1994: Planescape Campaign Setting

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

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Published in April, 1994, the Planescape Campaign Setting was as a radical a setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition as could be imagined in the 1990s. Perhaps even more imaginative than the Spelljammer setting published five years before that Planescape would ultimately replace in terms of both tone and scope. Based on the earlier Manual of the Planes for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, it introduced a multiverse that was in part familiar to an audience from that supplement, but in way that was totally unfamiliar. Where perhaps the Manual of the Planes had been a means for the Player Characters—typically of a high Level—to traverse from one plane of existence to another, what Planescape provided was a base of operations, a city, rife with politics and factionalism, from which the Player Characters could leave to visit and come back from realms that before they could have only dreamed of visiting. Whether it is the Astral Plane or the Ethereal plane, the Inner or Elemental Planes of Air or Water or the Quasielemental Planes in between, for example, Paraelemental Plane of Smoke or Paraelemental Plane of Ooze, the Outer Planes divided between the Upper Planes of Good such as Arcadia or Mount Celestia, the Lower Planes of Evil, like the Abyss and Acheron, and the Boundary Planes of Neutrality, such as Bytopia and Elysium, or even whole other worlds on the Prime Material Plane, for example, Krynn of Dragonlance or Athas of Dark Sun, the Player Characters could come and go as they pleased. For the most part, that is. For they needed to know how, they need access to a portal or door, a gate key to pass through, and sometimes, they needed permission. For all of that, they needed to be in Sigil: The City of Doors.

Sigil: The City of Doors literally floats at the centre of the multiverse, spread around the inside of a torus turning atop a towering mountain spire with the surrounding Outlands radiating out below, a cramped city of spires, bureaucracy, and industry under greasy clouds that spit rain upon its streets. It is a neutral point in which all manner of creatures are likely to be seen living, working, visiting, and abiding on its streets. Angels, Avatars, Modrons, Baatezu, Tanar’ri, and Yugoloths—Baatezu, Tanar’ri, and Yugoloths because the Planescape Campaign Setting was published at the tail end of the Satanic panic of the eighties in which references to devils and demons were removed from Dungeons & Dragons to avoid ill-founded allegations that Dungeons & Dragons promoted Satanic worship—could all be found in Sigil. Normally adversarial, they were bound to keep the peace in Sigil because the city’s mistress, the Lady of Pain, caring of the city, callous of its citizens, wreathed in glittering, keen-edged blades, can simply deny them access to the doors to elsewhere in the multiverse. This does not mean that many do not covet possession of Sigil itself, but to move against the city and the Lady of Pain would be to raise her ire and perhaps even spark a war across the planes as the other factions try to prevent such a takeover. There is also the need for a neutral meeting place, especially with the ongoing Blood War between the denizens of the Nine Hells and the Abyss, which to date the Lady of Pain has prevented from spilling onto the streets of the city.

Below the city—far below the city—lies the Outlands, or the Plane of Concordant Opposition. Although the Plane of Neutrality, it is marked by a number of realms close to the Great Ring. These include Tir Na Og, ‘The Land of Youth’; the Palace of Judgement, ruled by Yen-Wang-Yeh, Judge of the Ten Law Courts and King of the Eighteen Hells; the Caverns of Thought, fizzing with the energy of brain waves and thought, whose cold and heartless tunnels always lead back to the court of the god-brain, Ilsenine, god of the Mind Flayers; and the Dwarven Mountain, a realm of merrymaking, belching smoke, and labour. Beyond lie the Inner Planes of the elements and quasielements, and the Outer Planes of morality or alignment. Also connected to Sigil and the Outlands via doors and portals and other means of planar transport are the worlds of the Prime Material Plane, and both Astral and Ethereal Space. From the start, the setting of Planescape is epic in scale.

As befitting a boxed setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition from the nineties, the Planescape Campaign Setting is richly appointed It includes four books, four posters, and a DM Screen. The books consist of ‘A Player’s Guide to the Planes’, designed to introduce the Planescape setting for player and Dungeon Master alike; ‘A DM’s Guide to the Planes’, containing detailed information about the setting for the Dungeon Master’s eyes only; ‘Sigil and Beyond’, a guide and more to the city that formed the heart of the setting; and the ‘Monstrous Supplement’, which provides the additions particular to the Monstrous Compendium—the equivalent of the Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. The four posters in turn depict the heraldic-like icons for the setting’s sixteen factions, and maps of the Outlands surrounding the city of Sigil, the Outer Planes, and Sigil itself.

