About Ominous Crypt of the Blood Moss

 Ominous Crypt of the Blood Moss is a third party Old-School Essentials dungeon crawl adventure for characters of 2nd to 4th level.

It is written and illustrated by Frederick Foulds and published by Oneiromantic Press and was published in 2020.

In short: a quick adventure (one or two sessions), with a horrific (almost cthuloid) theme, and lots of stuff to interact with.

I've grabbed the hardcover print-on-demand version on DriveThruRPG which is a nice A5 book, counting 60 pages cover-to-cover (the actual adventure, if you don't count the credits and the OGL license, is 43 pages).

The Ominous Crypt itself is a 10 rooms dungeon. Before the dungeon description, you get an introduction, 3 pages of background, 2 pages describing the Blood Moss from the title (which is a creature of sorts), a page with 3 possible hooks to the adventure, and 3 pages describing the village near the crypt, including a map, one NPC and an event which introduces the adventure. 

The (beautiful) dungeon map appears non-linear at first look, but once you notice where the secret doors are, the map actually is a straight line, with just three one-room branches, and the secret room which conveniently reconnects with the entrance room.

At page 21 begins the dungeon proper. As I said, the dungeon is only 10 rooms. Each room is described in 1 to 3 pages, and all of them have a lot going on, with stuff the characters can examine, loot, interact with, and fight.

The room descriptions are structured as bullet points, with colored and bold text where needed. As I said, there's lots of details, but the presentation makes it easy to navigate and find out all the important stuff.

The dungeon has a detailed backstory which involves a (very) holy crypt, now defiled "from the inside" after the corrupted body of a mage was buried in. The defunct mage hosted a fungal being from the void (the titular Blood Moss), which has spread on the floors and reanimated some skeletons. The "alien" moss initially appears as part of the environment, but actually is the "final boss" of the dungeon, with its main node rooted in the mage's corpse.

Some personal considerations.

I like that "solving" the adventure has visible consequences for the village outside the dungeon, and the presentation is top notch, making it very easy to run. I also like that among the treasure is a very good example of a sentient sword, a type of magic item I struggle with. This one, it is well detailed and makes sense within the scenario.

I'm not sure about the treasure. Magic items are more than enough for a 10-room dungeon, but considering the risks, the amount of gold seems a bit low.

Some of the "tricks" (the one that opens a secret door, plus a sort of riddle) aren't perfect (i.e. there aren't many clues for the players to figure them out) but I think it's ok as they are "only" required to get to the big treasure room and to avoid a sort of trap.

So, all in all I like this scenario and actually plan to run it in the next weeks. What I think I'll do is keep the treasure as is, but lower the HD of most creatures by 1, so as to (probably) make it suitable for level 1 characters. Considering the deadliness of the adventure, the degree of player skill it requires, the fact that it's fairly short, it may very well be a valid alternative to the more famous Tomb of the Serpent Kings as an introduction to Old School games!

About a Groats-Worth of Grotesques

 A Groats-Worth of Grotesques is a big bestiary for OSR games.

I've received a print copy for review from the author George Edward Patterson. The DrivethruRPG print-on-demand version is a nice big A4 softcover book, counting 251 pages. It was released in May 2021.

From the DrivethruRPG blurb:

Being a SYSTEM-AGNOSTIC Role Playing supplemental treatise ON MONSTERS; which is to say a BESTIARY for your Tabletop Games of Fantasy. Styled in the manner of the Baroque Period; a Curiosity Cabinet of Creatures for enlivening the table!

The over 100 entries were gathered out of sundy authors, philosophers, physicians, and poets; sacred and profane. The illustrations are collages of diverse prints and emblems. From the lowly ant to the earth shattering Behemoth, the mundane dog to the alien Ch M G, this collection is a rollicking gambol through history and myth.

The blurb itself shows the (awesome, to me) baroque, anachronistic language style of the book, which aims at making it an in-world bestiary collecting information and rumors as they would be reported by sages and chroniclers of your fantasy world.

While the blurb describes it as system-agnostic, each creature entry includes simple game statistics (AC, HD, damage, and special features) which make them easily portable to most OSR games.

