Friday Fantasy: The Weird That Befell Drigbolton

Something fell to the earth in the middle of the night. It landed on the moors with a flash of light that turned night into day, made the hills tremble, and created a crater within which it pulses, alien and unnatural, exuding a jelly that the local folk from the nearby hamlet of Drigbolton lap up and consume with gleeful abandon. Now they dance and cavort, knowing their lives are about to change, for why else would they have been given the gift of star-jelly? As the firmament above hangs cracked open, others are taking an interest in the hamlet in the northern edge of the great wood known as Dolmenwood, an ancient and bucolic place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles, the haunt of the fey, witches, arcane druids, and rife with dark whimsy. Word has travelled amongst astrologers, seers, and wizards of all types that a star has fallen and when there is a fallen star, there is star-metal, a rare metal sought by many a great alchemist. Others may have heard that The Black Book of Llareggub, a notoriously repressed and rare tome of occult lore, has been seen in the region, whilst others worry that the fallen star is the work of a previously unknown Arch-Mage—surely it is in the best interests of the authorities to confirm that such a figure is operating in the area?

The is the set-up for The Weird That Befell Drigbolton, a scenario published by Necrotic Gnome, for use with Labyrinth Lord, but very easy to use with other retroclones. Designed for a party of Player Characters of Third and Fifth Levels, it is set in Dolmenwood, the great forest region currently only explored through the fanzine, Wormskin. It takes place in one hex, roughly six miles across, focusing in on and around the hamlet of Drigbolton, and is designed as a one hex, hexcrawl—or sandbox. Drigbolton lies at the heart of the hex, one of only four manmade features in the region, with another six consisting of bogs, caves, cliffs, lakes, pools, and woodland. The other feature is the crater where the star landed. The geographical limitations of the scenario means that essentially the whole hex and the adventure could easily be transplanted to a setting other than Dolmenwood, though the weird nature of the scenarios means that it may not fit that setting.

Besides the three hooks to bring the Player Characters—and if playing The Weird That Befell Drigbolton as a one-shot, why not mix-and-match the three to provide differing motivations and drive some in-party friction?—to Drigbolton, one of the major features of the scenario is the passing of time. In most of the major locations in the scenario, events will take place whether the Player Characters are there or not, so if the party arrives at a location two or more days into exploring the area, events will have already happened. This gives the scenario a strong sense of time passing and as the events get weirder and weirder, a sense of urgency as they escalate towards something… Though the Player Characters are unlikely to know quite what until it is too late.

Whether drawn by the lure of star-metal, the location of The Black Book of Llareggub, or rumours of a previously unknown Arch-Mage, the Player Characters will make their way to the hamlet where they find the Drigboltonians in high glee, giddily guzzling down pot after pot of the star-jelly, ladling it into their recipes, traipsing back and forth to the crater to collect yet more in whatever container they have to hand. The Player Characters will be encouraged to join in their religious fervour, but will be otherwise will find the Drigboltonians friendly and helpful, ready and willing to share all manner of rumours and conjecture as to the nature of what fell from the sky. This should spur the Player Characters to visit locations beyond the hamlet and so learn more. The likelihood is that this will include the Crater itself, the Oath House—home to the local ‘hearth-laird’, an old customary position in this region and the nearest thing that the scenario has to a dungeon, a nearby bog, and more. Wherever they go, the Player Characters will encounter the weird again and again—and increasingly weird. This starts with the lack of graveyards in Drigbolton, the Drigboltonians instead having a Room of Repast in their homes, where they keep their dead relatives, ancestor-worshipping them, and ritually, symbolically feeding them. Elsewhere, they will find fornicating statuary, learned taxidermy, ambulatory cuts of meat, awoken beasts high on the star-jelly, colours given to vagrancy, and that is just in the scenario’s set locations. The Weird That Befell Drigbolton also comes with multiple random events—environmental effects such as a sudden, localised downfall of purple rain or the sky being filled with laughter, encounters both mundane and weird, like a human maiden and hunters hunting unicorns or an awakened fox.

The Weird That Befell Drigbolton is primarily an investigative and an exploration scenario, one with a countdown to something apocalyptic, unless the Player Characters intervene, though initially they will be unaware of the countdown. The likelihood is that the Player Characters will be overwhelmed by the weirdness that oozes and drips from every page, because the Game Master is presented with a wealth of weirdness and peculiar persons in and around Drigbolton portray. For the Game Master who enjoys the weird and roleplaying a wide cast of NPCs, many of them are going to be such fun to roleplay and she will find much to relish in The Weird That Befell Drigbolton.

However, The Weird That Befell Drigbolton could be better organised and certainly its maps could have done with a key, rather than having to flip through the book to find the right location description. This has been fixed with a reference sheet, but that is separate to the book. Another issue is that the writing is not as direct as it could be, so it requires a little more preparation than it really should. Then there is the issue of what happens after the countdown. This is left up to the Game Master to decide, but a suggestion or two might have been helpful.

Physically, The Weird That Befell Drigbolton is well presented. Although the writing could have done with a tighter edit, the artwork is decent, capturing much of the weirdness described in the text and all suitable to be shown to the Player Characters.

The Weird That Befell Drigbolton is probably just a little too weird and apocalyptic to serve as an introduction to Dolmenwood in an ongoing campaign, but as a one-shot or perhaps culmination of an ongoing campaign, it dishes out strangeness after strangeness inspired by both H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. Then like the star-jelly itself, Necrotic Gnome bakes the bucolic fruitiness of Dolmenwood into The Weird That Befell Drigbolton’s mix to serve up a rich concoction of peculiarities and aberrations.

