The Spiraling Worm

Chaosium achieved a real coup for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game (RPG) in a way that Dungeons & Dragons never did: it put RPGs on equal footing with Lovecraftian literature. Because Chaosium publishes fiction and RPG supplements it presents both as legitimate, best evidenced by the Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, which draws on both sources to round out the Mythos.

So it's a bold move when Chaosium publishes a new modern work without the comforting bosom of the surrounding Mythos to prop it up. Even more daring, the Spiraling Worm is a collection of action stories set in the modern day.

Ignore the cover. The picture of Peel, with his oddly stubby arms and stiff posture, isn't particularly compelling.

David Conyers may be best known for his RPG contributions, but he's equally comfortable in the fiction realm. His protagonist of note, Australian Army military intelligence officer Major Harrison Peel, is a no-nonsense action hero waging war against a cosmic threat he barely understands. John Sunseri's character of choice is NSA agent Jack Dixon, who is a bit less stalwart than his Australian colleague. Rounding out the global trio and connecting the stories is MI6 agent James Figgs, who ranges from cold aloofness in Sunseri's stories to borderline psychopath in Conyers'.

The series starts out with Peel and Figgs in Vietnam in Made of Meat, featuring only a hint of the Mythos in the Tcho-Tcho and their worship of Shub-Niggurath. The conclusion is open-ended and unsatisfying.

To What Green Altar is Dixon's introductory tale, a less satisfying but interesting take on Cthugha, the Tunguska Event, and the Vatican. Unfortunately, the Mythos knowledge possessed by the Church doesn't seem to figure in the other stories.

Impossible Object, more a science fiction tale, is awesome. Peel fights a battle of perception in his native Australia, trying to grapple with a device nobody can truly perceive, much less comprehend. The ending is an awesome cliffhanger, leaving you wondering if the entire universe might implode…

Until you read False Containment, so the universe clearly did not end. It unfortunately saps some of the strength of Impossible Object, but False Containment is so strong that it's easy to forgive. Featuring time travel, body horror, and a gibbering monstrosity that cannot be contained by time or space. False Containment is one of the few stories in this collection that isn't afraid to drive home the insane horror of the Mythos.

Resurgence features two shoggoths gone wild, the inevitable conclusion of a monstrosity that eats everything. Resurgence isn't afraid to escalate tensions to an international level, forcing Peel to sacrifice himself to save his beloved continent…

Until, that is, the events in Weapon Grade. Dixon brings Peel into another mission, this one featuring another dimension and more shoggoths. It's interesting but not as powerful as the other short stories – it feels more like an excuse to keep Peel alive (he's cured of his ailment by the end of it) than anything else.

The title work, The Spiraling Worm, is a filthy, disturbing foray into the heart of the Congo jungle. Dixon, Peel, and Figgs are together again, and the circumstances are unsparingly brutal. This is a story that's not for the faint of heart. It features a suitably climactic showdown between helicopter gunships, Nyarlathotep, and an elder artifact. Unfortunately, the bizarre mask and its rotting cult steal the show. The conclusion is actually a beginning, as Dixon and Peel join forces to launch a secret organization dedicated to eradicating the Mythos…

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's been done already: Delta Green, wherein government agents with little infrastructure support wage a secret war against the Mythos. Chaosium has never quite fully embraced the enormously popular modern take on the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, publishing its own brand of "Cthulhu Now" supplements. In fact, some of the stories in Spiraling Worm were originally meant to be part of Delta Green, but presumably they weren't able to get the rights from Pagan Publishing.

It seems as if the authors are intent on building their own, parallel, government-against-the-mythos series by connecting to Tim Curran's Hive. Which isn't a bad thing. But with the resurgence of Delta Green, I wonder if DG fans will be forced to choose.

The Cybergypsies

Back when Indra Sinha was addicted to Shades, I was a kid sneaking into college computer labs to play Ivory Towers. We were both playing Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). In fact, Ivory Tower players loathed Shades players with a passion, who were a bloodthirsty, violent lot – they came to Ivory Towers in waves when Shades was down and slaughtered everyone in sight with unbridled glee. It didn't give me a good impression of Shades.

That's not the impression Sinha gives in his book, The Cybergypsies. Sinha gives an aura of mystical wonder and beauty to a game in which stealing your opponents' weapon was commonplace--as if combat between medieval knights was all about wresting away your opponents' blade. It comes off as ridiculous as it sounds, but Sinha elevates it to poetic levels.

Cybergypsies isn't really about MUDding though. It's about Sinha's sympathy for the plight of the downtrodden, exemplified by the poor of Bhopal who were poisoned in an industrial disaster. Working in advertising, Sinha is in the unique position of trying to translate real-life suffering into everyday media. He finds the bizarre online reflection of the real world's struggles in Vortex, a role-playing MUSH.

In Vortex, like many MUSHs, the current players set the tone. And Vortex's tone is a decadent, anything-goes free love vibe that has a dark side. Cannibalism, baby sacrifice – you name it, the Vortex denizens have done it, reveling in their freedom to role-play anything and everything.

Somewhere in this contrast between MUDding and MUSHing, real-life oppression and cyber-decadence, Sinha struggles to save his marriage. Which is a bit odd, because Sinha makes almost no mention of his children. Speaking as someone who has a very active two-year-old, there's no way I can stay on the computer for more than a few minutes without him tugging on my arm. Sinha either seriously neglected them or intentionally removed them from the narrative; whatever the case, it's a glaring omission from his story of a family life brought to the brink by cyber-addiction.

The other problem is that Sinha is extremely well educated and enjoys demonstrating his knowledge in various allusions to disparate texts, often in other languages. Cybergypsies makes you feel dumb.

Sinha doesn't seem to have a point. Shades rises and falls. Vortex's appeal fades. Sinha raises awareness of global suffering through his advertising. He may even help a hacker access a nuclear plant, although it's never clear exactly what happened. And we can only guess that he saved his marriage…Sinha just ends the book without any resolution.

The author is a brilliant writer. But this book is a stream-of-consciousness journal made up of at least three other books, each which deserved its own focus. Readers looking for a parable on cyber-addiction, for a dialogue about human rights grievances, or for the wild and wooly history of the Internet will only get tantalizing glimpses.

Last Rites of the Black Guard

Last Rites of the Black Guard is a d20 Modern ghost-hunting adventure, produced by 12 to Midnight, for low-level characters. It includes suggestions for adjusting to higher-level campaigns, a bookmarked PDF, and a printer-friendly version. The scenario also features rules from the OGL Horror ritual system. The 12 to Midnight website also offers free downloads of cool extras such as audio recordings of ghosts, pre-filled initiative cards, and more. Please note: this review contains spoilers!

If you’re familiar with the Karotechia in Delta Green, you know that it is led by a triumvirate of Nazis on their last legs: the ancient Olaf Bitterich, the artificially sustained Gunter Frank, and the immortal Reinhard Galt. Advancing the Delta Green timeline thus causes a bit of a problem, because Bitterich should be dead of old age. The solution: Last Rites of the Black Guard (LRBG).

In LRBG, the investigators visit Rosetta, Texas, home of a dirty little secret: it was once home to a Nazi, Franz Heimglimmer. Though Heimglimmer is dead, his legacy lives on in his secret acolytes, who are both trying to rob him of his power and keep him from returning to life. The investigators start out visiting the home of Lisa Gray and her two children, Marissa (7) and Matthew (6). Marissa is in contact with the spirit of Aimee Resnick, a little girl who was murdered at the hands of Heimglimmer. Matthew is protected by the spirit of a Rabbi, but that doesn’t stop glowing atmospheric balls of energy and poltergeists from terrorizing their home.

LRBG has difficulty structuring the plot such that the events flow from one to another. In my experience, players crave clear paths – it helps move the game along, gives them hints to their next clue, and ensures that the game master is appropriately prepared. Because LRBC is largely freeform, it's possible for players to skip whole swaths of the game…like skipping the haunted house to visit Heimglimmer’s home.

The free downloads are awesome, including audio clips of the various spirits speaking and photos of each of the main characters. These really add to the horror, which is why it’s all the more important that don't skip it by going to visit Heimglimmer’s home immediately.

LRBG assumes the characters will conduct a séance, which isn’t necessarily something every group will try. Instead, I had our resident psychic character possessed by Aimee’s spirit and let him role-play out the answers with the other characters. Only after enough clues were gathered about what happened to the spirits did I reveal that there was once a Nazi living next door.

LRBG then moves to the second part of the scenario, which is essentially a death trap. There’s reference to a gold tooth that’s part of the next installment in the series (as far as I know, there’s never been a sequel). Then the investigators find a secret door down into the basement…or they would, if it were on the map. There appears to be only one set of maps, labeled as handouts which are presumably for both the players and game master. This means that secret doors aren’t labeled on the map, and one of those secret doors is critical to finding the finale. The map of the Gray house, conversely, has several rooms labeled “Jeana” – we figured out that this was supposed to be Lisa and the name must have been changed.

Once the investigators find their way down to the secret door, it locks behind them and they are engaged in a fight for their lives with a Risen of Osiris, an undead monster. Since I adopted this monster to a Delta Green setting, I changed it to a Screaming Crawler. The effect is the same: the investigators have to slog it out in a toe-to-toe fight. My players were unhappy about this, expecting to uncover some plot-device to destroy it. The monster has no other purpose than as a guardian, which surprised my players, who expected it to be the Nazi himself (more about him later).

