Kitten Killing Kuriousity

You have a kitten. You leave the room. The kitten follows you because you are not in the same room. You come back into the room and close the door behind you. The kitten miaows because you shut it out and not because it was kurious. You open a kupboard. The kitten climbs in because it can. You shut the kupboard. The kitten miaows to be let out because you shut it in the kupboard and not because it was kurious. You take a bath. The kitten jumps up on the side of the bath and almost falls in. The kitten looks at you because it is your fault and not because it was kurious.

As the saying goes, “Kuriousity Killed the Kitten.”

The Kitten Killing Kuriousity is the subject of the possibly tastelessly titled kard game, Kittens in a Blender. Published by Red Shift Games, it is a light, silly, simple kard game designed for two to four players aged eight and over. Both the title and the theme of the kard game are both its selling point and its downfall. After all, would you play a kard game in which you try to send your rivals’ kittens to the blender whilst trying to save your own from the whirring blades that can only give you a fur-fang feline smoothie. The problem is the kuriousity of kittens – they will klamber onto anything and that includes the kitchen work surfaces where there are innumerable dangerous appliances, one of them a lidless blender into which the kurious kittens will inevitably klimb. All that it takes is one kurious kitten to lay a fluffy paw upon the switch and MIAO-whirr!-SCRUNCH!!

Which sounds like a hideously tasteless theme for a kard game.

Then again, this is just a kard game and Kittens in a Blender is a great title.

The game consists of one-hundred-and-ten full-kolour kards, two large full-kolour kards, the rules sheet and both the lid and tray of the box that Kittens in a Blender comes in. One of the large kards is The Blender and is placed in the lid of the game box, whilst the other large kard is The Box, which is placed in the tray that the game came in. The rest of the kards konsist of four sets of Kitten kards, each set a different kolour. Each set konsists of sixteen kitten kards and each kitten is given a name, and looks ever so, ever so kute. The remaining kards konsist of the following: 

• “Kitties on the Move,” which allow a player to move between one and three kittens.
• “Blend,” which turns The Blender on, blending all kittens in The Blender, but saving all kittens in The Box and sending all kittens on The Kounter to The Blender (though not blending them… yet!).
• “Blend/Pulse” works like “Blend,” but can also be used to stop another player using a “Blend” card.
• “Dog’s in the Kitchen” forces players to swap hands.
• “Kittens in the Blender” moves all kittens in The Box and in The Kounter into The Blender.
• “These Kittens in the Blender” works like “Kittens in the Blender,” but only affects kittens of one kolour.
• “Kittens on the Kounter” moves all kittens in The Blender and in The Box onto The Kounter.
• “Kittens in the Box” moves all kittens in The Blender and on The Kounter into The Box.

The game starts with The Blender and The Box being placed on the table with a gap between them known as The Kounter. Each player picks a kolour of kittens, his aim being to get as many of that set into The Box and safety as he can whilst sending his rival’s kittens into The Blender. If there are less than four players, then the sets of kittens not in play are removed from the deck. Every player then receives a hand of six kards.

On a turn, a player plays two of his kards, in any order, follows any instructions on them and then draws back up to six. Any player can play any kard, including kitten kards belong to his rivals – these kittens are destined for The Blender. Play continues until all sixteen of the “Blend” and “Blend/Pulse” kards have been played. Then all of the surviving kittens for each player are counted and skored two points apiece. Similarly all of the kittens that were blended – how exactly you can tell one blended kitten from another is not explained – and a point is deducted from a player’s skore for each of his kittens that got blended. The player with the highest skore is the winner.

Objectives and tactics are twofold. Get your kittens into The Box, either from your hand, The Kounter, or The Blender. Get their kittens into The Blender, either from your hand, The Kounter, or The Box. Once there are enough of your kittens in The Box and their kittens in The Blender, play a “Blend” or “Blend/Pulse” kard – your kittens will be safe and go towards your end game skore, whilst theirs just need ice to be a feline frappé and deduct from their skores at the end of the game.

Physically, Kittens in a Blender is an attractive kard game. The kards are bright, breezy, and every one of the kittens on the sixty-four kitten kards is kute. Really kute. The rules are simple and easy to pick up. It could do with another set of kittens and kards to bring up to a maximum of six players, but then we are still waiting for a six-player full game of Ticket to Ride, so there is the possibility.

All right, so the idea behind Kittens in a Blender is a bit tasteless. Ket over it. Ket over yourself. It is just a game and no kittens are actually hurt during play. There is no “Live Action” version of this game. Seriously.

Konsole yourself with the fact that Kittens in a Blender is a not a kreat game. It is too light, too silly, too throwaway. It is though, a fun and silly well done filler of a game, one that can be fitted in between more serious games with kreater depth. We all need a filler game if not a klowder of them. Kittens in a Blender is a kute addition to your filler game klowder.

Plus Kittens in a Blender is a really kreat title.

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Wicked. Witty. Wrong.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the least politically correct card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the funniest card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the vilest card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity: A party game for horrible people is an incredibly simple game of answering innocent questions with horridly hilarious and impishly inappropriate answers. It is easy to learn, plays for anywhere between thirty and ninety minutes, and can be played by between five and twenty players. In playing you will probably either overawe or offend your friends, if not both with the obscene nature of your answers.

Published by Cards Against Humanity, LLC, Cards Against Humanity comes in a chunky little black and white box inside of which can be found a simple rules pamphlet and approximately six hundred cards. Some ninety or so of these are Black Cards, each of which contains a question or statement such as “What did I bring back from Mexico?” or “Alternative medicine is now embracing the curative powers of _____________.” Some Black Cards have two blank spaces, such as “That’s right, I killed _____________. How, you ask? _____________.”. The remaining cards are White Cards, each of which contains a word or phrase, such as “The Chinese gymnastics team,” “Guys who don’t call,” and “Binging and purging.” The White Cards are used to answer the question or fill in the blank, or blanks if the Black Card has more than one, presented on the Black Cards.

Game play is very simple. At game start, each player is dealt a hand of ten White Cards. One person starts the game as “Card Czar” and draws a Black Card and reads out question or phrase on the card aloud. Every other player selects a White Card from his hand which he thinks is the most suitable – the wittiest, funniest, most offensive, or will be appreciated the most by the Card Czar – and passes it to the Card Czar face down. The Card Czar shuffles the White Cards that he has been given and then reads out the question or phrase on his Black Card, each time answering the question or filling in the blank in the phrase with a word or phrase from the White Cards. Once all of the White Cards have been read out, the Card Czar chooses his favourite answer from the White Cards. Whomever played the winning White Card receives the Black Card as an Awesome Point. Then the next player becomes the Card Czar, everyone draws back up to ten White Cards, and a new round begins.

So for example, as Card Czar, Michelle draws a Black Card and reads it aloud: “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to _____________.” Going round the table, Dave plays “Unfathomable Stupidity.”, Anthony plays “Cheating in the Special Olympics.”, Hugh plays “A Gypsy curse.”, and I play “Britney at 55.” Michele takes these White Cards and after shuffling them, reads them out as follows:

• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Cheating in the Special Olympics.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Unfathomable Stupidity.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Britney at 55.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘A Gypsy curse.’”

Michelle looks the White Cards over and after a moment or two’s deliberation chooses “Britney at 55.” as the most appropriate answer. I get to keep the Black Card as an Awesome Point.

Play progresses in this fashion until the game ends. This can either be when all of the Black Cards in the game have been played, in which case the player with the most Awesome Points win; or when a player gains enough Awesome Points to reach a previously agreed upon total and thus win the game.

Physically, Cards Against Humanity is very simply presented. The cards are all two tone, black and white. None of them are illustrated. The text on each one is easy to read and the rules are similarly as easy to read.