The starting point is the thirty-two page ‘A Player’s Guide to the Planes’ and right from the opening paragraph, it is clear that this is no ordinary boxed set and no ordinary setting. The reader is assailed by liberal doses of Cant, served up by berks, bashers, and barmies—fools, thugs, and crazies—who engage in chants, garnishes, and dark—gossip, bribes, and secrets. Drawn from a mixture of Elizabethan and Dickensian slang, it is jarringly in-game and jarringly informal, but it accentuates the differences between this and any other campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons, before and since. It introduces the key concepts to Planescape, both in terms of play and design, and these are the idea of the ‘Centre of the Multiverse’ is both subjective and nonsensical; that the Multiverse consists of rings, such as the Outer and Inner Planes, and even the Outer Rings are ringed by a Great Road which lead on to the next infinite plane; the ‘Rule of Three’, that everything—good or bad—comes in threes, thus the Prime Material Plane, the Inner Planes, and the Outer Planes; Law, Chaos, and Neutrality; and so on. The denizens of the Planes also come in three types. These Primes, who were born on the Prime Material Plane, Planars, born on a plane, and Petitioners, the departed spirits of Primes and Planars, who seek to cement a union with the powers of their plane. Petitioners and other beings can be a Proxy, an agent of a Power bestowed with gifts in return for loyalty, whilst a Power is a deity who rules over a plane.

In terms of what the Planescape Campaign Setting offers the player, ‘A Player’s Guide to the Planes’ gives one broad choice, a number of new Races, and more importantly, Factions. A Player Character can either be a Prime, from the Prime Material Plane, which means that they are not subject to the effects of Monster Summoning spells or general planar magic, or a Planar, who can be subject to those effects and more—like Protection from Evil, but inherently has the power to see the gates between the Planes. The new Races are the Bariaurs, goat-like centaurs, whose males have a headbutt attack with their horns and females have stronger senses; the Githzerai, humourless ascetics with a loathing of the Githyanki and the Mindflayers; and Tielflings, halfbreed-orphans often reviled for their supposed ties to the darker powers. The Planescape Campaign Setting marked the introduction of the Tielfling.

The Planescape Campaign Setting does not include any new Classes, but does instead give cultural notes on all of the standard Classes. Instead, what it does introduce are factions. There are sixteen of these, complete with official faction title, faction philosophy, primary plane of influence, allies and enemies, eligibility for membership, and both benefits and restrictions. In general, there are no restrictions in terms of Race and Class for any one faction, though there are exceptions. For example, the Athar do not believe that there are such things as gods, so have a dislike of priests, but gain protection from certain divine spells; the Bleak Cabal believe that the multiverse does not make any sense and so are immune to any spell that causes madness; the Dustmen believe that everyone is dead, but some are dead than others, and benefit from a pact with the undead who will ignore any Dustmen member; the Free League cannot decide upon the exact nature of the Multiverse, so openly debate it and have an immunity to charm effects, since they each of their own mind; and the Mercykillers want to bring about the perfect world through justice, so allow only Lawful members and have the ability to detect a single lie per day. In general, these are relatively minor abilities, but alongside them, what each provides is an idea and a belief, which of course, roughly aligns with those of other factions, whilst bouncing off those of others. Plus, of course, they are a great set-up for scenarios, plots, and storytelling.

The second of the four books in the Planescape Campaign Setting is the sixty-four page ‘A DM’s Guide to the Planes’. In addition to describing the numerous planes of the Inner Planes and Outer Planes, and their cosmology, this book explains how magic and magic items work across that cosmology. Naturally, everyone has a view on why magic and magic items work differently from one plane to the next, but again, unsurprising, the ‘Rule of Three’ applies. The caster needs to be aware of the effect of the spell on the target’s home plane, the position of other planes involved in the spell, and the availability of extradimensional space, but beyond that it does a bit complicated as which spell or magical item works where, and knowing that becomes a bit of hassle for the prospective arcane spellcaster. In fact, mechanically, this is the most complex part of the Planescape Campaign Setting. However, the setting provides an easy way around it—Spell Keys. Which are like the Door Keys that enable the Player Characters to access portals and thus other planes, but they allow a Wizard to cast spells freely on a particular plane, whilst a Power key does the same thing, but for a Priest’s spells. Magical items tend to be less effective the further they are taken from the plane where they were crafted. The combination of keys—Door Keys, Power Keys, and Spell Keys—are a toolkit for the Dungeon Master who can use them to craft and push the direction of her game by choosing when they become available and how they become available.

The ninety-six page ‘Sigil and Beyond’ is the third and longest book in the Planescape Campaign Setting. It begins with advice for the Dungeon Master on how and why she should run a Planescape campaign. ‘A Player’s Guide to the Planes’ suggests campaigns involving all Prime or all Planar Player Characters, or a mixed group, whilst the ‘A DM’s Guide to the Planes’ emphasised the fact that the tone of a Planescape campaign is about ideas and philosophies, and that those can lead to terror and treachery as well as mercy and goodness, most obviously through the factions, but also across the planes, tied as they are, to Alignment. In fact, it could be argued that Alignment plays a role in the Planescape Campaign Setting like no other setting for Dungeons & Dragons ever before. The differences continued to be highlighted throughout the advice, that Planescape is not about straight dungeoneering and plunder, but quests and objectives, exploration and experiencing a sense of wonder, interesting with and against the factions, not about being bullies and beating everything in sight including gods and taking their powers. The advice also covers possible adventures written for low, medium, and high-Level Player Characters.