Once the investigators defeat the monster, two undercover cultists arrive to finish the job. When one of the cultists dies, the spirit of Heimglimmer appears (he’s also responsible for locking the characters into the chamber) and absorbs his soul. The other cultist flees, screaming “you’ve doomed us all!” I wasn’t content to just let the scenario end like that, so I had the police, already spooked from the swirling spirit activity around Heimglimmer’s home, fire on whomever ran out the front door waving a pistol.

It turns out that the characters’ actions have led to the resurrection of Heimglimmer and we get to see his return in a cut scene. In other words, the investigators have managed to unearth a great evil. This didn’t make my players happy, who felt like they were being manipulated all along.

It bears mentioning that one of the Nazi cultists has a Jewish-sounding name. For a scenario that spends a significant amount of space dedicated to respecting the Holocaust legacy, it seems peculiar that it would casually cast a Jewish person as a Neo-Nazi without explanation.

Overall, my players really enjoyed the first part of the scenario but were frustrated by the second half. The lack of an overall story arc may irk some game masters, who are left with a newly revived Nazi cultist without a plan as to how to proceed. For Delta Green keepers, however, it’s the perfect way to put Dr. Bitterich back in action. I recommend The Painting by Modern Misfits as a follow-up.
For more info: To see a demo of Last Rites of the Black Guard, visit the 12 to Midnight web site.

Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds

Gary Alan Fine's book, Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds, provides an enlightening overview of the state of gaming in the early eighties. Fine, a sociologist, inhabits the gaming cultures he reviews, reporting on Dungeons & Dragons, Chivalry & Sorcery, and Empire of the Petal Throne as a player and game master. He also interviews many of the leading lights of the industry at the time, including M.A.R. Barker, Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax.

What's revealed by Fine's studies is that issues many gamers face today have remained largely unchanged over the course of thirty years. "Roll-" vs. "role-" playing figures prominently. Game masters who are unprepared or capricious, players who are petty and competitive, groups that exclude other groups…they're all here in vivid detail. What sets Fine's work apart is that he provides sociological constructs to discuss the gaming hobby, a hobby he treats with respect.

On the other hand, there are several issues that are clearly tied to the nascent gaming culture. Rampant sexism and violence towards women disturbs Fine; things have definitely changed for the better. The other major concern of most of Fine's subjects is the invasion of youngsters to the hobby who are too immature to fully grasp its rules. Nowadays we have the opposite problem – there aren't enough young players attracted to the game.

Throughout, Fine interviews his subjects and quotes their experiences as well as his own. These quotes are illustrative of the little challenges gaming groups regularly encounter, from intergroup rivalry to players having their characters to commit mass suicide as a form of protest against a particularly unfair game master. Any gamer will recognize himself and his players in Fine's work.

Chivalry & Sorcery and Empire of the Petal Throne (Tekumel) are not as well known today, but at the time they were a game designer's response to the flaws in Dungeons & Dragons. In the case of Chivalry & Sorcery, it was a more feudal feel to fantasy. In the case of Tekumel, it was the distinct European emphasis that colored all of Dungeons & Dragons. Barker's direct involvement in the Tekumel game universe as a game master provides an immersive contrast to the typical hack-and-slash dungeon games that were popular at the time.

Fine's work isn't flashy, but it's a critical piece of gaming history and a must-read for gaming scholars everywhere.

Last Rites: Four Present-Day Adventures for Call of Cthulhu

Last Rites is actually four separate scenarios for the Call Of Cthulhu RPG, set in the modern day. This review contains spoilers, so if you plan to play in these scenarios you should read no further lest the blasphemous truths contained herein rend your feeble mind to tatters!

Last Rites is also the name of the first scenario. Henry Ennis was never a good father or husband, resulting in his wife Nicole's suicide. This left Lucinda, his eldest daughter, bitter and angry towards her father. Her sister, Sophia, disappeared years ago, a mystery that was unsolved until recently. Lucinda met a mysterious fellow named Jason, who opened her mind by sharing a book titled Flagitious Fragments.

Flagitious Fragments unlocks psychic talents in the reader, a rather campaign-altering event given that an investigator reading the book has a chance of acquiring psychic powers equal to his POW rolled against D100. These psychic powers include telepathy, mind control, and the ability to send nightmares to a target. All these powers are rather unbalancing in the hands of an investigator trying to get to the bottom of a mystery. It almost seems as if this scenario was written to introduce psychic powers to investigators, but it does so in the most boring fashion possible - I'd much rather have a PC receive his psychic powers through a traumatic event, a brush with the Mythos, or Mi-Go surgery. Not because he happened to read a book and then "meditate and perform mental tests to learn if he or she is a suitable candidate." Flagitious Fragments makes acquiring psychic powers sound like passing your driver's test.

After offing her father (we never find out how), Lucinda plans revenge on those who killed her sister. You see, there are no less than four cultists lurking in the town of Runville. Runville is an extremely small town nestled on the edge of a cliff and numbers "perhaps a hundred souls." Nobody said they were smart cultists.

Lucinda's convoluted plan involves animating her father's corpse as her instrument of revenge, which basically turns him into a zombie slasher. Controlled by Lucinda, Henry then offs the cultists one by one. It's up to the investigators to stop him.

There are so many disparate elements here that it's easy to lose the thread of the plot. Who are the cultists that killed Sophie? Who is the shambling corpse killing them? Who is controlling the corpse? Where did Lucinda get her psychic powers from? Who is this Jason fellow, anyway?

When I ran this scenario, I stole liberally from Friday the 13th, Part VII - The New Blood, which also involves a psychic girl, her dead father, and a reanimated killer. I changed the first cultist, Dr. Alan Ettringer, to a psychiatrist from Arkham trying to push Lucinda's psychic powers to their limits. I also made it a point of having the investigators discover Sophie's body in another town, so it's a bit more plausible that the cultists relocated to Runville. I made it clear that Ettringer knew this too, and brought Lucy to the town to provoke her and thereby reveal her psychic talents. The rest of the scenario turned into a supervillain battle, with Lucinda using telekinesis (a power not granted by the book) to try to stop her father. Ultimately, father and daughter both sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.

As scenarios go, this one gets a two out of five. Not particularly inventive, a boring town, and the cultists aren't even Mythos cultists.

The second scenario, Lethal Legacy, is much more interesting. A cultist named Douglas Drebber decides to summon a dimensional shambler to off his ex-wife who has since married Randy Kalms, a tough Vietnam vet turned author. But after he summons the shambler, Drebber changes his mind, only to die in his haste to undo the damage. Now it's up to the investigators to get to the Kalms before the shambler does.

This is a great race against time. Drebber's tale of domestic violence tinged with the Cthulhu Mythos really makes the character come alive (even after he's dead). The Kalms family is suitably hilarious and dangerous. Convincing a gun-toting family that something is about to kill them is like Aliens meets Home Alone.

This was one of the first scenarios I game mastered for my players and they loved it. I played Randy as a Jack Nicholson type. And of course, the shambler went after the Kalms' youngest child. It was a bloody fight to the finish.

This scenario gets five out of five stars. I didn't have to change much to make it exciting and the players loved it.

The House on McKinley Boulevard is a haunted house story that involves gremlin-like homunculi. Cedric Hedge, a disciple of Tsathoggua, sacrificed regularly to his dark god until he finally escalated to killing children. This resulted in the creation of an animated idol in Tsathoggua's likeness, but something went wrong: Hedge lost control of it and, in his attempts to stop it, smashed it to pieces before expiring himself. Thus little mini-Tsaothoggaus have been waiting for an eternity to be freed.

The Victorian-style mansion that was once Hedge's grand home is now a modern hovel. Squatters and drug addicts reside there. At the start of the scenario, one of the squatters has already killed himself. It's up to the investigators to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I ripped off the plot from movies again: The Gate. This kept the tension going, gave me ample opportunities to introduce the creepy little monsters, and provided an outline for what victims to go after and when. I used the rule from the Gate that the little monsters have to sacrifice two people to bring their dark lord back to his former glory. The subsequent battle with the swarming homunculi was great, and the spell to deactivate the animated statue of Tsathoggua was suitably climactic. This differed significantly from the original scenario, which sets up the drug addict (the obvious "bad guy") as a killer possessed by the homunculi.

The House on McKinley Boulevard gets four out of five stars. The ideas are great but the characters aren't really structured to provide narrative tension other than the crazy drug-addict guy, and there are far too many of those in horror scenarios.

The last scenario is one I haven't played yet but plan to. It's a little far out there, as it involves time travel, a high priestess of Pazzuzu, and a magic mace. It reminds me a bit of the plot from House (the movie, not the television show). Could be a lot of fun.

There's not a lot of structure to this scenario either, but the time travel and battle against the priestess -- who has a suitably climactic "monster form" -- could be interesting. I give it four out of five stars.

That puts Last Rites at four stars overall. Despite the first clunker of a scenario, the other scenarios are all suitably interesting and different enough to make for a memorable, quick game that will keep modern day investigators on their toes.

Freeport: Crisis in Freeport

I run a Living Arcanis campaign, which also contains Freeport. With a wealth of material at my disposal, I decided to pick up Crisis in Freeport (CIF) to see how I could fit it into my campaign. I should point out that this is a long playtest review that contains spoilers galore. To help clarify what I did differently in my campaign, I will use a PLAYTEST tag.

