has illusion resistance, can speak with Earth Elementals, can understand the murmurs of stone, and also suffer from light sensitivity.

What is notable with all of these Classes is that the designer has tried to keep them unique, to keep their abilities from encroaching on those of Classes, and to keep them from being too powerful. The likelihood is that he has almost succeeded with the fifteen new Classes. There is some overlap of skills, for example, the Move Silently skill being shared by several different Classes. Plus Classes like the Knight and the Paladin do feel powerful in comparison to the standard Classes. That said, all of the Classes feel reined in when comparing them to their original versions from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

In addition to the supplement’s dozen or so Classes, Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules also provides a number of Advanced Character Options. These include rules for making Old School Essentials a Race and Class roleplaying game, separating the two. So all three ‘Race as Class’ Classes from Old School Essentials— Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling—as well as Humans are presented as Races, as are the Drow, Duergar, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Svirfneblin. All bar Humans have Level limits on the Classes available to them, though if this is lifted, options are given to account for the lack of Human innate abilities. Further rules cover the use of poison, extra rules for combat including two-weapon fighting and parrying, multi-classing, as well as secondary skills and weapon proficiencies. Of course these add complexity in play, but they also add depth and they move Old School Essentials towards, but not to the level of complexities of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And again, these rules are all optional.

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells is the companion volume and very much contains what it says on the tin. It presents thirty-four Druid spells, from First to Fifth Level, and seventy-two Illusionist spells, from First to Sixth Level. Druid spells focus on survival, healing, and offence, so Predict Weather, Cure Light Wounds, and Call Lightning. Illusion spells focus on deception, mind control, and warping reality, so Dancing Lights, Fascinate, and Mirror Image. The selection and range have been kept in line with the Cleric and Magic-User spells of Old School Essentials, so the numbers for the Druid are the same as the Cleric, just as the numbers for the Illusionist are the same as the Magic-User. What is fantastic about Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells is how well the book is organised. It has an index for the spells plus the inside of the front and back covers are effectively used, not just with spell lists, but spot rules too. It makes Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells highly accessible and useable at the table.

Physically, both Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells are nattily presented little hardbacks. In particular, Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules follows the format of Old School Essentials by keeping its various elements particularly succinct. So every Class is kept to a single two-page spread, each individual Race to a single page, and so on. Both books are illustrated in black and white and for the most part, the artwork is good.

If there is an issue with Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells it is really that not all of either book works without referring to the other. If the Druid and Illusionist Classes are in play, then really, Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells is really necessary to effectively play because not only the Druid and Illusionist use these spells, but so do the Bard, the Gnome, and the Ranger. If there is another issue with either book, it is that they pull Old School Essentials away from its origins in the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons and its accompanying Expert Set. The inclusion of elements from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons may not sit well with some players and Referees of Old School Essentials, but fundamentally, both Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells are optional. Which means that they are not integral to playing or running Old School Essentials and neither Referee nor player have to purchase them to play the roleplaying game.

Ultimately, if you are playing Old School Essentials using Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells, then you are not playing the Basic Dungeons & Dragons of 1981. However, neither are you playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Instead, Old School Essentials using Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells presents the means to incorporate elements of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but in a restrained fashion, adhering to the simplicity of Old School Essentials throughout.

The Horror of Humanity

An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity is a Call of Cthulhu book with a difference. Published by Golden Goblin Press following a successful Kickstarter campaign, An Inner Darkness is an anthology of six scenarios for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which explores where the all too human horrors of the Jazz Age and Desperate Decade intersect with the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. In six scenarios it deals with issues not normally explored or addressed in Call of Cthulhu—child labour and exploitation, the poor treatment suffered by veterans of the Great War in the subsequent decade, sexual assault, mob violence, and nativism and religious persecution and racial discrimination. None of these are easy subjects to deal with and for this reason An Inner Darkness comes with a Reader Advisory warning the reader that it contains Mature Content. What this also means is that An Inner Darkness is not necessarily a book for every Call of Cthulhu devotee or group—and that is fine. Just like the superlative Harlem Unbound from 2017, An Inner Darkness deserves to have a place on our gaming shelves, for if it is not to your tastes, then it is to someone else’s.

From the start it should be made clear that being an anthology of scenarios for a roleplaying game, the Reader Advisory on An Inner Darkness is all the more pertinent and all the more potent. This is entirely because of the nature of roleplaying itself. Neither the Keeper nor her players will be sat comfortably watching, reading, or listening to the content subject to the Reader Advisory. Instead, as players they will be roleplaying characters interacting with horrible situations and persons with points of view and opinion which though regarded as reprehensible today, would have been seen as the norm in the period in which the six scenarios in An Inner Darkness are set. Further, the Keeper has the unpleasant task of describing these situations and roleplaying the men and women who hold to such outlooks and opinions. Here is perhaps the one major issue with An Inner Darkness, that there is little in the way of advice for the Keeper in portraying these NPCs.

To get the very fullest of these scenarios the Keeper may want to have access to several other supplements. These include H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, Secrets of New York, H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham, and Secrets of Los Angeles. Note that none of these supplements are necessary to run the scenarios in An Inner Darkness, but they may be useful.