The bulk of ‘Sigil and Beyond’ is devoted to describing both the various Realms and Towns of the Outland and the City of Doors itself. There are some extra notes on the factions too, but the main focus is on Sigil, which is given enough detail for the Dungeon Master to use and bring to life. Rounding out ‘Sigil and Beyond’ are a pair of campaign quick-starts. ‘For the Price of a Rose’ is designed for low Level Player Characters and is intended to get them from the Prime Material Plane to Sigil, chasing a gang which has been stealing from the world and thus annoying the gang enough to want revenge, whilst ‘Misplaced Spirit’ can be used as a follow on to ‘For the Price of a Rose’ or used to start a campaign with all Planar Player Characters. This has the Player Characters chasing after a petitioner who has escaped the Palace of Judgement, so it gives them the opportunity to run round the city. There are also a pair of new spells and a list of the Cant, which the Dungeon Master can annoy her players and their characters with by learning and using!

The fourth and last book in the Planescape Campaign Setting is the thirty-two page ‘Monstrous Supplement’ presents twelve new monsters for the setting. Some of the entries are tough, like the Aleax, the physical manifestation of the vengeance enacted by a Power, or the Spirit of the Air, a winged monkey-minion of a Power of air and wind, so not necessarily immediately useful. Whereas, the Cranium Rat, vermin whose intelligence is boosted the greater its numbers, including spellcasting, and the Dabus, odd, berobed humanoids who speak in speech bubbles and iconography and are tasked with repairing the City of Doors, are likely to be encountered in Sigil. The longest entry is dedicated to the Modron, the polyhedral creatures of absolute order from the plane of Mechanus. It is more an interesting mix than a useful mix, and is the core set’s biggest omission and disappointment.

The extras in the Planescape Campaign Setting are not perhaps as useful as they could have been. The four-panel ‘DM Screen’ is serviceable, containing a mix of standard tables from the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, along with the few tables from the Planescape Campaign Setting, so more of the former than the latter. This consists of the ‘Faction Reactions’, ‘Wizard School Alterations by Plane’, and ‘Magical Items in the Planes’. So not necessarily all that useful over the standard screen for the roleplaying game. Similarly, the poster showing the heraldic icons of the factions is nice, but not useful, whereas the poster maps of The Outlands, the Outer Planes, and Sigil, are much better and more useful, including extra content on their reverse side.

Of course, the other major difference between Planescape and other campaign settings for Dungeons & Dragons is the physical design. The palette of green, Verdigris, and brown, the use of Exocet typeface which replaced the letter ‘t’ with ‘+’, and the stunning artwork of Tony DiTerlizzi which wraps sinuously around the text and echoes the administrativia and grotesquery of Mervyn Peake’s Gormanghast novels. This is in addition to the iconography of Dana Knutson, who created the symbols for the factions and most notably, that of the Lady of Pain, which adorns the front of the box and each book.

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The Planescape Campaign Setting would win the 1994 Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement, but the reviews were limited in number. The Planescape Campaign Setting was reviewed by Rick Swan in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #207 (July, 1994), giving it a rating of six out of six, or ‘The Best’ as well as describing it as “…[A] spectacular boxed set and TSR’s most ambitious campaign world to date.” and “…[D]esigner Zeb Cook’s finest effort since 1985’s Oriental Adventures and may be his masterwork.” He praised the boxed throughout, before ultimately concluding with a warning: “By covering so much ground and hinting at so many possibilities, the PLANESCAPE set raises expectations that may be tough to meet. Despite five books of material, there’s only enough room to give a taste of what’s in store, hence the tantalizing asides about dungeons made of giant skulls, a link between Toril and Krynn, and cities that change planes when their populations change alignments. This set is a box of promises, and if subsequent supplements fail to deliver, there’s going to be an awful lot of disappointed berks.”

Scott Haring, reviewing the Planescape Campaign Setting in ‘Pyramid Picks!’ in Pyramid Vol. 1 #8 (July/August, 1994) opened with, “I’ll cut to the chase — Planescape is the finest game world ever produced for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Period.” He described it as being, “…[E]verything us cool, jaded, disaffected gamers always complained that AD&D was not — sophisticated, almost adult roleplaying.” Praising the Planescape Campaign Setting throughout—best especially the artwork of Tony DiTerlizzi—Haring concluded with, “Planescape is a revolutionary product, a breakthrough for TSR. If you think you’ve “graduated” from AD&D, that you’ve evolved past it, go back and take a look at Planescape. This is the game world that will get you playing AD&D again.”

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The Planescape Campaign Setting could have been written by White Wolf in the nineties. After all, its emphasis on the presence and role of factions in the setting do make it feel like a World of Darkness roleplaying game, enabling the telling of stories around politics and beliefs as well as the exploration of the planes and more. The Planescape Campaign Setting includes a wealth of material to support such a campaign, but it is a wealth that does not feel quite enough, especially when it comes to the factions and the planes. The Dungeon Master is definitely going to want to know more to help her bring Sigil: The City of Doors and the Outlands to life. Of course, TSR, Inc. would follow up the Planescape Campaign Setting core box set with numerable supplements, including multiple boxed sets that would add depth and detail to the Multiverse of Planescape. Of these, the Dungeon Master is going to want In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil for a better guide to Sigil: The City of Doors, The Factol’s Manifesto for more detailed descriptions of the factions, and the MC8 Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix for more foes. The Planescape Campaign Setting is a superb start though, an amazing introduction to the setting and means of getting berks and bashers to Sigil: The City of Doors.

