Ogrecave.com Christmas Dozen 2013

Since 2001, Ogrecave.com has run a series of list in December, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition – in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond our control, this list is not appearing at OgreCave.com – Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about “Baleful Blandishments” to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents the dozenth’s Ogrecave.com Christmas List Dozen, we can only hope that the twelve below includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you do not have and someone is happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you.

Tales of the Sleepless City 
(Miskatonic River Press), $29.95/£21.99
It is sad news indeed that Tales of the Sleepless City, an anthology of scenarios set in New York during the Jazz Age, is Miskatonic River Press’ swansong for Call of Cthulhu. This beautifully presented book contains six scenarios that bring the Big Apple to life like no supplement for Call of Cthulhu before! Let your investigators discover how far reactionaries will go to preserve the fabric of New York, expose them to bloody horrors in the museum, or have them experience Harlem in mourning. Send them into Hell’s Kitchen to live in a slum tenement owned by the worst slum landlord possible, have them expose a dark future for one young child in Chinatown, or let them truly enjoy a night at the opera… Tales of the Sleepless City is the best Call of Cthulhu title of 2013 – it is such a pity that we shall not see its like again from Miskatonic River Press.

Hanabi (Cocktail Games), $11.99/£8.99
Remember how 7 Wonders made the Ogrecave.com Christmas list back in 2011 after not winning the ‘Spiel des Jahres’ (German ‘Game of the Year’), but winning its new bigger brother award, the ‘Kennerspiel des Jahres’ (roughly ‘Connoisseur-Enthusiast Game of the Year’)? Well this year we include an actual ‘Spiel des Jahres’ winner, one from the designer of 7 Wonders – Antoine Bauz. His award winning design is Hanabi, a clever game in which the players race to bring about the most impressive fireworks display. This requires that the players work together in order to launch the fireworks in the right order, which means everyone playing their cards in the right order. The twist in this co-operative card game is that everyone can see each other’s cards, but they cannot see their own! This is a clever little card game about communicating the right information with your other players in order to win the game.

13th Age (Pelgrane Press), $44.95/£39.99
What do you get when a designer of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition and a designer of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition decide to create a fantasy RPG together? The result is Rob Heinsoo and Jonathon Tweet’s 13th Age, a furiously fun take upon playing Dungeons & Dragons. It still uses the d20 System, but streamlines the mechanics and play style for faster game, combining well-designed character Classes with story-telling aspects that both tie the heroes into the broadly drawn setting and make them stand out as potentially epic champions. With Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition not out until GenCon 2014, 13th Age is the freshest take upon Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying in years.

Ogre Designer’s Edition
(Steve Jackson Games), $100/£85
If in 2013 the gaming hobby, the elephant in the room that is Dungeons & Dragons was on holiday, then pound for pound, its spot was occupied by a 26 lbs. tank. Big enough and heavy enough to scare your game’s collection, the Ogre Designer’s Edition brings back Steve Jackson’s first game design in a very complete combination of the original classic Ogre and G.E.V. two-player game, plus more. Five maps, hundreds of counters, and over seventy 3D Ogres and buildings, all in a big box! What’s an ‘Ogre’ you ask? A big tank, a big damned tank under the command of an A.I. and bristling with big guns, big rockets, and big nukes, all rumbling towards you… Can you stop it before it stops the units under your command…?

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords - Base Set 
(Paizo Publishing), $59.99/£49.99
Remember the original Adventure Path campaign for Rise of the Runelords and how we liked it last year enough to include Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path Anniversary Edition on the 2012 Ogrecave.com Christmas List? This year, you get to play it all over again with the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, a game that distils the essence of both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Rise of the Runelords into an elegant and quick playing deck-building card game that plays equally well for four players as it does for the single player. The game pitches a party of adventurers in a series of scenarios against various villains and their henchmen who are hidden – find the henchmen and the heroes have a chance of finding and defeating the villain. The adventurers need to have the right skills, right spells, and right equipment all at the right time – and if they succeed they get better. All represented on the cards, which makes for both slick game play and extended game play over the course of the Rise of the Runelords campaign.

Firefly: The Game
(Gale Force Nine), $50/£44.99 
If there is one RPG that we are looking forward to in 2014, it is Margaret Weis Productions’ Firefly Role-Playing Game – of which you can find a taster here – but that is coming in 2014. In the meantime, you can fly the ‘friendly’ ‘Verse in search of a profit aboard your own Firefly Class transport in this well-appointed boardgame from Gale Force Nine. Some jobs will be legal, some jobs will be illegal, and some may bring the attention of the Alliance or worse, Reavers! All you need is the right ship, the right crew, and the right job – maybe it’s a job for Badger, maybe for Niska, but it just needs to go shiny. The game does not always go smooth, but if you are a fan of the television series, then is exactly what you want. Find a crew. Find a job. Keep flying…

Fate Core System (Evil Hat Productions), $25/£16.99
In most RPGs you sit down, create a character and start playing a world of the GM’s creation (or purchase). In Fate Core System, the new edition of the Fate System first seen in Spirit of the Century, you sit down and work with your fellow players and the GM to decide upon a world and the elements in it. This presents enormous flexibility in creating the game that everyone wants to play, whether that is protecting small town Texas from the scum of the universe in 1961, strapping on a jetpack to free the Solar System from the yoke of the Mongol Horde, or wielding the arcane arts against the greatest of Napoleon Bonaparte’s sorcerers! It means that right from the start, the players have narrative control of who their characters are and what their place in the world is, the GM taking his cue from these characters and the narrative that they demand. This is a game about dramatic characters and their adventures and the means to build and run them. (Two supplements – Fate Worlds: Worlds on Fire and Fate Worlds: Worlds in Shadow each come with six ready-to-play settings should the GM and his players not have the time to create worlds of their own, or just want to cut to the chase).