Cards Against Humanity is huge fun to play, even if the examples given above do not wholly capture how much fun it is. Part of the issue with that is the fact that were I to include some of the answers given on the White Cards, I would attract undue attention from search engines. They can often be of an adult nature and that does not fall within the remit of Reviews from R’lyeh. That issue though is more to do with this site rather the game itself.

The most obvious fact about Cards Against Humanity is that it plays in a very similar fashion to Apples to Apples in that each turn one player has to match answers from each of the other player's hand to a given question. Which is something of a problem. Apples to Apples includes hundreds of questions and thousands of answers, so it offers plenty of replay value. Even then I tend to find its game play a little too light and unsatisfying if played too often. Cards Against Humanity contains fewer cards so suffers from the same problem, though probably to a greater degree, and playing it too often will spoil its crass charms. That said, in addition to the simple rules provided, the rule pamphlet gives rules for upping the stakes each round as well as eight house rules that can be added for variety.

One obvious problem with Cards Against Humanity is that it is an American game – then again, so was Apples to Apples originally, although it has since received versions in other languages and specifically for other nations. Some of the answers on the White Cards are specifically American such as “Dental dams.”, “Aaron Burr.”, and “Shaquille O’Neal’s acting career.” There is no way around this, bar creating your own cards, which is perfectly possible given that Cards Against Humanity can actually be downloaded from the publisher’s website and printed out for free. In the meantime, we will only have to wait for nation specific cards.

Further, its very American nature is not helped by its lack of availability. The game sells out very quickly it is true, but it is only available in the USA or in Canada. Where it is available internationally, the prices can be exorbitant. Nor is it available internationally via Amazon.com, which would have been the easiest of solutions to the problem. (In case you were wondering, I did buy it via Amazon.com and then had it shipped from the USA by a friend).

The biggest problem though with Cards Against Humanity is its humour. Putting the answers on the White Cards together with the Black Cards can give results that make you wince at their tastelessness and whoop with laughter at the same time. Many of the answers refer to sexual acts – hence the game having a minimum playing age of seventeen years – and other adult references. This is not a game for anyone of a “conservative with a small ‘c’” persuasion as Cards Against Humanity will easily offend them. Nor is it for anyone of a “Conservative with a big ‘C’” persuasion as Cards Against Humanity does have a Left Wing bias. Or at least the designers just have a deep and abiding hatred of Glenn Beck. (In all likelihood, to balance this out in a rare case of political balance, it appears from the rules that the game’s designers have hired Former Vice President Dick Cheney to handle their complaints and legal department).

Once you have a copy of Cards Against Humanity, you will chortle, you will cry, and you will cringe. Not necessarily a game to play with your family, Cards Against Humanity needs likeminded people who share its humour to get the most out of it, but it should not be overplayed or it will lose its appeal. Although slightly heavy to carry around, it works well as a convention game and as a pick-up game, possibly at the bar or just with a drink to hand. Going where almost no card game has gone before, Cards Against Humanity is a sublimely sinful satire.

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Cthulhu Chaos

First published 1996, Fluxxis both a card game and a state in which the card game exists. Published by Looney Labs, it is a game about matching conditional states which through the course of the game can flux and change. It is a chaotic game, one in which both the rules and the conditions to win can alter from one card play to the next. The play of Fluxx starts of simple. A player can Draw one card, Play one card. After that, cards can quickly alter the number of cards that a player can Draw, can Play, and even hold in his Hand. Each player’s aim is to get cards called Keepers down onto the table. If these Keepers match those on the Goal on the table, then the player wins. Of course, a player’s Keepers can change as easily as the Goal. Nothing is permanent in a Fluxxgame, and that lack of permanency means that sometimes a player can win when it is not his turn because his Keepers meet the condition of the Goal.

 The state of the game is one of constant evolution, the current version of the base game being Fluxx 5.0, with there being another ten themed variants available, from Zombie Fluxx and Pirate Fluxxto Martian Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx to the very latest variant, Cthulhu Fluxx. Designed by Keith Baker – who designed Atlas Games’Origins Award winning Gloom and its variant Cthulhu Gloom – Cthulhu Fluxxbrings the Mythos of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft to cosmic state of Fluxxand infuses it with a dark chaos. In doing so, it brings the Creeper mechanic – first seen in Zombie Fluxx – to bear as never before and adds new mechanics to the game that simulate the madness and chaos that ensues when the forces of the Mythos grow stronger and threaten the insanities of those that attempt to thwart it. The effect of the Creepers and the new mechanics is that it is entirely possible for there not to be a winner. Purely in keeping with the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, the “forces” of the Mythos can triumph over mankind and doom us all to our inevitable fate… Perhaps though, the human spirit will prevail and stave off these revelations as to the true nature of the universe.

 Cthulhu Fluxx is all about change and chaos and adapting to that change and chaos.

Standard Fluxx, is well, Fluxx. It is a game about change and to an extent, chaos. Unlike many of the other variants, Cthulhu Fluxx succeeds in exacerbating that chaos in a pleasingly fitting fashion. It brings a complexity and a theme that fits the game mechanics, and in doing so, brings it a depth and a seriousness – all relative, granted – that other Fluxx games lack. More demanding, more complex, more chaotic, more Cthulhu, Cthulhu Fluxxis not your fluffy Fluxx of old.

Much of the game’s flavour and theme shows in the choice of Keepers that the players are trying to match with the Goals and thus win Cthulhu Fluxx. The designer draws on innumerable Lovecraft tales as inspiration for the game’s cards. For example, Keepers include “The Dreamlands,” “The Poet,” “The Necronomicon,” “The Cat,” “Innsmouth,” and “The Reanimator” and more. Some Keepers have special abilities, like “The Reanimator” being able to steal “The Body” Creeper if it is in play. The Goals include “Pickman’s Model” which requires the “Ghoul” and “Artist” Keepers to win; “Herbert West: Reanimator!” will want “The Body” and “The Reanimator” to win; and “Penguin Therapy” needs the “Sanitorium” and “Penguins” Keepers to win. Already the inspirations for cards – Pickman’s Model, Herbert West: Reanimator!, and At the Mountains of Madness – should be obvious to most devote and part of the pleasure in playing the game lies in identifying the inspiration and to a certain extent playing along to the narrative of the particular inspiration.

 What stands in the way of both Keepers and Goals for each player is not just his rivals, but two other types of cards – the Creeper and the Ungoal. First seen in Zombie Fluxx, Creepers come out of a player’s hand as soon as he draws them to sit on the table and prevent him from winning. In Cthulhu Fluxx, Creepers are can be as much Mythos entities such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth as they can states like Madness and Metamorphosis. Whilst Creepers prevent you from winning, the Creepers that represent a state, actually inflict that state on a Keeper by attaching themselves to it and negating any special ability that the Keeper might have. So for example, “Nightmares” attaches itself to a Keeper that has an Investigator Icon on it like “The Reanimator,” negating its ability to steal “The Body” Creeper if it is in play. Creepers remain on the table until they can be got rid of, which is not easy. When a Creeper is attached to a Keeper, both cards stay together until both are discarded.

 Despite this, Creepers are not wholly negative. Some Goals have to be met by playing Creepers and Keepers. For example, the “Herbert West: Reanimator!” Goal requires the “The Reanimator” Keeper and “The Body” Creeper to be all in play to win for that Goal.

 Ungoals represent the forces of the Mythos – or in this case, Cthulhu Fluxx – beating the players and winning the game. For example, under the terms of “The Call of Cthulhu” Ungoal, Cthulhu Fluxx wins if there are six or more Doom Icons in play and the “Cthulhu” Creeper card is also in play. This of course is bad. It is of course, doubly bad because the “Cthulhu” Creeper card actually adds three Doom Icons all by itself!