CIF begins with the announcement that the Captain's Council, the ruling body that governs Freeport, has declared the Rule of Succession for the Sea Lord's throne null and void. Since the Sea Lord title is hereditary, that means the throne is up for grabs by anyone, including the other councilors. The news incites rioting in the streets, which leads to the city newspaper being burned to the ground, the murder of the Commissioner of the Sea Lord's Guard, women in need of saving, and a monster on the loose.

PLAYTEST: I combined this adventure with the final chapter of Black Sails Over Freeport. By having Drak, an orc, declare his lineage to the Sea Lord's throne, it was further incentive for the Captain's Council to invalidate the Rule of Succession. I ran the riots straight out of the adventure, with a few tweaks to the NPCs' names. I replaced the bulette with a two-headed dragon of my own creation that ended up killing our dwarf fighter. The gang who attacks the Sea God's Shrine was changed to a gang that attacks the God of Pirates shrine. I also inserted the orc riots from BSOF into the mix.

And this is where we start to get some bizarre content that skirts the "decency" rule in the Open Game License. It's repeatedly mentioned that the bad guys (all elves and half-elves) have been molested as children, that the pirates rape people before (and sometimes after!) they kill them, and that there's more than one opportunity to catch pirates "in the act." While most of this is easy to drop, it's certainly not in the fun spirit of the other Freeport adventures, none of which emphasized (over and over and OVER) that pirates "have a bit of fun" with their victims. I agree that Freeport needs to get a little more focused and a little more serious, but I felt that the way it was handled in this book was over-the-top. One of my players, my wife, found it to be simply offensive.

The other thing is that elves in my campaign wouldn't think of sullying themselves in such a fashion. And since this particular form of violence is motivated by racial hatred (elves vs. humans), the whole thing seems forced. It's all a bit squicky, in my opinion.

During the riots, Arias Soderheim, the only half-elf on the Council, has hired the elven Captain Allethra Sharpe to kidnap Lady Elise Grossette. Grosette is one of the good guys on the Council and a rival for the Sea Lord's throne. The PCs eventually follow the trail to an island during a thunderstorm, whereupon they face off against sahuagin led by an oddly named female villain (rhymes with witch, but I won't include it here as some filters will reject the review outright).

PLAYTEST: I changed the identity of the kidnapped NPC to a candidate the PCs were backing, Emric Ossan-Drac from a previous Living Arcanis adventure. Likewise, the attack by the sahuagin still happened but were led by Camring, also from a previous adventure, and his traitorous mother, Black Jenny Ramsey, AKA Sycorax.

Upon arriving on the island, the PCs sneak onto Sharpe's ship, The Knife, and find a pirate doing naughty things with a cabin boy. It turns out said cabin boy is a succubus. With clues from the ship's hold as to who hired Sharpe, the PCs land on the island, face off against serpent people ghouls, and finally to Felix's, a resort turned into the last stand for Sharpe and his pirates.

PLAYTEST: I kept the squicky pirate/boy encounter because it fit a decidedly squicky NPC named Talathiel that I took from another adventure. I did make a point of having the boy reveal himself to be a succubus. My PCs were suitably disgusted and dispatched Talathiel promptly.

Sharpe and his men are engaged in various acts of debauchery, but they are not without their firepower. Kyl, an elven evoker, and Dirty Malone, who is exactly like he sounds, join Sharpe in fighting to the bitter end. Then it's back to Freeport with Elise in tow for an emergency Council session: what to do about Soderheim?

PLAYTEST: I replaced all the NPCs with villains the PCs had encountered in the past. Sharpe's last stand was suitably climactic. I dropped all the other stuff involving pirates violating corpses.

The Captain's Council decides to have a meeting in the town square, only to suffer an assassination attempt. Assuming the PCs survive, they discover that Soderheim is holed up in a brothel. There, they face down Soderheim and his lieutenant in another climactic battle...when suddenly one of Freeport's massive cannons is pointed at the brothel and blows the building to smithereens!

PLAYTEST: I have to admit, I loved this idea. I further complicated Soderheim as a villain by having him protect elven interests, and holding hostage an elven PC. But when he realizes that the cannon is pointed at the brothel, Soderheim had a change of heart and dimension doored out with his hostage in the nick of time. Even though he released her, he later fell to his death and was ripped apart by angry Freeport citizens. Of all the parts of the adventure, this is the most exciting. One PC survived by diving out a window with a potion of fly. The other cast a sphere of force around himself at the last minute. Good stuff!

It seems someone paid the guardsmen who control the cannon to point it at the brothel in an effort to keep Soderheim from talking. That Continental spy shows up in the middle of the night to personally destroy the PCs, summoning a Zelekhut inevitable to join in the attack. This is perhaps the weakest part of the adventure: it makes little sense that a spy would engage PCs in an all out attack -- spies run away to fight again another day, not wage one-man wars against heavily armed PCs. In addition, the spy "convinces the zelekhut that the PCs have denied justice..." and "it's eager to destroy the PCs, almost as eager as the conspirator."

Seriously? Shall we pit the zelekhut's Sense Motive (+12) against the spy's Bluff (uh...he doesn't even have any points in the skill)? It defies belief and seems like the zelekhut was included for the sole purpose of utilizing its locate creature ability to find the PCs. And why is this lawful neutral spy lying to a creature of law? More importantly, why is the spy lawful neutral at all?

PLAYTEST: I changed the spy's identity (turns out we already had a Continental spy in the campaign named Cunegunda), changed the attack to actually be an accident, and changed the zelekhut to another monster entirely. The effect was still the same: an ambush in the middle of the night on the PCs can be extremely deadly. But it at least made a little more sense, and my PCs did indeed fight for their very lives.

At the conclusion, a not very convincing case is made for Marilise Morgan to be named Sea Lord. Apparently "the aggressiveness during the hunt for Soderheim endeared her not only to the other council members but also to the populace." -- which is hard to believe, since what amounts to aggressiveness on Morgan's part is that she "proposes not only arresting and trying Soderheim, but seizing his estates and banishing any of his blood relatives from Freeport." I'm sure such a bloodthirsty ruling suitably impressed all of Freeport's pirates!

PLAYTEST: I would have preferred the adventure making a case for each of the Council members, allowing the DM to choose from one of them, as opposed to the lame argument that Marilise (who took over for her corrupt brother) is somehow a shoo in for the position. In fact, during the assassination attempt in the square the DM is told to specifically spare Marilise so she can win the succession later. A little too heavy-handed for my tastes. In the end, Emric, an NPC the heroes had been struggling to protect for years, took the throne,. Or to put it another way, while Arias was built up as a villain throughout the Freeport supplements, Marilise is a nobody that comes out of nowhere to take the throne. It doesn't feel like she deserves it.

Overall, CIF is a deadly serious action adventure with a plot that moves briskly. From a riot to a hostage crisis, an assassination attempt to a crime boss raid, a midnight retaliation to plenty of politics, CIF provides enough fodder to wrap up a Freeport game. It's probably impossible to please every DM with the conclusion, but CIF does an adequate job of providing a definitive ending to a story arc. I just wish it were a little less squicky.

Freeport: Tales of Freeport

I run a Living Arcanis campaign, which also contains Freeport. With a wealth of material at my disposal, I decided to pick up Tales of Freeport (TOF) to see how I could fit it into my campaign. I should point out that this is a long playtest review that contains spoilers galore. To help clarify what I did differently in my campaign, I will use a PLAYTEST tag.

The first adventure, Soul of the Serpent for PCs of 5th to 7th level, is a sequel of sorts to the original Freeport adventure trilogy. We find the former High Priest of the God of Knowledge (once known as Thuron and now known as the serpent person K'Stallo) skulking around in Freeport in human guise as the unimaginatively named Steel. His goal is to unite the serpent people through the teachings of Hitthkai, a peaceful sect that worships Yig. There is another, rival serpent priest named Ffashethh who preaches the way of Sskethvai, a more violent sect that is actually a front for the diabolical cult of the Unspeakable One. Ffashethh is actually a shapeshifting Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign cultist known as Corwin Laxton.

The PCs stumble into this mess when looking for Matthias Brack's daughter, who was captured as a sacrifice for the Sskethvai. With K'Stallo's help, the PCs hopefully rescue the girl, kill the bad guys, and escape before the Unspeakable One is summoned.

There are a few things that struck me as pointless in this adventure, not the least of which is the pages upon pages of information on what PCs might do to find the damsel in distress (like a listing of every organization who might help them out) and much less focus on what happens when the PCs finally find the bad guys. K'Stallo's people may or may not show up, the bad guys may or may not escape, and the climactic showdown between the Unspeakable One and Yig himself is optional. The adventure lacks focus and clarity -- the summary I gave above of all the NPCs and their motivations is more than you get from the adventure itself. For example, the name of Laxton's serpent man persona (Ffashethh) is only mentioned in passing.

One other thing: this adventure uses recycled maps from one of the other Freeport adventures, including the same room descriptions. In other words, it's recycling content, content that could have been used for something else entirely.

PLAYTEST: I used only the second half of the adventure and focused on the exciting parts. The Unspeakable One was summoned -- and Yig showed up to do battle. K'Stallo secretly attends the sacrifice in the arena, leading a surprise attack on Ffashethh's serpent people. This made the adventure very short but very exciting. Ironically, a fireball from the party's sorcerer did the job for Ffashethh when he accidentally killed all the hostages, summoning the Unspeakable One.