An Inner Darkness opens with ‘Dreams of Silk’ by Christopher Smith Adair. This takes place in Brights Mill, Pennsylvania in 1922 and explores the darker side of child labour during the period, including unsafe conditions, dangerous materials, and a lack of concern for worker safety. Children of poor and working-class families were often expected to work as it brought much needed income for their families and there were fewer regulations and protections governing their working conditions. The investigators are asked by a representative of the Women’s Trade Union League to help investigate Hempstead Chemicals, a local manufacturer of cosmetics. Several of the child employees have fallen sick or even died after terrible accidents. Ultimately, the factory becomes the focus of the investigators’ attention, a nicely creepy environment, listless during the day, weird at night. The scenario also dovetails into The Dreamlands, though only in minor way. Here the Mythos is used to exacerbate the situation, though Humans are ultimately responsible for the situation. Pleasingly, the scenario also directly addresses the problems which occur should the investigators decide to burn the factory down, as well as possible consequences.

Brian M. Sammons’ ‘When This Lousy War is Over’ is about the conditions and experience of veterans, in particular, severely injured veterans—mentally and physically, returning from the Great War. Without easily available medical and psychiatric treatment or veterans’ services, the veterans have to rely on each other. Despite this, some are unable to cope back in ordinary society, and this lies at the heart of the scenario. Set in Arkham, Massachusetts, it begins with the investigators learning that a friend of theirs, a veteran of the Great War, has been found murdered. It quickly becomes apparent that the victim had no enemies and beyond his membership of the local outpost of the Veterans of Foreign Wars association, was an ordinary member of society. So who killed him? This feels very much like a traditional investigative scenario, but it examines the tensions between the members of Veterans of Foreign Wars and local society, how they are tolerated, but only up to a point. Of all the scenarios in the anthology, this is perhaps the most muscular in tone and likely to end in a stand-up fight.

The third scenario, Jeffrey Moeller’s ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ is the first one where the Reader Advisory for An Inner Darkness is really applicable and the first one to really make the Keeper and her players uncomfortable. It is set outside Los Angeles in 1931 and is the first of two scenarios in the anthology to deal with nativism—the promotion and protection of the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants. During the nineteen twenties and thirties the target of nativism in California were Mexican immigrants, which was only exacerbated by the onset of the Great Depression. ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ takes place in an actual location, the Elysian Park tramp stockade where ethnic Mexicans—whether immigrants or actual American citizens—are forcibly held until they agree to be extradited. The conditions are appalling as more and more Mexicans are rounded up and incarcerated, the guards openly racist, and the charity providing aid and food to the stockade barely so. As journalists, social activists, police officers, and so on, the investigators get called into the stockade when a young girl goes missing from within its confines. Now of course the Mythos is involved in her disappearance, but the real horror of the scenario is in dealing with the ghastly attitudes of the guards which has the implicit support of Los Angeles society. Investigating the disappearance will challenging enough, but stomaching the attitudes of the guards and the conditions the Mexicans are kept in is likely to be more challenging, worse because they may have to stomach it in order to get into the stockade. What is interesting about how the author of the scenario—an immigration lawyer—draws parallels between ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ and the contemporary situation with immigration and migrants.

‘A Family Way’ switches to New York and confronts an issue at the heart of the Mythos, which has been alluded to over and over in Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian fiction—specifically the sexual assault on men and women by Deep Ones. When a young lady of the investigators’ acquaintance attempts to seduce one of them, it is quickly revealed that she is pregnant. Not only that, but pregnant through rape. The horror of this situation is compounded by the then attitudes towards women with unwanted pregnancies, rape, and the solutions to the problem. This includes abortion. Which will lead to some interesting—probably demanding—roleplaying as the players navigate their investigators through the situation and the Keeper portrays the victim. It almost seems superfluous that the scenario compounds the situation with the return of the Deep Ones responsible and whilst this leads to a memorable confrontation in New York harbour, hopefully in the long term the Keeper and players alike will remember ‘A Family Way’ for the nature of its origins and the roleplaying required.

Helen Gould’s ‘Fire Without Light’ confronts rampant racism and mob violence in the aftermath of the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 in Oklahoma. It is a year later and tensions between the black and white communities in the town are still high—and set to get even higher as the scenario progresses. Whether as survivors of the riots, journalists or activists come to the town a year later, preachers come to provide succour, the investigators will find themselves faced with three challenges. The first is defusing the rising tensions to prevent any further outbreaks of violence, whilst the second is trying to find out what is causing tensions to escalate once again. The third though, is probably the most difficult, and again is having to deal with both the racism of the period and the then society’s acceptance of it.  The consequences of the investigators’ actions are nicely explored and there are potential links in the scenario’s set-up to Harlem Unbound.

The last scenario in the anthology takes the investigators to Maine and another period of intolerance and racism. ‘They Are From Away’ by Charles Gerard is set in the Pine Tree State in 1923 at a time when the Ku Klux Klan was highly active in the state’s politics. The targets of the Klan’s racism in this scenario are not African Americans, but rather French-Canadian immigrants who work the state’s lumber camps. The migrant workers are also vilified for their Roman Catholicism, which is decried as being unamerican. The investigators—professionals within the city’s Catholic community, church officials, activists rallying against the Klan’s activities, dissatisfied members of local law enforcement, and so on—are called to Bangor where a local church and the French-Canadian immigrants have both been subject to a rash of strange sanguinary occurrences. The investigation takes place against a backdrop of growing Klan activity, French-Canadian obstinance, and rumours of a curse, but help will come from a surprising source. For the most part, this is a straightforward enough investigative scenario, though one which literally has a bloody ending.