Things I liked:

• Art. Lots of it. Each creature entry is accompanied by at least one public domain image (engraving) which has been, in most cases, artfully photoshopped to better match the author's idea. Public domain engravings have a long tradition of cheap (and fascinating) art for RPGs, so this might sound as nothing new. But what's here is stunning: the quantity and variety of images is insane, and the quality of the alterations is stylish and serves the author's ideas very well.
• The baroque textual style. The book is presented as a XVI century bestiary: The book title and general introduction, and the first description of each entry feature a marked and remarkable baroque style, which obviously matches the art. The creature descriptions are particularly fascinating as they weave bizarre observations by a writing persona that is implied to be from the implicit game world.
• The general theme of the grotesque. The creatures presented can be divided in thee groups: ordinary creatures, "classic" fantasy creatures, and unusual creatures. The first groups features creatures such as ants, camels, bears and so on, and imaginary creatures. The trick in the book is that all of them have at least one unusual feature which makes them interesting and subtly weird. The same applies to "classic" fantasy creatures (these include Dragons, Hell Hounds, Leucrotas, Mantichoras, Giants, Griffins and others): all have a twist, a unique take, and often a series of variants which are often all you need to make your classic fantasy game feel fresh without turning its monster fauna into an all new, completely unfamiliar, world. The last group is made of creatures that are new. A few examples: Bishop Fish, Vegetable Lamb, Filth Licker, Haunted Umbrella, and the Wonderful Two-Headed Girl. These are brilliant and and are the incarnation of the grotesque theme. Surreal, otherworldly, somewhere between nightmare and fairy tale, and yet somehow with a very real feel to them.

In short: I'm impressed with this book, which deserves more attention than it's had so far.

I can see this book as an excellent resource for a series of OSR games: Old-School Essentials, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Sword & Wizardry, and any other post-clone like Knave or Maze Rats. Especially if you want to inject your "classic" fantasy campaign with bits of unusual, surreal, fantastic, horrific, surprising creatures, and even more so if you want to completely put aside classic creatures for new ones.

A final note on price. At the time of writing this, the A4, 251 pages softcover is priced a mere $13.99, which is a lot of bang for your buck, when compared with many other products with a much lower page count, and the PDF is $4.99.

About Infinigrad The Weird City Toolkit

Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit by Michael Raston (the author of Ordure Fantasy and the cool old-school sci-fi game Star Dogs) is a very unusual product. Why? Because it's neither a PoD nor a PDF (for the most part).

It is also part of the larger Infinigrad project which revolves around a fascinating, weird city setting, where the player characters are Guild Dogs, i.e. desperate mercenaries/troubleshooters that work for ancient, power hungry guilds.

As a product, it is a bundle of automated tools for quickly generating details for fantasy urban environments, and is totally system neutral. Such tools come in the form of four HTML files which open up in your browser. The package also includes an "Introduction" PDF and a "Map Maker" PDF.

Let's see how these tools work.

The first is the Job Generator. Here's three screenshots of what you get clicking each button:

A fairly standard adventure generator, this is meant to produce inspiration for missions and adventures for guild dogs inside the Infinigrad city. Definitely designed to be used while prepping, but could also be used for GMs who enjoy running impromptu games. In both cases, if you don't like one of the results you just click the relevant button until you get something you can work with.

The second tool is the Building Stocker. This one has lots of buttons, and definitely they are not meant for you to push all of them all the times: they are there to be pushed when needed. Here's three screenshots with all the buttons pushed:

Lots to be found there. This could definitely be used for most location-based adventures, dungeons, etc. to stock lots of rooms.

The third tool is the Guild Dog generator. This one produces a systemless player character with interesting quirks. Here's three dogs:

As you can see from the third image, things can get pretty weird.

The fourth tool, named Suburb Generator, is the meatiest. It is divided into A LOT of sections, actually making it a collection of several generators. Here's what you can find, with sample results:

So much stuff in there! These can be very useful to create a really weird city and to run city adventures.

The Suburb Mapper PDF file is a more traditional tool with three gridded tables that require you to roll two dice (column and row), and the results are simple sketches of roads sections, building shapes, and building interiors, respectively. It's a bit strange that these tables have not been translated into another HTML tool, and the reason is because the results are images instead of plain text.

