An Esteren Engagement

It has been over a decade since the first release for Les Ombres d’Esteren or Shadows of Esteren, in English. That was Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue, which provided us with an introduction to this low dark, humancentric fantasy setting with Lovecraftian undertones, as well as a set of player characters/NPCs and three ready-to-play scenarios. The English-speaking hobby was fascinated by this French roleplaying game with its themes of tradition versus modernity, science and industrialisation versus faith, and monotheism versus spiritualism, as well as captivated by its artwork which looked like nothing then being published. Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue itself was subsequently made available for free to download. However, since the publication of Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue in 2011 and its release in English in 2012, releases from the publisher, Studio AGATE , have been slow to appear. Shadows of Esteren 1-Universe introduced its setting of Tri-Kazel peninsula in more detail, introducing properly the three nations of the region—Tol-Kaer with its old tribal ways and Demorthèn spiritual cults; Gwidre which has been converted to the Temple of the One God by missionaries from the Great Theocracy from the rest of the continent to the north and adopted feudalism; and Reizh, which has taken up the science of Magience, developing and creating devices, machines, and ‘toys’ powered by ‘Flux’, an energy derived from matter itself, though not without its cost to the environment and land itself. It also provided rules for character generation and is also available as a ‘Pay What You Want’ title. The third release, Shadows of Esteren 2-Travels expanded the setting from an in-character point-of-view, as well as several ‘canvases’ or short scenarios, a longer scenario, and more NPCs as well as a bestiary. Together, these three releases form the core of Shadows of Esteren and they underpin the sixth release, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg.

Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 is the first part of the campaign for Shadows of Esteren. It is a highly structured campaign, specifically built around the themes of Love, Ethics, Guilt, and Adoption, which will in turn will be explored by one of the players and their character, supported by a combination of NPCs played by the Game Leader and what would otherwise be NPCs played by the other players. This together with the detailed set-up requirements—in comparison to other campaigns—makes Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg a more demanding campaign than those other campaigns. Although it suggested that parts of the campaign can be played through in a single session or so, really every part of the campaign deserves more time and attention given its thematic and emotional depths. This includes expanding the campaign with extra content. The scenarios in Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue can serve as prequel and The Monastery of Tuath can be added too as it further details an NPC important to the campaign. In terms of requirements, ideally, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 should be played through by at least four players as well as the Game Leader. This enables the Game Leader and her players to explore the campaign’s four themes, each of which corresponds to a particular archetype found in Shadows of Esteren 1-Universe. These are Eoghan, a Warrior whose theme is Love; Finn, a Magientist whose theme is Ethics; Adeliane, the Demorthèn whose theme is Guilt; and Joris, a Theologian whose theme is Adoption. This part of the campaign also has four secondary narrative arcs—Ambition, Origins, Regret, Vengeance—but does not specifically focus on them or their associated archetype to be found in Shadows of Esteren 1-Universe. Although the campaign works best with these pre-generated Player Characters, there is advice for the Game Leader should a player want to play a different character type or want to roleplay against the associated theme and its narrative. This has the side effect of increasing the preparation time for the Game Leader.

Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1’s themes are explored in a new type of scenario called a ‘Focus’. In Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1, these are used to delve deep into the motivations, history, and relationships of an individual Player Character, essentially portraying and examining key scenes in his life. A Focus can also be used to explore different aspects of an ongoing adventure. Whilst each of the four Focuses in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 concentrates on one particular Player Character, the other players will take the roles of NPC involved in that Focus and they will earn Experience Points for their own characters, though not as much. Mechanically, playing through a Focus will grant a Player Character both Experience Points and points in Determination. Points in Determination, together with his Passion, set the value of a new Player Character aspect introduced in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1, Drive. Drive measures a Player Character’s engagement with both the theme of his Focus and what matters to him, the higher it is, the more likely the Player Character is to act impulsively when following the Drive. A Player Character will also earn further Experience Points and even extra Advantages depending upon the value of his Determination.

There is advice in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 for the Game Leader on running a Focus. This covers portraying NPCs, adapting existing Player Characters to the campaign, and both the opportunities and difficulties of running them. The advice is excellent, but ultimately, most of the difficulties can be avoided by players being prepared to buy into the demands of the campaign’s set-up and play style. That said, the preparation time required to set up the players with the NPCs needed for a Focus that is not for their character is more than a normal scenario requires. It should be noted that Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 2 will explore two further Focuses. The four Focuses in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 can be run in any order, although a very ambitious and organised Game Leader could actually work with her players to switch back and forth between the various scenes in the four rather than playing through them in linear fashion. Either way, since NPCs can appear in more than one Focus, this is effectively troupe play and the Game Leader best work through the huge cast of characters to work out which players should be roleplaying which NPC and which Focus in order to be consistent.

Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 begins by presenting ‘The Vale of Dearg’, the setting for the bulk of the campaign. This details the various locations and factions plus NPCs, throughout the valley, in particular the village of Dearg and the Black Feathers, a gang of bandits plaguing the region that will grow to become a destabilising threat over the course of the campaign. There are rules too for hostile weather as much of the campaign takes place during winter, and also for ‘Advanced Character Generation’. This adds further steps to the process, including giving a Player Character ties to his native or adoptive homeland, Drive as detailed above, a Narrative Arc, and Relationships. Of these, Narrative Arcs are actually tied to both player and his character so that if the character dies, the new one with continue the narrative Arc. This is designed to get the new Player Character involved without any complications. There is a guide for the Game Leader on creating Narrative Arcs in Shadow of Esteren, but in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1, they are primarily explored in its four Focuses.

Another aspect of Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 which the Game leader, and her players in particular, will need to buy into, is the horror within its story and the way in which it can affect their characters’ emotions and lead to a loss of control. There are points within the campaign—and the Focuses especially—where the Game Leader is expected to suggest, even indicate how a Player Character is feeling. In play, this can be handled through roleplaying means or mechanical means as best fits the player’s style, but again, this requires the agreement of the player to allow this and marks Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 as being very different in comparison to other campaigns. Again though, there is good advice on handling all of this.

The four Focuses form the second and middle part of Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1. The first ‘Gaol: Of Love and Fury’, explores the theme of Love as an unrequited love triangle is formed between the Player Character, Eoghan, his rival-then friend, Mael Mac Govrian, and a local girl, Céliane. She falls in love with Mael Mac Govrian and Eoghan goes away for military training in a neighbouring Dukedom. Eoghan will also encounter the activities of the Black Feathers. The theme in ‘Modhannan: A Better World’ is Ethics, as Finn runs away from the Vale of Dearg to study in Reizh to become a Magientist, but field assignments in disputed territory will lead to him facing the first of several dilemmas. Joris, a Theologian, is the protagonist of ‘Mac Thogail: The Legacy of the Rose’, who comes to question both his faith and his origins, the latter being the Focus’ theme of Adoption, as he works towards becoming a member of the clergy. There are hints too of heresy linking in the background in this Focus. Lastly, in ‘Coir: The River Child’, the Demorthèn, Adeliane, must come to terms with the Guilt she has faced throughout her life since a friend disappeared when they were children. Options are given to suggest how and why the friend disappeared, as well as the possibility that she is actually still alive. There is the suggestion that if she is dead, that her ghost might be capable of helping Adeliane, though this comes with some downsides too. All four players whose characters undergo their own Focus can expect to face dilemmas and trauma, but it is this last Focus that is the most demanding and the most harrowing, and the roleplaying skill and emotional fortitude of its player will be put to the test.

The campaign proper starts in the third and final part of Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1. This moves the timeline up to date and after the events of the scenarios played through in Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue. In effect, what that means is the four Focuses in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 are effectively flashbacks, which some cases, will take one or more of the Player Characters to locations previously visited in Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue, before the effects of events of the scenarios in Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue play out. The campaign proper in Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 actually begins with its prequel, the Player Characters all together and en media res, being chased by some unnamed monster before being forced to take refuge in some tunnels in the mountains surrounding the Vale of Dearg. What they discover in the tunnels hints at things to come in the following scenario, ‘Scourge’. This takes place at the height of winter, with it being particularly cold, foggy, and snowy, and the inhabitants of the Player Characters’ home village of Dearg having to ration food due to poor harvests. They see signs of disturbance coming from the neighbouring village of Fearìl, fires and smoke, but it is too cold to travel. Then a refugee arrives, half out of his mind, and telling of the terror that befell Fearìl, then more refugees, who bring the terror with them. There are hints that something indescribable—or could it be ravenous wolves or murderous crows?—has attacked Fearìl. The Player Character whose Focus was Love will certainly want to investigate as Fearìl is where his betrothed, Céliane, lives. Investigating Fearìl will initially only reveal confusion and uncertainty, as it appears that the Black Feathers bandit gang has attacked the village as well. Some of the villagers fled to the nearby Fortress of Smiorail—where Eoghan, the Warrior whose theme and Focus is Love, did his military training—and it appears too that this has been attacked. This is intentionally confusing and it takes no little gathering of clues and investigation to determine what is behind the attacks. The final confrontation is nasty and challenging and will potentially have long lasting consequences… This, and the discovery of Céliane, unfortunately comatose, is where this part of the campaign comes to an end.