Rounding out An Inner Darkness is a trio of Investigator Organisations, a feature of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which helps explain and support the Investigators’ motivations for looking into the Mythos again and again. They start off strongly with ‘The Caldwell Book Mobile Service’ by Oscar Rios, a mobile library service which not only provides communities without a library access to books to borrow, but also fights the Mythos! The other two are both by Jeff Moeller and are not as strong. ‘A Bunch of Troublemakers’ describes a suffragette who infiltrates activist groups and spurs them into investigating the Mythos, whilst ‘Friends from Boston’ broadly details a protest group which funds efforts to expose governmental abuse, highlight injustice, and support reform. In comparison to ‘The Caldwell Book Mobile Service’ neither feel immediately compelling.

Physically, An Inner Darkness is a step up in quality from previous books from Golden Goblin Press. Colour is used throughout, and whilst the book is liberally illustrated, the use of colour mars some of the artwork, making it look cartoonish and detracting from its intended impact. Photographs are used occasionally too, and these are sharp and well presented. The writing though, does feel rushed in places, and perhaps could have done with a closer edit.

An Inner Darkness presents a sextet of well researched, heavily historical scenarios which confront the reader, the player, the Keeper, and the investigator with the injustices, the awful attitudes, and accepted practices of the period. This makes them difficult to run—as does the specific time periods for many of the scenarios—and to play. As they should. Playing these scenarios should make player and Keeper alike uncomfortable, for they highlight how horror can be found in mankind’s darkest nature—and that is even before the Mythos exploits that nature. An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity deserves its ‘Mature Content’ advisory not just because of the subject matter, but also because despite its distasteful nature, it is handled in a mature fashion.

Esoteric Fantasy

In ages past the world ended. In the skies above Babylon, the greatest city on Earth, specks of black mist appeared, pulsated, and grew, extending until the heavens were engulfed by an ocean of darkness. Even in the darkness, gashes could be seen in the newly sundered skies and from them cyclone-like tentacles reached out and began to rip the world apart. As prayers to the gods went unanswered, helpless men, women, and children were swept up into the turmoil and into the Void beyond… In this way the world ended, and mankind fell from grace. Many centuries have passed and the descendants of those survivors who were ripped from Ancient Mesopotamia struggle for their existence between the cracks and in the shadows in the slums of Llyhn the Eternal City, a dystopian cosmopolis and trading hub at the epicentre between the Cosmos and the Void. Living in filthy alleys and shanties among beggars, slaves and the casteless, they scrounge for scraps that fall from palaces of the unknowable alien Unseen Rulers of the city. Humanity is very much at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Llyhn, a city inhabited and ruled by eerie beings from faraway worlds, bizarre sapient entities and otherworldly Daimons from beyond the Veil. However, there are factions in the city who want this to change, for humanity to rise beyond its meagre existence. Chief amongst these are the three enclaves of humanity. These are the Feerdani enclave, consisting of a thousand labourers and dork workers ruled by the one-armed, elderly despot, Feerada; the ruins known as Beggars Court, ruled by the corpulent and paranoid self-styled Beggar King; and the Assembly, an inclusive enclave governed by a representative body which is seen as a beacon of hope in Llyhn. 

The Player Characters are inhabitants of Llyhn Eternal, seeking matronage or patronage with one of the enclaves, getting involved in the rivalries between the city’s many factions, perhaps even voyaging out from the order and constancy of the Cosmos into the chaos and catalyst that is the Void to other worlds, perhaps on missions of trade, exploration, diplomacy, and more. Yet between the stability of the Cosmos and the ethereal, fluctuating ocean of the Void, is the Veil, a metaphysical entity which keeps them apart, though there are places where the Veil is weakened to the point where the boundary between the Void and the Cosmos is blurred. This is where border worlds such as Llyhn are located.

This is the set-up for Black Void , a roleplaying game of esoteric dark fantasy published by Black Void Games and distributed by Modiphius Entertainment. Although there have been many roleplaying game of late published in Scandinavia, nearly all of them by Free League Publishing, Black Void has the distinction of being a Danish roleplaying game. It may well be the first Danish roleplaying game to be published in English.