Overall this adventure gets a 3 out of 5. Not great but salvageable.

The Last Resort is supposedly an adventure for character of any level, although the text indicates 3rd through 6th level. It is basically a series of timed events that take place in an inn (the Last Resort, get it?). Encounters range from an assassination attempt to a kidnapping attempt by the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, a game of chance with high stakes to a jilted husband, ghostly vengeance and a risen mummy. There's a lot going on here, and it all happens in fifteen-minute increments.

PLAYTEST: I changed the identities and names of the various NPCs but kept the events the same. To keep the action moving, Henry Tranco ran a game of chance with the PCs involved. I had the PCs play Three-Dragon Ante between every fifteen-minute increment, which kept the game interesting. The events in this adventure actually had tremendous repercussions throughout the rest of the campaign. I converted the mummy into a samat (a powerful serpent person from Nyambe) named Ffashethh, leading into the Soul of the Serpent adventure. Elijah Quelch, who is a minor dealer interested in the mummy, became a major recurring villain in the campaign. All in all, it was a great adventure...even though it's really more of an outline.

This adventure gets a 3 out of 5. It's got all the right ingredients but very little direction and again seems to miss the point -- why have a gambler play a high stakes game in a room "off camera" when the PCs could be directly involved?

Cut-Throat's Gold is for PCs of 4th through 7th level. I ran this adventure first, as it ended up being the location of the aforementioned mummy.

PLAYTEST: Because I had a lizardfolk PC in my campaign, this was a perfect hook for the party to visit his hometown. I also combined the city of Saltmarsh (converted to Sulfurmarsh from the DMG II) with this adventure. The PCs became quickly frustrated with the random encounters, even though I found them all very amusing. I converted Thomas Hariot the necromancer into a Death Master (a class from the Dragon Compendium) and gave him an undead minion, an Entomber, as a companion. Coupled with some nasty necromancer spells, a hostile lizardfolk tribe, and communication difficulties, this adventure transformed from a merely passable jungle encounter to a memorable battle.

The PCs really enjoyed the outcome of this adventure. I give it 4 out of 5.

Fair Salvage is an adventure for character levels 7 through 9. There is virtually no combat in this adventure, so the level ratings don't really apply. A group of alien beings known as Strangers invades Freeport with the intent of retaking artifacts stolen from one of their beached ships. It turns out the huge cannons that defend Freeport actually belonged to these Strangers and they want them back. And they're willing to do anything to retrieve them.

Fair Salvage is basically an investigation, another one of those boring adventures where the PCs show up too late for any action. The PCs, especially if they're Freeporters, are in a no-win situation - they won't want to hand over the cannons. And given that the Strangers have killed several people already, the odds that the PCs will be fighting mad are high. The other problem is that the PCs have a final "negotiation" with the Strangers in front of a ship wielding the same magical siege cannons that defend Freeport. Or to put it another way, the ship is immune to everything the PCs throw at it, the Strangers are ultra-powerful, they want cannons that Freeport would never voluntarily give up, and the adventure's resolution is...to not provide one.

The adventure's discussion of the Strangers skips the political implications of a nation essentially giving up its nuclear weapons (by force, I might add) and instead dwells on the possibility of the PCs negotiating a sweet deal for themselves, an all-out invasion by the Strangers, and the Strangers settling in Freeport. There's absolutely no evidence up to this point that the Strangers would settle in Freeport, but the adventure hurdles forward with more text about how the Strangers will make Freeport's serpent people look benevolent in comparison...

This is one of those adventures that can wreck a campaign. Super powerful aliens who apparently couldn't be bothered to retrieve their weapons for the past hundred years or so suddenly show up, want their weapons back, and the PCs don't really have a clear path to deal with it. This is perfectly acceptable for an adventure; after all, moral quandaries are what great role-playing is made of. What's not so great is that the adventure doesn't provide any real guidelines about actually resolving the problem and instead dwells on the alien invasion angle.

PLAYTEST: I converted the Strangers into an alien race known as the Fihali, which had an established history in the Arcanis game. I also had the PCs show up during one of the Strangers' raids, as opposed to investigating the murders after the fact, just to inject some action into the adventure. When the tense negotiations finally happened, one PC (also a Fihali) sacrificed the party, thereby preventing an ensuing war. Both sides agreed to work together to save Arcanis.

This adventure is the weakest of the bunch. Big ideas with poor execution: 2 out of 5.

After the adventures follow Plots and Places, basically adventure hooks. I used A Stunning Likeness, about a renowned sculptor, as the plot seed for another adventure involving a medusa (you're shocked, I know). I didn't use any of the others plots, thirteen in all. The Plots are fine for what they are, with some more interesting than others. 3 out of 5.

PLAYTEST: As for Places, I used all of them. Falthar's Curios, a magic shop, figured prominently in my game as a contact for one of my PCs and it was Falthar who was a victim of the above Strangers in Fair Salvage. I also used the Salon Du Masque and the Countess D'Amberville. In fact, I enjoyed the connection to Castle Amber so much I ran a conversion of that Basic D&D adventure. The Countess eventually died, but she was a constant thorn in the PCs sides for years. 5 out of 5

The book wraps up with Rules You Can Use. There is one new skill (Shadowing), new uses for existing skills like Knowledge and Profession, firearms rules, and prestige classes: Freeport Merchant, Ship's Captain, and Gambler. Two of those prestige classes now have official versions in Wizards of the Coast supplements, rendering most of the info redundant. I did use the Gambler class though, if only to stat out Henry Tranco. 3 out of 5.

Overall, Tales of Freeport is full of good ideas but has a somewhat unpolished execution. The book could easily have been twice the size and dealt with some of the interesting plots in more detail, while at the same time excising recycled content from old adventures to make space.

Black Sails Over Freeport

I run a Living Arcanis campaign, which also contains Freeport. With a wealth of material at my disposal, I decided to pick up Black Sails Over Freeport (BSOF) to see how I could fit it into my campaign. I should point out that this is a long playtest review that contains spoilers galore. To help clarify what I did differently in my campaign, I will use a PLAYTEST tag.

When the adventure begins, Freeport is in the midst of a war between two nations: the elves and the barbarians. Neither side seems particularly friendly, but most Freeporters don't care--they just want the right to privateer, selling out their services to the highest bidder. Of course, both nations want Freeport to pick a side.

PLAYTEST: I essentially kept the sides the same. Coryan, the ruling country in Arcanis, was in the midst of a civil war. Loyalists serving the Emperor hired the barbarians; the elves were allied with the Rebels, led by the High General. Given that BSOF involves some major campaign-altering events, including two nations with enough troops and ships to wage a full war, DMs need to carefully consider the impact on the game world. To me, this part of BSOF was far more interesting than the silly islands that come later.

BSOF begins with the PCs bumping into a gnome. The gnome pretends to know them and, in a desperate bid to escape cultists, hands them a map. This map subsequently involves them with a scholar named Lucien, who just happens to be kidnapped by Captain Morgan Baumann of the Kraken's Claw. It's a treasure map of course, and Lucien is the only means of unlocking its secrets. Rescuing Lucien leads to five quests for five artifacts, each guarded by a member of the Full-Fathom Five.

PLAYTEST: I changed this significantly. Flint became a minor character and Lucien was replaced with Corinalous, the father of one of the PCs. This helped draw the PCs into the adventure immediately. But it was always with the intent of defeating Yarash (who was renamed Leviathan in my campaign), rather than a vague quest for treasure. I combined the raid on the drug den to rescue Lucien/Corinalous with the free Freeport adventure, The Consequences of Vice.

Yarash, an evil pirate god who opposes the "good" pirate god, Harrimast, formed the Full-Fathom Five. Yarash is the hands-on type, and he gave each of his pirates an artifact to rule the seas: Ezekiel Carthy received a sextant, Black Jenny Ramsey received a pirate's hook, a Moab Cys'varion received a spyglass, a Zoltan Zaska received a pistol, and Daen Danud received a ship's bell. But Carthy betrayed his comrades and Yarash, leading to the god's imprisonment in Hell's Triangle along with the Full-Fathom Five. Carthy, in the intervening centuries, has been blissfully hiding out in Freeport, with none the wiser.

Until now. The PCs unwittingly reveal who Carthy really is. But Carthy doesn't have the sextant. It's in the possession of Drak Sockit, a half-orc with plans for the Sea Lord's throne. The Sea Lord is a hereditary title, the equivalent of the King of Freeport, and Drak believes the sextant proves he is descended from the original Sea Lord. The orcs, cheap labor that up to now have been helping rebuild Freeport, are sick and tired of being treated like second-class citizens and they're not going to take it anymore.

PLAYTEST: I tweaked Drak to become Drak Scarbelly, using Scarbelly from one of the other Freeport adventures. This gave him a lot more relevance to the campaign. I also enjoyed the parallels to realistic politics about importing cheap labor, and one of the PCs went along with it; it was a major role-playing event to see him begrudgingly put his own biases aside to work with Drak. I also got rid of the ridiculous way the orcs talk. For example: "Hey manflesh! You am wake up! No seaweed god am protect you from Sons of Krom!" This style of speaking was taken from the old Green Ronin game, Ork! It's funny for a beer and pretzels kind of game (in Ork!, Orks explode if they eat broccoli), but it's nigh unreadable when Drak goes on for paragraphs discussing orc rights.