[Fanzine Focus XXI] Wormskin Issue Number 8

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3 and Wormskin No. 4, published in July, 2016 and Winter 2016 respectively, improved hugely upon the first and second issues, together providing a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions about the setting before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood. Published in the winter of 2017, Wormskin No. 5 looked at how the region might be explored, whilst also presenting the region around ‘Hag’s Addle’. Wormskin No. 6 focused on the area around Prigwort, as well as detailing ‘The Fairy Lords of Dolmenwood’ and the ‘Unseasons’ that beset the region, whilst Wormskin No. 7, published in the autumn of 2017, added both personal names and honourifics to Dolmenwood as well detailing further hexes under the eaves of the extensive forest.

Wormskin Issue Number 8 was published in February 2018, and exposed further secrets of Dolmenwood, presented a further guide to travelling in the region, and added further monsters. It feels like a relatively short issue, just containing four, reasonably lengthy articles, but all four do add to the setting. The issue opens with ‘The Sisters of the Chalice and the Moon’, an examination of witches and the witch cults to be found in Dolmenwood. The witches of Dolmenwood worship and become companions, guardians, and wives to otherworldly wood-gods known as Gwyrigons, and are highly secretive about their beliefs and practices. Their tenets are given as well as their initiation rites, how they live, their powers and abilities, schemes and goals, rumours about them, and their relationship with the factions also in the region. So they are cast spells like Magic-Users, gain certain powers from the Wood-gods—these are detailed in Wormskin Issue Number 7, can craft potions, talismans, and charms, and so on. For the most part, these are fairly typical abilities accorded witches, and since no mechanical details are given, the Game Master could easily refer to The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition for the game stats. The relationships with other factions is just as useful, such as the Elf Lords’ view that the witches’ communion with the daemon nobles of the Otherworlds as discourteous, treacherous, and disgusting, whilst the witches claim fairies to be selfish and false; that the Duchy of Brackenwold and Barony of the High Wold tend to pointedly ignore the witches—since some of their family members might actually be witches, whilst the witches see both as ephemeral and irrelevant; and the witches seeing adventurers as useful when they need a task done that they themselves cannot do. Overall, it is good to a faction like the witches covered in such detail, and for the most part they are going to remain as NPCs, so the Game Master will need to provide the mechanics and rules herself should one of her players want a witch character.

In the course of eight issues, Wormskin has described a lot of the hexes, roads, and locations in Dolmenwood and since the region is quite a wide area, the Player Characters are going to be doing a lot of travel throughout the wood. Which also means that they are going to be staying out in the forest overnight on a regular basis. This is where ‘Camping in Dolmenwood’ comes into play, which provides rules and guidelines and charts for camping wild in the woods. This covers finding a suitable campsite, setting it up—fetching firewood, building a fire, fining water, foraging, hunting, and more, activities they might undertake during the evening, setting watches, and sleep. It all looks a bit mechanical, but with the roll of a few dice—including a thirty-sided die to determine a particular campsite and its features—a Game Master and her players can determine where and how well the Player Characters are camping, and from that derive a bit of roleplaying and party interplay. How often a Game Master wants to use these rules depends how much she wants to make travel a strong feature of her campaign (for example, it is a strong feature of The One Ring: Adventures Over The Edge Of The Wild), but can also be used to reinforce the fact that Dolmenwood does not being weird and eerie when the Player Character beds down for the night.

‘Strange Waters’ lists thirty different types and forms of water, their appearance, taste, and effect if consumed to be found in Dolmenwood—whether at the end of the day when setting up a campsite. For example, a shallow, muddy pool decorated by lilies and inhabited by amphibians whose surface is a perfect mirror and which tastes perfumed, but if drunk, instils an insatiably lascivious urge to remove your clothing! With thirty options for each element, the Game Master can use this table to make some of the waters to be found in the forest weird and hint at some the magics which run through them.

Rounding out Wormskin Issue Number 8 is more ‘Monsters of the Wood’. This entry in the department has a mycological theme with the inclusion of the Brainconk, Jack-o’-Lantern, Ochre Slime-Hulk, Pook Morel, and Wronguncle. These are all predatory fungi, some even sentient, such as carnivorous Brainconk which creep down from their current treetop homes to latch onto sleeping victims and slurp out their brains, and Pook Morels, which are tiny, but which project psychic horrors upon their victims who drop their possessions. These the Pook Morels scoop up and scamper back to their lairs to hide! All five of these fungi are accompanied by superb illustrations which will be sure to highlight their creepiness when shown to the players.

Physically, Wormskin Issue Number 8 is as well presented as previous issues. It is well written and cleanly and simply laid out. The artwork is good too, a mix of colour and black and white, which captures the weird and dreamy feel of Dolmenwood.

Of course, if you have previous issues of Wormskin, then Wormskin Issue Number 8 is absolutely worth adding—a major faction, something to engage the players and their characters with, a little of the weirdness to be region’s waters—literally, and new monsters. There is a nice sense of scale to the issue too, moving from the overview of the witches and their place in Dolmenwood, then getting smaller and smaller down to the mycology.


Sadly, Wormskin Issue Number 8 is the last issue. This is not as bad as it sounds, since Necrotic Gnome is planning to create a definitive Dolmenwood supplement, one which would best showcase the setting’s promise first hinted at with Wormskin Issue Number 1. Looking back at the eight issues, the ultimate problem with them is their ‘partwork’ structure, resulting in an incoherent feel. It meant that there would be several issues before there was a real introduction to the setting and articles which asked the most basic of questions about the region. What it felt like was needed is to take all eight issues and then split their articles up and assemble in some sort of order. With any luck, the forthcoming Dolmenwood setting supplement will address these issues, for the Wormskin fanzine has never been without flavour or atmosphere, just organisation.