As the descendants of Earth, Player Characters can be Pureblood Humans; Halfbloods, the result of interbreeding with another species, often regarded with hostility by other Humans; or Voidmarked, either born of esoteric and Human parents or exposed too much to the chaotic nature of the Void. They may Llyhn natives and perhaps enclave members, outsiders from a backwater world, recluses from the city, or perhaps even Lost Children returned from traversing the Void or rescued castaways from missing expeditions or colonies. A Player Character is defined by his homeworld, Traits, Background, Attributes, Powers, and Skills. A homeworld provides a Player Character with a little background information and a Talent, whilst his Traits—Agility, Awareness, Stamina, Strength, Intellect, Persuasion, Presence, and Willpower, typically rated between one and five for Human characters, but can go as high as twelve for other species. They are the equivalent of attributes or characteristics in other roleplaying games. They typically average three for most Humans and most Player Characters. Traits and Flaws are advantages and disadvantages, whilst Background defines a character’s social standing, allies, resources, and ancestry. Attributes and Powers are somewhat different. Attributes—what would be called traits in other roleplaying games—can either be Physical or Esoteric. Physical Attributes, for example, wings or horns, may be found amongst Halfblood and Voidmarked characters, whilst only the Voidmarked may have Esoteric Attributes, such as Ageless or the beguiling Daimonic Whispers. Powers are supernatural abilities, either Mystic powers, Blood Rituals, or Void powers. Mystic powers enable a character to channel his mental energies or inner Void to manifest phenomena and change reality around him; Blood Rituals require deal with sacrificial divination, bloodletting rituals, and other practices in order to enhance the practitioner; and Void powers are innate inhuman abilities and manifestations, available only to the enlightened.

For the most part, character generation is done by Point Buy. A player has forty-eight Character Points to spend on everything. Half of these are assigned to the character’s eight Traits, giving them a value of three each. Deducting three from each Trait gives its bonus for actions and skill rolls, so a Trait needs to be at least four to provide any bonus. The other half is spent on Talents, Backgrounds, Attributes, Powers, and Skills. Talents and Flaws are associated with particular Traits. A Trait must have a value of three or more to have an associated Talent, or a value of three or less to have an associated Flaw. Being a Halfblood or Voidmarked character also costs points, but grants access to Attributes that an ordinary Human character would not have. 

Skills are ranked between zero and twelve, from Dabbler to Legendary, and must be purchased at a Rank of zero before they can be raised to a positive value. For every three ranks in a skill, a character can have a specialisation, but each specialisation costs three points. A character also has two other values. Enlightenment is a measure of his intuitive understanding of the greater Cosmos, Void, and the Veil, and can be a boon or a bane, but ultimately tracks his climb to illumination and the powers that grants him. Initial Enlightenment depends on a character’s origins and can only be improved through play. Wastah represents a character’s personal influence, typically ranging between one and three.

Our sample character is Bagrah, an orphaned Halfblood human who nominally works in an abattoir handling animals, but finds more work as a small time thief, thug, and hired muscle. His height and weird eyes unnerve many people, which can be to his advantage. He wants to improve his existence, but does not know how.

Name: Bagrah
Race: Halfblood
Homeworld: Enlightened – Core
Age: 19 Gender: Male
Appearance: Lanky and wiry; feathery hair, vertical; slits for eyes

Agility 4 (+1) (Talent: Fast Reflexes)
Awareness 4 (+1) (Talent: Vigilant)
Stamina 3 
Strength 3 
Intellect 3 (Talent: Focused)
Persuasion 2 (-1) (Flaw: Blunt [Mild])
Presence 2 (-1) (Flaw: Bad Aura [Mild])
Willpower 3 

Health: 28 Sanity: 8 Move: 5 Defence Value: 9 Enlightenment: 0 Wastah: 0

Backgrounds: Caste: Kalbi, Local 
Powers: Retractable Small Claws, Night Vision

Skills: Athletics 1, Animal Handling 0, Dodge 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 1, Streetwise 1, Unarmed Combat 1

Notes: +1 interaction from homeworld; +1 modifier to subterfuge, disguise and associated rolls.

Character creation and getting the points balanced between Backgrounds, Traits, Powers, and Skills is slightly fiddly to get quite right. At even the standard power level for starting characters a player will need to decide which of these his character will focus on. Certainly unless a character is focused on skills, he is unlikely to have any Specialisations as they are so costly.

Mechanically, Black Void uses a standard roll and add mechanic, employing a twelve-sided die. To this will be added modifiers from a character’s appropriate Traits, Talents, and Skills. An easy task has a difficulty rating of four, an average task a difficulty rating of seven, a challenging task a difficulty rating of ten, and so on, going up in steps of three all the way up to twenty-five for an impossible task. A roll of a one is a critical fumble, whilst a roll of a twelve is a critical success and enables the die to be rerolled and the result added. Various effect rolls, such as weapon damage, are rolled on two, three, four, six, and twelve-sided dice.

Combat uses the same mechanics, the difficulty to hit an opponent determined by his Defence Value. In general, combatants get only one action per round and this can be used up if a character needs to dodge or parry an attack, so a player will need to be more careful in his choice of actions as there is no automatic attack attempt. Armour reduces damage, but its bulk can impede attacks or other actions, and weapons can have other properties, such as piercing for a spear or knockdown for a mace. Both arms and armour can be modified and customised for further effects.
                                                                                               
Magic plays a major role in Black Void and comes in three types—Blood Rituals, Mysticism, and Void powers. Of these, only Blood Rituals and Mysticism are available at the start of the game, whilst Void powers come through being exposed to the Void or gaining Enlightenment. Magic is very different to that of other fantasy roleplaying games and has an adult tone in places. Notably, this is with Blood Rituals, the practice of ceremonial sacrifice of living animals, beasts, and sometimes even sentient or Daimonic beings. This is divided between bloodletting, the blood being consecrated, offered, or ritually consumed to confer its innate powers and thus a temporary ability, bonus, or advantage on the practitioner or other recipient, and sacrificial divination, in which the entrails and blood of a sacrificial animal are examined to elicit an answer to a query supposed fortune, insight, or providence. Mysticism is influenced by the Void and enables its practitioners to alter reality with inexplicable, wondrous, and oftentimes quite dangerous phenomena, and as such can only be practised by the Voidmarked, the enlightened, or those who have otherwise been affected by the Void. Practitioners of Mysticism are either Furores or Gnostics, depending upon if they use their Willpower or Intellect respectively. Furores tended to be untrained and unleash passion fuelled displays of unrefined powers, whilst Gnostics are trained and meditative, capable of creating more subtle effects. They cannot channel as much power as Furores, but know techniques which enable them to withstand the deleterious effects should they lose control of their power.