 Cthulhu Fluxxalso has two other types of card. Surprise cards can be played when it is not a player’s turn or when it is. For example, the “Secret Cultist” can win the game for a player or it can hinder him. When played during his turn, it reveals the player as a secret cultist and forces him to lose his next turn. If played when the conditions of an Ungoal are met and the game is ended and lost by the players, then it reveals the player as a secret cultist, who as a devotee of the Old Ones actually wins the game rather than Cthulhu Fluxx itself. The last card type is the Meta Rule, which is only added with everyone’s consent. There is only one included in Cthulhu Fluxx, “Cult Clash,” which adds a final winning condition if an Ungoal loses everyone the game. The player with the most Doom Icons actually wins, unless another player can play the “Secret Cultist” Surprise card and trump everyone in the “Who is the Most Evil” stakes.

 Like other Fluxxtitles, Cthulhu Fluxx is all about meeting a certain condition if a player is to win. Of course, this is never easy, because not only can the conditions change from one turn to the next – and even within a turn, but so can the means of meeting them. As has been hinted at, Cthulhu Fluxx increases the array of conditions beyond the matching of Keeper and Creeper cards with a Goal card by adding Icons. These are the magnifying glass shaped Investigator Icons, the hour-glass shaped Doom Icons, and the hour-glass on its side, Anti-Doom Icons. Investigator Icons are found certain Keeper cards; Doom Icons on Creeper cards and Keeper cards; and Anti-Doom Icons on Keeper cards. Of course Doom and Anti-Doom Icons cancel each other out when determining the total number of Doom Icons are in play for purposes of meeting the conditions of an Ungoal.

 The need to play both Keepers and Creepers in order to meet a Goal card’s conditions has a further negative effect in that both can add Doom Icons to the game and increase the Doom count towards any possible Ungoal. For example, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” requires the “Innsmouth” Keeper and either the “Federal Agents” Keeper or the “Metamorphosis” Creeper to win. Yet both the “Innsmouth” Keeper and the “Metamorphosis” Creeper cards add Doom Icons to the count.

 Mechanically, the play of Cthulhu Fluxx is simple. Every player receives three cards and when it is his turn he follows the Basic Rule card of drawing one card, playing one card. If he has any Creeper cards at any time, these must be played on the table, invariably increasing the Doom count. If a player draws and plays a Creeper card, he gets to draw a card again to his hand replacing the Creeper just played. New Rule cards will change the number of cards that can be drawn, played, or held, while Action cards give him extra things that a player can do immediately. Action, Keeper, Goal, and Ungoal cards are played in the hope that in doing so a player will get nearer to winning, although often, the current rules on the New Rule cards in play will force a player to play them despite the fact that he might want to save them for a later turn. Or they might force him to discard them.

 Fluxx is all about change and adapting to that change.

 Yet as player moves cards in and out of his hand, he needs to read those cards, more so than most Fluxxgames. The number of possible conditions that can win a game in Cthulhu Fluxx is greater than normal Fluxxbecause of the need to track the Doom and Anti-Doom Icons, making this a more conditionally complex game. Compared to standard Fluxx, this is a much more complex game.

 Physically, as with all of the Fluxxgames, Cthulhu Fluxx is well produced, the art is good – in fact it is better than many other Fluxxtitles as their art can be cartoon-like – and the rules are solidly explained. Additionally the cards feel good in the hand and do stand up to being handled.

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Star Wars IV

When it comes to licenses, the roleplaying hobby has a holy trinity – The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars. In almost forty years of the hobby, there have been four RPGs set within Middle Earth, five within the Star Trek universe, and three set in the Star Wars universe. As of 2012, it looked as if only the one of this holy trinity was available on the shelves at your local gaming store, Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s The One Ring RPG, but thanks to Fantasy Flight Games, there is a second member of the holy trinity. It is not Star Trek, as that franchise can be best described as being on hold, but rather Star Wars. And there are three curious facts about the new, fourth Star Wars RPG.

The first is that it is not “technically” available yet. Released at GenCon 2012, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is in “beta” test; in other words, the version of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire available to purchase is not the version that will eventually be available. It is a playtest version, Fantasy Flight Games soliciting feedback from its purchasers that will affect the final release, the first of which will be Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game. The second fact is that Star Wars: Edge of the Empire employs its own dice with their own symbols, both positive and negative, much as the publisher’s earlier Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay did. This might dissuade some people from looking at Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, but the mechanics of the new RPG when compared to its predecessor are less fussy, more streamlined, and have the appearance of a roleplaying game rather than a board game as many detractors of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay claimed. The third fact concerns the special dice needed to play the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire beta. None are available. The book addresses this in two ways. First it gives a table which breaks down the type of dice needed and the symbols that should be on each die, and second, it gives a sheet of stickers that can be placed on the faces of the dice needed. How adhesive these stickers are and how well they will hold up to regular handling is another matter, especially given that there are not enough stickers for all of the dice that both a GM and his players will need.

In addition, Fantasy Flight Games addresses the lack of dice by making available an App that handles the dice rolling in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. It is available for sale for both Apple and Android formats. Lastly, the dice needed for the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire beta are similar to those used in the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures combat game. The dice used are not exactly the same, but it does point towards, as does the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, the compatibility of the two.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is not just a generic Star Wars RPG in that it has a specific setting, and although it is a standalone core rulebook, it is part of a trilogy. All three titles in the trilogy take place at the height of the Rebel Alliance’s struggle against the Galactic Empire, and each one presents the period from a different perspective. As its title suggests, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is set on the Outer Rim at the furthest extent of the Galactic Empire’s reach, a region that is home to scum and villainy as well as explorers and colonists, all with concerns beyond the rule of law or the rule of tyranny. Fantasy Flight Games will follow this up with Star Wars: Age of Rebellion and then Star Wars: Force and Destiny. In the former, the players confront the Galactic Empire as the wily spies, brash pilots, and loyal soldiery of the Rebel Alliance; whilst in the latter, the players take on the roles of the last of the Jedi, feared and hunted by the Empire. Which if you are aware of Fantasy Flight Games’ other RPGs, you will realise that this follows the model of the RPGs set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 milieu – Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch – each entry representing a step up in terms of player character power and capability.

In Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, the players take the roles of Bothans, Droids (Class Four), Gands, Humans, Rodians, Trandoshans, Twi’leks, and Wookies, who can have Careers as  Bounty Hunters, Colonists, Explorers, Hired Guns, Smugglers, and Technicians. A character’s species sets a character’s base Abilities and Characteristics, as well as his starting Experience Points. A character’s Career determines his skills and available Specialisations. A Specialisation further defines a character, granting him not only extra skills and extra career skills, but also access to Talents which give him certain advantages. Each Career has three Specialisations, each with its own tree of Talents. For example, the Smuggler Career has the Pilot, Scoundrel, and Thief Specialisations, whilst the Colonist Career has the Doctor, Politico, and Scholar Specialisations. A character begins the game with just the one Specialisation, but he can buy more up to maximum of three from any Career. Those from his own Career are cheaper than those that are not. Talents can then be purchased from these Specialisations.

Besides starting Credits, every character starts the game with a Motivation and an Obligation. A Motivation is essentially the character’s primary drive, whilst his Obligation is something much more, both in terms of game play and mechanics. An Obligation can be Addiction, Debt, Oath, or Obsession, each player character possessing a different one, but all of them contributing towards a group total that works as the group’s social standing in the Outer Rim (too low and a crime boss might not do them a favour, too high and their criminal reputation precedes them), and the chance that one of the character’s Obligation weighs heavily on the group that session. Of course, both the group Obligation and the individual Obligations can be used to drive a campaign’s narrative. Every character contributes an equal Obligation value to the group total, but he can contribute more in return for more Experience Points or more Credits to spend during character creation. Lastly a character gets to buy equipment.