The last file is the Introduction to Infinigrad. This is a 2-page PDF with a short but very evocative text describing the past and present of the city, the story of its Guilds and how their conflicts shaped (and almost destroyed) Infinigrad.

So how is it? Well this is the type of thing we've seen in many OSR products through the years: tables and tables for generating lots of content, but this time it is not a book or a PDF (for the most part, at least). For GMs used to have an electronic device at the table, this might prove very handy. 

I must say I'd love the HTML files to be a bit more flashy. Experimenting with some fancy font and colors might make it look more appealing. Not that the substance would change! All in all, I love random generators and I would recommend trying Infinigrad to anyone fascinated with weird settings and city adventures.

About In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe

 In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe is one of the 'zines that were crowdfunded on Kickstarter during ZineQuest3. It's written and nicely illustrated by Jacob Fleming.

It comes as a stapled, A5, 64-page, black and white 'zine, with a nice color cover and a color regional map at the end of the 'zine.

It is a sandboxy adventure module for Old School Essentials, meaning you can play it pretty much as is with most OSR games, especially with OD&D, BECMI and B/X retroclones.

I've just read through it and I must say I'm absolutely happy I backed it! You may consider this a must have, if you and your players enjoy adventures with a really old school feel and gameplay (warning: this may include high lethality!). There is no predetermined storyline, you have rumors, locales and factions, and it's up to the players to explore and interact with the region, its dungeons and its denizens.

Silveraxe describes the Gemthrone Wilderness, a small region with the following details:

- brief history of the area

- description of the four local factions (dwarves, elves, bandits, and a tribe of cyclopean creatures called Goltheks)

- 16 adventure locales (9 dungeons, 3 settlements, 1 special forest, 1 special lake, 1 mage tower)

- player handouts (3 treasure maps)

What's cool about it?

In 64 pages, you get A LOT of gaming, with enough information to play for months. No pointlessly long descriptions and backstories, just the functional details that you actually need, such as NPC motivations.

The region, dungeons and factions are frequently interconnected with rumors, clues and pieces of information (such as treasure maps) that will push clever adventurers to explore on and on.

The dungeons are cleverly designed and nicely mapped. They are quite small (7 to 33 rooms), which I like because that means most of them can be cleared in one session, usually have non-linear exploration (i.e. players can find multiple paths), and include at least one engaging situation, puzzle, trap, or secret, and often more than one in the case of larger dungeons.

The first printing, which I received as a Kickstarter backer, has some very minor editing flaws, but other than that, it's an awesome supplement with an excellent gaming/page count ratio.

After the Kickstarter, it is now available HERE in PDF, or HERE in print, if you want to check it out.

If you are into Old School, don't forget to check out my Lands of Legends 'zines designed for OSR hexcrawl/sandbox campaigns!

About Fighters & Warlords

 Fighters & Warlords is one of the latest SWAG-licensed products for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, designed by Cyril Ronseaux, it continues his series of fantasy supplements which includes Wizards & Mystics, Bards & Minstrels, Companions & Familiars, and Tomes & Prayers. Cyril's works all share the same approach: each offers a variety of optional rules, functioning as add-ons.

The focus of Fighters & Warlords is combat, both ranged and melee. The book (53 pages) is packed with options.

The first section of the book is about medieval weapons, both melee and ranged, including black powder weapons. Let me say this straight: this chapter alone (23 pages) is worth the price, if you plan to run a fantasy (or historical) game. Why? Because it lists a LOT of weapons, and makes them interesting and different, while staying true to the FFF spirit of Savage Worlds. The sheer amount and variety of weapons means more interesting options for players, which is always good.

The second chapter introduces new Edges. Some of these were, in my opinion, sorely needed and are very good to finally have, such as those empowering two-handed weapons, which have no dedicated Edge in Savage Worlds core.

Weapon Proficiency is also introduced. It is an Edge which replaces Trademark Weapon, and offers unique effects for each weapon category, so I consider this a good addition too.

The next session is about Combat Options, i.e. specific maneuvers such as Reload, Grapple, or Trip. This chapter does a great job at both clarifying existing mechanics (such as Grapple), and/or adding more options (such as FORCE THROW for Grapple!)