Our sample Mystic is Gulandam, a healer and scholar in good standing with the Beggars Court despite his appearance. 

Name: Gulandam
Race: Voidmarked
Homeworld: Llyhn Native
Age: 59 (Elder) Gender: Female
Appearance: Short and obese; speckled skin, hair tendrils, all black eyes, tendril beard, four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot.

Agility 2 (-1)
Awareness 3 
Stamina 2 (-1) (Flaw: Obese [Mild])
Strength 2 (-1) (Flaw: Frail [Mild])
Intellect 4 (+1) (Talent: Quick Learner)
Persuasion 3 
Presence 3 
Willpower 5 (+2) (Talent: Resolve)

Health: 16 Sanity: 39 Move: 4 Defence Value: 7 Enlightenment: 0 Wastah: 1

Backgrounds: Educated, Local

Powers: Ageless, True Sight, Mysticism (Gnostic) 1– Spheres: Life (2), Mind (2)

Skills: Anatomy 1, Bladed Weapons 0, Enquiry 1, Herbalism 1, Occult Lore 1 

Then there is Enlightenment. Through a growing awareness and comprehension of the Cosmos and the Void, a Player Character can climb tiers of Ascension, becoming increasingly sensitive to the Void and able to express various powers. Enlightenment only comes about through play and it is up to the Arbiter to decide when a Player Character progresses.

Bagrah has been hired to mug Gulandam, part of the rivalries besetting the Beggars Court. The Arbiter Gulandam’s player must make an opposed Observation roll versus Bagrah’s Stealth check. The Stealth check figures in Bagrah’s Agility modifier and Stealth skill, which is +1 each. His player rolls the die and adds +2 for a result of 9, modified to 11. Gulandam has no modifier, nor the Observation skill, so is untrained and suffers a -3 bonus. His player rolls an 11, modified to 8. Bagrah has achieved surprise and consequently, beyond his natural Defence Value of 7, Gulandam cannot react to the attack. Bagrah unleashes his claws and leaps to attack. His player will add +1 for Bagrah’s Agility modifier and +1 for his Unarmed Combat skill. Unfortunately, Bagrah’s player rolls a natural 1—a critical fumble! This means his player rolls on the Mishap Table, the result being a ten in which Bagrah pinches a nerve and cannot conduct any combat manoeuvres the following round.

In the next round, both players roll for initiative. Gulandam has no modifier, but Bagrah gains a total bonus of +2 from his Agility and Fast Reflexes Talent. Bagrah’s player again rolls a natural 1! There is no penalty for this, but Bagrah is obviously slowed by the pain. Gulandam’s player simply rolls a 7. Now both players will declare their characters’ actions. Bagrah’s player says that he will be doing no more than dodge whatever Gulandam attack will make, whilst Gulandam’s player decides that the Mystic will strike fear into Bagrah using the Mind Sphere of his Gnosticism. This takes three separate steps. First to determine the Potency of the Mystic channelling, then make a to-hit roll and roll, followed by a damage roll.

Potency depends on the channelling time, range, duration, area, and the Rank of the Sphere used. An instant channelling time has a Potency of 6, but Gulandam has time to concentrate before Bagrah can act. Gulandam spends a second concentrating on the channelling, reducing his initiative to 3 and the Potency to 5. Range is inside three metres and duration is instant, so the Potency is not increased, but the target of one person increases it by 1. It is also increased by 2 for Gulandam’s Rank in the Mind Sphere. This gives his player a Difficulty of 9 to beat. To this, Gulandam’s player will add +1 each for Gulandam’s Intellect modifier and Mysticism Rank. He rolls a 9, adds +2, for a total of 11. Gulandam has successfully channelled the Gnostic forces and his player now makes the to-hit roll. Bagrah has a high Defence Value and Gulandam has a poor Agility, giving a -1 modifier to the attack roll. Fortunately, Gulandam’s player rolls an 11, which means Gulandam successfully strikes his assailant. At Rank 2 of the Mind Sphere, Gulandam can force Bagrah’s player to make a roll against Difficulty rating of seven. Unfortunately, Bagrah’s player rolls a 5 and Bagrah is suddenly affeared… This means he has to roll on the Fear effect table, and on a seven, Bagrah is panicked, and must flee for three rounds and is at a penalty to act against Gulandam.