Love Letter (Alderac Entertainment Group), $11.99/£7.99
Princess Annette is unhappy and has locked herself away in the castle; as a suitor can you make her happy once again? To do that you need to get a love letter to her, but between you and the Princess stands the palace bureaucracy – from the lowly guards and priests up through the barons, handmaidens, the King, and the Prince to the Countess and the Princess herself. Each and every one of these august – and not august personages – has a special ability that will advance or block your path to the Princess, but no suitor knows whose favours his rivals currently possess. This is a quick-playing game of bluff and deduction that plays perfectly between other games.

Adventures in Kaphornia 01 – Draconian Rhapsody: A Fantasy Movie For Your Game Table (Chronicle City), $19.99/£13.99
Sadly, roleplaying takes time and there are times when it would be great to have something that you can pick and play with a minimum of preparation. Originally published in German by Ulisses Spiele GmbH, Draconian Rhapsody is just one solution. It is not an RPG as such, but rather a scenario that comes with everything necessary to play – except dice of course! It includes ready-to-play characters, simple rules, and of course an adventure that everyone can jump straight into. Arriving in Kaphornia, through circumstances beyond their control the adventurers discover that Countess Esmeralda of Belzheim needs a dragon, alive and inside of a week. Can they capture the dragon for her in this definitely cinematic, if slightly humorous adventure? Draconian Rhapsody is at its heart a fantasy action movie that you can play through in an evening.

Numenera (Monte Cook Games), $59.99/£39.99
Were the people of the Ninth Age ignorant of the past, then perhaps Clarke’s Law, that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” might be true. In the very far future of the Ninth Age, humanity is surrounded by the fragments and remains of the previous ages – swirls of nanotechnology, impossibly manicured buildings and landscapes, creatures and peoples bio-engineered to some unknown ends, data streams from still-orbiting satellites, and devices and objects weird and wondrous. Such devices, known as the ‘numenera’, can often be used by the peoples of the Ninth Age, or if not, adapted to a new purpose – perhaps by the Amber Priests. With Numenera, the author’s first RPG of his own design, Monte Cook lets us explore a world of fantastical science to build a bright new future.

Eternal Lies (Pelgrane Press), $49.95/£32.95 
In the 1920s, doughty and stalwart men and women banded together to investigate and thwart the menace presented by threats beyond mankind’s understanding and sanity. We have played out such attempts in Masks of Nyarlathotep, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, and The Day of the Beast, each in their own way classic campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, but there is one question that has never been asked. What if they failed? This is the set-up for Eternal Lies, the first full campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, Pelgrane Press’ RPG of clue-orientated Lovecraftian investigative horror. In this globe-spanning campaign, the investigators must follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, uncovering clues old and new, not just to reveal the nature of the menace, but to determine where their predecessors went wrong. This is superb interpretation of a classic format that promises month after month of sanity searing play around the world.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Roleplaying Game (Fantasy Flight Games), $59.95/£39.99
The gaming hobby feels all the better for having an RPG based in the Star Wars universe on its shelves and in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Fantasy Flight Games gives us the first of a trilogy of new Star Wars RPGs. In the one you play Bounty Hunters, Colonists, Explorers, Hired Guns, Smugglers, and Technicians attempting to get by on the Outer Rim, far from the centre of the galaxy, but not so far that the Empire is no longer a threat. The new mechanics use a set of dice particular to the game whose results drive the adventure onwards with results that might ensure a hero’s successes whilst upping the threat or giving him an advantage, all in support of the game’s cinematic style of play. Already supported with several supplements, the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire – Beginner Game is also available to help you get started.

Against the Slave Lords
(Wizards of the Coast), $49.95/£34.99 
With no new official Dungeons & Dragons titles of note this year, perhaps the best were the nostalgia titles repackaged and re-released by Wizards of the Coast. Against the Slave Lords collates four scenarios – A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, and A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition. Previously released as the collection, Scourge of the Slave Lords (A1–4) which was voted the twentieth greatest Dungeons & Dragons scenario of all time, Against the Slave Lords is a campaign for characters of fourth through seventh levels set in the World of Greyhawk that pitches them against an insidious gang of slavers. Presented as a pleasing hardback that not contains the original four scenarios, but also adds a fifth scenario designed to introduce player characters to the campaign, which means that Against the Slave Lords can not only be played by us old nostalgic players, but new ones too.

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Ogre Cave Christmas List 2012

Come the end of the year and as has been vaguely traditional for the past decade that in December, OgreCave.com runs a series lists suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition – in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond our control, this list is not appearing at OgreCave.com – Reviews from R’lyeh would like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about “Baleful Blandishments” to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days.