Exactly like the other books in the series, the final chapter consist of a group of "sample characters". These eleven characters are presented at various ranks, from Novice to Heroic, and can be useful both as premade player characters or as NPCs. Each includes an interesting background and a sort of combat guide explaining how to put to use their Edges, skills and gear.

All in all this is a very good book, highly recommended if you enjoy a deeper combat, with more options for your players, and it is also part of a bundle collecting all the fantasy Add-Ons by Cyril Ronseaux.

About the Inn Between Worlds

 Inn Between Worlds is a supplement for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, designed by Robert Sullivan, and released under the SWAG license.

It has immediately piqued my interest because of the unique type of content, which I'm going to explain now.

The first chapter of the book describes the Inn (which doubles as a caravanserai or modern hotel, so as to suit the current campaign type), detailing the structure and all its locations. It includes a sort of mini-game to randomly generate the features of the Inn, with the option of involving the whole group in the process, making it the core of a session: a cool idea IF you are going to use the Inn as the home base of the group, or the center of a small campaign. All the relevant, possible features of the Inn are described in detail, so they are ready to use. Note that the download also includes fully detailed maps of both the caravanserai and hotel versions of the Inn, if you don't want to generate your own.

The second chapter details all the relevant NPCs: owners, staff, and customers.

The third chapter describes the "Cascade": a tearing in time/space that turns the Inn into a multidimensional location. That's why it is an Inn Between Worlds, and the cool idea that you may use to connect various Savage Worlds settings. This chapter has random tables for locations and encounters through the Cascade, and then tables for random destinations: the cool thing here is that each destination result is briefly described, and also includes a small list of possible published setting books that may be used for that destination!

The fourth chapter is about encounters and plot hooks revolving around the Inn, including a few bizarre creatures and tables to get the party involved.

The last chapter introduces a few new Edges and Hindrances and a new Arcane Background and powers, all related to the Cascade and its effects.

As you can see, the book is designed to be plugged into any type of campaign.

The book states classics such as Hodgson's House on the Borderland and the films The Saragossa Manuscript, The Cell and Being John Malkovich, along with M. C. Escher's art, as its sources of inspiration: such works clearly contributed to the inter-dimensional features of the Inn.

One interesting feature of the book is that it makes ample use of references to the TV Tropes, instead of detailing typical story elements that may come into play in association with various places and NPCs.

As a whole, is the kind of supplement that's suited for GMs who like to cook their own campaigns and adventures, and are happy to find ready-made locations, foes, and adventure hooks. This includes dropping most of the book (and Inn, and time/space fracture) as is, in settings such as Deadlands or East Texas University, which can definitely handle all the weirdness going on; or picking just the interesting bits.

All in all, it is a very atypical supplement, with a lot going on, and one which will require some extra GM work, but full of ideas and re-usable bits. Considering the price (just $2.50 at the time of writing, which makes me forgive the very basic layout), I definitely recommend it if you think you might want to make an inn, hotel or similar establishment the centerpiece of a campaign or the setting for some adventures (even without the Cascade thing). It may serve as a Rippers Lodge for sure!

About Neurocity

 Neurocity is a roleplaying game by designer Gavriel Quiroga, who recently gifted me a copy.

The game surprised me quite a bit (think Orwell's 1984 meets The Matrix meets Paranoia!), so here I am to share my impressions.

But first, some facts.

• Neurocity was funded in August with a successful Kickstarter with more than 200 backers.
• It is a 105 pages book, available now on drivethrurpg both as a pdf and as Print on Demand softcover book.
• The pages are black & white (or rather: grey scale), with an occasional splash of red in the text, and (nice, in my opinion) b/w art.
• The game features a unique game system (2d6, roll under), strictly tied to the setting.
• As stated in the book, the game is meant for short campaign play of 3 or 4 sessions.

So what is Neurocity about? In the author's words:

Neurocity is a subterranean city complex crowned by a glitched digital sun ruled by an ever watchful supercomputer named I.S.A.C.

A closed society on the brink of collapse suffering an involution from digital to analog technology due to the scarcity of materials and constant recycling of components.

Neurocity is a tech-noir roleplaying game with an emphasis on psychology and existentialism.