This leads to Drak getting imprisoned, along with the sextant, which he thoughtfully hides by swallowing it. The PCs have to rescue him from the Hulks, floating prison ships off the coast of Freeport. Once they retrieve the sextant and reunite it with Carthy, the portal to Hell's Triangle opens and that's the last the PCs see of Freeport for a bit.

PLAYTEST: One of the major villains is a cultist named William "Billy Bones" Grimshady, who kidnaps Carthy. The whole scene is supposed to be a thrilling chase, except that at this point one of my PCs could fly. Oddly, the cultists can too (one of them has a potion of fly) so clearly the authors understood that PCs could ruin the whole chase scene with a simple spell. This is just one example in a series of forced plotlines that don't go the way the authors planned because higher-level D&D games tend to break a lot of assumptions.

Billy Bones is a rip off of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) from the movie Blue Velvet. Right down to his breathing mask; in the movie, Frank inhales some kind of narcotic (laughing gas, maybe?). In BSOF, Billy Bones uses the inhaler to inhale potions or narcotics. This is the other problem with BSOF, which is that it will sacrifice any sense of continuity or plot for a joke or a homage. Billy Bones, with his inhaler, flintlock pistol, cloak, and fedora, looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic game. And his bizarre swearing is completely out of character for what is otherwise a light-hearted adventure. In other words, Billy Bones isn't just a homage, he literally feels like a cameo appearance by someone's favorite character. Most of the players hadn't seen Blue Velvet, so I simply made him a foul-mouthed Jack Nicholson rip off, and that worked well enough.

Thus begins what turned a lot of people off of Freeport entirely. Each villain has his or her own island, with a particular theme that seems predicated more on a single joke than an actual adventure path.

Daen Danud is the lord of the Isle of Undeath, where he drills his undead troops in the military arts, even though the Intelligence scores of most of the undead are far too low to be trained.

PLAYTEST: I played Danud as if he was Skeletor from the old He-Man cartoons. That made for a lot of fun. I also converted Danud's penchant for blood magic into the Blood Magus prestige class; thanks to the powers gained from that class, Danud managed to kill one of the PCs. It was the longest battle I've ever run in D&D, ever (spell durations actually ran out), but also the most fun. There's also a vampire who helps the PCs in this adventure; again, I took a vampire from a previous adventure and inserted him into the plot. As it turned out, this was a necessity--my time for gaming was running out and we needed to bring the campaign to a close. So rather than go through every one of these islands, which could take two or three sessions per island, we accelerated the timeline thanks to the vampire-ally's planning.

Zoltan Zaska controls the Boneshaper's Throne, a weird mix of science fiction and horror, wherein Zaska leads the PCs through reenactments of his life on a gigantic flying skull in a series of supervillain-esque tests, each with the purpose of weeding out who will be the perfect new body for Zaska's spirit.

PLAYTEST: Danud may seem silly with his military drills, but he's tolerable. Zaska is just off the wall. Zaska creates construct minions out of the corpses of his own clones. When he's not flying around in a giant skull trying to get his clones to fight each other, he's impregnating clones of Black Jenny Ramsey, whom he is hopelessly obsessed with. The PCs found the journey through Zaska's life to be very amusing. In the end, I had Zaska challenge the most flamboyant PC to a duel, which Zaska promptly lost. The goal is to get the PC to pick up the artifact pistol, which then allows Zaska to jump into the PC's body. It turned out to be a lot more amusing than irritating, as Zaska would take over whenever the PC had a weak moment (like when he failed a Will save vs. a spell).

Ramsey, who has remade herself as a vampire goddess named Ahunatum, rules the Island of the White Gorilla. She subjugates the population through her sentient gorillas, who regularly make blood sacrifices atop a pyramid.

PLAYTEST: And you thought Zaska was bad? This whole chapter is filled with Planet of the Apes jokes, Donkey Kong jokes, gorillas gambling for bananas jokes, and a bunch of other dumb jokes. Like much of BSOF, it contains in-jokes for the DM only. There's also the little matter of a vampire who conceals that she has a hook on her hand by...HIDING IT BEHIND HER BACK. No wonder it takes a DC 30 Spot check to notice! With Zaska possessing one of the PCs, he was loath to harm her. And given that they only needed the hook, the PCs promptly lopped it off Ramsey's arm and she managed to escape. Right before they rammed Zaska's giant skull ship into her pyramid.

That's another problem with this adventure. It doesn't actually take into account how the PCs will use the artifacts until they reach Yarashad. For example, the ship's bell gives the PCs control over ALL undead. The pistol gives the PCs control of Zaska's flying ship and his legions of skeleton constructs. The hook can control men's minds, and the spyglass can see everywhere and open a portal to anywhere. For each island that the PCs beat, things get that much easier.

Finally, there's Crystal Lake Island, a land of paranoid mutants ruled by the former drow Moab Cys'varion. In another science fictionish twist, Moab has been mutating the humans and animals around his island, allowing for all sorts of unique, bizarre creatures for the PCs to fight.

PLAYTEST: I decided that Moab, with his spyglass that sees everything, knew what was up. He's planning an invasion of Freeport anyway, so instead of invading Freeport, he invaded the PCs ship, gating monsters onto it one round after another, then his bodyguards, and then himself--it made perfect sense: each pirate needed all five artifacts and there the PCs were, just waiting for him to take it!

Mutations are another science fiction idea that has little place in D&D. We get the idea of mutations--that's why we have owlbears--but we don't need fish mutants, warrior mutants, ape mutants...there are plenty of D&D monsters to fill the same niche.

Retrieving all four artifacts summons Yarashad, the island where Yarash is entombed. The PCs meet an incarnation of Harrimast, cleverly disguised as an avatar known as "Old Mad Harry," who leads them on a merry quest to Yarash's tomb. There, the PCs are encouraged to use the power of each of the artifacts to overcome the various obstacles to Yarash's immense treasure. Having reached the end of their quest and wealthy beyond measure, Harrimast returns the PCs to Freeport, where they will live out their days with over three-hundred thousand gold pieces each...

PLAYTEST: Again, there's a lot of sloppy plotting here. When exactly Harrimast reveals himself is undetermined. Beyond acting as a foil for the PCs, he doesn't do much. When the PCs defeat all the challenges, they are left with a pile of treasure and no way to get back. BSOF doesn't even explain what happens to Harrimast, nor does it explain how they return. All this time the four villains and a GOD couldn't get out of Hell's Triangle, and the only hint that the PCs are somehow able to escape through Harrimast's intervention is his speech, "if ye can put me in me right mind, I'll fix you up and set ye windward." Apparently, "set ye windward" translates to "escape Hell's Triangle with treasure and artifacts in tow.

The other problem is that Harrimast seems like something of an idiot. Old Mad Harry led the PCs to Yarash's tomb, he lets them have Yarash's treasure (with plenty of threats, of course), and he also is apparently severed from his god form. He needs the PCs to use the artifacts to free him of his curse. The ones Harry led them to. Riiiight.

The PCs also get an obscene amount of treasure. Although the obstacles are suitably daunting (twelve bodaks, anyone?), they are easily overcome by judicious use of the artifacts. That left my PCs singularly unfulfilled. Sure, they were flush with cash. But they came to defeat Yarash. Instead, they found the god locked in his tomb, surrounded by money, and led there by the god who beat him, without a clear means of getting back. I couldn't blame my PCs for being a little aggravated with Harrimast. It seemed like he was wasting their time.

Back home, the war between elves and barbarians has reached a climax. Drak has been imprisoned (again). Orcs are rioting in the streets. And that's when the barbarians choose to strike. Freeport is under attack, and it's up to our heroes to put a stop to it: by convincing the Sea Lord's Guard to let Drak go so that he can rally the orcs to defend Freeport, by firing the massive cannons at the invading fleet, by foiling elven plots to sabotage the city. With the barbarians on the run, Freeport gives chase...

PLAYTEST: I inserted Crisis in Freeport into this part of the adventure, thus wrapping up the succession crisis as to whom would take over the position of Sea Lord. I'll save that for a separate review. Suffice it to say that this was an exciting part of the adventure and all the PCs stepped up.

Only to be attacked by those pesky elves. And while the elves are attacking, the Son of Yarash (a kraken) rises. Summoned by Yarash's cultists, it consumes ship after ship. Once it consumes ten ships, Yarash's tomb rises and Yarash is reborn! A big, Cthulhu-like monster with four arms, he blathers on about the Full-Fathom Five and how they utterly failed in their mission. He had to trick a couple of meddling kids (that's you, PCs) into resurrecting him. And now the world will PAY! MUAAHAHAHAH!

PLAYTEST: When the PCs saw the kraken, they turned tail and ran. No, seriously. It wasn't until Yarash showed up that they decided to fight. Then it is revealed that secretly, Harrimast wanted Yarash to think his plan was working so he could destroy him once and for all. Wheels within wheels, see?

So to sum up: Harrimast couldn't remove a curse from his avatar, but he could lead PCs to the artifacts that could remove it. He could waltz right into Yarash's tomb, but couldn't obliterate Yarash personally. He could pretty much do nearly everything but not the thing the PCs needed to do. Harrimast has to be the most unresourceful pirate god, ever.

Fortunately, Yarash has a weakness: the five stars on his forehead. The PCs hopefully get the hint, wipe the stars and smile off of Yarash's face, put an end to the war (since both the barbarian and elven fleets are decimated), save Freeport and save the world.