Nevertheless, Happy Gaming and enjoy the suggestions. Consider them perfect for purchase for yourself. If the world is to end in 2012 – and the denizens of Reviews from R’lyeh doubt that the stars have come right as yet – then at least enjoy a few last rolls of the dice with a favourite new game…

Lords of Waterdeep
(Wizards of the Coast), $49.99/£39.99
One of the best and most accessible board games of the year came from the most unexpected publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Lords of Waterdeep combines the classic Dungeons & Dragons theme with tried and tested Eurogame-style “worker placement” mechanics. For between two and five players, the game casts the players as masked lords vying for control of Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms. They send out their Agents to acquire Buildings and access to better resources; gain Gold to make the many purchases necessary to ensure their rise to power; the means to Intrigue with their fellow Lords; and hire Adventurers whom they can send out on missions or Quests that once completed will spread their influence and gain them true power. The game scales nicely, being as challenging to play with two players as it is with five, plays easily in an hour, and forces a player to make difficult decisions when presented with numerous options! (Read the review here).

Midgard Campaign Setting 
(Open Design) $49.99/£29.99
The bad news is that in 2012, we lost Kobold Quarterly, the only Dungeons & Dragons compatible magazine to be available on the shelves at your local friendly gaming store. The good news is that we finally got to see an introduction to Midgard, Wolfgang Baur’s home campaign previously best seen in the Zobeck Gazetteer and the numerous articles that appeared in Kobold Quarterly’s twenty-three issue run. Now with the release of the Midgard Campaign Setting, we no longer have glimpses, but a full introduction to a dark fantasy world that at its heart is steeped in a mittel-european sensibility, whilst still leaving room for fantastical, even weird elements. Designed for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, an appendix also includes rules for the adventure game engine, allowing players to use Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age RPG to visit a very different and a very original take on the fantasy setting.

Glory to Rome Card Game: Black Box Edition (Cambridge Games Factory), $35.00/£25.00
AD 64 and Rome has been burned to the ground. Answer Emperor Nero’s call and bring Glory to Rome as you compete to rebuild the heart of the ancient world’s most powerful empire. This is a strategic card of city building and resource management in which every card can act as a building, a patron, a raw material, or a valuable resource. This clever mechanic combined with the fact that the card a player gets to play is often dictated by his rivals, gives the game a pleasing elegance and forces difficult choices on a player. Redesigned from the original edition with new art reminiscent of the 1980 classic board game, Civilisation and mechanics reminiscent of more modern games like Puerto Rico, San Juan, and Race for the Galaxy, this is a great game that should be on every gamer’s shelf.

Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press), $44.95/£29.95
You are an ex-secret agent. You just discovered that your former employers are controlled by vampires. So quite possibly is your government, your bank, and that NGO you always felt great about donating money to… This is the set-up for Ken Hite’s Night’s Black Agents, the Vampire Spy Thriller RPG he describes as “The Bourne Identity meets Dracula.” It brings 007-esque high action to the clue driven GUMSHOE System, but when it comes down to it, Night’s Black Agents is not Ken Hite’s game, but yours. It gives the means and tools for the GM to create any style of espionage RPG, from James Bond to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and lets him it slam it up against the vampires and the vampire conspiracy of his design. As a genre mash-up, Night’s Black Agents is a combination that sells itself, but as a toolkit, Night’s Black Agents is your Schweizer Offiziersmesser. Just add dice. 
(Read the review here).

Cthulhu Fluxx (Looney Labs), $16.00/£12.99
An award-wining, classic, quick playing card game for over a decade now, Fluxx is all about chaos and winning means adapting to that chaos as the game and the rules change through play. Now Looney Labs has upped the ante and introduced the forces of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and an almost primordial unstoppable force to the chaos of Fluxx. In Cthulhu Fluxx, you are not just up against your rivals, some of whom might be in the thrall of one of the Great Old Ones, but also the Great Old Ones too! You can win Cthulhu Fluxx, but sometimes the influence of the Mythos is just too insidious meaning that Cthulhu himself wins!
(Read the review here).

Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition 
(Paizo Publishing) $59.99/ £39.99
Five years ago, Paizo Publishing launched its Adventure Path series, each a campaign for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in six parts. To celebrate that anniversary, Paizo Publishing has collected the very first Adventure Path series, Rise of the Runelords, in hardback and in the process taking advantage of five years of player feedback and the chance to revise, and add to, a campaign that will take the adventurers from first to eighteenth level. Beginning in the sleepy coastal town of Sandpoint, in course of defending against an attack by crazed goblins, the adventurers learn of a greater evil. If they to prevent it coming to Sandpoint, they must track a cult of serial killers, fight backwoods ogres, stop an advancing army of stone giants, delve into ancient dungeons, and finally face off against a wizard-king in his ancient mountaintop city.

Snowdonia (Surprised Stare Games) £31.99
The year is 1894, and the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company Limited has been formed to build a branch line from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon. Each player controls a work gang providing the labour for the construction of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, each trying to outdo the other in excavating the railway line, laying the track, constructing stations on the way up, and fulfilling Contracts that will score them those all important Victory Points. This a well-appointed worker placement game in which the game itself demands that the gangs of labourers get busy building the line up the mountain or the game will do it all by itself and deny you Victory Points. All this and having to deal with the fog and the rain on the mountain that only slows your labourers down!

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game 
(Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.) $19.99
What happens when the inmates from The Raft, the island prison facility in New York City for psychopathic superhuman criminals, escape? You already found out how in early issues of Marvel Comics’ New Avengers series, but with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game, you can team up as Captain America, Cyclops, the Human Torch, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and more, in order to return the escapees to prison. Or alternatively, create heroes of your own with this dice driven narrative RPG of super heroic action. Comes with the datafiles for twenty three heroes, numerous villains, powers, action, and more in a rulebook that could easily be mistaken for a Marvel graphic novel!