The Planescape Campaign Setting is the most interesting, the most innovative, and the most individual of all the worlds created for any iteration of Dungeons & Dragons. It is a fantasy utterly non-traditional, taking the Player Characters from the Dickensian grubbiness of the alleys of Sigil: The City of Doors all the way out to the infinite splendour of the Outer Planes and back again in time for bub and kip, a setting and a game line whose look and feel, let alone that setting, is genuinely unique and can truly be described as iconic.

Mountain of Madness

Ten years ago, the Abisko Mine was forcibly shut down following an explosion which killed many of the mine workers. Located in the far north of Sweden above the village of Abisko, all that remained of the mine was a crater. There were few if any survivors and no investigation, the cause of the disaster becoming first the subject of conjecture, and then rumour, as the incident was forgotten about. Recently, the mine and its surrounding area was bought by the Svea Mining Corp, owned by Karl Magnusson and his wife Sigrid. They have attracted the interest of scientists, the attention of the military, and the money of investors with rumours of the discovery of a new type of gemstone that could change the fate of Sweden and the course of the world, speeding up the pace of industrialisation which is already sweeping the country. Yet there are those who have not forgotten the explosion that closed down the original Abisko Mine, and worse, they believe that the gemstone is not something that should be exploited, but instead studied and kept careful control of, lest it fall into the wrong hands. One of these is Franzibald Hansen, Danish author and expert on Norse mythology. Although wealthy and knowledgeable, he lacks the means to investigate himself, let alone deal with the problem as he sees it beyond being a lone voice. Thus, he turns to one of his old contacts and through her, the Society, the body of scholars and adventurers based in Castle Gyllencreutz in Upsala, whose gift of second sight enabled them to see the Vaesen, the supernatural creatures who have for centuries lived alongside the folk of Scandinavia. With their help, Franzibald Hansen is sure that he can prevent the Magnussons from bringing their plan to fruition and the gemstones from falling into the wrong hands.

This is the set-up for The Lost Mountain Saga, the first campaign for use with Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. As well as being the first campaign for Vaesen, what is also notable about The Lost Mountain Saga is that it is based on a podcast of the same name that the author has adapted for use with Vaesen. This continues the phenomenon of roleplaying podcast adaptations previously seen with Critical Role and Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn from Darrington Press and Old Gods of Appalachia from Monte Cook Games. In the case of The Lost Mountain Saga, the result  is a relatively short campaign, consisting of five parts that take place over the course of a year, from September to August. The only requirement for it is the core rules and the fact that the Player Characters are members of the society and have conducted a handful of investigations, and thus be able to improve the facilities at Castle Gyllencreutz. Optional are other scenarios for Vaesen. There are gaps of several months between the third and fourth parts and between the fourth and fifth parts where the Game Master could run another scenario or two. That said, if the Game Master decides not to run other scenarios between the five parts of The Lost Mountain Saga, then the campaign can be played through quite quickly at a rate of two or three sessions per scenario—at the very most.

All five chapters of the campaign follow the same structure as other scenarios for Vaesen. The ‘Background’ and ‘Conflicts’ explains the situation for each scenario, whilst the ‘Invitation’ tells the Game Master how to get the Player Characters involved. In The Lost Mountain Saga, this includes letters, invitations, and the personal request of Franzibald Hansen, which will lead to the town or village where the mystery is taking place, the getting there detailed in the ‘Journey’, typically a mix of railway and coach journeys. It should be noted that every mystery has a moment or two when the Player Characters can prepare and goes into some detail about the journey. There is an opportunity for roleplaying here, perhaps resulting in longer travel scenes than the core rulebook necessarily recommends. The ‘Countdown and Catastrophe’ presents the Game Master with one or two sets of events which take place as the Player Characters’ investigation proceeds, sometimes triggered by the Player Characters, sometimes triggered by the NPCs, whilst ‘Locations’ cover NPCs, Challenges, and Clues, all leading to a ‘Confrontation’ and its eventual ‘Aftermath’. The mysteries are well organised, a mix of the sandbox and events which the Game Master will need to carefully orchestrate around the actions of her Player Characters. Only the most pertinent of the locations in each town or village is described and the Game Master is advised to create others as needed, though she will very likely need a ready list of Swedish names to hand for whenever the Player Characters run into an NPC or two. That said, the campaign is fairly linear and self-contained, meaning that relatively little preparation is required outside of the campaign itself and it can serve as an introductory or starter campaign the first time Game Master could run after she has run a few scenarios.