Black Void is split into two parts. The first half presents the rules for both the players and the Arbiter—as the Game Master as known in Black Void—and quite an extensive equipment list also, including lists of physician’s tools, infusions and teas, services and labour, and so on. The second half is for the Arbiter. Here it presents solid advice on running and setting up a game, before delving into the world or worlds of Black Void itself. This includes an examination of the Void itself and the means and dangers of traversing it; perforations between the Void and the Cosmos, and the appearance and nature of the perforations where they appear; and information about the most common routes through, in particular those overseen by the Unseen Rulers of the Eternal City. The focus of the Arbiter’s section is Llyhn Eternal and here it is given a good breakdown of the city’s sections, factions, and so on, complete with decent maps, personalities, and plot hooks. The bestiary provides a selection of strange  sentient and non-sentient races. They include the curious and diminutive four-armed Aq’Jarea, traders and travellers known to hire guides and guides; the Eybolq, a black-scaled, aquatic-looking creature that swims through the air rather than the water and has a strange aims and known to feed upon the mental capabilities of its targets; and the Harith, bulky, six-armed blobs of muscle known for their sense of honour, their singing voices, and the great flotillas they travel the Void in. Lastly, nine worlds are described as potential destinations to go beyond the Veil.

Black Void is a roleplaying game in which not only are the Player Characters at the bottom, but so is the rest of Humanity. They cower at the bottom of a highly stratified and strict caste system, wanting to improve themselves as does the remnants of Humanity. However, step out of line and the powers that be in Llyhn the Eternal, the Unseen Rulers and their servants, are all too ready to swat Humanity like insects. Improving themselves will take matronage and patronage, allies, dangerous missions, and more. At times it involves the Player Characters to the Void, which may change them, make them less or more than Human. The question is, as the last bastion of Humanity, are they and the enclaves of Humanity in Llyhn prepared to sacrifice that? 

Physically, Black Void feels as dark as its name suggests. All of the pages are given a faded sepia wash and whilst is quite heavily illustrated, the artwork varies in quality. Much of the black and white art is of questionable quality, whilst the majority of the full artwork is very, it is often too dark, often murky, to really see the rich detail that it probably has. It needs an edit too in places, but otherwise in terms of the text is decently written.

Black Void is an amazing fantasy creation, dark and different in its feel with a great deal of originality and yet… Black Void simply suffers from poor design in terms of the way in which it presents its information. Fundamentally it is not sufficiently upfront what the game is or what is about and what the players can roleplay and what they are doing. In fact, there is not really enough background presented to the players at all before they are given the means of creating characters and then the rules. For the Arbiter, there is no explanation of what the game is about until halfway—two hundred pages—through the book. What this means is that the players are given the means—or the how—of character creation, but not the why. They have no context for what they are creating which leaves the Arbiter with extra work to do in order to educate her players. Certainly, Black Void needed some sample characters complete with backgrounds and motivations, some background with in-game voices explaining the factions and what they want, and so on. That would have prepared the players for character creation, given them basics about the background, given them some ideas about what to play, and also prepared the Arbiter for her own half of the book. It does not help that the core book lacks a scenario to help her get started either.

Black Void is a fantastical creation, genuinely original. It reads as if One Thousand and One Nights has been cast upon an alien shore under skies of cosmic horror and that is a weird combination. As a roleplaying game, Black Void takes more effort and makes more demands upon the players and the Arbiter than what its very different setting should, all of them unnecessary if it had been more clearly designed and presented. If as a Referee you are looking for a different, original fantasy setting, then Black Void is worth investigating, but bringing it to the table will be a challenge.

Zini Dungeons

Best Left Buried is a fantasy horror roleplaying game in which characters venture into the crypts and caves below the earth in search of secrets and treasures and there face unnameable monsters, weird environments, eldritch magic, and more… Whilst deep underground, they will be under constant stress, face fears hitherto unknown, and the likelihood is that they will return from the depths physically and mentally scarred, the strangeness they have seen and the wounds they have suffered separating them from those not so foolish as to descend into the dark. Published by Soul Muppet Publishing, there are several versions of Best Left Buried. Although all three contain the same basic rules, they vary according to the extra information they contain. So Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition offers a lightweight, basic version intended for ease of play; Best Left Buried: Cryptdigger’s Guide To Survival includes more information for both player and information as well as everything in Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition; and Best Left Buried: Deluxe Edition contains everything plus background and extra rules.

Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition or A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Rules is probably the most accessible, presenting its contents in discrete, self-contained chapters or ‘Zinis’. The idea here is to minimise page-flipping and the format has also been applied to its companion, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons. This is an anthology of fifteen mini-dungeons and mini-locales reduced to the ‘Zini’ format, just four pages per entry, written by a diverse number of writers working in the Old School Renaissance hobby. Each entry adheres to the same format, a title page providing an illustration of the dungeon’s main antagonist, a quick introduction to the dungeon, a page listing each of the monsters and any treasure to be found in the dungeon, and then a double-page spread showing the plans or maps of the dungeon, building, or locale with its room descriptions circling the map. The result is generally easy to read, though anyone used to traditional maps with their numbered locations may need to make a slight adjustment to get used to the self-contained design.

A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is bookended by maps. It 
opens with a combined map and table of contents for the anthology’s content. The map is of the Eastern Isles, part of Soul Muppet Publishing’s The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal setting. It closes with a full map of The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal which shows an oddity that the Eastern Isles are actually in the west of Lendal. The map at the front of the book does at least mark the Eastern Isles’ major duchies along with the locations of the fifteen dungeons and their page numbers. This though highlights the issue of the lack background given in the anthology to either the Eastern Isles or The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal. A Zini devoted to either would have provided some context to the fifteen dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons.