Escape – The Curse of the Temple (Queen Games) $59.99/£39.99
There are games about exploring ancient temples and avoiding their dangers, but Escape …from the Curse of the Temple is truly a different game. You and your fellow adventurers have been trapped – trapped in a cursed temple, and the only way to get out is by working together. IN REAL TIME. You have just ten minutes (a timer soundtrack comes with the game) to explore the temple, activate the magic gems in the temple chambers in order to banish the curse, and then escape! All this done by rolling dice as quickly and as continuously as you can in order to get the right combination of symbols that activate the gems, move from room to room, lift you from under the spell of the Black Mask (which stops you rolling dice), and more. Get the right combinations? Use them up and then starting rolling for the next. Ten minutes though, otherwise you and your fellow adventurers will find yourselves crushed inside the collapsing temple. Everyone gets out, or nobody does in this frantic game.

Primeval 
(Cubicle Seven Entertainment) $39.99/£26.99
Anomalies are appearing and opening everywhere, allowing us to step through doorways into the past and into the future. As amazing as they are, the anomalies are also a danger as they let others from the past and the future into our present – including dinosaurs! A mammoth on the motorway? Velociraptors in the velodrome? These threats and more have to be dealt with before the public are placed in danger or learn too much. As part of the government run Anomaly Research Centre, the characters will track dinosaurs, research the anomalies, and more to keep not just the country safe, but the timeline too. Based on the TV series of the same name, the Primeval RPG uses the same mechanics as the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG, and thus emphasises talking and thinking first before combat. This still leaves plenty of room for action and scares in facing down not just the dinosaurs, but those that would use the anomalies for their own ends.

Leagues of Adventure 
(Triple Ace Games) $39.99/£24.99
In Leagues of Adventure the world of the Victorian Age is as fantastic as you would imagine – H.G. Wells’ Martians invaded England, Professor Challenger has found the Lost World, Phileas Fogg made it around the world in eighty days, and Sherlock Holmes has solved untold numbers of crimes and mysteries. The player characters follow in their stead, the members of various “Leagues of Adventure,” travelling the world, unravelling mysteries, righting wrongs, and all in the name of Her Majesty. Using the Ubiquity mechanics previously seen in Hollow Earth Expedition and All For One: Régime Diabolique, this is a pulp action RPG of derring-do and honour that adds in the Steampunk and the fantastic of the era too.

RuneQuest 6e 
(The Design Mechanism) $62.00/£40.00
RuneQuest is back and in one volume! The new sixth edition updates and presents a set of rules that has been a classic for over thirty years in a single book that provides GM and players alike with everything necessary to create and build a campaign of heroic, gritty, fantasy. Characters – Barbarian, Civilised, Nomadic, and Primitive, are all covered; as well as five types of magic, ranging from the classic Runes to Theism; belonging to a Cult; and both monsters and playable character races are all covered in this thick softback book. It feels complete, and best of all, it feels loved again.

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Lovecraftian Fantasy

It is due to a matter of simple copyright, but Dungeons & Dragons never truly explored a fantasy infused with the writings of H.P. Lovecraft or the Cthulhu Mythos. The only time that it really ever did was with the first edition of Deities & Demigods, and that was to present the “gods” of the Mythos as a pantheon, complete with write-ups and stats for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. In subsequent editions of this source book, this content was removed as its inspiration, the works of H.P. Lovecraft were not then in the public domain. With the passing of the millennium, they are now in the public domain and ready to serve as inspiration for an array of RPG writers who since the publication of Call of Cthulhu in 1981 have steeped themselves in the “Cosmicism” of both his fiction and the RPG it inspired. Thus the Mythos has appeared in what is a classic just ten years on – Green Ronin Publishing’s Freeport Trilogy for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition (and others) – as well as increasingly so in support material for the successor to Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5, Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Carrion Hill is an example of this. Published in 2009, it is an adventure for four characters of fifth level written by Richard Pett, an English author who has written innumerable adventures for both Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and whom I had the pleasure of editing for his contribution to Goodman Games’ Age of Cthulhu Vol. V: The Long Reach of Evil. That contribution was indeed his first adventure for Call of Cthulhu, the quintessential RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but it was not his first that involved Lovecraftian investigative horror. That was Carrion Hill.

Carrion Hill is itself a wind and rain sodden city looming up out of the swamps of eastern Ustalav, located on the southern bank of the Kingfisher River. It has a long, dark history having been occupied by one flock of worshippers after another, many of them devoted to even darker gods. The original inhabitants were even worse, all of them vile and depraved cultists of the Old Gods. Except to the singularly sinister scholar, such information has long been forgotten, as has the existence of a network of tunnels, temples, and tombs that run deep under the city. This morning though, something rose from those depths, an irruption that caused buildings to implode and left the surrounds as little more than slime slathered scree. The cream of The Crows – the city watch – is already missing, having come to combat the cause of the calamity, so what is Carrion Hill’s mayor to do if he wants to delve to the bottom of this catastrophe.