Character generation is far from difficult, and it can be done fairly quickly. Initially, the choice of species and Careers looks limited, but the choice of Specialisations within each Career provides both flexibility and a wide choice in terms of Career skills and Talents. By combining them in various ways, a player could create a gambler turned administrator (Scoundrel Specialisation from the Smuggler Career with the Politico Specialisation from the Colonist Career); a farmer turned flyboy (Mechanic Specialisation from the Technician Career with the Pilot Specialisation from the Smuggler Career); and a soldier turned bounty hunter (Mercenary Specialisation from The Hired Gun Career with the Assassin Specialisation from the Bounty Hunter Career); and so on. What is curious about the process is what is missing. First off, there are no Protocol or Astromech Droids. What there is in their stead is the Droid (Class Four) “species,” a type of Droid that is programmed to use weapons, much like the infamous bounty hunter, IG-88. The other curious omission is the lack of Force users in the available choice of Careers, but such roles are not the focus of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.

For the sample character, I set out to create an old Star Wars character that I have played in two different campaigns using West End Games’ original version of the Star Wars RPG. Arkady Quayn is an Honours graduate of both the Imperial Academy and the Tir training school, who after flight school decided that deserting was better than serving. He fled to the Outer Rim rather than join the Rebellion and has been making a living as a thief for hire. Of course, this is not his first choice of career, or even his second, but he likes good wine, dice, and the cards. (Note that skills listed as having a rating of “0” are actually unskilled Career skills).

Arkady Quayn
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Career: Smuggler
Specialisations: Pilot, Thief
Obligation: Bounty (+10)
Motivation: Greed
Brawn 2 Cunning 3
Presence 2 Agility 3
Intellect 2 Willpower 2
Skills: Astrogation 1, Coordination 1, Deceit 2, Gunnery 0, Perception 0, Pilot (Planet) 0, Pilot (Space) 2, Skulduggery 2, Stealth 1, Streetwise 1, Vigilance 1, Knowledge (Underworld) 1
Talents: Bypass Security/1, Galaxy Mapper/1, Indistinguishable, Skilled Jockey/1
Wound Threshold: 12
Strain Threshold: 12
Credits 500

To do anything in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire requires the player to assemble a pool of dice. These are drawn from the RPG’s six dice types. The eight-sided Ability dice, the twelve-sided Proficiency dice, and the six-sided Boost dice are positive dice, whilst the eight-sided Difficulty dice, the twelve-sided Challenge dice, and the six-sided Setback dice are negative dice. The Ability dice represent a character’s base skill or aptitude, the Proficiency dice his innate ability and training, whilst Boost dice are benefits granted from the situation. The Difficulty dice represent the task’s inherent complexity, the Challenge dice more extreme adversity; and Setback dice obstacles that come from the situation. The positive dice are marked with Success, Advantage, and Triumph symbols, all of which a player wants to roll, as opposed to the Failure, Threat, and Despair symbols on the negative dice.

When rolled, the opposing symbols on the dice cancel each other out, but a player only needs to roll a single Success to succeed at a task. At its heart though, the dice mechanic Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is orientated towards a narrative outcome rather than a simple binary yes/no outcome. Thus the symbols rolled will actually tell the story of the outcome. For example, a character might roll a simple number of Successes; no Successes, but an Advantage or two; or a number of Failures and several Triumphs; and so on. How these outcomes are interpreted perhaps represents the most challenging aspect of the game.

Our sample action finds Arkady Quayn attempting to break into an evidence locker as a “favour” to Xyras Chupa-Pau, a local businessman. Breaking the lock is hampered by the fact that it is dark and raining, and by the fact that it needs to be done without alerting the security guards. Fortunately, Arkady has a SysTek Security Breaker electronic lock breaker and is wearing scanner goggles. He also has the Talent of Bypass Security/1, which will help him get past this lock. With this information his player begins to assemble the dice pool. From his Cunning score of 3, he gains three Ability dice, of which two are upgraded to Proficiency dice by his Skulduggery skill of 2, so currently he is rolling one Ability die, and two Proficiency dice. The GM assigns three Difficulty dice for the quality of the lock, and because it has an intrusion alert subroutine, upgrades on of the three Difficulty dice to a Challenge die. He also adds two Setback dice for the darkness and the weather, Arkady’s player counters these with the scanner goggles and the electronic lock breaker, and so receives two Boost dice. Even better, Arkady’s Talent of Bypass Security/1 means that he can remove one Setback die from the roll. So all together, Arkady’s player is rolling one Ability die, two Proficiency dice, two Boost dice, two Difficulty dice, one Challenge die, and lastly, just the one Setback die.

Rolling the dice gives four Success and four Advantage symbols, as well as two Threat symbols, and one Despair symbol. The Despair symbol also counts as a Failure symbol, which gives four Success and four Advantage symbols, one Failure symbol, two Threat symbols, and one Despair symbol. The Failure symbol cancels out one Success, the two Threat symbols cancel out two Advantage symbols, leaving a result of three Success, two Advantage, and one Despair symbol. Arkady has definitely got inside the evidence locker, and with ease; plus the Advantage symbols means that not only was the intrusion alert subroutine not triggered, but when the security patrol comes back around the door will appear to be still locked. Unfortunately, the Despair symbol means that water got into circuits of the lock breaker and temporarily shorted it out. It will need repairing if Arkady wants to use it again.

In addition, both the players and the GM have access to another resource during a session – Destiny Points. These have a light side, useable only by the players; and a dark side, useable by the GM. A player can spend them to upgrade one of his Ability dice to a Proficiency die in a skill check; to upgrade a Difficulty die to a Challenge die in a NPC’s skill check; to activate certain Talents; and to add certain small elements to help the game’s narrative. The clever aspect to Destiny Points is that when a player uses a light side Destiny Point, it becomes a dark side Destiny Point, and vice versa. This adds a certain narrative flow to the game, back and forth, as events go in, and against, the player characters’ favour.

The number of Destiny Points available at the start of each session is determined by a seventh die type, the Force die. This is a twelve-sided die that generates one or two Destiny Points, either dark side or light side. The Force die is also used when a player character uses Force Power. Although in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, the Force is not the focus of the game or the setting, but rules for them are given, and with the GM’s permission, a player character can become Force sensitive and gain another Characteristic, that of Force. This starts at a value of one, but can be increased later on. This is done by purchasing the Force Exile Specialisation, which counts against a character’s three Specialisation limit and grants access to the Force Exile Talent Tree as well as the Trees for the Force Powers of Sense, Influence, Move, and Control. The rules for these all work fairly simply, and cost more to purchase as they are counted outside of a player character’s chosen Career.

Thus the second sample character is a Force Sensitive. A noted doctor on Ryloth, Kinsa Tualin went on the run after Imperial agents took an interest in her. She fled to the Outer Rim to hide, but has no idea why the Empire would be taking an interest in her. Currently she owes money to those who arranged passage for her, and often provides medical aid to their associates. By day she works as a doctor serving the poor. She has no idea that she is Force sensitive and does not believe in the existence of the Force. Her Force Sensitivity manifests as particularly sharp perception, represented by her Uncanny Senses/1 Talent.

Kinsa Tualin
Race: Twi’lek
Career: Colonist
Specialisations: Doctor, Force Exile, Politico
Obligation: Criminal
Motivation: The Weak/Charity
Brawn 1 Cunning 2
Presence 3 Agility 2
Intellect 3 Willpower 2
Force 1
Skills: Charm 2, Coerce 0, Cool 1, Deceit 0, Knowledge (Core Worlds) 1, Knowledge (Education) 2, Knowledge (Lore) 0, Leadership 1, Medicine 2, Perception 1, Negotiation 1, Streetwise 0
Talents: Grit/1, Kill with Kindness/1, Surgeon/1, Uncanny Senses/1
Wound Threshold: 11
Strain Threshold: 12
Credits 500

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire uses the same mechanics throughout, extending them into its combat system for both personal combat and starship combat. The rules go into more detail how a player can spend rolled Advantage and Triumph symbols, such as performing an extra manoeuvre or aiding an ally by granting him a Boost die on his next action; and a GM spend Threat and Despair symbols, like tripping a character up or having a player character’s weapon run out of ammunition. A character can take damage in two ways. First, he can take Wounds, from being shot with a blaster or being caught in an explosion. Suffer too much and a character will suffer critical wounds. He can also suffer from Strain damage, representing his suffering anxiety, stress, fear, heat stroke, and so on. A character can also suffer from Strain damage by exerting himself, usually to activate certain Talents.