[Fanzine Focus XX] Wormskin No. 7

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3 and Wormskin No. 4, published in July, 2016 and Winter 2016 respectively, improved hugely upon the first and second issues, together providing a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions about the setting before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood. Published in the winter of 2017, Wormskin No. 5 looked at how the region might be explored, whilst also presenting the region around ‘Hag’s Addle’. Wormskin No. 6 focused on the area around Prigwort, as well as detailing ‘The Fairy Lords of Dolmenwood’ and the ‘Unseasons’ that beset the region.

Wormskin No. 7 was published in the autumn of 2017. The issue opens with two almost mundane, but actually very useful articles. The first, ‘Common Names in Dolmenwood’ lists thirty names each for men and women, Elves, Moss Dwarfs, Woodgrues, and Grimalkin—all given as Classes in earlier editions of the fanzine, plus liturgical names for Clerics, and then Honourifics for Clerics, Fighters, Thieves, and Magic-Users. The second, ‘Henchmen of Dolmenwood’ gives rules for locating and creating henchmen and then equipping them according to Class and Race. These obviously work together, but whether in combination or apart, they fill another part of Dolmenwood’s jigsaw puzzle. Especially the ‘Common Names in Dolmenwood’ which allows the Referee to easily name common NPCs.

The bulk of the issue though is dedicated to detailing another twenty-one hexes of Dolmenwood. These include seven hexes in the north around the hamlet of Drigbolton, seven hexes in central Dolmenwood to the east of the town of Prigwort, and in the south, seven hexes around the road from Lankshorn to Dreg. So ‘Drigbolton and Surrounds’ opens with the description of ‘The Hall of the Formorian’, a domed hall atop a marble slab which is home to a blue-skinned immortal giant bound by duty to await the arrival of an unknown man named Jack, a cottage of full of ghosts ready to trade secrets, whilst near the ghost town of Midgewarrow lies the manor home Lady Mariejay Haeroth, local noble and reclusive witch. The town of Drigbolton is mentioned, but not detailed, a full description being given in the scenario, The Weird that Befell Drigbolton.

Near Prigwort is the Ravine of the Stag Lord, a lonely natural amphitheatre where the Stag Lord manifests from the Otherworld to receive homage, though sadly without his head which has been stolen! What boons might he and his stag allies bestow should someone return the lost head to him? South of the ravine on the road is the Refuge of St. Keye, a stopping point on the old pilgrimage to the abandoned Abbey of St. Clewd. Here travellers can find a night’s rest and food if they are willing to listen to a sermon or two. Before that stands the Wenchgate—from the local name for Dryads, an arch of living trees and branches carved with faces that said to welcome travellers to Dolmenwood. Northeast of Lankshorn, not far from the Ditchway is a curiously formed hillock, which will radiate strongly should any magic that detects undead be cast upon it. This is because it is actually the skull of giant of a prodigious size no longer seen in these ages. With a skull that big, what could be inside it? Travellers looking for entertainment might want to visit the Port of Dreg and Shantywood Isle, the former a seedy haunt of thieves, smugglers, charlatans, and more, the latter a cliff-sided island upon which sits Chateau Shantywood. This is a ‘manor of ill repute’, but one which is an independent state of its own! The owner, Madame Shantywood is as much a repository of rumours and pillowtalk as she is ambitious to increase her influence.

The last part of Wormskin Issue Number 7 is devoted to ‘Monsters of Dolmenwood’. This presents some nine creatures native to the Eldritch region. The format for the monster entries has been shortened into a more concise fashion by excising the lair and encounter details which were included in previous entries in the series. This is disappointing because these added detail and examples which made the monster entries easier for use by the Referee. Nevertheless, these are good monsters, many of which have appeared in this and previous issues of the fanzine, either as known denizens of Dolmenwood or as playable character types and Races. They include the Drunewife, the womenfolk of the Drune known for their enchanting songs, and their herbalism and pottery, who are often accompanied by Kilnlings, the clay figurines that serve them. The Giant Psionic Snails are gargantuan denizens of the Otherworld who feed on the energy of Dolmenwood’s Ley Lines, who are often sort out for their knowledge of the Otherworld. One is thought to reside near Lankshorn, where its thoughts manifest as a tea tent that serves the mostly refreshing of brews.

Physically, Wormskin Issue Number 7 is as well presented as previous issues. The layout is clean and unfussy, the tables of ‘Common Names in Dolmenwood’ and ‘Henchmen of Dolmenwood’ make subtle use of colour and are so easy to read. As per usual, the issue uses a mix of publicly available artwork and commissioned pieces, the latter capturing the quirky nature of Dolmenwood. The issue’s use of colour is judicious and so stands out where it appears.

Wormskin Issue Number 7 is a solid issue, detailing yet more of Dolmenwood’s weird locations and inhabitants. Of course the issue suffers from the ‘Part Work’ format of Wormskin so putting it all together is all a bit daunting. It gives Dolmenwood a patchwork feel, the issue lending itself more to parts which a Referee can pull out and add to her game rather than Dolmenwood. 

[Fanzine Focus XV] Wormskin No. 6

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3 and Wormskin No. 4, published in July, 2016 and Winter 2016 respectively, improved hugely upon the first and second issues, together providing a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions about the setting before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood. Published in the winter of 2017, Wormskin No. 5 looked at how the region might be explored, whilst also presenting the region around ‘Hag’s Addle’.