Physically, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 is incredibly well presented. It is profusely illustrated and the artwork is superb. The maps are decent too, but the book does need a slight edit in places. The layout is notably open and easy to read, with icons used throughout to indicate important notes for the Game Leader, scenario hooks, options to include monstrous encounters or supernatural elements, key scenes, setting suggestions, and so on. Several of the setting suggestions include what music to play in particular scenes, including from Shadows of Esteren’s own soundtrack.

Ultimately, the issues with Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 are twofold. The first is that Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 2 is not yet available. Thus, the campaign is currently on a cliffhanger. The second is that the campaign and its Focuses and themes are demanding, not just in terms of set up and organisation, but also in terms of roleplaying and emotions. Every player is expected to roleplay both a character who will experience traumatic and difficult events as part of the character’s childhood, and numerous other NPCs who will often be present at the traumatic and difficult events of another Player Character in his Focus. Which is, of course, demanding for the Game Leader to prepare and run. It is also a campaign that works best with the pre-generated Player Characters to be found in Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue, because despite the advice given to suggest otherwise, not using them in a campaign specifically written for them, only increases the amount of preparation required by the Game Leader. Ultimately though, if the Game Leader is prepared to undertake the effort to set the campaign up and her players are ready to accede to its demands and mature enough to handle its emotional heft, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 will deliver a horrifying dark and disturbingly grim roleplaying experience.

—oOo—

The Kickstarter for the second part of the campaign, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 2, can be found here.

Stacking the Odds

The Job: A Game of Glorious Heists & Everything That Can Wrong In Them is a storytelling roleplaying game from an unexpected source—Games Omnivorous. The publisher is better known for its horror scenarios such as Cabin Risotto Fever and Eat the Rich, its systems neutral supplements such as Bottled Sea and its Old School Renaissance-style releases such as the Isle of Ixx and Frontier Scum: A Game About Wanted Outlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier. It is specifically designed for one-shot sessions in which the players take the role of a gang of expert thieves, who will plan and execute a heist or robbery, and overcome the obstacles that they as players build into the story as part of their characters’ planning for the ‘job’. This is a roleplaying game inspired not just by great films such as Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, Logan Lucky, and Baby Driver, but also roleplaying games such as Leverage, Dread, and Fiasco. Perhaps the only entries missing from this bibliography are Reservoir Dogs and Rififi, but otherwise this is a solid bibliography and nice to see the author acknowledge his inspirations.

The Job: A Game of Glorious Heists & Everything That Can Wrong In Them is about stealing expensive jewels, priceless artworks, and world-famous artefacts and it is played in two parts, the Preparation Phase and the Action Phase, with between three and five players taking the roles of archetypes classic to the genre. To play, The Job requires a handful of six-sided dice and pen and paper. In the Preparation Phase, the players will plan the heist and set up scenes that they want to see played out in the Action Phase, stacking the heist against their characters as they add complications, describe locations, and build the world in which the heist is going to take place. In the Action Phase, the players will resolve the heist attempt, using their characters’ stunts to overcome complications, push the story forward, and to give each character time to shine. The Action Phase is played using a stack of six-sided dice which represents the pressure or tension in the heist attempt, with tension relieved by removing dice and ratcheted up by adding dice. When this stack falls, it is reset and thus the tension in the game begins again at zero, but after the first dice stack has fallen, more dice are added on the second and third rebuilds of the dice stack. If the third dice stack falls or is knocked over, the game ends as the heist fails and the Crewmembers suffer the consequences. If the third dice stack does not fall and the players complete all of the scenes they have created, the game ends with their characters being successful and getting away with the loot.

The start of The Job consists of the players picking an archetype, each one recognisable from the heist genre. These consist of the Animal Handler, Boss, Bruiser, Con Artist, Genius, Greaseman, Pickpocket, and Wheelman. A Crewmember does not have any stats in The Job, but the capacity to hold four items in his Inventory and four Stunts. Items are added to a Crewmember’s Inventory as necessary, but once a Crewmember has four items, he can carry no more and they cannot be changed. Which can mean that find himself in a situation where none of his equipment is going to help him. In general, Stunts give an Advantage for the character as well as special actions. For example, the Pickpocket has the Stunts of ‘Pickpocketing’, ‘Steal the Stack’, ‘Safecracking’, and ‘Magic Tricks’. ‘Pickpocketing’ gives him Advantage when stealing small objects and ‘Safecracking’ Advantage with delicate tasks such as picking locks, setting detonators, and the like. ‘Steal the Stack’ lets him steal a die from the dice Stack once during the Action Phase and ‘Magic Tricks’ actually gives him a magic trick, from close up magic to big stage events, and roll with Advantage. The four Inventory slots remain empty until the player decides he needs an item of equipment.