In terms of background support, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire comes with two good sections; the first on arms and equipment, and the other on vehicles, both planetary and interstellar. Both describe an array of devices that the player characters will use and have used against them, along with rules for customisation and modification. This allows a player character to fit an automatic re-cocker to his bowcaster or a reinforced shield generator to his GHTROC 720 Light Freighter. After all, a Technician has to do something in the game other than make repairs to his allies’ equipment. Numerous pieces of equipment and starships are described, with many of them being also named, though not the personal weapons.

The GM advice focuses on the handling of the game’s rules. In particular, the interpreting of the results of the dice pools. It also gives advice on how to use Motivation, Obligation, and Destiny Points. He is also given an array of adversaries, comprised of minions, henchmen, and nemeses. These are drawn from the Galactic Underworld and the forces of Law & Order, as well as spaceport personnel, bounty hunters, patrons, clients, droids, and oddities. Rounding out Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is the scenario, “Crates of Krayts,” in which a startship crew in debt get a chance to work off some of the monies owed by doing a little job and getting involved in underworld shenanigans.

Being a playtest beta, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is missing one or two elements. It is only very lightly illustrated for example, and there is very little background material about the Outer Rim given to support the GM. This is no surprise, given that the beta is designed to have its rules and mechanics playtested, rather than present a whole, fully-rounded game. Then again, the mechanics give all of the elements that a Star Wars RPG should have – the character species, the Careers and Specialisations, the spaceships, and so on – and beyond that, the Star Wars universe should be familiar enough to most GMs and most players. That said, it is a little rough in places and could do with a closer edit, but this is a beta, and a beta need not be perfect.

So the question is, does Star Wars: Edge of the Empire feel like a Star Wars RPG? Does it feel like it could be used to run a Star Wars game? The answer to both questions is a definite yes. The mechanics feel as if they will support the somewhat cinematic action of the genre, and they also allow room for player input with the narrative output of the dice pool system. If there is an issue around the dice beyond that of their unavailability, it is the learning curve attached to assembling and interpreting the rolls. Especially the latter as the results are not always going to be straightforward and linear.

Some may also complain that Star Wars: Edge of the Empire constrains what characters that can be played and what type of games that can be run. To a point they would be correct, but there are options aplenty in terms of character design – it is all a matter of mixing and matching the Careers and Specialisations – and whilst Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is not necessarily a game in which the player characters will be taking the fight to the Empire or be founding Jedi order again. That leaves the whole of the Outer Rim to explore, more than one Hutt to be played off against another Hutt, and Imperial entanglements to be avoided. Plus there is the matter of what brought the player characters to the Outer Rim to be explored. (Curiously this is also what makes it feel just a little like a “Space Western” or rather a Firefly RPG, though one with aliens and blasters and the Force… But then which came first, Firefly or Star Wars?).

Above all, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire does feel like a Star Wars RPG. It feels like it can handle both the action and the drama whilst letting the players bring elements to the game. At the moment it might be undergoing a playtest process, but the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire beta requires relatively little tweaking before the finalised version makes a welcome return to our gaming shelves.

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Cthulhu Construction Kit

A little knowledge is dangerous thing. You and your friends have been reading things that no man should. Now, armed with a family friendly copy of Das Necronomicon, you want to be the first to have your own Elder God, even if that means doing it in your own backyard. As a devoted cultist of unnameable things, you want to prove that devotion by being the first to build said Elder God. If that means taking your trusty Remington Autoloading Model 11-87™ shotgun, sneaking into their yards, and blasting a hole in the tentacles of their Elder Gods, well surely that is a sign of your true devotion, right?

This is the set-up for Building an Elder God – A Game of Lovecraftian Construction, the first game from Signal Fire Studios. Designed for play by two to five players, aged six and up, it is a casual card game can be played in about twenty minutes or so. The aim of the game is the first to build an Elder God of a certain length, this length varying according to the number of players. The play of the game means that a reasonably sized table is required.

The game consists of one-hundred-and-twenty full colour cards and a large, four-page rules leaflet. The cards consist of Monster, Damage, Immune, Elder Sign, and Necronomicon cards, with the Monster cards further divided in Body, Mouth, Tentacle, Split, Eyestalk, and Mouth cards. The Monster cards are what you use to build your Elder God; the Damage cards to blast holes in your rivals’ Elder Gods; the Immune cards to protect against Damage cards; and the Necronomicon cards are used to heal your Elder God when it takes damage. The Elder Sign cards are used in a variant to banish parts of both a rival’s Elder God and your Elder God. All of the cards are done in full colour, with the Monster cards depicting tentacular body parts in Mythosy green and the Damage cards being spattered with deep burgundy ichor.

Each player starts the game with a Body, a Mouth, and two Necronomicon cards, as well as a hand of five cards. The Body card is placed down on the table with the open end facing away from him. On a turn, a player draws a fresh card and then plays one card. This can be to grow his Elder God by adding a Tentacle, a Split, or an Eyestalk card. Any card played in this fashion must be played vertically, which means that each player’s Elder God will grow towards the centre of the table. If a player manages to lay down the number of Monster cards required to win, he can top off his Elder God with its Mouth after laying the last Monster card and can thus win the game.

Alternatively, a player can attack a rival’s Elder God by blasting a hole in it with a Damage card, or if a player’s Elder God is damaged, he can heal it. This can be done with either one of his Necronomicon cards or with a Body card that matches the damaged one.

And that is about that. Physically, Building an Elder God is an attractive game, although given its intended age range, it is a pity that the cards could not have been done on a glossy stock better able to handle sticky fingers. The rules are clearly written, though it would have been nice if they had been done in colour.

If there is an issue with Building an Elder God it is the intended age range. Whilst the game is simple enough, its subject matter might not be suitable to players as young as six years old. Unless of course, they have already been inducted into the worship of the Elder Gods. At the other end of the scale, Building an Elder God might be too casual a game and too light a treatment of its subject – even for what is a filler game. Otherwise, Building an Elder God – A Game of Lovecraftian Construction is something quick and simple, not to say undemanding, to play between or before other games.

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Pulp Cthulhu

It should be remembered that for twenty years, the only way to play Lovecraftian investigative horror was Chaosium Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu. In 2002, Wizards of the Coast’s d20 Cthulhu

 offered another option, and in the last decade we have been offered PelgranePress’ clue orientated Trail of Cthulhu; Reality Deviant Publications’ more structured Shadows of Cthulhuusing the d20 System distilled True20; CthulhuTech, a combination of science-fiction and horror roleplaying from Wildfire LLC; Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s bureaucratic approach to fighting the Mythos with The Laundry; as well as Reality Blurs’ Realms of Cthulhu, which in being written for use with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, actually pre-empted the arrival of Pulp Cthulhu, a supplement that is yet to arrive for Call of Cthulhu. That supplement promises a new approach to playing Call of Cthulhu, one that is more action orientated, more cinematic, more adventurous… In the absence of that supplement, Realms of Cthulhu is quite possibly the pretender to its throne.