Wormskin No. 6 was published in Spring, 2017. Primarily, it focuses on Prigwort, the largest town in Dolmenwood and its immediate surrounds. It begins though with ‘The Fairy Lords of Dolmenwood’, a full list of the sixteen Lords and Ladies of Fairy who concern themselves with the mortal realm of Dolmenwood, have long dallied in order to enjoy the strange magics of the region, often establishing domains on the mortal realm as well as the faerie realm. Some have long left, but others remain to this day. Each is accorded a full paragraph, such as Duke Mai-Fleur, the supposedly Half-Elf with realms in the mortal and faerie realms who spends most of his time on hunts deep in the forest, perhaps in command of the Wild Hunt, or Lord Gladhand, who wonders Dolmenwood in the guise of a kindly old wizard and enjoys mucking about with the adventurers’ lives, sometimes to their benefit, but mostly not. It is followed by ‘The Brackenwold Calendar’, which gives the days and weeks which life in Dolmenwood is lived by. Notably, the region is beset by ‘Unseasons’, irregular events which take place between the normal seasons, like ‘Chame’, the Unseason of snakes and unease when serpents of all kinds fill the wood. None of the region’s saints’ days are given—they are saved for a later issue—but these two articles give a broader overview of Dolmenwood and enable the Labyrinth Lord to bring detail to a campaign set there, wherever a campaign is set in the region. Certainly the calendar is a means to add colour to a campaign on an almost daily basis and to an extent, cast a light on the inhabitants’ daily lives.

Over half of the issue is devoted to the town of Prigwort and its surrounds. In the main, ‘People and Places of Prigwort’ focuses upon its ruling Elevated Council of Brewmasters and the inns and taverns that they run or frequent. Four such establishments are described, all in some detail that add flavour and atmosphere, like the coarse, doorstep-sized fish paste sandwiches which are the usual fare at ‘The Oaf-in-the-Oast’ tavern, often accompanied by two-pint steins of Heggid’s Bitter, the steins being decorated with the alarmingly gaudy depictions of barmaids’ faces, or the strange meetings which go on behind closed doors ar Raptappen’s Quadrants, but which always seem to dissipate should anyone enquire about the noise. Other notables of Prigwort include the wizard, Mostlemyre Drouge, who can be consulted for magical services and the identification of magical artefacts, and Brandybile’s, a high-fashion house open by appointment only which provides highly fashionable clothing to its discerning clientele—a set of tables provide the means for the Labyrinth Lord to create just the adventurer with ‘taste’ and money to burn.

An accompanying article, ‘Spirituous Beverages’, lists just some of the brews to found on sale in Prigwort and their effects. Thankfully this is quite short and nothing like the treatises on fungi and common tavern food to be found in the first two issues of the fanzine, although there is no denying that the latter article would be useful for taverns in Prigwort. In comparison to the writeups of the taverns, the description of the town itself feels underwritten and although a lot of supplementary information is provided in the lengthy footnotes, Prigwort does not really come alive. Even the list of rumours does not help, such as the local lords at Harrowmoor Keep being said to consort with a monster in the lake in return for wisdom, serving more to push the adventurers away from the town.

And once away from the town, there is a lot more variety in terms of the content. This begins with ‘Prigwort and Surrounds’, which details the region’s nearby notable features. This includes the roadside signpost at Shub’s Finger which never points to anywhere real, but always seems to, the Witch Glade where witches sometimes commune with their wood-god, and Gorthstone, an obelisk in the middle of a large pool where the weather is always the opposite of the local conditions and the waters have strange reversing magics. As with previous efforts to gazetteer Dolmenwood, these places have a pleasing sense of age and permanence with there being nothing brash about their fantasy. Several locations are explored in depth. Not just the town of Prigwort itself, but also ‘Highway Robbery and Tasty Pie’ which describes an encounter with a group of highwaywomen bent on stealing pastries, but is further expanded in ‘The Baker’s Dozen’, where they live with their mother, a jolly woman renowned for her cakes. Aided by her daughters and an array of culinary spells and magics—such as a Wand of Condiments and En Croute which wraps a target in a pastry crust—and protected by an almost inexhaustible supply of Gingerbread Golems, Mother is a powerful, if parochial figure, an interesting twist upon Hansel and Gretel. Beyond the encounter with the highwaywomen on the road nearby, several hooks are given to involve the player characters in her culinary doings, whilst ‘The Gingerbread Grimoire’ details each of her spells.

Finally, the issue describes five new creatures in ‘Monsters of the Wood’. These are the Kelpie, demi-fey shapeshifters dwelling in the region’s lakes, pools, and rivers, notorious for charming and drowning careless travellers, and Wyrms. Wyrms in Dolmenwood are different than elsewhere, being wingless and associated with the five elements and five bodily humours—black bile (earth), phlegm (water), blood (air), yellow bile (fire), and ichor (ether). Although not all are detailed here—only the first four are given writeups—their descriptions include encounters and lairs and again add flavour to the setting.


Physically, Wormskin No. 6 is is as well presented as the other issues of the fanzine. The writing is clear, the layout clean, the illustrations good, and the use of colour is just enough to set it apart from other fanzines in terms of production values. Of course, every issue of Wormskin adds further detail to the setting of Dolmenwood, but whilst this sixth issue does that and such details are certainly supported by rumours and adventure hooks, the description of as important a place as Prigwort seems less substantial than it should be, giving the issue a somewhat unbalanced feel. Nevertheless, Wormskin No. 6, essentially the ‘Brewing & Baking’ issue, is rich in detail and flavour and continues the publisher’s exploration of the brythonic weirdness that is Dolmenwood.

Fanzine Focus XII: Wormskin No. 5

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome Productions is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3 and Wormskin No. 4, published in July, 2016 and Winter 2016 respectively, improved hugely upon the first and second issues, together providing a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions about the setting before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood.