The dungeons or locations or encounters vary wildly and weirdly, from caves occupied by alien creatures from the stars and the unknown and halls and houses fallen to the macabre and the magical to islands which breath and swallow and ravines stalked by insectoid monsters. For example, ‘Hearteater’s Hall’ is a rural Elven manor house, home to the late Lord Holston, a Blood Elf who has and regressed into savagery and a meaty diet with servants who would love to have the Cryptdiggers to dinner, whilst ‘Like Family’ details Remly House, a manor home to a coven of mages which has not been heard from recently and so perhaps might be worth investigating or even burglarising… The Game Master will have fun with a particular NPC in this scenario, a talking book and there are lots of little details here for the player characters to dig into. Elsewhere ‘The Prophet’s Valley’ offers visions from the ninth child of a Gorgon at the end of a ravine—or plenty to steal and ‘Transmuter’s Tower’ is home to a noted wizard and sage who has not been seen since a calamitous sound was heard from within its walls. Other dungeons include tombs and caves and temples, and so on, some located in jungles, some in ravines, some by the coast.

Perhaps the two dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons that stand out are not dungeons at all, but rather mini-hexcrawls which give the monsters and situations described room to breathe. Literally in the case of ‘Maw Isle’, and literally not in ‘White Hair’. ‘Maw Isle’ is part island, part tentacular monster, that hunts and crunches ships. The seas around the island seem to rise and fall as the island breathes even as shipwrecked survivors do their best to get by until rescue arrives or another ship presents a means of getting off the island. ‘White Hair’ is even stranger, a village, the surrounding hills, grottoes and tombs under a rain of white hair that falls each time a singular dragon takes to the sky. Exploring the mini-region exposes the Cryptdiggers to more and more of the strange hair and as it more and more gets everywhere, they get infected by it and they begin to transform… This is delightfully weird set-up, the infection driving the Cryptdiggers to discover what is going on.

In general, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides a good mix of dungeons, houses, caves, and other adventuring location. There is always a sense danger to them, something not quite right about them, whether it is a mad researcher bent on obtaining hidden lore at all costs, alien scorpions attempting to conquer the world, or a fertility cult blasé about its sacrifices. The Zini format also leads to a sense of claustrophobia to the dungeons, if not the mini-hexcrawls. What they are missing though is context, the reason why they are there and, in many cases, why the Cryptdiggers would be interested in visiting such places. Now of course, the Game Master and her players can come up with motivations for the Player Characters, but there is no denying that one or two more, or even some, hooks would have helped to draw the Cryptdiggers into each location. 

Similarly, some information about the Eastern Isles would have been useful too, adding more context to the playing area for the Game Master and her players. Rounding out the anthology is a guide to adapting the monsters in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons to Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. This nicely expands the utility of the book and its contents. There are innumerable roleplaying games for which the contents of the anthology would work, whether that is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Mörk Borg.

Physically, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is a neat and tidy book, light on artwork, but what there is, is decent and the maps are all very clear.  Although in many cases, the Game Master and her players will have to supply context and motivations for the Cryptdiggers, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides fifteen solid adventuring locations for a Best Left Buried game. They work as one-shots, but are flexible enough to work into a campaign or even be adapted to the dark fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, but whatever the choice of game, they should each provide a good session’s worth of play. 

[Fanzine Focus XIX] Back to the Spaceport: Phase 1, Datapacket 1

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

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

For the most part, the current wave of fanzines is all fantasy orientated, a great many of them dedicated to and supporting the Old School Renaissance in one form or another. Essentially an Old School form of support for an Old School style of roleplaying game. So when a new fanzine appears dedicated to a different genre it can be a breath of fresh air and when that fanzine approaches its subject in more thoughtful and detailed fashion, then that breath of fresh air might be more than a little minty fresh. So it is with Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games. This is a Science Fiction fanzine dedicated to all types of Science Fiction gaming, so roleplaying and miniatures, for example. It is also a Science Fiction fanzine dedicated to Science Fiction in all of its many subgenres—urban (Cyberpunk and dystopian), post-apocalyptic, interstellar travel, Victorian and Edwardian, and so on. It is also a Science Fiction fanzine which is very British in its approach to Science and it also a Science Fiction fanzine that when necessary, is prepared to examine the issues posed when gaming with a particular Science Fiction genre.

Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is entirely written and edited by David Haraldson and you can tell that it has a serious intent from the moment you open the front cover. He takes the time to credit all of the artists, the fonts used for each article, and the particular games. This is not necessarily interesting, but it points to an aspiration towards a professionalism and a seriousness. Then flip through the pages of the fanzine and there are copious footnotes, often links to outside sources of research and the like. In terms of presentation, the fanzine is clean and tidy, perhaps slightly cluttered in places, with artwork used judiciously. The use of different fonts for article titles is very eighties, as is the organisation of the contents into different departments. So ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrows’ for Edwardian and Victorian scientific romances, ‘Bright Lights, Mega City’ for urban Science Fiction, ‘Into the Ruins’ for post-apocalyptic Science Fiction, and so on, which is all very White Dwarf magazine.