Once each player has decided upon the archetype he wants to play, the Referee presents them with the Brief. This gives the Crewmembers an object to steal, a budget to spend whilst conducting the heist, and six Complications. The Budget is spent during the Heist to equip a Crewmember with an item which will help him complete the Heist. The six Complications have to be added to the twelve Scenes that the players will create during the Preparation Phase. Depending on the Brief, they can be reinforced doors, laser sensors, guard dogs, and so on. The Complications are essentially the key points upon which the players will build and describe the scenes for their characters’ heists, their purpose being not to impede the heist or make it easier, but provide moments where the Crewmembers can shine as they do cool things to overcome the problem. All together these scenes will number exactly twelve—no more, no less, and consist of Infiltration, Deployment, Execution, and Escape scenes. When played out, they must be played in the order as written, and unlike other heist-themed roleplaying games, there are no flashbacks involved. What this means is that The Job is much more like a film heist rather than like that depicted on Leverage. The whole process for the Preparation Phase is collaborative, both between the players and between the players and the Referee, whose job it is make suggestions and adjudicate the players’ ideas in order to help fit the style of the heist. The Preparation Phase will appeal to players who like to plan.

The Action Phase begins with some set-up scenes. This is a chance for the players to narrate a pre-heist scene that establishes their character and gets them involved in the opening moves of the heist. This can include practicing manoeuvres and dummy runs, making a reconnaissance of the routine at the target of the heist, hacking into the building to make getting in later that much easier, getting hired as staff to get access to the building, and even stealing a particular item of equipment that will make the heist easier. None of this requires dice rolls, but it can generate Heat. For each set-up scene that generates Heat, the Referee adds a single die to the Dice Stack. This is a tower of dice, one on top of each other, which will be added to over the course of the Action Phase as the Crewmembers suffer setbacks, while certain Stunts can actually remove dice. For example, the Bruiser’s ‘Happy Birthday, Punk’ Stunt lets his player blow on the Dice Stack in an attempt to knock dice off.

Then the Action Phase proper begins. The Referee and the Referee work through the scenes one by one, resolving them in order. Whenever a Crewmember does anything risky, the Referee can call for a dice roll. Mechanically, The Job is very much like Powered by the Apocalypse. A player rolls two six-sided dice. If the result is six or less, the action fails, the player has to use an alternative method, and dice are added to the Dice Stack. On a result of seven or eight, the action is successful, but the player must either decide to add more dice to the Dice Stack or accept a Setback. A Setback is a complication which will come back to cause problems in subsequent scenes. If the result is ten or more, the action succeeds and the player gets to remove a die from the Dice Stack. If a Crewmember has an appropriate item of equipment or Stunt, his player can roll with Advantage, that is, roll three six-sided dice and ignore the worst result, but if the situation has adverse conditions or a Setback comes into play, the player rolls at a Disadvantage, that is, roll three six-sided dice and ignore the best result.

Play continues like this until either the third Dice Stack falls or all twelve Scenes are successfully narrated and roleplayed out. In the case of the latter, the Heist is successful and very player gets a final scene in which to narrate what happens to their Crewmember. However, if the third Dice Stack is knocked over, the Heist is unsuccessful, and the character of the player who knocked it over is caught. Everyone else is given one minute to write down what they do in response and which one of the other Crewmembers they involve. The notes are revealed and one player is designated to act as spokesman to narrate what happens based on the notes. If there are inconsistencies in the narration, the Referee can actually send a Crewmember to gaol! This, though, puts a lot of pressure on that one player not to screw the narration up and is at odds with the flow of the rest of the game where the players and their Crewmembers work together throughout both the Preparation Phase and the Action Phase.

To help her run The Job, it comes with an example Brief and its twelve Scenes all written out, an example play, solid advice for the Referee, and five sample Briefs, complete with Objects to steal and a Location to steal them from, as well as a Budget and a set of six complications. They include stealing cash from Madison Square Gardens, the Imperial State Crown from the Tower of London, a triceratops skull from the Natural History museum in London, Michelangelo’s David from a Scottish castle, and a prisoner from an unspecified high security prison. This in addition to the worked examples that the Referee can easily adapt to her own crew of players. Overall, these provide plenty of variety in terms of settings, objectives, and complications. There are notes too, on using The Job with other roleplaying games and even the Old School Renaissance.

Physically, The Job is incredibly eye-catching. The graphical style echoes that of Saul Bass and the film posters of the sixties and seventies, with use of stark blocks of colour and black and white images, giving the book a sense of energy and drama.

The Job: A Game of Glorious Heists & Everything That Can Wrong In Them is a neatly self-contained roleplaying game that is pleasingly portable, easy to learn, and engagingly familiar in its genre. It combines dramatic storytelling possibilities with the tension of a towering Dice Stack, but without going the full Jenga.