Published in the winter of 2017, Wormskin No. 5, continues the series’ exploration of the setting, this time providing a detailed examination of one of the major factions in Dolmenwood, a guide to gaming across the wooded region, and descriptions of a particular area. The faction is the Drune, detailed in ‘The Watchers of the Wood’, a sinister cabal of hooded sorcerers whose mantra is “Seek, Know, Keep” and code is secrecy. In turn, their lifestyle, beliefs, occult powers, relationships with the other powers in and around Dolemenwood, schemes and goals, and rumours about them are all given a page or so’s coverage. It has felt as if the Drune have been lurking just behind the next tree, adjusting each dolmen and manipulating the ley lines which run through the region, ever since the opening pages of Wormskin No. 1. So that this information very much puts another piece into the giant jigsaw puzzle that is Dolmenwood and really helps a Labyrinth Lord create encounters and scenarios involving them. 

This is followed by ‘Hex-Crawling in Dolmenwood’, a guide to running procedural adventures in Dolmenwood, handling party activities as part of its exploration of the region or movement through it. This covers actions such as travel, exploration, interaction, camping, foraging, and so on, as well as weather, random events, mishaps, and visibility. It is quick and it is to the point, and again, it it feels as if this could and should have appeared in an earlier issue. It is promised that it will be expanded upon, but this is more than workable.

The bulk of the issue is devoted to the strangeness of six hexes—‘Hag’s Addle’—and their major inhabitants, ‘The Hag of the Marsh’. The former details the point where the river Hameth trickles into the Lake Longmere and its marsh covered banks with their twisting paths. It is the one place where the Longmere Squid can be fished for, but is also known to be infested by Boggins, amphibious things covered in pondweed with batrachian arms, which gibber in a loon-like fashion and like to feast on warm-blooded sentients. The northern bank is said to be haunted by a witch who ensorcells men with the dirges she plays on a fiddle—though what this is more fully explained in Wormskin No. 4—whilst a strange stone, untended by the Drune, stands beyond the bank, and ancient monuments can found elsewhere. At the heart of the region is another boggy region, this home to the Hag’s Hut, said to contain a door to the fairy realm. It is, of course, home to the Hag, a women of great age and fairy descent who never appears the same twice and is charged with guarding the hut. Said to be a stealer of children, the Hag can be haggled with and her favour gained, although this takes some effort. As well as describing her Hut, the article details her magical items and the rumours associated with her. Rounding out the article is a set of adventure hooks for the Labyrinth Lord to develop. There is plenty of detail and weirdness and playable content in both articles, and as much as the Hag is a monster, this is definitely one that can be bargained with. Roleplaying that should be fun for both Labyrinth Lord and players alike.

Rounding out the issue is ‘Monsters of the Wood’, which provides the stats and descriptions of many of the creatures described earlier in the issue. This includes both Boggins and Drune, although the write-up of the latter seems slightly underwhelming given the richness of detail in the earlier ‘The Watchers of the Wood’. Other creatures include the Brambling, essentially a humanoid thicket in service to the Drune, and the Flammbraggyrd, sort of flamming soldier sprits bound to the hearth. None of these are just some monsters. They do appear earlier in the fanzine and are written into the setting.

Physically, Wormskin No. 5 is a well-presented book. The writing is clear, the layout clean, the illustrations good, and the use of colour is just enough to set it apart from other fanzines in terms of production values. Despite a couple of the articles feeling as if they should have been written earlier, the only problem with the issue is surprisingly subjective. The fanzine is essentially a ‘partwork’, its articles all part of a whole, but not necessarily presented in the order they would appear if they were in an actual sourcebook. With five issues—and more—released to date, there is the sense that you should be able to take them apart and put them together in some semblance of logical order. 


Of course, every issue of Wormskin adds further detail to the setting of Dolmenwood, but with Wormskin No. 5, two of the articles—‘The Watchers of the Wood’ and ‘Hex-Crawling in Dolmenwood’—fill in holes in the setting and answer questions which have lurking unanswered since the first issue. That in addition to being good articles both. The other articles in Wormskin No. 5 are rich in detail and flavour, and altogether, they further explore the brythonic weirdness that is Dolmenwood.

—oOo—

Necrotic Gnome Productions, together with Quality Beast, will be at UK Games Expo which will take place between June 1st and June 3rd, 2018 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

Fanzine Focus IX: Wormskin No. 4

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome Productions is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. Further, Wormskin No. 3, published in July, 2016, improved hugely upon the first and second issues such that it serves as a better introduction to Dolmenwood, giving some excellent answers to some very good questions before delving into what is the biggest secret of Dolmenwood.

Published in the autumn of 2016, Wormskin No. 4 is essentially the companion to Wormskin No. 3. It is not quite as useful, but it does complete the content of Wormskin No. 3. To that end, the last two-thirds of Wormskin No. 4 is devoted to the second part of ‘The Ruined Abbey of St. Clewed’, begun in the previous issue. The first part describes the ruins of the abbey that was originally built upon the site where Saint Clewed died fighting and defeating an evil black unicorn. Exploring the grounds is relatively safe for low Level characters, but the crypts, halls, and tombs of the remnants of the abbey’s underground are another matter. Getting into the crypts will be a challenge in itself, but once inside, the player characters will find an interesting environment. The religious theme and iconography are nicely carried applied throughout the crypts, although its obvious Christian influences may not sit easily with every Dungeon Master’s campaign. The crypts are as you would expect they are home to all manner of undead, but they are also home to secrets which the inhabitants do not want revealed. This gives an interesting tension to the ‘dungeon’ because many of will still interact with the player characters.