First published in 2003, Savage Worlds is a light, fast playing RPG that sets out to do two things – cinematic action and mass combat as well as handle roleplaying. In the past ten years, it has been used to power an array of settings and campaigns, the best known being Fifty Fathoms and Deadlands Reloaded, both also from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. For much of that time, Savage Worlds has been available in an Explorer Edition, a handy sized, inexpensive rulebook that provided the basics of the rules. The rules have since been republished in a new ThirdEdition, which saw some changes that do mean that Realms of Cthulhu is slightly incompatible with the new version of the rules, since Realms of Cthulhu was published in 2009. That said, the differences are slight.

The changes to Savage Worlds in order to make it one of Lovecraftian investigative horror start with character generation. The process in Savage Worlds involves assigning points to improve the die types for a character’s five traits and then more points to purchase skills, which are again measured by die type. Thus a skill of Shooting d8 is better than a Shooting of d6. In addition characters can have Edges and Hindrances – the equivalent of Advantages and Disadvantages in other RPGs – that set them apart from ordinary men and women. Apart from the addition of the skill, Knowledge (Mythos) – the equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos skill in Call of Cthulhu, the major addition to character creation in Realms of Cthulhuis that of “Defining Interests.” In Savage Worlds a character usually speaks a number of languages equal to half of his Smarts die type, so three languages for Smarts d6 and so on, but in Realms of Cthulhu a character has a number of “Defining Interests,” hobbies, knowledges, crafts, and so on, again also equal to half of his Smarts die type. This factor also has to take a character’s languages as well, and for each Defining Interest, for example, Archaeology, City Knowledge (Boston), Electrical Repair, Oratory, and so on, he gains a bonus to his Common Knowledge rolls (this being the equivalent of a character’s Know roll in Call of Cthulhu). Now a character’s Defining Interests also encompass what languages that he knows, which does mean that a character has to choose between focusing on one or the other. That said, the addition of these Defining Interests takes into account the fact that Lovecraftian investigative horror is primarily about what you know, rather than what you can do. In contrast, Savage Worlds tends to be more about what you can do than what you know, which is the case with Call of Cthulhu.

The sample character is Henry Brinded, one of my signature characters that I have used several times over the last decade or so. Indeed, he will be appearing as one of the starting pre-generated investigators in the forthcoming Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion for Call of Cthulhu. Of Boston Brahmin stock, Henry Brinded is a former Classics scholar at Yale who served as an artillery officer in the Great War. He returned partially deaf and with an aversion to loud noises, and unable to withstand the stress of continuing his studies, used his inheritance to open a small, antiquarian bookshop in his native Boston. He enjoys painting and sailing where he used to enjoy hunting, and employs one member of staff, Mrs. Rutherford, to help source and restore rare books.

Henry Brinded

Agility d6 Smarts d8 Spirit d6 Strength d4 Vigor d6

Edges:Linguist, Noble, Scholar

Hindrances:Curious (Major), Hard of Hearing (Minor), Pacifist (Minor)

Skills:Boating d4, Guts d6, Investigation d4, Knowledge (Ancient Greek) d6, Knowledge (History) d8, Knowledge (Latin) d8, Notice d4, Persuasion d4, Shooting d4

Defining Interests:Archaeology, Book Restoration, Etiquette, Painting

Languages:Arabic, French, German, Hebrew

Pace 6

Parry: 4 Charisma+2 Toughness 5

Sanity 5 Corruption0

The second addition is the Sanity factor, which works much like Toughness. When inflicted physical damage exceeds a character’s Toughness, he can be “Shaken.” If the damage exceeds a character’s Toughness by a large amount, then he can be Wounded. When faced with a shocking incident or entity, a character will often be asked to make a Guts skill check. This is modified by the Terror or Fear strength of the situation or entity faced (Terror is actually explained on p.117 of Realms of Cthulhu, a fact that should be noted as it is not mentioned in the index and it is mentioned long before this). For example, encountering a Deep One forces a Guts skill check at a Terror penalty of –1. If the Guts skill check is failed, the mental damage inflicted on the frightened character is called Mental Anguish, which for the Deep One is “Spirit+d4” with the Deep One Spirit trait being d6. This means that both dice are rolled and result compared to the character’s Sanity. For every four points that the Mental Anguish roll exceeds his Sanity by, then the character suffers a point of Madness. A player character can suffer no more than four points of Madness before going insane. Each point of Madness inflicts a –1 penalty on a character’s Pace (movement) and all trait and skill rolls. This Madness can be addressed within the hour with immediate rest, reassurance, and the application of the Knowledge (Psychology) skill, success leading to the positive loss of points of Madness, or in time with recuperation. If driven insane though, a base Spirit roll is required by the character. Essentially, this roll is in effect made to determine how long the Mental Disorder suffered lasts for.

Although Realms of Cthulhu adds a number of new skills, edges, and hindrances, perhaps the most important addition is Knowledge (Mythos) – the equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos skill in Call of Cthulhu. The treatment of knowledge of the Mythos in Realms of Cthulhu is perhaps where this version of Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying begins to diverge radically from the base line that is Call of Cthulhu. In Realms of Cthulhu, Knowledge (Mythos) is treated like any other skill, except that it is initially gained through certain circumstances during the play of the game, such as being sent insane for the time after encountering a Mythos entity or reading a Mythos Tome. Just as in Call of Cthulhu. Yet where in Call of Cthulhu an investigator receives “Cthulhu Mythos 05%,” in Realms of Cthulhu, he receives Knowledge (Mythos) d4. This does not sound like much, but when you consider that the base target for any skill roll in Savage Worlds

 is 4, then the character has a 1 in 4 chance of rolling that on his skill of Knowledge (Mythos) d4. This high degree of knowledge is further exacerbated because of how player characters make rolls in Savage Worlds. In the game, player characters are special and known as Wild Cards, and Wild Cards always roll an extra d6 – known as the “Wild Die” – and the highest die roll counts towards the total, then it is clear that even for a relatively minor encounter with the Mythos, an investigator can gain an awful lot of knowledge. This is further confirmed by the Realms of Cthulhu/Call of Cthulhu conversion guide, which lists a skill of d4 of being equal to 25% in Call of Cthulhu. That is a lot of Cthulhu Mythos…!

By reading further Mythos tomes or critically failing a Guts skill check as a result of an encounter with the Mythos, a character can gain further points of Knowledge (Mythos). Initially this will grant him a +1 bonus to any Knowledge (Mythos) check, but each time the bonus rises to +2, it changes the die type of the skill, from d4 to d6, to d8, and so on. Each rise in die type increases an investigator’s Corruption. Each point of Corruption decreases an investigator’s Sanity, further weakening his resolve against the Mythos. It is possible to increase an investigator’s Sanity, but it is difficult.

The given means of handling shock and horror in Savage Worlds has never been truly satisfying, and the Sanity mechanic in Realms of Cthulhu provides a more robust treatment of the subject. What the acquisition of the Knowledge (Mythos) skill demonstrates is the effect on Lovecraftian investigative horror from one system to another, from one ethos to another, from one style to another. The move from Call of Cthulhu to Savage Worlds is one of Purism to Pulp, of a binary yes/no realism to something a little more forgiving in terms of mechanics and player character survivability, and most of all, one of a granular mechanic and feel to one that is broader, but with a corresponding loss of detail. Which to be fair, is to be expected, given that Savage Worlds is a cinematic, Pulp genre, action orientated RPG. Yet the designer of Realms of Cthulhu gives the very means to counter this shift in tone and ethos.