A Wingless Butterfly

The Mariposa Affair is a scenario for Traveller. It takes place on the balkanised world of Ruie in the Aramis Subsector of the Spinward Marches Sector and continues a storyline begun in Manticore and sees the Player Characters hired to investigate a threat the Third Imperium, one that threatens interstellar war. It ideally requires the Player Characters to have basic training in both weapons and various technical skills, and ideally, a starship. The scenario includes a set of eight pre-generated Player Characters, four of which between them have the skills necessary to operate a starship as well as one of them owning an S-Type Scout. However, one of the problems with this is that the Player Characters are expected to to own a merchant ship of some kind and certainly a vessel capable of carrying cargo. Both the mechanics and the plot of The Mariposa Affair are straightforward enough that running it using Traveller, Classic Traveller, or Cepheus Deluxe Enhanced Edition are all easy enough to do.

The Mariposa Affair is written by Carl Terence Vandal and is a sequel of sorts to The Phoenix Initiative, which ended with the Player Characters being recruited as agents in the service of Duke Norris and his family, and a sequel to Manticore. It begins with the Player Characters on Regina in the Regina subsector in the Spinward Marches Sector, with the sudden interdiction of the planet. This is with good reason—Emperor Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi! is paying Regina a state visit. Then, the Player Characters get an invitation to the state banquet by lottery. This automatically throws them into the spotlight and then again, when a disastrous incident occurs. This is the assassination of the Emperor himself—in 1106 rather than a decade later in 1116—an event which propels the Player Characters back into the service of Duke Norris once again. He reveals that it was not the Emperor who killed, but a clone. Not though a sanctioned clone, designed to stand in for the Emperor, as revealed a few years after his ‘assassination’ at the hands of Archduke Dulinor. He wants them to travel to the neighbouring world of Ruie, which lies just on the other side of the Imperial border and there locate the laboratory and outpost where this clone was created.

The scenario proceeds apace in straightforward fashion, but the plotting is distinctly underwhelming. The Player Characters’ contact is also targeted by an assassination attempt, but no matter what the outcome of the assassination attempt, the clues point to a worked out mine on a nearby continent. Once there, they sneak into the mine, break into the secret laboratory, and destroy it. And that really is it... Effectively, The Mariposa Affair is a dungeon crawl, with seemingly innumerable checks for traps in the mine. In fact, the most interesting aspect of the scenario is the Library Data included at the back. Besides the Library Data, the scenario includes details of the world of Ruie and the Regina Subsector.

There has long been a tradition of writing scenarios based around major events in the canon of roleplaying settings. In the case of The Mariposa Affair, it is the causes behind and instigation of, the Fifth Frontier War. Unfortunately, The Mariposa Affair does not let the Player Characters discover those causes or affect their revelation. Instead, all that is handled by Duke Norris and his staff off-screen whilst the Player Characters are simply dealing with the one aspect of it. So it undermines their agency and the storytelling potential of the plot of both The Mariposa Affair and the other parts of its trilogy. Another issue is that the scenario does not really explore the consequences of what it sets up in any depth. That is, the assassination of a clone of the Emperor and a conspiracy to undermine the Third Imperium. It hints at the possibilities, but never really explores them.

Physically, The Mariposa Affair is cleanly and tidily presented. The maps are decent enough, but layout grates on the eyes where the skills are laid out in bold. These really should have been separated from the paragraphs so that they do not just look like blocks of black text. The illustrations are nicely chosen.

Although it is better organised and written than the previous scenarios in the trilogy, The Mariposa Affair brings the trilogy to a distinctly underwhelming close. It feels as if it should have been a bigger affair with more secrets to be revealed and more interesting things for the Player Characters to do, whereas all that it currently does is let them creep round the edges in a ‘dungeoncrawl’ type scenario whilst someone else makes all of the discoveries. Ultimately there are some interesting storytelling and plot possibilities to be found in The Mariposa Affair and the other scenarios in its trilogy—of which Manticore is the best—but they are simply not developed enough to be interesting.

Friday Fantasy: The Lost Universe

Exlaris was once a peaceful world where Dark Elves, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Halflings, and Tieflings lived in harmony. Above all, these different peoples valued knowledge and scholars, wizards, and sorcerers were widely revered. They learned to harness the energy of the vacuum surrounding their planet, and they continued to grow and prosper, until The Breaking when Exlaris, along with its moon, was literally broken out of its orbit by too close an encounter with a Black Hole. Chaos erupted across the world as perpetual darkness fell and the heat from Exlaris’ sun was lost. In response, an archmage brought together a team of scholars and wizards who wove magics together that created a shield that surrounded the planet. This had two effects. First, it protected the rogue planet from the dangers of space travel and second, it maintained its atmosphere. This was magic so powerful it was kept secret lest it fall into the wrong hands. The energy drawn from the vacuum was harnessed to power lamps, both to light cities and heat the fields so that the farmers could continue to grow food. In the four centuries since, the peoples of Exlaris elevated the studious to positions of power and followed a tradition of making information freely available. Five major cities, all connected by a teleportation network, have specialised in the study of various sciences, but study of the cosmos is paramount. More recently, this has included making contact with the Earth in secret via the Hubble Space Telescope in order to learn about the world and its knowledge. Yet something has gone wrong in that contact and the Hubble Space Telescope has not only gone missing, it is as it never was… It is going to take a team of dedicated scientists and engineers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, mysteriously flung from the Earth onto Exlaris, to adventure on what is to them a whole new world in order to discover what has happened to the missing telescope!