The campaign opens with ‘Duty and Despair’,  with news of the reopening of the Great Copper Mountain mine of Falun. This brings the portly bon viveur, Franzibald Hansen, to Castle Gyllencreutz. He has received a letter from the local priest about an outbreak of witchcraft and requests their help in investigating it. Almost everyone in the town seems charmed by the exceptionally stern Reverend Bruselius, who quickly settles on the culprit and prepares to hold a trial. Is she guilty, or is there someone else responsible and can the Player Characters identify them in time? However, in discovering this, the Player Characters will encounter another vaesan, one which will already have taken its first victim—Franzibald Hansen! It seems that he had an interest in Falun more than the outbreak of witchcraft, but quite will be revealed in the next few chapters.

‘The Beginning of the Fall’ shifts the mystery back to Upsala where the university is hosting an exclusive ball which will be attended by members of the nobility, the military, and the science community. This is because Karl and Sigrid Magnusson are going to announce the nature of the gemstones their operation has unearthed at the Abisko Mine. At the same time, there are reports of overcrowding at the city’s asylum, including a journalist who wrote an article critical of the Svea Mining Corp. Is this a coincidence? The ball is a chance for the Player Characters to mix with members of high society—military, noble, and scientific—so the Game Master may want to have some NPCs ready here, as well as a chance to get a good look at the strange gemstones. In addition, some of Franzibald Hansen’s secrets will be revealed!

The middle part of The Lost Mountain Saga is ‘Where the Sun Dies’, and it sends the Player Characters off in an entirely different direction—Norway! Norwegian Police Commissioner Olof Dahl comes to the Castle Gyllencreutz asking for their help. Contact has been lost with the island of Værøya above the arctic circle as it appears have suffered a radical fall in temperature weeks before it is normally due and to date, none of the rescue missions have returned. Having travelled to Bergen, the Player Characters set sail aboard an icebreaker commanded by one Captain Harrock—“Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!!”—and so investigate the island. From having to ski across the ace to reach Værøya to confronting the frosty foe responsible, this is an entertaining scenario that is quite creepy and unsettling in places.

‘The Prince and the Witch’ returns the action to Upsala and to the great Valborg bonfire next to the Royal Mounds of Upsala for the ancient spring festival. There a young woman asks for the Society’s help. She is a member of the Vanadisir, an organisation whose members claim to be the descendants of the Norse goddess Freja, and she wants help in rescuing her leader from an evil man in this forest. It turns out that ‘he’ is not a prince, but a snake, and not the only one in this linear encounter which draws the Player Characters back into the past. The confrontation is particularly nicely handled here.

The campaign comes to a close with ‘The Lost Mountain Saga’. A plea from an unexpected quarter sends the Player Characters back to where the campaign begins to reveal the secrets of the Abisko Mine and the true dangers that it represents to all of Sweden. The scenario literally ticks down to the climax in a race to prevent the Svea Mining Corp’s plans coming to fruition and a final confrontation.
Physically, The Lost Mountain Saga is everything that you would expect a book for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying to be. It is well written and presented, but the artwork and the cartography are both excellent, evoking a mixture of nineteenth century charm and folkloric horror. The book itself is actually a lovely artefact in its own right.

The Lost Mountain Saga is a short campaign as well as being an uncomplicated campaign. This and its year-long, but handful of chapters, structure give it space and a flexibility into which the Game Master can add or develop her own content. This may well be necessary to offset its quite linear nature and the fact that the campaign veers away from its storyline in its middle chapters. If the campaign is instead played through at pace, this may not be an issue though. Overall, The Lost Mountain Saga is a good starter campaign for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, suitable for the Game Master looking for a first campaign and the veteran Game Master looking for something lighter.

Calamity & Customer Service

Just after you review one roleplaying game about running a coffee shop with difficult customers designed to be run on its own or as corollary on top of just about any roleplaying game imaginable, along comes another roleplaying game about running a coffee shop with difficult customers designed to be run on its own or as corollary on top of just about any roleplaying game imaginable.* Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game from Cobblepath Games was the first, a standalone game which used ordinary playing cards, cutlery mattered, and a slice of life was served up with smile and a heart in the foam in the face of difficult customers and dwindling resources (as essentially, there was never anyone to do the washing up!). The Eternal Grind Café is the second. It is published by Mottokrosh Machinations, best known for Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm, the Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying game of retro science fantasy inspired by the artwork of Frank Frazetta and Roger Dean, the adventures of John Carter of Mars, Buck Rogers, and Barbarella. Certainly, any of those ‘Hypertellurians’ could end up in the Eternal Grind Café, but then again so could any character from any roleplaying game. Definitely though, The Eternal Grind Café does not share the same inspirations as Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm.

* If I have to review a third, something weird is going on.