The first department is ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrows’ and ‘The Green Hills of Venus’. This is the write-up of the first from the Challenger Distinguished Lectures given by Professor Octavian Black. It presents his findings on the successes and failures of the first few expeditions to Venus, starting with the 1889 Chadwick expedition. In classic style, it presents Venus as a hothouse jungle planet, complete with lizardmen and megafauna, but also hints at secrets deep within the planet. Complete with a story hook and lots of knowing Easter eggs if you know the genre, its gets the fanzine off to a good start.

‘Manchester, So Much To Answer For’ is the first entry for the ‘Bright Lights, Mega City’ department, presenting two Manchester-inspired gangs—the Rusholme Ruffians and Frank’s Gang a.k.a. the Sidebottoms. The former is a gang inspired by the eighties band, The Smiths, whilst the latter a gang inspired by the papier-mâché mask-helmet wearing media personality/artist, Frank Sidebottom. More attention is paid to the latter than the former and it shows with more ideas on their gang structure and how to use them. Certainly, Frank’s Gang makes for a fun prank/performance gang to add to a Cyberpunk roleplaying game as well as the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Roleplaying Game and Vurt: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. ‘Me And My Melancholy Motor’ for ‘Into the Ruins’ provides the TEdison Razorback, a vehicle with an A.I. and a personality for getting around a post-apocalyptic world akin to that of Gamma World or Mutant Crawl Classics. Complete with a personality table and mental health crisis table, it provides a fun NPC for Game Master to bring to her campaign and roleplay.

The highlight of Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is ‘Mx. Land & Dr. Britling See It Through’. The longest article in the issue, it explores the nature and problems of the Steampunk genre and how it applies to gaming as well as how the Steampunk movement regards gaming. In the first case, rarely as a ’punk genre and typically as a neo-colonial, imperialist celebration, and in the case of the latter, badly. Of the roleplaying games available, it highlights Marcus L. Rowland’s Forgotten Futures as probably the best roleplaying game of Victorian and Edwardian scientific romances and it also presents a manifesto for exploring the genre in the pages of Back to the Spaceport. This is an absolutely splendid read, interesting and thoughtful, certainly all but worth the price of the fanzine alone.

The articles for the departments ‘STL Signals’ and ‘Standing Orders’ are more personal and prosaic in nature. ‘STL Signals’ looks at PBM—or ‘Play by Mail’—games and the author’s experience with a couple of PBM games, Riftlords and Phoenix: Beyond the Stellar Empire. It is diverting enough and again harks back to the heyday of the hobby in the eighties. ‘Standing Orders’ is devoted to Science Fiction miniatures wargaming and ‘21st Century Fighting in Built-Up Areas’ looks at urban conflict scenarios in miniatures games where the line of sight extends across the whole of the playing area. Written for use with Ground Zero Games’ Stargrunt II rules, the rules and suggestions here can adapt to any rules system the reader prefers, the article is useful for anyone running these types of games, but is otherwise just a little esoteric in comparison to the other articles in Back to the Spaceport.

Of more use perhaps is ‘Art Crime’. Written for the ‘Under Other Constellations’ department, it is a set-up and a cast of supporting NPCs suitable for any Science Fiction roleplaying game in which interstellar travel is possible. Here the idea is that the transportation of ordinary goods is too expensive to make it worthwhile, but the shipment of luxury items, including art, does not. It consists of four detailed NPCs—The Thief, The Investigator, The Amateur Sleuth, and The Collector—around which the Game Master can build a scenario or encounter. Written for use with FrostByte Books’ M-Space and Design Mechanicsm’s Mythras Imperative, it would easily work with any number of Science Fiction roleplaying games and adapting the plot and NPCs should be easy enough. Lastly, ‘Music for Spaceports’—a nice nod to Music for Airports—reviews three albums of music suitable for use as background sounds in Science Fiction games. Of the eight articles in Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1, this feels like filler.

—oOo—

In addition to the fanzine itself, Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 comes with an Old School Renaissance Science Fiction pullout. ‘On Xanadu, A Stately Pleasure Sphere!’ is written for use with White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying and similar Science Fiction roleplaying games, as well as Mindjammer – The Roleplaying Game: Transhuman Adventure in the Second Age of Space, it presents a Space Opera-style scenario/hexcrawl on the planet Xanadu, the best source of the Star Flowers, a delicacy amongst the galaxy’s elite. The planetary governor, Magnus Dominus, spends his time in seclusion in his imperial palace whilst working the planet’s population piteously hard growing the precious star flowers. The set-up is open to multiple plots, including assassinating the governor, abducting him and putting him on trial, stealing something from his art collection, fomenting rebellion, and so on. This could easily be mixed in with the ‘Art Crime’ article from the issue. Overall, this is a nice extra to the actual issue and easy enough to add to a Game Master’s campaign.

—oOo—

It is a pleasure to have a fanzine which covers a genre in the variety of its subgenres and one which does so in as high a standard across all of them. It sets the bar high for future issues, one that we can only hope that the author can maintain for the second issue and also when other contributors write for it. Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is an engaging piece from beginning to end, thoughtful and interesting, the article Steampunk a superb highlight.