This is the set-up for The Lost Universe, a scenario published by the last organisation you would be expecting to write and release a roleplaying scenario—NASA! It is designed to be played by a party of between four and seven Player Characters of between Seventh and Tenth Levels and is easily adaptable to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, the most obvious being Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is intended to be played in a single session and designed around certain scientific principles. These include the ‘Energy of the Vacuum’, ‘Gravitational Lensing’, and ‘Red shifts/blue shifts’. These, as well as details of the Hubble Space Telescope and its Control Centre, are covered in several appendices at the back of the adventure, adding depth and detail to the scientific basis for the scenario.

Although the Player Characters are actually scientists and engineers from the Goddard Space Flight Center, what the players actually roleplay are characters native to Exlaris. These are typical adventurers found in Dungeons & Dragons into whose bodies, the minds of the engineers and scientists are suddenly cast, effectively tripling the strangeness of their situation. Not only do they have to get used to whole new world and a rogue planet cast into darkness at that, but they also have to adjust to new bodies and the sometimes strange and wondrous abilities that these bodies have, whether that is being able to wield a sword effectively or cast spells straight out of fantasy fiction. This aspect is not played up in the scenario, but rather the characters intrinsically know what they and their new host bodies can do, so there is no great sense of discovery there. That said, the Game Master could expand this aspect of the scenario if she wanted to. The Player Characters arrive at a transport hub for the teleportation portals between the planet’s major cities, and will quickly learn that they are in the city of Aldastron and that the city has been beset by a rash of disappearances powerful researchers in the last few weeks, which the city guard thinks were successful kidnap attempts. No one has yet claimed responsibility and tensions in the city are rising as a consequence. The Player Characters have a couple of avenues of investigation here. They can either approach the city guard, get introduced to a fixer in the city’s criminal underworld, or both. Of course, neither the fixer or the city guard have any love for each other and dealing with leads to some tension. Whomever they deal with, it quickly becomes apparent that people of Exlaris are aware of Earth and have a good idea that the Player Characters are from there, before they are directed to visit the city’s observatory.

At the observatory, the Player Characters are able to find out more information, including how they got to Exlaris and the fact that the Hubble Space Telescope is missing. Part of the explanation involves the scientific work that the Hubble Space Telescope was being used for and the Player Characters will learn something about this too. They can even find some notes related to the observatory’s study of the Hubble Space Telescope, its origins, and what it is being used for, these being provided as scientific handouts in the appendices. The clues point to Mokhsana, the former capital city of Exlaris.

If the play of The Lost Universe began with roleplaying in the city and continued with research at the observatory, the third shifts to Mokhsana, a city in the dark, and exploration and puzzles. The latter are tied to the scientific principles underlying the scenario, so there is an element of informing and educating to The Lost Universe. This should be no surprise since that is part of NASA’s remit, but here the players get to use that knowledge in practical, if literally fantastical, fashion as well. The scenario quickly comes to close with a confrontation with the villain responsible for the disappearances and a successful conclusion to the Player Characters’ investigation.

There are however, three things that The Lost Universe either does not include or includes only very lightly. It does not include a set of pre-generated Player Characters or stats for any NPCs or monsters, whilst its inclusion of rules and mechanics is very light, though what mechanical detail that is given definitely indicates a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game. This is all by design, because it means that the scenario is not tied to a specific rules system and NASA is not seen as favouring one particular Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game over another. So, The Lost Universe can be played using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Old School Essentials, or Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, with the Game Master providing the mechanical details of the rules and the monster stats, as necessary. The absence of pre-generated Player Characters means that the players can create their own characters or the Game Master can create her own. That said, whilst all this does make the scenario easily adaptable to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, it actually increases the amount of preparation work she has to undertake before running the scenario.

Behind the eye-catching cover, The Lost Universe is cleanly and tidily laid out. It does need a slight edit, and bar photographs and technical drawings taken from NASA’s extensive library of images, it is very lightly illustrated. This has two consequences. First, the majority of the images are at the back of the scenario, and secondly, the scientific and historical details of the science behind The Lost Universe, are far better illustrated than the scenario’s fantasy elements. This is understandable though, given NASA’s prominent role in space sciences and the scientific basis for the scenario, but it does leave the Game Master without anything to take inspiration from visually when describing the world of Exlaris. A map of Aldastron and its surrounds is included, but not of any one particular location. The advice for the Game Master is decent throughout and the roleplaying advice on portraying each of the scenario’s NPCs is very good.