Characters are citizens of a dystopian, closed society, where the individual has value only if he is "functional", i.e. obedient to the hierarchy, bureaucracy and technocracy of the city, and the A.I.'s teachings known as Vitalogy, which form a sort of philosophy of unquestioning obedience for the "greater good... and ultimately a powerful means of propaganda.

The technology level can be defined as "post-cyberpunk", as it features a super A.I. governing the life of the city (and deciding the life or death of "dysfunctional" citizens) and advanced bioengineering and cloning (which brings back to life "functional" citizens!) but, as components are continuously recycled, much of the daily life resembles the '80s.

It's Orwell's 1984, with an A.I. governing it all, and not even death can set you free from the dystopian nightmare, because you'll get cloned or repaired forever... unless your behavior proves dysfunctional. This, so far, is the Orwell + Paranoia, in a way. The Matrix inspirations? Keep reading...

What do players do in such a world and game? The characters can be from any of the different social castes and "careers" allowed by the A. I. governing the city, and their job, for the most part, will determine the type of stories you play.

The first twist in the setting is that (of course!) you have individuals and groups who have come to realize most of their life is a meaningless slavery, and suspect reality, history, and life itself is or should be different. They end up actively questioning authority and are therefore automatically considered dysfunctional terrorists. The second twist is the Trancers: people who experience bizarre perceptions (and occasionally display extraordinary abilities a la Matrix). Some of them choose to ignore the meaning and possible cause of their "trancing" and keep on with their functional lives, while others choose to question everything around them and usually join the "terrorist" groups mentioned above.

The A. I. of course tasks specialist groups to eradicate (and usually destroy) such people: both the rebel "terrorists" and the Trancers. The general assumption of the game is that you do not play such dangerous individuals... not from the start, at least: players begin as functional, obedient people, who are tasked with more or less common jobs, or specifically investigating and destroying rebels.

But the game offers plenty of opportunities for player characters to change sides (or point of view, at least): it is specifically designed to make it happen.

This is where I liked the game the most: first of all, it offers lots of tables with adventure seeds and random encounters and events (associated to specific areas or activities of the city, for example), meaning you can set the game going easily, AND as easily you have the themes and features of the setting come into play, including experiences which may push the characters (and players) to question the true meaning, value and purpose of the "Vitalogy" propaganda...  and their lives.

Moreover, the resolution system includes the possibility for player characters to become Trancers during play, in dramatic, stressful situations. Again, this is meant to open the possibility for the characters to change their point of view, and change the direction fo the campaign accordingly.

All in all it is a very neat game. The resolution system, more focused on narrative outcomes than "realism" or "simulation", is simple but effective, and wonderfully integrated with virtually all the elements of the setting. In this respect, Neurocity is a wonderful model of coherence of mechanics, setting and themes, (which I realize I've barely hinted at, as the game world really has a LOT going on, including the foundation of the city which is one of the mysteries the players may or may not unravel).

The coherence of game tools, mechanics, system, setting, and themes surely makes the game easier to run, and thankfully so, because it certainly is a game which offers a simple system, and a setting that can lend itself for action-oriented stories, but it can also become an opportunity for a deeper experience, as it can lead the players to question several facets of our society.

You can check it out on drivethru!

About My First Carcassonne

 My First Carcassonne is the current board game hit with my son!

It is the simplified, kid-friendly version of the well-known classic Carcassonne. The box says 2-4 players, age 4+, 30 minutes.

It is a super easy game, with a lot of luck influencing the outcome, but with some room for clever (or less than clever) decisions.

Like the standard Carcassonne, you randomly draw tiles and connect them together, but all tiles always connect. Each tile has one or two kids printed on it, colored blue, yellow, red or purple.

Each player has 8 meeples of the chosen color, and is allowed to place them on the tiles when the road they are printed on is closed. So you need luck in drawing tiles with kids of your color, but you also need strategy in putting tiles with other players' kids in the worst places, so their roads are harder to close (i.e. take more tiles).

While very simple, it's nice for me to play, too.

So how is it faring with my boy?

In short, WONDERFULLY. It is the very first game my kid plays with all the rules in place, and actual strategic thinking, after just two games. And he is loving it.