Realms of Cthulhu gives the Keeper the tools to set the tone of his campaign, by setting its Physical and Mental play factors, either Gritty or Pulpy. The Pulpy option is essentially the Savage Worlds default, but the Gritty option gives a more Purist, harsher, and less survivable gaming experience. By setting the two play factors, a Keeper can access four different play styles, from the Physical Pulpy/Mental Pulpy of Heroic Horror with its high action adventure to the Physical Gritty/Mental Gritty of Dark Spiral, with its dangerous descent into madness and maiming when faced with the Mythos. Obviously, the first represents the Pulpy style of play, whilst the latter is Purist. Between two are the Slippery Slope (Physical Pulpy/Mental Gritty) and Dangerous Action (Physical Gritty/Mental Pulpy) styles. The first of these allows for investigators who can take a punch or two, but not the stress of encountering the Mythos, whilst the second is deadlier, but the Mythos has a less deleterious effect. These are only the base lines for the four campaign style, the Keeper being given a number of further options with which to tweak his campaign’s style.

The four styles are further discussed in the Keeper’s Section, primarily in the context of period – the 1890s, the 1920s, and the here and now – and the bond which brings the investigators together. Supporting this discussion is a quartet of Campaign Frameworks, one for each of the three eras and one that could be run in any era. The more original of the four lie at the extremes. The Heroic Horror framework is “Seekers of Lost Fortune,” in which the investigators must obtain and destroy dangerous artefacts in the 1920s; while the pleasing “The Frequency of Madness” is a Dark Spiral framework that can be set in any period and casts the investigators as incarcerated asylum inmates who have experience of the Mythos and escape to save not just mankind, but themselves too. Every character in this framework starts play with both the Knowledge (Mythos) skill and a mental disorder.

As expected for an RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Realms of Cthulhu includes the expected sections on magic and spells, tomes, and Mythos entities. Oddly the spells section includes those such as Armour, Bolt, Greater Healing, and Stun, all listed under Combat Spells and all taken from the Savage Worlds rules. Unless the style of game is extremely Pulpy, these are really out of place within Lovecraftian investigative horror, and even if the Keeper deems them appropriate, it is suggested that they are kept well away from player access.

Where Realms of Cthulhu is really useful for the Keeper is in the next set of tools it gives him. These are Mythos generators, which with a few rolls, a Keeper can create a Mythos Tale, a Mythos Creature, and a Mythos Tome. Or rather the broad outline, as the Keeper still has to flesh each of these out. For example, generating a Mythos Tome, which is detailed first in Realms of Cthulhu has the Keeper roll for its language, period of publication, Arcane Lore (essentially how easy it is to learn from it), and possible number of spells and type of spells – the Keeper will need to refer to the book’s chapter on magic for actual details of the tome’s spells. Beyond these basics, the Keeper will need to decide the book’s author, year of publication, title, and content. The Keeper will need to do the same when generating a Mythos Tale or Mythos Creature, the latter covering not just “Tainted” humans (as in my example), complete with “Dark Gifts,” but also Servitors and Independent Races, and who if at all, they serve. Pleasingly, with a few rolls and a bit of thought, a Keeper can switch back and forth between the three sets of tables using the results of each create a Tome, a Creature, and a Tale. 

The Lure of the Long Beasts

Hook: Caught up in Events

Lynchpin: Person

Location: Important Building/Landmark
Plot Type: Descension
Ally: Policeman
Plot Complication: Discovery
The investigators are on holiday in the county of Derbyshire. Following a tourist guide they decide to visit the world famous Blue John Caves near the town of Castleton, but get caught up in a disagreement between the locals and a visiting team of archaeologists from nearby Victoria University of Manchester, led by Professor Terence Chile Oakley. The professor is interested in the folklore and pre-Christian history of the area after reading a monograph entitled Secretis Druidum. The locals object to the professor’s interests and his plans to enact Druidic rites near the caves and the situation has developed into a stand-off between the two groups. The archaeologists have reported attacks in the night and possessions being stolen, and some of the students report suffering from headaches, but the local constable, Herbert Atteberry is at a loss as to what is going on.

Secretis Druidum: Trans Specubus veracis Populis Western Britanniam
Privately published in 1912, this monograph describes the folklore of the rural inhabitants of the British Isles, particularly around mountainous or hilly regions known for their network of caves. It includes several legends about enormous serpents that live underground and who worship one giant serpent, and how in the past the druids actually worshipped and sacrificed to both. The author lists several chants that he states that he was warned against uttering at particular cave mouths at certain times of the year. The author was last seen in the Derbyshire Peak District in England in 1914. The book is bound in oddly translucent leather. The only copy known to exist can be found in the anthropology section of the library of Victoria University of Manchester.
Author: Nicholas Checkley

Language: Latin

Year: c. 1912

Arcane Lore: +2

Spells: Claudens diu bestia (Elder Sign), Fascino lamina (Enchant Blade), Vocate ad diu bestia (Contact Chthonian), Longa ferae Domini invocabo (Contact Shudde M’ell)

Jack Royse(Seasoned)

Agility d8 Smarts d4 Spirit d4 Strength d8 Vigor d8

Edges:Brawny, Mighty Blow, Quick

Hindrances:Death Wish, Mean

Gifts:Immunity to Cold (Minor), Low Light Vision (Minor)

Skills: Climbing d8, Fighting d8, Guts d4, Intimidation d8, Knowledge (Mining) d6, Knowledge (Mythos) d6, Repair d4, Stealth d6

Pace 6

Parry: 6 Charisma-2 Toughness 7

Sanity 2 Corruption2

A native of Derbyshire, Jack Royse is a “Tainted” human who worships the long beasts below and follows their directives exactly. A miner by trade, under his masters’ influence he will do anything. Some would say that he has spent too much time in the caves below, but not to his face. He almost never seems to blink, but dislikes bright light and he seems unnaturally muscular.

In terms of actual Mythos Tales, Realms of Cthulhu is a mixed bag, consisting of four short two-page Tales and one long twelve-page one. The first two-page tale is “Fragments of Mu,” which is nothing more than an slightly extended encounter in purely Pulp vein, whilst “Paradise Lost” is a more pleasing Lovecraftian encounter with a classic feel, though despite what it says, it is set in the Arctic – no Eskimos in the Antarctic! “False Idols” feels more like a modern, grittier affair, but at two pages feels like it was shoehorned into place. The last of the quartet of shorts is the best, “Bayhaven Lights,” a still slight tale, but one with a weird vibe and a subtlety that is missing from the others. The Mythos Tales are rounded with “Mysteries of Drake Manor,” which describes the estate and inhabitants of Drake Manor, as well the mysteries that surround both before describing a few short tales that suggest how the set up can be used. Unfortunately, there is no subtlety to “Mysteries of Drake Manor” which overeggs both the mysteries and the Mythos content. If there is a real issue with these Mythos Tales, it is that apart from “Paradise Lost” all are set in Charleston, South Carolina. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, as Lovecraftian investigative horror only infrequently strays below the Mason–Dixon Line, and visiting a new city is always interesting. What is wrong with this choice is that the designer tells us nothing about Charleston whatsoever when a single page of information could have covered all three periods…

Physically, Realms of Cthulhu is a relatively thin if sturdy hardback. The book on the whole is well written and decently presented in full colour with some nice illustrations. Some of the content could have been better organised though, some terms and elements being mentioned far before they are actually explained, this not being helped by a sometimes unhelpful index.

Overall, Realms of Cthulhu is a likeable, if far from perfect product. One of the issues with Realms of Cthulhu is the lack of advice on investigator generation. This is necessary because creating and playing an investigator is very different to doing either in most other RPGs. There is advice, it is true, but it amounts to list of roles that a player could create rather than actual, useful advice on doing so. The most useful advice on investigator generation is placed some twenty pages away from the rules on actual character generation, all but an afterthought. Another issue is that it is Americentric when Lovecraftian investigative horror tends to be more Anglophile in outlook. Realms of Cthulhu does feel in places as if it is written solely with an American audience in mind.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Realms of Cthulhu is in its choice of rules system. This is not denigrate the Savage Worlds rules, as they offer solid mechanics that emulate a slightly Pulp style, cinematic style of play, and there is, of course, nothing wrong in that. The issue is more whether or not the Savage Worlds rules can handle Lovecraftian investigative horror, and arguably, they cannot. At least not without a degree of tweaking and adjustment to advance the rules to a grittier style of game, and with that tweaking and adjustment comes more rules and more complexity, both of which are at odds with the “Fast! Furious! and Fun!” the Savage Worlds rules. Even with said degree of tweaking and adjustment, Realms of Cthulhu is still not a wholly Purist RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror. There is still a little of the Pulp left, which is unsurprising given that it is written into the soul of the Savage Worlds rules.