On the downside, the dungeon is essentially on a knife edge and it is quite possible for the player characters to upset the proverbial apple cart. Unfortunately, the description of the dungeon never addresses possible outcomes or effects of their intervention, which is a missed opportunity given the nature of the secrets it contains—secrets which lie at the heart of Dolmenwood and which when revealed have possible repercussions across the region. Nevertheless, the dungeon is well presented, its themes and iconography are nicely applied throughout, and the map is well done.

The issue though opens with ‘The Atacorn’s Retreat’, a description of the second eldest mule-thing born of a witch-mother and his father, the Nag-Lord. Known as ‘The Fiddler in the Dark’, Farthigny is a humanoid with a mule’s head, cow’s tail, and curved horn jutting from his chin. The latter is curved enough for him to fit strings to and play as a fiddle using his enchanted fiddle bow. He is known for the drunken revels he hosts at his cottage and the poor way in which he treats his Moss Dwarf servants. The description of this interesting NPC is accompanied by a fetching full-colour illustration, adventure hooks and rumours, and a complete guide to his cottage. This piece feels fully rounded out and worked into the setting of Dolmenwood. It is probably better suited as an encounter for mid-Level characters, especially Bards, and there is scope for the Dungeon Master to include Farthigny as a recurring NPC.

‘The Fickleness of Fairy Magic’ does not look at the trinkets and gee gaws that might slip out of the Elven realms to be found by mortals and seen as wondrous. Nor describe a single such one. Instead, the short one-page piece suggests what might cause them to cease functioning, such as the touch of sunlight or you stop looking at it. As the end of an article detailing the trinkets and gee gaws these effects would have been fine, but without such novelties and curios, the article is really only of passing interest.

The third of the smaller pieces in Wormskin No. 4 is another set of tables and lists. ‘Lesser Stones of Dolmenwood’ provides options for the minor monoliths that can be found throughout the region. After determining its broader location, the Game Master can, with a roll of a thirty-sided die or three, create the material a lesser stone is made of, its form and condition of its surface, setting, and unusual properties and features of note. These work as oddities and weird features as much as they can be spurs for adventure, adding further colour and flavour to the region.

After the blaze of colour and change in style with Wormskin No. 3, this is continued with Wormskin No. 4. It is applied with some restraint though, giving the issue a nicely assured feel. That said, Wormskin No. 4 is not as useful or as good an issue as Wormskin No. 3, primarily because ‘The Fickleness of Fairy Magic’ is all too slight, if not feeling incomplete, and because the second part of ‘The Ruined Abbey of St. Clewed’ does not explore possible outcomes of it coming into contact with the player characters. The ‘dungeon’ is well designed as a location though and will provide several good sessions of play and interaction with its NPCs. Simply, Wormskin No. 4 is not as good as Wormskin No. 3, but Wormskin No. 4 both serves as a complement to Wormskin No. 3 and fills in further details of the Dolmenwood setting.

Fanzine Focus VII: Wormskin No. 3

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

The Wormskin fanzine, published by Necrotic Gnome Productions is written for use with Labyrinth Lord and issue by issue, details an area known as Dolmenwood, a mythical wood, an ancient place of tall trees and thick soil, rich in fungi and festooned with moss and brambles and rife with dark whimsy. Wormskin No. 1 was published in December, 2015, and was followed by Wormskin No. 2 in March, 2016. Both issues introduced the setting with a set of articles rich in flavour and atmosphere, but lacking a certain focus in that the region itself, Dolmenwood, was not detailed. Fortunately, in March, 2017, Necrotic Gnome Productions released Welcome to Dolmenwood, a free introduction to the setting. What both Wormskin No. 1 and Wormskin No. 2 also suffered from was a similarity of content, both issues being dominated by articles, ‘Fungi of Dolmenwood’ and ‘Psychedelic Compounds’ respectively, that detailed the harvesting, effects, and prices of their subject matters, in a shared format. The result was two articles that felt very much the same despite the differences in subject matter. Fortunately, Wormskin No. 3, published in July, 2016, utterly lacks such an article, and so is much better issue for it.

The issue opens with ‘Of Men, Goats, and Fairies in Dolmenwood’ which presents a history of the region stretching back some two millennia. It takes us from its  origins as fairy region under the sway of the Cold Prince through centuries of incursion by mankind. First the Drune, human sorcerers, and Drune-wives or witches who treated with the Cold Prince and discovered and mapped the powerful ley lines that run throughout the forest as well as raising the many ley stones and circles from the earth itself. Then men of the One True God came, building Castle  Brackenwold and founding the Kingdom of Brackenwold which would one eventually be annexed by a neighbouring kingdom as the Duchy of Brackenwold. The Cold Prince’s interest in the mortal lands waned and he would be banished to his own realm, thus freeing his Goatmen servants to cavort and rule as they like—many still do to this day. In more recent times the Abbey of St. Clewd was sacked in a night by forces unknown, the Drune have retired deep into the forest facing persecution by the Church of the One True God, and dark forces have occupied the northern half of Dolmenwood.

The truth of the matter is that after the obfuscatory nature of Wormskin No. 1 and Wormskin No. 2, ‘Of Men, Goats, and Fairies in Dolmenwood’  is a revelation. It lays the groundwork for Dolmenwood as a setting and provides an explanation for various elements that appear in the first two issues. Fundamentally it provides so much of the context that was missing from those issues that it begs the question, “Why was this not the very first article to be published for the Dolmenwood setting?” ‘Of Men, Goats, and Fairies in Dolmenwood’ is followed by ‘Languages of Dolmenwood’, which quickly runs through the languages spoken and not spoken throughout the region from The Immortal Tongue of Fairy and High Elvish spoken by the fairy nobility to Liturgic, the language of the Church of One True God, and Woldish, the dialect of Common spoken throughout the region. Other languages include Caprice, the bestial tongue of the Goatmen and Drunic, the secret language known only by the Drune.