Federico is five, so he's just above the minimum recommended age. I'm not sure he would have grasped the whole thing with the same depth of understanding if he had played it at four. At five he's actually capable of mastering all there is, and he seems well aware of it!

Fun fact: we've played seven games so far, and I haven't won a single game yet!

About Jurassic Snack

 Jurassic Snack is a board game by acclaimed designer Bruno Cathala, for 2 players, age 7+ (some editions have "8+" on the box, but I think 7 really is ok), with a 15-20 minutes duration.

And I love it!

I bought it about ten months ago at my FLGS. My son was not really old enough to play, at the time, but fell in love with the theme, of course, because DINOSAURS.

We've recently given it another try, and to my surprise he is now (5.5 YO) more than capable of handling all the rules, even though he's not yet competitive in the way he plays... but I assume he'll become better at it soon.

So what's cool about the game?

The materials are awesome. Nice plastic dinosaurs, big, sturdy and funny to look at, with painted eyes.

The game is simple enough for six/seven years old kids, but deep enough to keep adults engaged. It's got a nice mix of strategic decision (planning your moves to eat efficiently, decide if you want to eat a lot of leaves or try to scare all your opponent's dinosaurs away from the board), and random factor represented by the downside of the leaves counters, which introduce several effects.

One thing that's very good with young players is that you don't really know who's winning until the game ends and you count the points on the downsides of the leaves tokens each player has collected. This is good with kids who still struggle with losing...

Impressions on The Secret Files of Section D - Taster Edition

 The Secret Files of Section D - Taster Edition has just debuted!

It is the free, introductory pdf to the upcoming Secret Files of Section D setting for Savage Worlds, soon to launch for crowdfunding.

I'm very happy to say Allan Wroe passed me the file a couple weeks ago, so here's a short review and my overall impressions.

First of all, we're talking about a nice 90+ pages pdf, with a nice, retro-style layout and lots of art.

Here's a bit from the Introduction, explaining what Section D is and what the game is about:

So what have we've got here? A pulp-era, historically accurate, unconventional espionage setting where heroes punch Nazis, face supernatural mysteries and investigate dark conspiracies, and all of that in a very British, adventurous but also humorous flavor.

Here's another snip from the pdf, showing you a nice piece of art, a new action-oriented Setting Rule, and a cool quote. 

Beside describing the setting, the Taster Edition PDF offers a few examples of setting rules, new Edges and Hindrances, and new gear, focusing on spy gadgets as they were in the 1930s.

And then there's "Trouble in Tripoli", which is a HUGE three-act adventure, complete with pre-made characters and an incredible amount of maps. Of course I'm not going to spoil it here. The adventure begins as an investigation into an unusual robbery at the British Museum, but evolves into an action-packed scenario that will see the agents visit several exotic locations and face some incredible villains.

The setting and adventure look really fun to me. Download the Taster Edition see for yourself!

About On Mighty Thews

 On Mighty Thews is a pulp sword & sorcery RPG by Simon Carryer, and one of my favorite "modern" (or "narrative") RPGs.

 OMT is designed for prepless oneshot games or short campaigns. At the beginning of the game, the players and the GM follow a few simple, engaging, fun steps that create a "setting" for your session (it can be a city, an empire, a continent, or a whole world). This is mostly done by taking turns at drawing a map, one element at a time. The map will be used by the GM as a setting for the adventure, so the players have a chance to put whatever they think will be fun to see in the game. Infested jungle? City of merchants? Ruins in the desert? Draw it to on the map...

It is a "modern" game, meaning that the rules don't aim at recreating physics but at producing a fun, coherent story, and it codifies specific situations where players partake of the GM's narrative authority.

With proactive, creative players, this game is wonderful. I know, I've played it a lot! It is not particularly suited for campaign play (no conventional character development), but it's amazing for one shot, prepless games.

A fun trivia about OMT: Savage Worlds was one of the inspirations for the game, and so some of the OMT dice, wounds, and raise mechanics are immediately familiar to SW players!

OMT is available on drivethru!

About Four Against Darkness

Four Against Darkness is a great game by veteran designer Andrea Sfiligoi, author and publisher of an enormous amount of RPGs and miniatures games such as the hugely popular Song of Blades and Heroes, or my personal favorite Battlesworn.