Enter the player characters. They are tasked to investigate these upward attacks from below whilst the Crows attempt to keep the peace and prevent the citizens of Carrion Hill from panicking and fleeing the town. The adventurers’ delving uncovers dastardly doings deep underground – cultists have summoned something that they should not have done, and now it is loose! Armed with the evidence of the cultists’ doings, the party must track both them down and discover a means to end the explosive eruptions of the summoned thing before it is too late. So far, so much like a Call of Cthulhu scenario…

Well, no, not really. Carrion Hill is after all a Dungeons & Dragons – or rather a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure. The emphasis is more on combat than investigation, with the adventurers encountering and facing the surviving cultists one-by-one in mortal combat until they have acquired the knowledge and means to end the thing’s tentacular thrustings. These encounters are actually quite small and they can be done in any order, providing the heroes with a degree of free action. All the whilst being chased by the thing that the cultists summoned, of course. That said, impinging upon said degree of free action is the unstoppable nature of the thing – at the party’s expected level, it is unstoppable, so the party has no choice but to determine a means of stopping it. Were they to going charging in without tracking down any of the cultists – essentially the combative equivalent of conducting research and an investigation in Call of Cthulhu – the player characters would be dead.

Physically, Carrion Hill is as well presented as you would expect for a release from Paizo Publishing. Both of its art and its maps are done in full colour with both being pleasingly attractive. In addition to the adventure itself, Carrion Hill includes four pre-generated player characters and a two-page appendix describing the city of Carrion Hill and its history. The information given easily allows the GM to place the city in Paizo Publishing’s campaign setting of Golarion or drop it into one of his own devising.

As the author of the adventure states, Carrion Hill is the first adventure from Paizo Publishing to draw explicitly from the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Thematically, both dwell on matters of madness and decay, but the adventure lifts elements wholesale from the fiction, most notably the thing threatening the city and a certain tome. Its inspiration is Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror,” though to be fair, only the latter half of the story, and to be fair, the combative nature of the latter half of the story is better suited to the combative play style of Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and so does not jar with what would otherwise be a more investigative scenario.

Thus it is not truly Lovecraftian, for the heroes of the adventure can only die rather than have their sanity torn asunder. It hews to the heroics of its core genre, even despite the addition of the horror elements. That said, the adventure would well in other fantasy settings, perhaps even the Dreamlands themselves, or the Ditlana built cities of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne. For the most part, releases from Paizo Publishing have always meandered towards dark fantasy as a genre. With Carrion Hill, both the author and Paizo Publishing fully embrace it, presenting a well written, grim, horror bent adventure.

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The Kobold Strips... Divinely

Upon reaching your twenty-first birthday, you are widely regarded as having reached the age of responsibility and acquired not just responsibilities, but also rights and freedoms too. You are at liberty to do what you want and take the consequences of your actions. So the question is, having reached its twenty-first issue, what does Kobold Quarterly, Open Design's roleplaying magazine devoted to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, and the AGE or Adventure Game Engine, do? Well, the first thing it does is take its clothes off and gut a rabbit and play with its entrails, all before discussing religion.

Now that sounds all so terribly rude, not to say dangerously controversial or even dangerous. The truth of the matter though, is that contents of Kobold Quarterly #21 is far from controversial, certainly not rude, and anything other than dangerous. The bulk of the issue is devoted to matters clerical, divine, and religious, all matters which are treated in a mature and reasonable manner. The first “controversy” though comes with Kieran Yanner’s cover, “The Wood Nymph.” Having seen the artist’s work inside the covers of numerous RPG titles, it is a pleasure to see a fully painted cover by him, but the fact that it depicts a semi-clad nymph might not be to everyone’s taste. It is something that is acknowledged by Kobold Quarterly editor, Wolfgang Baur. There is nothing prurient about that cover, and if it can regarded as being art of the cheesecake variety, then its flavour is a tasteful vanilla.

The controversy of the issue’s contents begins with “The Shaman – A Spirit-Based Class for the Pathfinder RPG.” Written by Marc Radle – whose The Expanded Spell-less Ranger I reviewed recently, as its title suggests, this presents the Shaman as a new Class for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. At its heart it feels much like a variant upon the Druid Class, but a combination of spells that do not have to memorised to be cast, the ability to heal by touch rather by spell, being able to morph into animal form, and having unimpeded movement through undergrowth gives the Class a wilder, more free spirited feel. The Class also has harder edge as seen in its limited spell choice and the sanguinary start to the augury powers with the Totem Secret, “Blood Divination,” which can provide a Shaman with skill and initiative bonuses. The Shaman has an array of Totem Secrets to choose from, many of which call upon the spirits for healing, protection, warnings, and other aid. In addition, the Shaman possesses a Spirit Guide, with whom he shares an empathic link, deliver touch spells for him and even help him draw spells from the spirit world for him. The Class includes a selection of sample Spirit Guides. At later levels, a Shaman can enhance his magic with a spirit dance and even go on a vision quest. Overall, the Shaman Class has a pleasingly earthy feel, and would make a useful addition to any wilderness set campaign. Where the controversy of the piece comes is in the opening colour text, which has a Shaman casting an augury through the examination of rabbit’s entrails. Perhaps a little too strong to some tastes, but still in keeping with the Class as described.

The sexual tone of the issue’s cover is continued with Sersa Victory’s “Daughters of Lilith – An Ecology of the Succubus.” Written as a piece of academia, this delves into the origins, motivations, life cycle, faith, society, and sexual proclivities (despite most actually being unable to bear children) of a type of devil that is widely regarded as being the ultimate in sexual seductresses and arch manipulators. It also discusses her male equivalent, the Incubus, and presents the Cult of the Succubus Queen, a cabal that in worshiping Mother Lust seeks to undermine the chaste morality underlying civilization’s integrity… Although the article is written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, including a new Feat and Powers for both worshippers and Succubae, much of the background presented in the article would work just as well with any fantasy RPG setting that includes seductive devils. Especially an urban set campaign that involves power politics. This is though, an article best suited for a mature audience, as its content does touch on sexual themes. They are well handled and what could have been potentially prurient piece is nicely judged.