What has happened is that in their hubris, the Player Characters have angered the gods. To teach them a lesson, the gods have cast the Player Characters into Hell. Instead of hellfire and brimstone and eternal torment, it turns out that Hell is actually a minimum wage job in the only growing industry in the world. In other words, work as a barista. So now, where they were once mighty heroes and heroines who braved the odds to defeat dragons and save the princess, long-bearded wizards who commanded cosmic forces of magic, an accountant driven to investigate the unknown, and in the process save humanity unacknowledged, a necromancer who raised an army of the dead, and so on, they now clock on, tie an apron on, smile, take orders for coffee, brew that coffee, and smile again, until it is time to clock off. Unfortunately, the Eternal Grind Café gets at best, the most interesting customers, at worst, the worst customers in the known universe, and all the Player Characters have to do is suck it up until the end of their shift, or if they are really lucky, the gods change their minds. Which is unlucky. So technically, the Eternal Grind Café could actually be called the Infernal Grind Café...

The Eternal Grind Café is a storytelling style roleplaying game for between three and five players, which can be played in a single session. Mechanically, it is very simple, but it provides scope for lots of roleplaying and scope for improvisation. Designed for three to five players, as written, it is intended to be run by a Game Master, who portrays all of the customers who come to the Eternal Grind Café. However, it can easily be run without a Game Master, with the players taking it in turn to portray the bad or difficult customers. A barista in The Eternal Grind Café has two stats or skills. Barista covers anything to do with coffee and running the coffee shop, whilst Character covers everything else—and that includes everything that the barista could do as a Player Character in his home game. The hero’s wielding of a sword, the wizard opening up a portal to the netherworld, the accountant budgeting or casting Elder Sign when he really needs it, or the necromancer commanding the undead… Both skills start at three and are rolled on a six-sided die, the aim being to roll under. If good customer service is given, then both skills move to the right, but if bad customer service is given, they both move to the left. If the stats move to the right, the Barista skill goes up, but the Character skill goes down. If the stats move to the left, the Barista skill goes down, but the Character skill goes up. If either skill is raised to six in this fashion, the Barista loses his and the player loses control of his Barista, but in different ways depending on the stat. A Barista skill at six means that the barista has become a mindless drone, but a Character skill at six means that the barista goes on a murderous rage! Which is truly terrible customer service.

To prevent either from happening, the barista has an outlet—social media. If the player describes a social media post in which his barista complains about his job, he can reduce his Barista skill by one. If he describes a social media post in which he tells of a flashback about his Player Character’s epic deeds in his former life, he can reduce his Character skill by one. In this way, the Barista and Character skills go out of sync.

The aim of the baristas is to gain tips. Each tip is represented by a die type, from four-sided to twenty-sided dice. The bigger the die type, the bigger the tip.* Each die goes into the tip jar. At the end of the shift or whenever the health inspector turns up, all of the dice are rolled and totalled. For each full twenty points rolled, the gods relent, and let a barista return to his former life. If there are not enough points for every barista, then it is every barista for himself and since this hell, betrayal or doing the dirty is just going to be seen as part of the décor.

* The use of Dungeon Crawl Classics dice would be particularly diabolic!

To support play, the Game Master has tables for determining the belligerent nature of the coffee machine—it could be haunted or it could woof and wag its tail like a dog, for random events, and for twenty customers. They include Three Sloths in a Trench coat, Belon Trusk X, a barista’s Mother, Mango Maga Man, and more. Each one comes with roleplaying tips and what the baristas need to do for each to give a good tip. There is a sly sense of humour to the various customers. The Game Master is advised not to say who the customer is, but just describe what they look like and let the players work it out…

Physically, The Eternal Grind Café is lightly and cleanly presented. The artwork is light and suitably humorous. Elements of the presentation will change for the full edition rather than this the Preview Edition. Things that can be added to the game include coffee options, more complications, and more customers.

The Eternal Grind Café is a light and silly roleplaying game that is ever so easy to prepare and equally as easy to run. Perfect to run in between longer games or as a pick-up game, whether at a coffee shop or at home, The Eternal Grind Café is relaxing fun until everyone has the chance to get out of hell and never have to work another shift again!

Friday Fantasy: Asterion

It is difficult to describe what Asterion is without being as direct as its author is. So not to beat about the bush, Asterion is a sex dungeon. Asterion is a sex dungeon for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. What it does is take the Ancient Greek myth of the creation of the Minotaur and turn it into a sex dungeon and combine it with a bloody meatgrinder. In the myth, Minos, King of Crete, prayed to the sea god Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull as a sign of the god’s favour and promised to sacrifice the bull to the god. When he did not, Poseidon punished Minos by making his wife fall in love with the bull and eventually she bore a child, a half-bull, half-man. Called Asterius, this is Minotaur. So inhuman and so ferocious was Asterius, that he would only eat human meat. After taking advice from the Oracle at Delphi, Minos had the craftsman, Daedalus, construct a mighty labyrinth to house the Minotaur. Into this, King Minos would cast his enemies. Asterion takes this myth and removes any references to Greece, enabling the Game Master to drop the adventure into her campaign, if, that is, she actually wanted to. Because remember, Asterion is a sex dungeon, as the Minotaur is not only wandering the labyrinth eating anyone he finds in there, he is also living out a priapic fantasy with anyone he finds in the labyrinth—whether they want to or not.