4AD is a pen and paper solo dungeon crawler, which can also optionally be played as a gmless group game. It is a WILDLY successful game (see that MITHRAL badge on drivethru? Now check those 242 ratings on Amazon...), and has received a rich line of supplements, and a few spin-offs into other genres and play styles.

What I like about it is that rules are simple and straightforward, with the level of crunch and detail that I find enjoyable for a solo game! 

The core book contains all the basic rules which are needed in order to play, and a  dungeon which, probably, is the weakest part of it, as it feels too generic to really be engaging. This very problem is fixed with the expansions, each of which offers a focused story or dungeon, with full flavor, and story events triggered while you play.

The spin-off games derive from 4AD, but include all the rules needed to play, and usually expand them to fit different themes, settings and narrative structures, and as such are stand-alone products. They include titles such as the atomic age sci-fi Four Against Mars, or the survival horror Alone Against Fear.

The latest spin-off, one that looks VERY interesting (and I'm definitely going to grab soon) is the stand-alone game Four Against the Great Old Ones. Designed by Marco Arnaudo, it is an adaptation of the 4AD "engine", turned into a Cthulhu themed game where investigators must find clues and foil the plans of insane cultists in the 1930s US before doom happens.

As I said, Four Against Darkness is an ever-growing line. I hit Andrea for some sneaky preview of the an upcoming supplement, and he passed me a succulent preview!

The next 4AD product is Labyrinth of the Lurking Lepidopterae, an adventure written by Erick Bouchard who's already authored Warlike Woes and Greedy Gitfts of the Guildmasters, with illustrations by Andrea Sfiligoi.

Here's the description Andrea gave me:

Labyrinth of the Lurking Lepidopterae
This adventure occurs on the western continent of An-Mòr, north of the fungi-infested land known as the Sun-Kissed Vale, and to the west of King Ven’s dwarf kingdom of Kestar Kell. A merchant family from the southern isle of Enotria, the Van Pontoretto, is trying to cut the grass under their Dorintian rivals by finding new trade routes between the realms of Man and the dreaded Sun-Kissed Vale, rich in fabulous alchemical ingredients and delicious edibles. The safest path goes through Kassar Du, the mythical Green Door to the underground kingdom of Kestar Kell, but unfortunately it is forbidden to you. Maestro Van Pontoretto (that’s his actual name) has run afoul of Lyonette of Midlands, king Ven’s Guildmistress of the Armorers Guild. Rumors speak of crookery and romantic entanglements. Whatever the cause, the miner dwarves will not let the Enotrians nor your agents enter their lands, nor will they tolerate armed soldiers at their frontier.

The Labile Labyrinth

Fortunately, there still lies a path the Dorintians dare not thread – the Labile Labyrinth, a shimmering canyon between harsh mountain fangs inhabited by the sinister moth people and their insane queen. Ever since the gods cursed the moth folk to lose their flight, they have become vicious, forcing captives to obsessively collect insect wings when they are not killing trespassers outright. If a safe path could be established for caravans, the lucrative trade with the fungi folk – for they are not all dangerous psychopaths – would drive a hard blow to the Dorintian traders, and especially the Orfeld Company which has been denying the Von Pontoretto for far too long. All that’s needed is to establish a beachhead by having a first convoy arriving safely at the Outpost, the only known passage from human lands to the Sun-Kissed Vale. In the name of profit, free trade and maybe Enotrian patriotism, your party has been tasked with escorting a caravan of four chariots, half a dozen workers and as many llamas across this wicked and treacherous land.

Will You Survive the Labile Labyrinth? Four hundred gold pieces for escorting a caravan across a valley populated by butterfly people. Who could refuse that? Of course, it won’t be that simple. The moth folk fiercely defend their valley with treacherous traps and bruising brigades. Not to mention the menacing mushroom men, weird temples, shape-changers and the ominous Tower of the Screaming Virgins. Things wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the quarrelsome, alcoholic, lustful and dishonest crew members who you will have to keep an eye on. Add the bad roads, broken wheels, stolen cargo, tactical ambushes… and the llamas. Oh dear. Requires only the core Four Against Darkness book. This book contains adult humor, flamingos and lecherous llamas.