It is an odd day when NASA—yes, NASA!—writes and publishes a roleplaying scenario. Not just a roleplaying scenario, but a fantasy one rather than a Science Fiction one! Of course, that fantasy is used as a vehicle to teach the players about the research being conducted via the Hubble Space Telescope, so in comparison to other fantasy roleplaying scenarios that is likely to feel heavy-handed because it is not something they are designed to do. Nevertheless, The Lost Universe is a solid scenario, good for a one-shot, but with a setting that is intriguing enough for a return visit or a sourcebook of its very own.

Friday Filler: Let’s Call the Exorcist

It is always bad when dad brings his work home with him. It is doubly bad when dad is an archaeologist and brings home a collection of rare artefacts from his latest excavation, some of which happen to be cursed. Not only cursed, but possessed by demons. Now, those demons have taken advantage of their situation to find whole new homes for themselves by possessing some of the children. Fortunately, mum has telephoned her friendly local exorcist and he has come round right away. Unfortunately, demons are clever, so neither mum nor the priest can tell which of the children is possessed and which of the children is not. The priest does know that if he can identify which of the artefacts carried the demons into the house, but they are scattered round the house. So, he has set up a scavenger hunt that all of the children can participate in, the aim being to find the right artefacts and dispel the demons! The downside to this is that the demon-possessed children are going to try and stop the priest and the innocent children. This is the set-up for Let’s Call the Exorcist, a hidden role and social deduction game whose theme and art is based on the work of graphic designer, Steven Rhodes, whose work parodies the children’s books of seventies and pokes a sly snook at the social attitudes of the period.

Let’s Call the Exorcist is published by Cryptozoic Entertainment and is designed to be played by between four and eight players, aged fourteen and up. The game is played over the course of several rounds in which the Innocent players attempt uncover the Holy Artefacts and the Possessed players try to find the Cursed Artefacts. Doing so will score points for the side that does so, whilst Blessings will score points for individual players. Mischiefs will disrupt and change the state of the game, sometimes to a player’s advantage, sometimes not. The first person to score seven points at the end of a round is the winner. A game can be played through in roughly thirty minutes.

Let’s Call the Exorcist consists of eight Role tiles, forty-three cards, and forty-five point tokens, plus a ten-page rule book. The Role tiles are divided between Innocent and Possessed, with there being more Innocent than Possessed. The cards are divided into four types—Holy Artefacts, Cursed Artefacts, Mischiefs, and Blessings. All four card types have instructions on them which come into play when they revealed. For example, the Holy Artifact, ‘The Blessed Prepuce’, lets the Chosen player peek at all of his remaining cards in play if it is the first Holy Artefact to be revealed; the Cursed Artefact, the ‘Disenchanted Mirror’ enables the Chosen and the Seeker at look at each other’s Roles; the ‘Consecration’ Blessing gives a point to both the Seeker and the Chosen; and the Mischief, ‘Is That You, Satan?’, forces the Seeker and the Chosen to shuffle their Roles together and deal back out randomly, but lets the Chosen take a peek at one of the Roles, either his own or the that of the Seeker. In general, Blessings will alter the number of points a player has, whilst Mischiefs allow a player to peek at Roles, change who will be Seeker next, or restrict who will be Seeker next.

Let’s Call the Exorcist is played out over a series of rounds, each of which consists of several deals. Each set up for the game and a deal varies according to the number of players. The more players there are, the more cards of each type in play, but no matter whether there are four players or eight, the number of Innocents always outnumbers the Possessed and the number of Holy Artefacts always outnumbers the Cursed Artefacts. Each player receives a random Role tile which is placed down in front of him. He can look at this Role tile when he is given it, but he cannot do so again unless a Mischief card instructs him to do so. Once the deck has been sorted and shuffled—this is the most complex part of play—it is dealt out to the players. Each player is free to look at his hand of cards and describe what they are as much as he wants, and can tell the truth about his cards or lie, but then shuffles the hand and places its cards face down in front of him. Then play begins. This switches back and forth between two roles, the Seeker and the Chosen. The Seeker selects a player, who becomes the Chosen, and any card in front of the Chosen. This card is turned over, and its instructions followed. Once this has been done, the Chosen becomes the next Seeker and can select another player to become the next Chosen. The resolved card goes into the middle of the table. Blessings and Mischiefs go out of play, whilst the Holy Artifacts and Cursed Artifacts add to a running total. Play continues back and forth until a total number of cards equal to the number of players have been revealed. This ends the deal.