The first real discussion of religion in Kobold Quarterly #21 is “It's a Mystery!” by David “Zeb” Cook. This is a generic article that suggests how a GM might make religion in his campaign more interesting by adding Mystery Cults. Drawing from those of Ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt, it discusses how to design a Mystery Cult and its motivations, how and why you might join such a Cult, and hints at what its secrets might be. This being an article in a roleplaying magazine, your first thought at reading the word “cult” would be that this article is all about cabals bent on evil, but nothing could be further from the truth. As the author makes clear, Mystery Cults are about secrets and the privacy of worship rather than just being evil. A Mystery Cult could just as easily be composed of farmers worshipping for a bountiful harvest as they could “cultists” attempting to learn the secrets of summoning some tentacle creature from the nether regions. With advice on how to get the player characters involved, this is another interesting article that would work in many fantasy RPG settings. If it lacks anything, it is that it would have been nice, given the article’s historical sources, if some references and suggestions as to further reading had been included.

Tim and Eileen Connors continue the divine theme with “Clerical Conflicts – Thy Will Be Done” for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Although its opening paragraphs feel bland, the piece really steps up a pace with the five well-written and colourful examples that support the idea that the faith adhered to by a player character Cleric can the source of character conflict. Essentially, it asks what if a character’s experiences or interpretation of his faith conflict with the dictates of his deity or his church? The examples all use members of the same faith, all sat down to the same meal, and all mulling over questions of faith. Each one comes with a mechanical effect, mostly minor, but some come with major effects instead. For example, a Cleric with the “Forsaken” Conflict has not only lost his direct connection to his god, but also his Domain spells too, and in praying for them he literally steals them from other Clerics around him. These are all interesting and colourfully written dilemmas that could easily adapted to the religions detailed within a GM’s campaign, and whilst the mechanical effects are written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the dilemmas would work in most fantasy RPGs.

With “Howling Tower: Why No Monotheism?” Steve Winter asks an interesting question. Why do so many fantasy settings have pantheons of gods when most real-world religions are monotheistic and have the single, one god? The article comes up with some good answers and suggests ways in which such a faith can be added to a game. “Divine Archetypes: Angelic Heroes, Holy Traps, and Celestial Fists of Fury” by Stefen Styrsky, details divinely scented Archetypes for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, turning the Sorcerer, Fighter, Gunslinger, and Ranger into the Angel Scion, Seraphic Cohort, Peacemaker, and Spirit Hunter respectively. Also for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Christina Stiles’ “Saints of Mavros” describes two saints worshipped in Midgard, either widely in the case of St. Brigantia of Valera, or just in Morgau, Doresh, and the Ghoul Imperium, in the case of Saint Whiteskull of Bratislor. Both include descriptions of each Saint’s worshippers, Domains and favoured weaponry, symbols, noted books, famous shrines and priests, connection to other faiths, and what demands each places upon his worshippers.

As its title suggests, “A Background in Magic – Alchemists, Druids, Illusions, and Seers for the AGE System” by Rodrigo Garcia Carmona gives new magical backgrounds for the magic-using character in Green Ronin Publishing’s AGE or Adventure Game Engine. These are reasonable Backgrounds, but they feel like half an article because there is no information about these forms of magic given for the Adventure Game Engine. With just that half, both GM and player will have to work hard to supply further detail and flavour.

Diverging further from the issue’s divine theme, “The Scriveners of Allain” further develops background and concepts previously described in Kobold Quarterly #8. Written by Brian A. Liberge for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, it describes glyph and ink magic and the disparate cult devoted to it in the magocracy of Allain. In a Scrivener’s hands, this form of magic summons deadly glyphs that for a time will obey the summoner’s commands, though their diabolic nature makes them wilful servants. Again, this article contains a nice mix of flavour and mechanics. Also for the wizard or sorcerer is David Schwartz’s “White Tongue, Black Heart,” which describes a literally tongue twisting companion for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Known as a Witch Louse, it replaces the mage’s tongue, as his familiar it can help by maintaining the Concentration required to keep a spell going, deliver a nasty bite, give the mage a really disturbingly intimidating countenance, and because of its duplicitous nature, it can enhance his lies. The article is rounded out with a fully-fledged NPC, the enchanter Kergart, who is commonly known as “the man with the silver tongue.”

More entertaining flavour for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game comes with Nicholas Milasich’s “Nine Treasures of Deep Midgard” which describes a nonet of goods, treasures, and trophies that might be brought up from the Underdark. Drow Brandy is a euphoric intoxicant whilst Tinned Heads are literally that, each crafted by the Ghoul Imperium to contain a head that will each serve the owner as a fount of certain knowledge… What brings all of these intriguing items together is their unfamiliarity to surface dwellers, that is, the player characters. Everyone requires an Appraisal skill roll to identify and value each item. Lastly, “The Shadow Lodge Insurgency” describes the events surrounding an attempt to subvert the Pathfinder Society of Golarion, the setting for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As recounted by Marius Scipio, it is a lengthy background piece that is interesting enough, but it lacks an immediate use and brings the issue to disappointing close. This is not to say that it is a bad article, but the issue would have all the better had it included a scenario in its stead.