PLAYTEST: I replaced Yarash with a weakened avatar of Cthulhu and let the PCs go at it. One PC died, the others were hanging on by a thread, but they managed to just barely defeat the evil god. And that wrapped up my four year D&D campaign.

BSOF devotes an entire page to what happened to Carthy, as if anyone cares about Carthy. It leaves other important political questions completely unresolved: what about Drak's claim to the throne? Do any of the captains die during the battle against Yarash, thereby opening up seats on the Captains Council? What about the elven and barbarian fleets--who wins the war? That's up to the DM to decide.

BSOF is a very old school module. At times it feels like it was written by twelve-year-olds, with its flagrant disregard for continuity and logic, its over-the-top puns and homages to video games and movies nobody cares about, and its "oh don't worry about it" attitude towards details. One example: instead of giving twelve cultists poisoned daggers, they're all given daggers of venom. Twelve daggers of venom add up in PCs hands.

Similarly, the adventure doesn't take into account the fact that the PCs will have five ultra-powerful artifacts when the war commences. Sure, Yarash deactivates the artifacts when he appears, but prior to that point the PCs could conceivably rout both fleets through the artifacts alone. To solve that problem, I made the artifacts stop working as soon as they returned to Freeport.

And yet, I can't be too hard on this adventure. It's like that player you have in your game who doesn't know how to play D&D but has big ideas; he's big on theatrics and sketchy on details, cracks a lot of jokes, drinks all your soda, and is basically just there to have fun. For all its stogie-smoking zombies, card-playing gorillas, and flying giant skulls, BSOF is about having a good time and damn the consequences. DMs should consider carefully if their campaign and players can handle it. Mine did just fine.

Tatters of the King: Hastur's Gaze Gains Brief Focus Upon the Earth

I run a Living Arcanis campaign, which also contains Freeport. With a wealth of material at my disposal, I decided to pick up Tatters of the King (TOK) to see how I could fit it into my campaign. I should point out that this is a long playtest review that contains spoilers galore. To help clarify what I did differently in my campaign, I will use a PLAYTEST tag.

Tatters of the King is a massive Call of Cthulhu adventure that details the invasion of Hastur on Earth. It's Hastur's grand oeuvre, presenting him as a Cthulhu-like entity, as the King in Yellow, and as a husband deity to Shub-Niggurath. Four cultists, each participating in a different path to bring about Hastur, attempt to contact him, only to go their separate ways. It's up to the player characters (PCs) to stop them.

Montague Edwards and Lawrence Bacon made an Unspeakable Oath with Hastur. Edwards regenerates, Bacon never sleeps. Alexander Roby is inexorably tied to Carcosa and the Yellow Sign, and only he can summon it to Earth. Malcom Quarrie is the most dangerous and the most committed to bringing the King in Yellow to Earth. The four unknowingly have a rival cultist in their mist, one Wilfred Gresty, who worships Shub-Niggurath and doesn't buy any of this "bride of Hastur" stuff.

The adventure begins with an opening night of the play, The King in Yellow, that drives people mad who witness it. There's an after-party held in celebration of the success of the event, wherein the PCs get to meet the author, Talbot Estus, and his players. A great introduction to the insanity to follow.

PLAYTEST: I placed the events in Freeport. Two of the PCs were present and ultimately escaped the madness that ensued. They returned in time to attend the opening night reception. There, one PC (Sebastian the sorcerer) decided Talbot Estus, was too dangerous to live and murdered him in cold blood.

In the mean time, the PCs are tasked with getting their friend, Alexander Roby, out of an insane asylum at the behest of Doctor Trollope. There were murders in the prison blamed on Roby, although how he committed them is impossible to tell. In reality, Edwards, who posed as a guard in the prison, committed the murders. The PCs are encouraged to interview Roby, who provides a telling prophecy both for the end of the campaign and of Doctor Trollope's death.

PLAYTEST: I changed Doctor Trollpe to be Kham the psychic warrior/rogue's father. I made Roby a childhood friend of Kham to provide more relevance. I also inserted a few adventures here involving finding Kham's father and a side jaunt into a "The Thing"-like adventure. The PCs witnessed a strange summoning involving nine monoliths and were attacked by byakhee. It also started to snow, unheard of in tropical Freeport. I made it a point of having an incarnation of the King in Yellow tell Kham that "he was the key."

With Trollope knowing too much, Edwards' chief henchman, Michael Coombs, assassinates him. The PCs receive a posthumous note from Trollope indicating that Roby predicted his death with a spell. Wilfred Gresty, a rival cultist of Shub-Niggurath, slips one of the PCs a note about Lawrence Bacon's whereabouts with the intent of catching him in the act of draining the homeless of their lifeofce.

PLAYTEST: Having Trollope be Kham's dad infused the adventure with a lot of emotional energy. Once he connected Bacon to his father's murderer, Kham tracked down the cultist and a showdown ensued, resulting in Bacon falling off a bridge into icy water. One cultist down, three to go!

A subsequent search of Bacon's home reveals a group of ghoul living in Bacon's basement.

PLAYTEST: In my campaign, ghouls were created through an addictive drug called ghoul juice. It wasn't too much of a stretch that Bacon was both a drug dealer as well as a dealer in antiquities. Kham, with no regard for his own safety, barely escaped with his life.

Determined to summon Hastur, Edwards breaks Roby out of prison. The next connection is an obituary for Bacon, written by none other than Aleister Crowley. The PCs are expected to visit Crowley and wheedle information out of him about Montague Edwards.

PLAYTEST: As a real-life analogue, Crowley had no place in Arcanis. So I went all out, turning him into the front man for a sadistic cult. They kidnapped one of the female PCs. This culminated in a battle in Crowley's basement, who eventually gave up the information they sought but escaped penalty due to his social and political connections.

Hot on the trail of Edwards, the PCs journey north only to discover that Roby succeeded: Carcosa has been summoned to Earth. Coombs plays a cat-and-mouse game with the PCs until they finally kill him. They then track down Roby and Edwards just in time to see Edwards summon thousands of byakhee and Hastur himself.

PLAYTEST: Kham killed Edwards easily, but was unable to stop the summoning. There are several ways to stop it, but I went for the dramatic approach. Roby demanded Kham throw him a pistol in self-defense--in reality, Roby knew he was the key to closing Carcosa. So he shoots himself. Ilmare and Kham barely escaped with their lives. The town left behind was utterly obliterated by Carcosa and Hastur's appearance. Three cultists down, one to go!

Time passes. The PCs meet Gresty, presumably when he's in prison. He reveals information about Shug-Niggurath and its rivalry with the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. He also provides a link to events happening at Nug's Farm.

There, Hillary Quarrie, the wife of Malcolm, is in fact the heir-apparent to the Shub-Niggurath priesthood. Only Gresty lusts for her power, creating an inevitable showdown. This is the single-most exciting part of the campaign, with the PCs going toe-to-toe with a Dark Young. Only a ritual cast by Hillary saves them.

Using information gleaned from Hillary, the PCs travel to Milan. There, they met up with Thomas Villiers, who ultimately betrays them with another byakhee. This in turn reveals where Malcolm disappeared to: Drakmar, in Tibet.

PLAYTEST: Fortunately, Arcanis has portals that span the planet, so I skipped what I consider to be the most boring part of the adventure: long overland travel. The PCs resumed the adventure at the Monastery at Te, wherein they met Carlo Schippone, a crack shot. They made short work of him and journeyed onward to meet the Horror from the Hills.

And that horror is Chaugnar Faugn. The PCs didn't do anything stupid, although the adventure makes much of what happens if they do. Surrounded by Tcho-Tchos, the PCs were dutifully ushered past Chaugnar Faugn into the Plateau of Leng, where they met Malcolm Quarrie at last.

Only Quarrie is a pacifist. Bound and determined to summon the King in Yellow, Sebastian convinced Quarrie that they are aligned in their goals. This worked for a little while until Shantaks attack. That's when Sebastian used the opportunity to kill Quarrie in cold blood. See a pattern here?

Finally, the PCs meet the King in Yellow. He simply asks who will lead him to Earth. PCs who hesitate...DIE.

PLAYTEST: Kham, convinced that this was his burden to bear, agreed at first...then changed his mind. The King slit his throat. Sebastian was up next. He planned to lead the King astray. And so he did, leading him back to Carcosa and taking Sebastian (at least temporarily) out of play. The adventure left the PCs feeling like they had lost even though they had saved the world.

TOK is an excellent series of adventures, marred occasionally by the usual Cthulhu foils: assuming investigators will be naive or helpless (these days, most investigators carry guns and in my D&D game, they carry really heavy firepower in the form of spells), spending way too much time on overland travel, and an overemphasis on how PCs can avoid going insane by closing their eyes...a decidedly unheroic thing to do that shouldn't work anyway.

But when TOK hits its mark, it really makes for memorable sessions. The moral quandaries that the PCs regularly faced made for exciting play, and the fever pitch of the Dark Young showdown is magnificent...unfortunately it has very little to do with the main plot (it's essentially internecine squabbling with a completely unrelated cult).

There are plenty of notes and props, all of them useful. Especially intriguing are the nightmares that the PCs experience and the means of conveying the King in Yellow's telepathy (it involves cue cards). All of this made for evocative scenes that kept my PCs guessing.