To start a new deal, all of the face down cards are collected, shuffled, and dealt back out to the players as before, but this time with one fewer card each. Play then proceeds back and forth between the Seeker and Chosen roles until a total number of cards equal to the number of players have again been revealed. In this way, a maximum of four deals can be played per round, each deal reducing the number of cards a player has to reveal. The round ends when either the last Holy Artefact or the last Cursed Artefact is revealed. At this point, everyone reveals their Role tiles and the side that managed to reveal all of their Artefacts—Holy Artefacts for the Innocent and Unholy Artifacts for the Possessed—wins the round the points. A new round is begun and play continues until a player has scored seven points by the end of the round and thus won the game.

Let’s Call the Exorcist differs from other social deduction games in a number of ways. The most important being that a player’s Role can change from one round to the next. Consequently, there is no successfully deducing a player’s Role in one round and then excluding them from taking action in subsequent rounds. The point of the game is not to win because of the Role a player throughout the game, but adapt to the Role the player has during a round. However, a Role can also change within a round, so a player who begins a round as an Innocent and wants Holy Artefacts revealed in order to win the round, may end up being a Possessed who should instead be attempting to reveal Cursed Artefacts to win. Unfortunately, although a player will know when his Role tile has been changed, he will not know if it has actually been changed. So, he needs to find a way to peek at his own Role tile to find out which side he is now on. Effectively, not only is a player trying to work out what side his fellow players are on, but also potentially, what side he is on. In addition, a player only knows what cards he has in play at the beginning of a deal and again, that can change during play. Although it is possible to keep an approximate track of Roles and cards to a certain extent, the high possibility of changes in both cards and Roles adds a random factor and limits both a player’s knowledge and reliance on deducing other Roles.

The other factor that changes Let’s Call the Exorcist from other social deduction games are the cards and their cards which constantly change play. These also mean that there is always something happening throughout a deal. In addition, the cards are actually fun and reference a wide number of films. For example, the ‘Book of the Mostly Dead’ rather than the Book of the Dead from Evil Dead; ‘That One Ring’ rather than the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings; ‘The Ark of the Coveted’ rather than ‘The Ark of the Covenant’ from Raiders of the Lost Ark; and let’s not forget ‘The Blessed Prepuce’.

Physically, Let’s Call the Exorcist is decently presented. The rulebook is short and easy to read, and includes an example of play as well as explanations of what the various cards do. The artwork, with its bright, bold colours, is excellent, Steve Rhodes’ illustrations are sly and subversive, throwing the card game’s children into a very jolly version of The Exorcist.

The combination of horror and children in Let’s Call the Exorcist is not going to be to everyone’s taste. Others, though, will find it to be a lot of fun, and Let’s Call the Exorcist is fun. Fun and silly and ever so slightly tongue in cheek, Let’s Call the Exorcist is an antidote to all of those other po-faced social deduction games.

Miskatonic Monday #267: Flash Cthulhu – Fair Porcine Prize

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 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.

—oOo—

Name: Flash Cthulhu – Fair Porcine Prize

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Dark Ages England

Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario for Cthulhu Dark Ages
What You Get: Eight page, 2.02 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Harvest horror as a horrid hog hogs it all.

Plot Hook: A missing pig means everyone is slop!

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, one Mythos TomeTale, one Mythos spell, and one Mythos pig.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Some pigs are destined for bigger things. Are the Investigators?

# Mini-scenario for Cthulhu Dark Ages

# Short, sharp, encounter

# Easy to slot into a campaign or between scenarios

# Easy to adapt to other times and settings

# Potential convention mini-scenario

# Mysopobia

# Phagophobia

# Swinophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# No village map

Conclusion

# “That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.” NO! It damned well, won’t do!

# Short, strange swinishly scarey encounter that is easy to use no matter the time and setting

Miskatonic Monday #266: Monsieur Deloffre Has Gone Quite Mad!

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 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.

—oOo—

Name: Monsieur Deloffre Has Gone Quite Mad!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Cameron Hays

Setting: Paris, 1830

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 24.24 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Les Misérables meets the Mythos (singing optional)

Plot Hook: Madness, Monarchy, & the Mob

Plot Support: Six pre-generated Investigators, six NPCs, two maps, one Mythos spell, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Excellent

Pros

# Intriguing historical background and setting

# Potential convention scenario

# Nicely done NPCs
# Nicely done pre-generated Investigators

# Dementophobia

# Submechanophobia

# Phasmophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Plot outline could be clearer

# What does the invisible body feel like?

# No NPC stats

# No mob rule

Conclusion

# Intriguing background and set-up supports a solid plot

# Lack of mechanical development undermines the ease of use