Rounding out the issue is an entertaining interview with Bill Slavicsek, the former Director of R&D for Dungeons & Dragons as well as freelancer and writer on numerous titles for West End Games’ Star Wars and Torg RPGs. This is in addition to the usual “From the Mines...” (letters) section, cartoons, “Ask the Kobold” column that answers questions about being “Flat-Footed in Heavy Armour,” and the Free City of Zobeck column, “Deadly Tolls and Honest Challenges,” which looks at banditry in the Midgard campaign setting. The issue is without its usual book review column, but it promises to return with issue #22.

Available as an eighty page magazine or a 26.69 Mb PDF, Kobold Quarterly #21 is well presented and pleasingly adheres to its theme although it does need an edit in places. Overall, Kobold Quarterly #21 is another entertaining and useful issue, with plenty to say on matters divine whatever your choice of fantasy RPG. That it does so with maturity and a lack of controversy over what could be contentious issues is a sign that it has come of age.

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The Ogrecave.com Christmas List

It has been vaguely traditional for the past decade that in the first weeks of December, OgreCave.com runs a series lists suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles that you might like to receive and give. Breaking with that tradition – in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond our control, this list is not appearing at OgreCave.com – Reviews from R’lyeh would like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about “Baleful Blandishments” to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days.

Nevertheless, Happy Gaming and enjoy the suggestions. Consider them perfect for purchase for yourself. If the world is to end in 2012 – and the denizens of Reviews from R’lyeh doubt that the stars have come right as yet – then at least enjoy a few last rolls of the dice with a favourite new game…

Elder Sign (Fantasy Flight Games), $34.95
For its third game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Fantasy Flight Games brings us a co-operative dice game of battling the Mythos, monsters, and madmen at Arkham Museum where a concentration of eldritch artefacts have weakened the barriers that prevent the return of an Ancient One. Designed for between one and eight investigators, they must make the best use of their tools, allies, spells, and clues to locate Elder Signs if they are to re-seal the barriers between worlds and so prevent the Ancient One’s return. Fail to find the Elder Signs, and the Ancient One and his minions grow stronger until the investigators must face the Ancient One armed only with their stamina and their sanity. With sixteen investigators to choose from and eight different Ancient Ones to face, Elder Sign offers plenty of replay value as well as a challenge every time. Also available as an App.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box (Paizo Publishing), $35
With this weighty box, Paizo Publishing enables you to get playing one of the most popular and certainly best supported of fantasy RPGs of recent years. Not only is it designed to get you playing quickly by letting you play one of the four pre-generated adventurers and reading up on them while the GM reads the first few encounters, but in the long term, it provides the rules needed to create a human, dwarf, or elf cleric, fighter, rogue, or wizard character and then take that hero from first up to fifth level. The GM gets just as much support, first with an introductory adventure, and then with advice on creating your own in a variety of environments, plus there are maps and tokens for both the characters and the monsters to help bring your adventurers to life on the table. With its slightly streamlined rules and some great art work, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box is an attractively easy way into the hobby.

7 Wonders (Asmodée Éditions), $49.95
If there was one game that deserved to win the “Spiel des Jahres” (German “Game of the Year”) award in 2011, it was 7 Wonders, a civilisation themed card game that can be played with as many as seven players in forty-five minutes. It did not win the “Spiel des Jahres,” but it did win its new bigger brother award, the "Kennerspiel des Jahres" (roughly "Connoisseur-Enthusiast Game of the Year"). Played one card at a time over the course of three ages with players passing their card hands to their neighbour after every turn, 7 Wonders tracks up to seven ancient civilisations as they attempt to establish and trade for resources, build their militaries, enhance their cultures, advance their scientific knowledge, and of course, complete one of the wonders of the age. Not only is 7 Wonders a lovely looking game, its multiple paths to victory give it a high replay value.

Abney Park's Airship Pirates RPG (Cubicle Seven Entertainment), $49.99
In the Neo-Victorian era of 2150 AD, America has become a great wilderness, home to mammoths and sabre-toothed cats, criss-crossed by the tracks of the armoured railroads that connect Emperor Victor III’s walled cities within which nothing ever changes and within which his clockwork policemen ensure nothing ever changes. Freedom can only be found with the Neobedouins who cross the wilderness and aboard the vessels of the airship pirates that sail the skies ready to pounce from behind the clouds. Based on songs of the Seattle Steampunk band, Abney Park, in Airship Pirates the player characters take to the skies in command of a skyship, perhaps as a band or merchants or mercenaries, setting to discover the secrets of this Steampunk, Post-Apocalypse, Pirate, Time Travel RPG!

Paris Connection (Queens Games) $62.99
A surprisingly light game from hard core train game designer/publisher, Winsome Games, Paris Connection has been given an attractive new look by Queen Games. It is a track and share game played across France, the players building six networks out from Paris, connecting to the nation’s various towns, cities, and ports to increase the share value of each network. Every player begins with a hidden allotment of shares, but cannot hide the shares they pick up during the game, often necessary if they are to acquire any shares that are increasing in value. The clever, but still simple aspect of Paris Connection is that its wooden train pieces represent both track pieces and shares in each network, so eventually, every player must ask themselves, at what point do share/track pieces become more valuable as shares than as track? Answering that question will keep this lovely looking, light and quick filler game coming back to the table.