Together, ‘Of Men, Goats, and Fairies in Dolmenwood’  and ‘Languages of Dolmenwood’ also highlight some of the cultural differences and relationships between the inhabitants in the region. Between the Goatmen and mankind, between the Church of the One True God and the Drune, and so on. It is also possible to draw historical parallels here too—at least as reference points—between Christianity and pagan faiths, that add verisimilitude to the Dolmenwood setting. Depending of course, how far a Referee wants to draw such parallels.

Numerous Ley Lines run through Dolmenwood and the region is rife with standing stones, stone circles, and megaliths. In the southwest of the region is a feature that combines all three. Stones known as the Summerstones form a great circle called the ‘witching ring’, a circle so large that it encompasses Lake Longmere. ‘The Summerstones and the Witching Ring’ details the ring and the individual stones as well as what would happen should the ward they create ever be broken. This delves into the nature of one of Dolmenwood’s major secrets—other articles hint at more—as in, just what is the ‘witching ring’ protecting? In the process, it ties back into both the history of the forest and into the discussion of the region’s languages and begins to pull the setting together as more cohesive whole.

‘The Woods East of Lake Longmere’ continues the work begun in ‘Lankshorn and Surrounds’ and ‘The High Wold’ in Wormskin No. 2 in presenting a gazetteer of Dolmenwood. Those articles detailed, hex by hex, the region known as the High Wold which lies to the south and west of Lake Longmere. The article in Wormskin No. 3 focuses on the region, again hex by hex, to the east of the lake. In these seven hexes can be found a phantom isle on the lake that is home to a black elk-goddess; a summerstone that radiates smothering romance by day and carnal lust by night; a strange column of chalk carved with hundreds of names; and a shrine to Saint Vinicus, patron saint of mice and beggars. Also located here is a ruined abbey, once dedicated to Saint Clewed, but sacked mysteriously one night almost four centuries ago and the subject of its own article. Like the gazetteer in Wormskin No. 2, these locations are accompanied by an excerpt from the fuller map of Dolmenwood. This is placed on the back cover and blown up to provide plenty of detail, a nice touch being that the map excerpt—presented in full colour—is framed as if it was a church window and the map done in stained glass.

‘The Ruined Abbey of St. Clewed’ is the first part of a two-part series which will be completed in Wormskin No. 4. It describes the ruins—above ground level, the second part will describe the ruins below ground—of the abbey that was originally built upon the site where Saint Clewed died fighting and defeating an evil black unicorn. Supposedly there is a secret vault below the ruins which are also thought to be home to both brigands who kidnap and hold children to ransom and the ghosts of the monks who died when the abbey was sacked. Just six locations are given in the grounds of the ruined abbey, but they are described in some detail, more than enough to keep an adventuring party occupied until the Referee has access to the second part. The majority of the encounters in the grounds are of a relatively low level, suitable for player characters of between First Level and Third Level, but there are much more dangerous foes present too, so the Referee will need to be careful not to overwhelm the party.

Accompanying the article is a set of tables for creating Ghostly Monks. These wander the grounds of the abbey and each has his own personality as well as a wish—to have his body buried in the abbey or its gardens restored, in return for which a monk may impart a secret about the abbey. The Referee should have fun portraying these monks, who should be in turns infuriating and helpful. Rounding out Wormskin No. 3 is ‘Monsters of the Wood’, a bestiary describing four of the creatures that appear in the articles contained in the issue. They include the Gloam, a undead thing consisting of Corvidae corpses who collect gruesome items and like to entice the innocent into their service, whilst the Mogglewomp is a fairy creature that likes to occupy the houses of its victims, all of the house in each and every case.

Physically, Wormskin No. 3 is a step up in terms of quality and content over Wormskin No. 2. The fanzine is well written and engaging, the artwork is  a good mix of original and public domain images, and colour is used judiciously. The higher page count also provides space for a wider range of content.

There can be no doubt that Wormskin No. 3 is a huge improvement upon the first two issues of the fanzine and without the benefit of having read the subsequent issues, is the best issue to date. It lays the groundwork for what came before it and any subsequent content, and not just because the second part of ‘The Ruined Abbey of St. Clewed’ appears in the next issue. If there is a starting point for Wormskin as a fanzine, it is Wormskin No. 3—Wormskin No. 1 and Wormskin No. 2 are worth picking up, but only after Wormskin No. 3 gives them the groundwork they so badly needed.

Fanzine Focus VI: Black Pudding #2

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Although Black Pudding is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord, it is still compatible with other Retroclones. Published by Random Order Creations via Square Hex, Black Pudding #1 was released in 2016 to no little acclaim. The inaugural issue was praised for its consistently singular look and feel, cartoonish, slightly tongue in cheek, yet still fantastic and weird on a small scale. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules, its genre was firmly Swords & Sorcery and thus was accompanied by the genre’s sexism with its chainmail bikinis and mighty thewed barbarians. Whilst Black Pudding #2 retains the Swords & Sorcery genre and cartoonish style, it tones down the sexism, and so is a very much better issue for it.

Black Pudding #2 contains the same mix as the first issue of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. Specifically, six new Classes, a spellbook and eight spells, multiple magic items, eight new monsters, eight NPCs ready to hire, and a wilderness encounter and a short dungeon. It also includes two character sheets designed to be used with the issue’s various Classes, one for spellcasters and one for non-spellcasters.