Yet when Realms of Cthulhu reins in Savage Worlds back towards its natural inclination, the result does not feel as forced. In its natural state it can do “Pulp Cthulhu” and do it well, offering a means handle a more action orientated game that offers its player characters a degree of survivability and elasticity in their actions that the binary mechanics of Call of Cthulhulacks. The investigators are no longer ordinary men and women, but more special, more heroic. In addition, for the Savage Worlds GM, Realms of Cthulhu also grants access to the Cthulhu Mythos, its contents easily plugging into Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Weird Wars: Tour of Darkness and Weird Wars: Weird War II supplements, as well as the Savage Worldsversions of Modiphius Press’ Achtung! Cthulhu line. And of course, Realms of Cthulhu does give Savage Worlds a bona fide Sanity mechanic, something that it has lacked since its first edition.

In terms of support for the Keeper and the player, Realms of Cthulhu is underwhelming, this most obvious in the given Mythos Tales and the advice for the player. Where Realms of Cthulhu works is not just as a cinematic, action-orientated treatment of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as a set of tools to create and run a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror in the Pulp mode.

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It's a Corpse Cavalcade II

When the apocalypse comes – and surely it will whether it is tomorrow, next week, or yesterday – and the dead rise to shamble across the Earth, the “lucky” survivors are barely going to have enough time to grab their trusty .45 handguns, first aid kits, complete sets of Elvis Presley on vinyl, iPods and iPhones, and whatnot before the cast of the corpse cortege are upon them. And before they know it, Grandma is down amongst the dead… Only to get back up again and be coming around for a bite out of her late dearest and nearest. Once past their flesh-eating Grandmothers, most survivors are going to looking to the government for help. Then the army. Then anyone. Which is when they discover that their survival is down to them and their decisions. All they can do is hope that their decisions are anything other than stupid, as stupid can get them dead…

So with everyone still occupied with the daily needs for survival and fending off the brain feeding zombies, it will be the rare dreamer or philosopher who has the time or inclination to ask that all important question, “How did this happen?” That might not be a question asked in the zombie apocalypses you might see depicted in books or on television, but when it comes to roleplaying it is a question that not only has to be asked, it has to be answered too. Especially in playing out a zombie apocalypse over the long term. The reason is simple. Whilst in a roleplaying campaign the survival needs have to be addressed, entirely focusing on soon becomes repetitive and quickly lose their drama. Need shelter? Kill zombies. Find shelter. Need fuel? Kill zombies. Find fuel. Need food? Kill zombies. Find food. Need ammunition? Kill zombies. Find ammunition. Wash, rinse, repeat, as necessary. Which is repetitive and dull.

It is an issue addressed and not addressed in War of the Dead: Chapter Two, which as the title suggests is the second release in the series. Published by Daring Entertainment through Cubicle Seven Entertainment, this is a fifty-two part campaign that charts the adventures and travails of a group of survivors in the face of the rise of the dead and the fall of civilisation. Written for use with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, the campaign offers one adventure per week so that a group could play it out over the course of a whole year. Each adventure does not actually represent a week’s worth of game time, but anywhere from a few hours to a few days, essentially enough material that can be played through in a session or two.

The campaign was originally released as a series of fifty-two PDFs, and is now complete. Cubicle Seven Entertainment has divided the campaign into four parts, each collating thirteen episodes. To date, only War of the Dead: Chapter One and War of the Dead: Chapter Two have been released. The campaign began with the player characters – all ordinary men and women – aboard a cruise liner on holiday. It quickly became apparent that the suspected outbreak of an illness aboard the ship was something more, and very quickly the player characters found themselves to be no longer passengers but survivors aboard a vessel of the walking dead. Eventually as War of the Dead: Chapter One drew to a close, the player characters made it ashore only to discover that the infection was not confined to the ship and that everywhere the dead has arisen.

Subtitled “Sanctuary and Loss,” War of the Dead: Chapter Two opens two months into the end of the world. The player characters have been on the road for a month after the events that lead to failure of their first refuge, the town of Dalesbury, as described in the final weeks of War of the Dead: Chapter One. Theirs is a nomadic existence, forced on the road in the search for supplies – food, fuel, and ammunition – that across this Hell on Earth have become increasingly scarce as the cities have become the domain of the Living Dead. As the group makes its way from one desperate situation, it begins to learn of events further afield, including news of where the President went – Colorado, which becomes a much discussed objective as the events of War of the Dead: Chapter Two progress. After all, this is where the government went and it surely must be able to see to the needs of the survivors, right?

In the interim, the group also learns of possible salvation – Sanctuary. A nearby city has been supplying the few outlying communities of survivors with supplies. If the city has been cleared of the Living Dead and is in a position to supply food, could it be the refuge that the player characters have been looking for? Could it be the first signs of government since the characters came ashore? Well, the answer to both questions, is a qualified “yes and no.” Sanctuary is in the hands of UniMed, a pharmaceuticals corporation that has created a safe zone protected by the remnants of a US Army battalion. It is even hinted that the UniMed CEO had information about the Living Dead that the President needed to hear.

Nothing is quite what it seems. Of course it is not. It is true though that Sanctuary offers a degree of respite from the horrors without. Unfortunately, Sanctuary is the focus of new horrors and ultimately, the characters will find themselves on the road again, ready for the events of War of the Dead: Chapter Three.

War of the Dead: Chapter Two wastes no time in getting down to the adventure. There is almost no preamble before the GM and the players are thrown into the difficulty of the apocalypse. It makes a much fuller use of the Savages Worlds rules, in particular the Mass Combat rules, as the battles in War of the Dead: Chapter Two escalate in scale and take a more military feel when compared to the skirmishes of War of the Dead: Chapter One. If there was a lot of combat in War of the Dead: Chapter One, then War of the Dead: Chapter Two ups this, not just in terms of the hardware to hand, but also the foes faced.

Physically, War of the Dead: Chapter Two is somewhat perfunctorily presented. What little art there is, is grim, if sketchy. The writing though, is rough around the edges and it could have done with a closer edit. There is some repetition and inconsistency between sections that the GM will have to adjudicate on. As with the previous chapter, War of the Dead: Chapter Two could do with maps to make it easier for the GM to run.

Similarly, War of the Dead: Chapter Two suffers from many of issues that were a problem in the previous chapter. It is linear in nature and it is heavily scripted in places, and it suffers from repetition in terms of structure and in its encounters. Primarily, it is heavily combative in nature and this becomes both wearisome and grim. Then again, this is a world in which the dead walk the earth… That said, the over arcing plot does introduce several twists to its exploration of the zombie genre and in between the gunfights, there are numerous NPCs to interact with, many of them quite memorable.

At the start of this review, it was stated that War of the Dead: Chapter Twoboth addressed and failed to address the repetitious play of the genre and the question of why the post-apocalypse came about. It addresses the repetition essentially by replacing it with different forms of repetition, but ones that still revolve around the slaughtering of the Living Dead. It addresses the question of “why” only so far, and that is not really a failure upon the author’s part. After all, this is only the second part of the campaign and as such, is far too early to fully answer such questions.  They will only come in War of the Dead: Chapter Three and War of the Dead: Chapter Four. In the meantime, War of the Dead: Chapter Two is as good as the previous chapter, which means more good, but not quite perfect zombie roleplaying fodder.

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