And here's also a preview of the cover, with art still not finalized, but nice to see!

 

About Robotech - A Macross Saga RPG

Robotech means a lot to me. It was by far my fav cartoon show when I was a kid. I was young enough to enjoy big transforming robots, but also old enough to understand the sentimental complications that were part of the show, as well as the depth and nuances of the strange war that went on between the humans on SDF-1 and the Zents.

 Robotech - A Macross Saga RPG is a Savage Setting published by Battlefield Press in spring 2019 and one of the first settings native to Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

So you can imagine my happiness when a Robotech setting book was announced for Savage Worlds, I couldn't believe my eyes!

For a Robotech fan, the book is simply fantastic: full of amazing art by Fransisco Etchart and detailed information about the general story and its secrets, all the characters, and of course all the human and Zent vehicles, spacecrafts and mechs. 

The book met and exceeded my expectations, except for two things that I expected to find within its pages: the first was a detailed transcription of the events of the original show, episode by episode (which can be found in the other Robotech RPG... no, not the Palladium one, the one by Strange Machine Games), and the second was a dedicated system to run space battles, something deeper than Mass Battle rules, but lighter than the standard Chase rules of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

A few months after its release, I had the honor and pleasure of translating it for the Italian edition,  as well as running it here and there at several cons and events!

While translating it, I also prepped a scenario for those con games: the player characters were a squad of Veritech pilots (OF COURSE), chosen by Roy Fokker himself to perform an acrobatic show with their VFs during the celebrations for the SDF-1's first flight... If you know the show, you can figure how it continues! The scenario included

• A Quick Encounter scene with the pilots describing their acrobatic maneuvers in the sky above Macross Island
• A Dogfight against a dozen of enemy spacecrafts and mechs as the Zent fleet attacks the SDF-1
• An optional Interlude, ensuing when the SDF-1 folds into space along with part of the island, and pilots are temporarily stranded and floating into space
• A Dramatic Task to rescue the civilians within the island shelters, which must be taken onboard the SDF-1
• A final confrontation with a stranded Zent Ace emerging from the ruins of Macross city.
• An epilogue on the SDF-1 where the surviving pilots are informed of what is truly going on and where they are!

I think I've run this scenario about six or seven times, with little variations here and there, and it was always a lot of fun! It worked well with players who knew the story, because it was from a different angle than the protagonists of the show, and it worked just as well with players who just knew we were going to play a game with transforming mechs, because really I only had to explain very little of the setting before starting the game.

I must say I always played this scenario with the Aces High rules for the dogfight: after all, that's what I had designed it for!

Wizards & Mystics - First Impressions

 Wizards & Mystics is a fantasy add-on for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, released under the SWAG license, written by Cyril Ronseaux, and expanding his line of fantasy add-ons which includes the already published Tomes & Prayers, Companions & Familiars and Bards & Minstrels.

Cyril used the Unofficial Savage Worlds Discord server to find volunteers willing to take a look at Wizards & Mystics before release, and I was happy to help. This also means I can share some impressions before it's released! With his permission, of course. 

Wizards & Mystics is quite a long supplement and, in short, it's awesome. If you plan to run a fantasy campaign, you will probably find a lot of use for this.

Wizards & Mystics offers a LOT. I'm not going to list everything that's inside, but focus on the things that I liked the most.

- A system to design and balance your own Arcane Backgrounds. This is very nice. You "buy" bits of rules and build unique ABs, defining the number of starting powers, initial power points, type of backlash, and many other details.

- Eleven fully developed Arcane Backgrounds, including Alchemist, Arcane Marksman, Shaman, Druid and Rune Mage. When I say fully developed, I mean that you find everything you might need to implement those into your campaign: well defined trappings, powers list, possible interactions with rules such as Support and Tests, and any special rule the specific AB might need, such as the ingredients rules for Alchemist, which I found very nice.

- Ten new Power Edges, empowering arcane characters in new ways. My favorite is Lightning Reflexes, which allows you to cast a spell at any time, even if it's not your turn, once per scene.

These are the things that struck me the most, but there's a lot more inside, so I really suggest you check it out on drivethru!