Best of all, TOK plays for keeps. While the sacrifice of two PCs was a serious blow, it FELT like the conclusion to a series. And given the grand tour of Hastur and his ilk, we all appreciated the ending.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

I picked up Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (BG:DA) for Playstation 2 after finishing Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes on the Xbox. I'm familiar with Bioware, who consistently makes games I really enjoy (including Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). Additionally, Baldur's Gate came first before D&D Heroes, so I knew there would be some improvements. Still, Maleficent and I enjoy blowing stuff up together, so we needed a new fix and Baldur's Gate fit the bill.

Unlike D&D Heroes, BG:DA pretends it has role-playing elements and in doing so, just highlights how non-role-playing the game is. Similar to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights, there are conversation trees. When you speak to a character, you select a series of responses from a menu. There are maybe five characters you can talk to in total and your conversation doesn't really matter - we quickly discovered that clicking the top choice always meant we'd get to hear the whole story. But you can just skip the whole story too and get right to the matter at hand, which means the role-playing elements are just trappings to make it seem more like D&D.

Forget character customization too, at least at character creation. There are three character types, including an elven sorceress, dwarven (cleric? I didn't play him so not sure), and human arcane archer. Some warning flags should go off for folks who play the third edition of D&D - one cannot start out as an arcane archer, that's a prestige class. But that doesn't matter - the human, named Vahn, is whom you get to play. While he can hack things up in melee, Vahn's clearly optimized for ranged combat. The game gives subtle hints like dropping great heaps of arrows as the only equipment you find in treasure hoards.

BG:DA is obviously geared towards a particular breed of player - the young, [...], male kind. The first character you interact with is a blonde elf that is quite buxom and has a habit of leaning forward, gesturing towards her chest or thrusting her hips. Similarly, the elven sorceress is only elf-like in that she has pointed ears - the rest of her is quite human.

The artwork, especially for a PS2 game, is fantastic. The backgrounds and sound effects are impressively crafted and filled with a loving attention to detail. The characters themselves move smoothly and act like real people in their hand gestures and emotions - even the lizard man acts slightly inhuman in how he speaks and moves. The voice acting is well done, but that's something I've come to expect from Bioware.

There are some lazy shortcuts that were very irritating in their exclusion. One lizard man sends the heroes through an elemental plane of water, spends five minutes explaining how dangerous the journey will be and then we see a cut scene focusing on some random tower. POOF! That whole water/drowning thing? We never see it - we don't' even see animation explaining the journey. We have to trust on faith that it was a tough swim through the elemental plane of water. When everything else is narrated and explained in such painstaking detail, I expect to see animation explaining it.

There is, of course, all the good stuff that some people think equates with a role-playing game: you can buy equipment, switch out arms and armor, and train particular feats and spells as you advance. Little of these powers resemble third edition D&D - fire shield is considerably weaker than its tabletop counterpart. Strangely, my character was unharmed by Maleficent's burning hands (even when she was blasting right through him) but her fireballs hurt him. Go figure.

Some of the monsters are radically different from their tabletop equivalents in weird ways. In Neverwinter Nights, umber hulks are wusses with an irritating confusion gaze. In BG:DA they are terrifying juggernauts, sans gaze. Drow are still as sneaky as ever (it's clear Bioware has a soft spot for the dark-skinned elves), dragons are still a pain in the ass, and giants are suitably fearsome. Bulette burrow and are extremely difficult to kill, which is appropriate, although they waddle like fast moving turtles...not how I envisioned them (or how they move in D&D Heroes).

Perhaps the most unforgivable flaw in the game is that it crashed. That's right folks, just like a PC, the screen went white and the game crashed hard. Considering we were at a critical point in the game and a lot of objects were on the screen at the same time (magic missiles, multiple enemies, arrows, etc.) I imagine it overtaxed the PS2. But what the heck - if I wanted a game that would crash I would have played it on a PC!

As a game developer myself for RetroMUD, I was surprised to see that every corpse and item stays where it is. That means there's no object cleanup. This means that the system has to determine the location of every item, corpse, and monster at all times. Corpses stay right where they are, which is alternately cool and disturbing, especially in rooms of mass slaughter. This problem was resolved in D&D Heroes (the corpses disintegrate) but it's a big mistake for a game of this size and probably led to the aforementioned crash.

I also got stuck once in an area due to clipping errors. These are amateurish mistakes that I haven't since seen repeated (certainly, not in D&D Heroes) so I'm willing to forgive the developers. But it's their first foray onto console games and it shows. It's a good game, but there are better games now with less boring, click-so-they-shut-up "role-playing" elements.

Warriors: A Comprehensive D20 Sourcebook for Fantasy Role-Playing Games

Warriors is one of those d20 references that's actually a reference. Written by veterans who know their stuff, it's obvious that there's a strong historical context winding its way through the information provided throughout. And of course, that information is about everybody's favorite NPC class, the warrior.

Okay, so warriors aren't everybody's favorite NPC class. In fact, they're usually glossed over as [bad] fighters. Their role has never clearly been defined -- the DMG's explanation of the warrior class leaves them open to interpretation. Warriors aims to change that.

The artwork in the book varies greatly, from obvious black and white clipart to extremely cartoony (the executioner on p. 21 being the most egregious example).

The book begins with an Introduction to warriors in general and a reference to a new innovation, the subtype. The subtype idea is a means of defining an NPC without making them overly powerful. They are not like the old 2nd Edition kits (thank goodness!) but they do help delineate the skills and feats of say, a longbowman vs. a shortbowman. Warriors also claims to have reprinted previously published material from the Experts book. However, there are numerous (and after the first few times, annoying) references to go read the Experts book for more information. Warriors also mentions that it's meant to be 3.5 compatible, but that the conversion might not be perfect (it isn't). It rounds out the introduction with a description of medieval armies that helps set the sometimes gritty tone of the book. Unlike the Experts book, Warriors is largely open game content.

The prestige classes chapter details a wide variety, including Aerial Cavalryman, Beast Rider, Charioteer, Combat Engineer, Dueling Master, Executioner, Forester, Gladiator, Marine, Mechanist Infantry, Militia Leader, Mountaineer, Nomadic Cavalryman, Sheriff, Watchman, and Zealot. Warriors is strongest when it hews closely to the historical archetypes of warriors and is weaker when it ranges into the fantasy genre. Each prestige class is accompanied by an example of the class, helpful to DMs and players alike who know what prestige class they want but wouldn't recognize it by name.

The next chapter details warrior subtypes. Subtypes are sort of a poor man's occupations from d20 Modern. In fact, they are quite similar, if a bit more detailed, than occupations. I like the idea -- it helps round out the warrior class and provide alternatives without requiring the levels of a prestige class. Thus, there are longbow subtypes, artillerist subtypes, etc. Each subtype gets a special benefit, usually a class skill -- just like d20 Modern occupations. Unlike the occupations, each subtype comes with suggested equipment and feats it can substitute. The subtypes also include non-military versions, like the bandit and barkeep. Incidentally, this book's subtypes is an excellent complement to Mercenaries: Born of Blood.

The skill chapter goes into exquisite detail about everything from Craft (artifice) to the rune-carving Craft (Koftgari). Warriors keeps the new skills to a minimum, offering Operate Device, Signaling, Smell, Taste, and Torture. Duh -- why didn't anyone else think of the Smell and Taste skills when we have Listen and Spot? One of the best chapters in the book.

The feats chapter details relatively bland feats, including a bunch of aerial combat feats and some feats specific to prestige classes/subtypes.

The equipment chapter is a study in contrasts: fantasy equipment is mixed in with exotic weapons and armor from other cultures. Thus we have the chakram, khandar, and pata mixed in with the assault mechanist armor (in essence, power armor). This is one of those situations where the book overextends itself a bit -- armor of this type is best left to books like D20 Mecha (where is D20 Mecha, anyway?). It also includes rules on making high technology weapons and transportation, including balloons and dirigibles. It even explains how gunpowder is made.

The spells chapter is primarily dominated by battle runes, which are used by zealots. These battle runes are not remarkable -- they're just a variant of material components. Some of the spells have a middle-Eastern feel to them (like eye of Shiva and searing sands). The spell, transformation of Jebus, seems like a juiced up version of Tenser's transformation.

The magic items chapter ranges all over the place, from (armor, claw, boots, cloak, etc.) of the beast to more exotic items like the bow of Rama, dwarven firewagon, table of Ezekiel and thunderbolt of Hirtadhvaj. Someone did their homework.

The monsters appendix is unexceptional. It has three monsters in total, the primary focus being the Narasinhai. They're a anthropomorphic lion race. We've seen it before.

The third appendix details sample characters, useful for dropping NPCs that use the Warriors rules right into the game. A sorely needed attribute that takes a LOT of work to create -- I speak from personal experience.

The last three appendices are excellent. They detail chariot warfare, elephant warfare and heraldry. Each appendix is short but descriptive and summarizes all the information you need to know in a succinct fashion.

While the text and artwork may be at times uneven, Warriors achieves its goal -- it fleshes out the warrior NPC class with enough ideas that it can easily be applied to PCs. It works best when applied as a straight historical interpretation of the D20 system and is less effective when it veers off into fantasy elements that are obviously favorites of the authors. Warriors is an excellent sourcebook that provides breadth and depth to a long-ignored NPC class.