It should be noted that Asterion is written by the author of Beware the Mindfuck. That scenario carried an ‘18+ Explicit Content’ label on the front cover—and it deserved to. As does Asterion. Be warned. The language and the tone of Asterion is strong and of an adult nature and it deserves that exact same warning label. Unfortunately, it does not have one. In the meantime, some of the language and content in Asterion is repeated as part of the review where necessary.

After some immature posturing by the author about how he is not going to tell the Game Master how to run the adventure, how the adventure is not “…[F]or those that get easily butt hurt about touchy subjects”, and that the Game Master should run it if she has a “cool group”, he actually settles down and begins telling the reader what the adventure is about. The set-up is simple. The Player Characters are thrown into the Labyrinth, perhaps with a sword or a spear and some torches and then left to it. Accompanying them is a number of Zero Level tributes to Asterion, the Minotaur. The Labyrinth is described as a series of tight corridors crossed by many intersections, at which Bull Calves, the offspring of Asterion, will be grabbing them and attempting to eat them, have sex them—that is, rape them, take them back to their father, or a combination of all three. The Zero Level tributes are replacement Player Characters. So far, so bad. Fear not though, for it gets worse.

Instead of there being a map of the Labyrinth—the Game Master is expected to make it up—there is simply a table of twenty, increasingly detailed and unpleasant encounters. Screams, statues, mushrooms growing in cow dung, corpses, and so on, seem perfectly normal. Elsewhere an incredibly attractive, incredibly large woman demands sex in return for oracular divinations and will get extremely frustrated if the Player Characters refuse; a male dominant, dressed all in leather, invites the Player Characters to participate in his sex dungeon and attacks them with his handcrafted sex toys when they refuse; and a scene of bestiality. Plus, there are the scenes with the Bull Calves having sex with and/or eating the women imprisoned in the Labyrinth.

Running Asterion involves the Game Master describing the Labyrinth to her players, occasionally rolling for an encounter on the table, and when all of those are crossed off, she can run the scenario’s final scene in Asterion’s throne room. There are promises of freedom, but as the author makes clear in his ‘Wrapping Shit up’, “Everyone will die! Seriously. It’s a fuckin [sic] meatgrinder!” There are stats for the various monsters in Asterion, but that is about it.

Physically, Asterion is thankfully short. It is unpleasantly written and surprisingly, is illustrated with numerous images of statues and vases from Ancient Greece given that this aspect of the background to the scenario is ignored.

So, what you have in Asterion is a meatgrinder—in all senses of the word—one-shot in which the Player Characters are exposed to a lot of sex and semi-cannibalism, not expected to survive, and that is it, really. In fact, there really is very little for the Player Characters to do except wander around and fight. That is the extent of the agency they have. For the players, there is equally as little for them to do, little that is going to engage them or their capacity to roleplay, and ultimately, all Asterion does is expose them to the sexual fantasies of the author.

Asterion is repulsive, immature, and pointless. It does not deserve so much as an ‘18+ Explicit Content’ label, but an ‘Immature Players Only’ label.

—oOo—

DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher has no bearing on the resulting review.

Grudge from the Grave

The Nature of the Beast is a scenario set in an England rent by division and strife during the reign of Charles I. This division is between the Protestantism of the country and the Catholicism of Rome, Paganism and Protestantism, King and Parliament, King and country, weakening the Anima Gentum, the bloodline and the Crown, which ensured that the Crown looked to both the spiritual needs and the physical needs of the country. The Anima Gentum is yet to be broken with the execution of the king in 1649, but the Veil has been weakened by this division, giving access to the beyond, the Shadowlands, and the Demonic Realms, and so allowing mankind to entreat with things beyond our understanding. The Anima Gentum will be broken, England will be upturned, and the land will have no king. In the north of England, as the Scots fume and bridle at the King Charles’ attempt to reform the Presbyterian Church and there is mutterings of civil unrest in the south as the king may actually recall Parliament for the first time in a decade, the weakening of the veil has enabled a terrible revenge to be wrought from beyond the grave. Monsters stalk the land, and though they do not know it, they threaten the reputation of a noble family even as their presence brings about terrible tragedy.

The Nature of the Beast is the first scenario to be published for The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure, the roleplaying game of magic, monarchy, and division set in the early modern period prior to the English Civil War. Published by MontiDots Creations, best known for publishing horror scenarios such as The Fenworthy Inheritance and scenarios for the Old School Renaissance such as Limbus Infernum. It is a roleplaying game in which weaselly Vagabonds, stout Commoners and Yeomanry, and gracious members of the Nobility, as Cunning Folk or Woodkernes, Clubmen or Soldiers, Priests or Witch Hunters, Warlocks or Outlaws seek adventure and perhaps work to protect the realm from creatures from beyond the Veil and machinations of those men and women who would take advantage of the weakening of the Veil. Notably, it uses the GORE Generic Old-School Role-playing Engine published by Goblinoid Games. This is a percentile system which means that anyone familiar with the Basic Roleplay mechanics will have no difficulty adapting The End of Kings and thus The Nature of the Beast.