The issue opens with the first of the new Classes. This is the Keeper, an archer and hunter dedicated to protecting the forest and who can track like a Ranger, attacks better with a bow, and can not only cast Druid spells and element-related Magic-user spells, but also imbue them into arrows. It is followed by the Blind Guardian, a holy warrior who gives up his eyes to gain Blindsight, ‘see’ evil and malice at will with Righteous Vision, cast Read Magic and Read Languages daily with Eyeless Understanding, can deliver a Righteous Blow to deliver a killing blow to Chaotic or evil enemies, and even absorb blows or spells intended for an ally with his Shield of Light. In return, the Blind Guardian must be Lawful or Good, is only trained in the one Holy Weapon, and as a Defender, must avenge any innocent who suffers as result of his negligence or failure. The Blind Guardian is a powerful Class since he gains all of these abilities at First Level, but there is plenty of roleplaying to be found in the Class too, especially if the Dungeon Master ties the Class to a particular god and faith.

The Werewolf Hunter is fairly self-explanatory and quite specialised. He can work silver to silver-edged arrows and weapons, is resistant to a werewolf’s bite, can prepare wolfsbane, fight all wolves effectively, and track and detect werewolves and eventually other lycanthropes. The Werewolf Hunter is really too specialised for general play and needs a Gothic land infested by lycanthropes to come into its own. The Mouldwarp is equally as specialised, a ‘Race as Class’ Class that anthropomorphises the humble mole and turns it into a digging hunter with an innate feel for the underground world and anyone who tells lies and a saliva that is particularly toxic to the worms that the Mouldwarp loves to consume. Lastly, the Fey Savage is a second ‘Race as Class’ Class, but is much odder. The Fey Savage is the battle-loving offspring of a dainty fairy and a human barbarian who must choose between his fey and human heritage—Barbaric Rage or Fey Charms, hates goblins, can cast a single magic spell once per day, and whose innate Fey Savagery allows him to attack with a bonus on his first attack and potentially avoid ignore all damage in combat. The Fey Savage lies towards the tongue-in-cheek approach to Class design, so is compatible with some of the Classes given in Black Pudding #1.

The six new monsters in Black Pudding #2 include goblin angels, fungus-infected kissing undead, alchemically-infused hairballs, and more. The Angel Mama, the goblin angel, can transform dead goblins into Shadow Goblins who can turn incorporeal and in return they can turn her incorporeal while she demoralises others with her eye beams; while the Kisser is fungus-infected undead that kisses others to steal their Constitution and whose fungus can be turned into Potions of Unhealth that also steals the Constitution of the imbiber and then heals Hit Points as well as granting the potion maker Hit Points! The Scurramancer is a Harley Quinn-like demon with Illusionist spells, a staff that emits laughing gas, and who taunts for lots of Psychic damage. Overall, the monsters are not all that serious, but are just weird enough to suit the fanzine’s genre.

The spells in Black Pudding #2 are all contained in Elegrain’s Fearful Book of Death and are all related to death. For example, Death Augur lets the caster divine facts about the deaths—past, present, and future—in the immediate vicinity, whilst Death Denial gives the target a chance to survive death. Unless the player characters include a priest of death or a necromancer amongst their number, then this is really a set of spells and a dark, dark tome for an NPC.

The first of the two adventures is ‘Mace of the Ape King’, a jungle-set encounter for experienced characters of at least Fourth Level. It is a simple, though tough combat encounter, easy to drop into a campaign and replete with a fun variable weapon that any warrior would want to own. The second adventure, ‘Vault of the Whisperer’, is the highlight of Black Pudding#2 and its lengthiest piece at eight pages long. Again written for experienced adventurers, it is a thirteen location mini-dungeon that can be dropped into a wilderness sandbox—with perhaps its strange cult preying upon nearby villages—or into a larger dungeon. At the heart of the dungeon is a great demonic maw attempting to chew its way into this world that whispers seductively to all and sundry as caged and bell-helmeted cultists dedicate themselves to the maw in order to hear its whispers. A strong vein of the Weird runs throughout the dungeon, in the creatures of course, but particularly in the magic items that are hidden throughout the complex. Notable items include the Gauntlet of Goorph, a tentacled glove that increases the user’s Strength and gripping damage, but can decrease his Wisdom, and the Staff of the Slug, which can be slapped against a surface to aid climbing, used to slap and grab objects, and to control slug-like monsters. This is a really nice little dungeon that should provide a session or two’s worth of play.

Rounding out Black Pudding #2 is a feature continued from Black Pudding #1. This is ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, a collection of NPCs ready for hire by the player characters. The majority of the eight involve the standard Classes—Fighters, Magic-users, Thieves, and more, though a few do include Classes introduced in this issue, such as Trey Mottle, a Second Level Fey Savage and Fay May, a Third Level Keeper. Each comes complete with a hiring cost, likes and dislikes—which affect attempts to haggle with them, a line of background, and more as well as the traditional attribute scores and Hit Points. Although perfect for hiring, these NPCs can also be used as replacement player characters or even rivals if the Dungeon Master wants to further develop them. This is a decent mix and the Dungeon Master should have fun roleplaying any one of them.

Physically, Black Pudding #2 is almost as professional a fanzine as you might want. Perhaps some of the entries are underwritten, but the writing is otherwise clear and simple, though it does contain strong language in places. The fanzine is profusely illustrated and the cartoonish artwork gives the fanzine a singular, consistent look, from the fun front cover to the back cover character sheet.

If there is an issue with Black Pudding #2 it is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Dungeon Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding #2 is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Dungeon Master should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine. This though, should not be held against the fanzine or its authors.

There is a tendency for the second issue of anything to be not quite as good as the first. This is not the case with Black Pudding #2. It is a balanced issue with a good mix of content, a solid Weird element, a delightful dungeon, and just enough sexism to uphold its Swords & Sorcery genre.