Bookhounds of London (Pelgrane Press), $34.95
The book has always been important to Lovecraftian investigative horror, but Bookhounds of London, written by Ken Hite for Trail of Cthulhu, brings it to the fore like never before. This is a campaign setting in which the investigators are bookhounds in Depression Era London, working the book trade for the “squiz” (an exquisite item in bookseller’s slang) that will keep the doors of their “fine books” shop open. With debts and death duties to pay, England’s finest families have ransacked their extensive libraries leading to the market being flooded with both mundane and esoteric titles. Are the bookhounds willing to make money on these, even if it means selling a copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten to some all too ambitious occultist? These are the choices faced by the book sellers, all played out against fog bound haze of a city full of ancient secrets behind its bureaucratic indifference and metropolitan façade. Bookhounds of London is another seedily evocative campaign from the pen of Ken Hite and another fine book for Trail of Cthulhu.

Discworld: Ankh-Morkpork (Treefrog Games), $60
Lord Vetinari is dead! Or on holiday. Either way, this is your chance to take control of Ankh-Morkpork in what is Martin Wallace’s most a commercial game yet, being based on Terry Prachett’s Discworld novels. Designed for two to four players each with a secret personality and a secret aim – are they Chrysophrase the troll (who wants money), the Dragon King of Arms (who wants to be king again), Sam Vimes of the Guards (who literally does not want any trouble), or Vetinari himself (secretly returned to sniff out his rivals) – Ankh-Morkpork is an area control game in which every action is card driven with every card and its actions being designed around the Discworld personality on each card. Another great looking game, Discworld: Ankh-Morkpork has enough game play for the dedicated gamer and enough theme without too much complexity to be enjoyed by the Discworld fans too.

The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild (Cubicle Seven Entertainment), $59.99
With Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies won, a kind of peace has come to the peoples of Northern Middle Earth. Dangers still lurk beyond the borders of civilisation, whether from the Orc-holds of the mountains or the deepest recesses of Mirkwood where a corrupting foulness resides to reach out again and taint the hearts of the free peoples… This is the setting for The One Ring, the latest RPG based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien that focuses on character and culture, and on the fellowship that the characters form and becomes a character of its own as they progress. Notably, this is a fantasy RPG that does not include any magic casting player characters, but that is perfectly in keeping with Tolkien’s setting. Lastly, it comes as a beautiful rule set complete with maps and dice, all within a sturdy slipcase.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 - Team Asia & Legendary Asia (Days of Wonder), $30
It has been a long wait since Switzerland for what the Ticket to Ride fan really wants: more maps with destinations to reach and routes to claim. With Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 - Team Asia & Legendary Asia, you get not only two maps – on a double-sided board, but two different ways to play. François Valentyne's Legendary Asia map lets you take the long Silk Road or climb the high passes of the Himalayas with the new mountain routes. With Ticket to Ride’s designer Alan R. Moon's Team Asia map, you can add a sixth player by playing in teams of two working together to claim routes. Neither member of a team is allowed to talk strategy with the other, but they can hint at it by playing destination and train cards from their hands to a wooden card holder that both can see. With six of these card holders in this expansion, they can just easily be used in other Ticket to Ride titles or even other games!

The Legacy of Arrius Lurco (Miskatonic River Press), $29.95
In an age when the appearance of a campaign for Call of Cthulhu is a rare occurrence, 2011 brings us a campaign not for Call of Cthulhu, but for its Ancient Rome setting, Cthulhu Invictus. The investigators are asked to look into why wealthy patrician, Arrius Lurco, went missing in Crete years before and why he cannot recall what he did. Uncovering this mystery and the mystery of Lurco’s strange behaviour will take the investigators across the Empire to reveal an ancient horror behind a creature born of legend and a cult prepared to move against the investigators as they uncover its secrets. This is a very different Call of Cthulhu campaign, involving more classic detective work than sifting through dusty libraries, and some quite, quite horrible moments for investigators and players alike. Not a campaign for the timid or anyone looking for an easy game, The Legacy of Arrius Lurco is not only the best campaign for Call of Cthulhu for years, but it also sets the standard by which all future Cthulhu Invictus titles will be measured.

Stars Without Number Core Edition (Mongoose Publishing), $39.99
One of the very few Science Fiction RPGs to come out of the “Old School Renaissance,” Stars Without Number is far from an old school RPG. Rather it is an “Edition Zero” tool kit that comes with everything necessary to both play and build a campaign of the GM’s creation, whether that is set within one of his devising or the setting provided. This is set in the far future in an age of recovery following a long collapse. There are old worlds to be re-discovered, new dangers that have taken advantage of the chaos to be faced, and secrets of the pre-Scream Golden Age to be revealed. Supported by extensive advice and ideas, Stars Without Number is the perfect RPG for exploring a Science Fiction “sandbox.”

Cosmic Patrol (Catalyst Game Labs), $24.99
Inspired by the Golden Age broadcast Science Fiction of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and X MINUS ONE as well as the writings of Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and E.E. “Doc” Smith, Cosmic Patrol is a light storytelling RPG in which the characters are stalwart members of the Grand Union’s last line of defence against a dangerous universe. As Patrolmen, they crew rocketships sent out to explore the galaxy, to investigate its strange phenomena, protect the Solar System, and respond to emergencies as necessary. The mechanics are kept light with everyone taking it turn to narrate scenes in the current adventure with heroics being encouraged. Plus the little rulebook is a work of art itself, looking exactly like a handbook for the Cosmic Patrol itself.

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