The scenario opens with the ‘Adventurists’—as it terms the Player Chaarcters—being hired by Reverend Richard Hinde, the corpulent priest of the village of Cranfold in the north of England. The flocks of sheep kept round the village have been subject to a spate of vicious attacks, the corpses left mutilated and half-eaten. The village is divided as to the nature of the culprit. Although no wolf has been seen in the country for a century, some say that is what it is, but others think it to be something much, much fouler. The priest, though, will confide that he thinks it a thing summoned through the Great Veil, though by whom or to what end, he can only conjecture. He had thought to hire the local hunter, but he has not been seen for days, but there is worse news for the reverend’s employer, the local squire. Lord Perfleet’s eldest daughter has also gone missing. The Adventurists are thus to travel to Cranfold and investigate the activities of the creature before hunting it down and killing it.

These events are of course, all connected, as the Adventurists will discover in the course of their investigations. Initially, it is suggested that this take the form of divination. The scenario gives crystallomancy as being the most effective and suggests that one of the Adventurists be capable of this, whilst another should be a priest with a sanctified silver cross capable of holding twenty Magic Points. The divination will grant them some initial hints, and can be used to gain further insights once the Adventurists arrive in Cranfold and want to examine the surrounding valley. Beyond this, their efforts are hampered by the arrival of the county Intelligencers—members of the inquisition who search for witches and signs of the devil—who have come to Cranfold in order to uncover what they think to be the activities of a witch. Bullies, man and woman, they will be quick to discover the ‘culprit’, denounce her, and condemn her to her fate, all in the name of god and coin in the pocket! The witchfinders are a reprehensible bunch, and are likely to arouse the ire of the Adventurists. This may lead to confrontation, if not between the Adventurists and Intelligencers, then between the Intelligencers and the returned hunter. The issue for the Adventurists is that the Intelligencers have the law on their side and any confrontation will get them into trouble. If he can be found, he knows much more about what has been happening and will point the Adventurists in the right direction, including approaching a caravan of Roma who are due to pass through the village as they regularly do at this time of the year. They will be able to help with advice and more before the Adventurists home in on the source and centre of the horror going on in Cranfold.

The Nature of the Beast is well supported with excellent maps and stats of the various NPCs and monsters. However, it could have been better organised, such as giving the description of the village towards the start of the book rather than in the middle of the adventure. Otherwise, physically, The Nature of the Beast is well presented, decently illustrated, and does come with great maps.

Where The Nature of the Beast is at its weakest is in the overreliance upon crystallomancy and divination as a means for the players and their Adventurists to gain hints and clues. It does not allow for other options and this, combined with the poor organisation means that The Nature of the Beast is not as easy to run as it should be. Here is where it could be better developed to be more flexible and less reliant on magic.

The Nature of the Beast is a solid adventure that combines some familiar elements—attacks on animals, revenge from beyond the grave, fear of witches, folk horror, and so on—with a pervading sense of horror and the unknown, the result feeling very much like a Hammer Horror film. The climax of the scenario does lend itself to cinematic action, so enforcing that feel. Even if the Game Master does not want to run the scenario using The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure, the plot and set-up of The Nature of the Beast is relatively easy to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition or Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, as both are set during a similar period.

Miskatonic Monday #278: The Viscount Who Left Me

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: The Viscount Who Left Me

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Z.V. Cretney

Setting: Regency-era Bath

Product: Scenario for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 52.14 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: ‘Gone Groom’ (not by Gillian Flynn)

Plot Hook: The groom has gone, can the bridesmaids save the day?

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Bridesmaids, ten NPCs, thirteen handouts, one Occult tome, one occult spell, and one occult monster.

Production Values: Excellent

Pros

# You get to play Regency bridesmaids!

# Regency folkloric horror one-shot

# Highly detailed scenario

# Detailed Investigators

# Nicely done handouts

# Great title

# The bridesmaids need to return

# Ornithophobia

# Hemophobia

# Anthropophobia

Cons

# Bridesmaids may need a pointer or two get the investigation started

Conclusion

# Connection between set-up and first investigative steps undeveloped, but otherwise another good one-shot for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England

# Richly detailed post-wedding Regency weirdness whose bridesmaids deserve a sequel

Miskatonic Monday #277: Hail to the King

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: Hail To The King

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marco Carrer

Setting: New York State, 1989

Product: One-on-One Scenario
What You Get: Nine page, 448.60 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics.” – Pietro Mascagni

Plot Hook: This is one rare record you won’t want to rave about

Plot Support: Staging advice, one pre-generated Investigator, and four NPCs.

Production Values: Untidy.

Pros

# One Investigator, one session scenario

# Easy to adapt to other modern time periods with recorded sound

# Straightforward investigation

# Melophobia

# Hemophobia

# Pharmacophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Linear

# Needs an opposition to mix up its noir nods and make it a MacGuffin hunt

Conclusion

# Seedy, direct investigation that feels just a bit too easy

# Tell, me have you heard the Yellow Sign?