Rifts World Book 18: Mystic Russia

Now that fantasy RPGs are looking for new cultures to exploit, Russia has finally come into its own. Mystic Russia is, as the back of the cover states, about "...Russian Myth, but given that ol' Rifts® twist." It does a serviceable job of bringing Russian monsters to life, and to a lesser degree, the O.C.C.s of Russian folklore.

The monster section is the best part and obviously the primary reason for the book, as they're placed in the front (which seems peculiar to me). Most are pulled right from Russian folklore, but a few seem like someone thought the picture looked cool and threw in some statistics for it, like the Demon Claw. Of particular note are the Koshchei (remember that guy from the AD&D Monster Manual II?) and the Kaluga Hag on page 27, my vote for what the Blair Witch looks like. The artwork throughout the book is above par.

Speaking of witches, as usual, this book heavily emphasizes that magic isn't real and neither are witches. Unless you are a practicing witch, in which case, please don't be offended. Mr. Siembedia points this out on page 1. And page 10. And page 72. And 73.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of all the books Mr. Siembedia writes are the finger-wagging, condescending quips that are littered throughout the rules. For example, on the topic of the evil Necromancer as an O.C.C., he advises to "...please respect the G.M.'s decision and move forward with the game." Move forward with the game? We were in the middle of an argument and the author's narrative made us stop, turn to that passage, and suddenly realize we should all just "move forward with the game" and stop arguing about the rules? This kind of condescending blather is presumably due to the younger target audience, but I'm sure they find it insulting too.

The Pact Witch, Hidden Witch and Old Believer O.C.C.s are interesting looks at Russian folklore and magic, although occasionally the spells are so specific as to be of questionable value (spoil water, curdle mlik, spoil wine, and spoil eggs could probably be grouped under spoil food). The Necromancer and Fire Sorcerer are reprinted from other Rifts books. It's disconcerting to see (NEW!) in front of the Bone Magic section. So the rest of the spells aren't new? Of all the O.C.C.s, the Mystic Kunzya stands out as truly unique, super-smiths with a penchant for super weapons. Super-powerful unbalancing weapons, but hey, you don't play Rifts for game balance anyway.

The Gypsy section is suspiciously generic. While the first crop of O.C.C.s delve into very specific spells of limited usefulness, the Gypsy section is devoid of detail. Professions like the Chovihani are missing completely, unless you use the Hidden Witch, which is not what Chovihani were about. This would be a perfect place for such spells as steal liver and a variety of thief protection spells that Chovihani were known for.

The last section seems like an afterthought about Sovietski tanks and war machines. This is Mystic Russia, right?

All in all, this book is a servicable resource for most role-playing games. However, as a Rifts supplement, it's fluffed out with a lot of material in other books under the guise of being reprinted for the "player's convenience."

Priest's Spell Compendium, Volume 1

The Priest's Spell Compendium (PSC) is the fifth installment in a welcome trend: TSR/WOTC cleaning out their vaults, collating their material, and placing them in sourcebooks. The Wizard's Spell Compendium, now complete, was a valuable addition to any player or Dungeon Master's repertoire of spells. On the other hand, it was just gravy, and it suffered (like other collections) from typos, poor editing, and the general impression that someone cut and pasted the information together haphazardly.

In the case of specialty Priests, the division of spells that occurred as a result of the Second Edition rules caused some serious unbalances in the game. Some specialty Priests have spheres with few spells in them, like the Astral sphere. Because many spells can be "reversed," evil Priests have access to the Healing sphere and good Priests have access to the Necromantic sphere.

Then there's "powers" which are unique abilities bestowed upon Priests by their gods. The distinction between spells and powers is murky, as powers are not subject to the sphere categorizations. It was a convenient loophole for giving Priests spells that didn't fit with their deities profile.

With this confusing situation making a specialty Priest's life difficult, and the powers and spells largely up to the Dungeon Master's discretion, a sourcebook with more Priest spells is a welcome addition.

Having a compilation of spells is useful for Druids and other specialty Priests who suffered from the sparse spheres they had to choose from. The PSC claims on page 3:
"Some description have been updated or combined with similar effects to eliminate duplication; some have been modified for better play, and a very few have been dropped entirely." It's a no-brainer: take all the out-of-print supplements, put them into a database, and hit the print button. Then, just edit the combined content. How hard could that be?

Very hard, unfortunately. The PSC, while better edited than its predecessors (and that's not saying much), is still plagued by what seems an unwillingness on the part of the editors to comb through the book line by line. Nowhere is this more obvious than on page 9:

"In the sword-and-sandal Dark Sun setting, priests are preservers or defilers, depending on whether or not their magic drains the living energy of that world." Priests are not preservers or defilers. That's a title applied to wizards in the Dark Sun setting. However, the above sentence is in the Wizard's Spell Compendium . Somebody replaced the word "Wizard" with "Priest" and pasted the introduction into the book. This did not bode well for the rest of the volume.

Some of the problems with PSC deal with the manner in which old spells were categorized into the new spheres created for Priests in the Second Edition rules. For example, why is age plant (p. 9) in the Time sphere, but not the Plant sphere? Several other spells are included in multiple spheres. The A section was a bit of a let down: the disturbingly slim Astral sphere only has a handful of spells in it, even with all the spells from other sources.

Icons accompany each spell to indicate, at a glance, what setting the spell fits best. This system is used inconsistently. Bad medicine (p. 52), a Shaman spell, is missing the savage setting icon.

There are several spells that create or summon monsters. The monster statistics are usually reproduced in the volume -- a necessity if the spells are to be of any use. Only some of the monsters' statistics appear, however: Create crypt thing (p. 154) has the created monster's statistics, but create death tyrant (p. 155) does not. If these statistics were removed intentionally to save space, it doesn't explain the large patches of blank space on pages 51 and 175.

Anyone remember the Dragon magazine article with six other Paladin classes, each based on a unique alignment? The Paramander's spells ended up in the Wizard's Spell Compendium, but the priest spells for the other Paladin classes are strangely excluded from this volume.

And then there's the inclusion of the coalstone's statistics without the actual spell to create it (p. 126). Why bother?

The artwork consists of serviceable black and white pictures, mostly portraits. One evident change of WOTC's takeover of TSR is their unwillingness to recycle old artwork. This may seem like a minor quibble, but it's a sore point with a lot of TSR products. Yes, I can recognize reused artwork from the Pick A Path/Which Way Adventure books! Thankfully, the artwork always applies to a spell on the same page.

With the Third Edition of Dungeons and Dragons on its way, it's possible that editing this volume wasn't the top priority. Indeed, it may be that instead of providing a quality product, TSR's goal is to recycle all out-of-print material and then release them in electronic format at a much lower price.

The Priest's Spell Compendium selling point is obvious: you can't get many of these spells anywhere else. For players of specialty priests, it's a valuable addition to their library. Unfortunately, TSR just doesn't put enough effort into editing and organizing the spells to justify its high price tag for anyone else.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Core Rules 2.0

For those of you us who owned version 1.0 of the AD&D Core Rules CD-Rom, a revision is a long time in coming. Version 1.0 was a mess, with inconsistencies, broken programs, and a general feeling that TSR rushed it out as soon as possible without a whole lot of quality control (not an uncommon theme with TSR pre-WOTC takeover).

I'm happy to say they fixed a few problems. They also created a few more.

There are some staple elements that make you wonder why you ever bought any rule books. There's no less than nine of them, even more than version 1.0. Of course, that led me to wonder where the other ones were. Where's the Complete Book of ? The Wizard's Spellbooks? It doesn't matter. That's for Version 3.0.

Something seems to have happened to the Monster Manual, however. The pictures are no longer neatly displayed next to the descriptions. Instead, they're crammed into the RTF documents like the rest. Who wants to look at a monsterful of naked text?

What you will find is a hand-dandy number crunching program that allows you to make sense of all those Player's Option rules. I actually enjoyed this system, even if it was a bit awkward, because the Player's Option rules can make creating a character a much more complicated process.

Then there's the database. This database allows you to customize various objects, from magic items to monsters to encounters to kits. Which is neat. But only kits, and kits in the Players Option sense. Which means the kits are very weak. Also, there's a bit of confusion between giving a kit a bonus to a proficiency, a free proficiency, a preferred proficiency, and a required proficiency. Forget customizing classes -- THOU SHALT NOT TOUCH THE CORE RULES! Okay, so it's not THAT customizable.

I forgive all that. Having the cash equivalent of over $100 on a CD makes it worth the investment, especially if you're fond of hacking up the rules and want to insert your own house rules. To me, one of the biggest benefits of having AD&D rules in electronic text is what you can do with them.

What I can't forgive, however, is the mapping programs.

They tried. They tried very hard by including the Campaign Cartographer, which proved to be exceptionally dense and not particularly effective in mapping anything at all. I suspect it can be used by someone capable who wants to sit down and read the instruction manual, only there is none that accompany the CD. But that's not all! There's also another mapping program, the original mapping program that came with Version 1.0, Map Maker II.

That collective groan you're hearing in the background is from anyone who ever bought the first version. The reason they're groaning is because that sorry excuse for a mapping program didn't work. The good news is, it works now.

That's about it though. Worse, it's not exportable to any useful graphics format. No .pds, .bmps, .gifs. or jpgs. What good is this map? It works, but it's not even compatible with the Campaign Cartographer on the same CD!

Ultimately, the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Core Rules CD-ROM 2.0 does what it's supposed to do: it's a solid reference that would make a valuable addition to any Dungeon Master's collection. But it could be better.