Blind as a Basilisk

Published by North Wind Adventures, Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent is a scenario designed for use with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy and almost all other Old School Renaissance retroclones. Designed to be played by between four and six characters of between Fourth Level and Seventh Level, it originally appeared in Knockspell #1, Mythmere Games’ Old School Renaissance fanzine, but has since been revised and illustrated as a sixteen page booklet. Now to be fair, it does not have the production values of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes and The Mystery at Port Greely, but the maps are clear and the few black and white illustrations are decent enough.

The scenario takes place in and around the City-State of Khromarium, the dismal, seedy port whose harbour is the largest known in Hyberborea. A man promises to lead the party out into the Lug Wastelands outside the city to where he and his late brothers last spied a giant lizard which left gems in its wake… Could the beast be the Xavadar Crypt Serpent of legend, the creature said to protect the last barrow of the Xavadars? The Xavadar family was a noble house who fled the city in ancient times to escape the Green Death, a plague which then devastated many of the peoples of the world. The family is said to have entombed itself in a great crypt wherein the family necromancer put them in a slumber which would last until the Green Death ran its course… In this, the scenario alludes to the writings of Edgar Allan Poe at least as much as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy draws from the weird fiction of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith.

The scenario is divided into three parts. The first presents some background on Khromarium and the Xavadar family, plus some clues to find should the player characters want to conduct some research. There is actually very little for the player characters to find out in this way, but it may well give clues as to what they might find in the Xavadar family crypt. There is also room here for the Game Master to expand the adventure with further clues and NPCs, perhaps tying it in further to his own campaign. The second part leads the party out onto the mudflats of the Lug Wastelands where the dangers consist of the boggy terrain and the various indigenous animals and vermin. Again, there is room here for the Game Master to expand the scenario with an encounter or two of his own design, perhaps with rivals come in search of the Xavadar family tomb themselves. Otherwise, the trek across the mudflats is quite ordinary…

The third part of Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent is the tomb itself. Here the scenario becomes even more straightforward, linear even, but then this is a tomb we are dealing with. There are two ways in—the main doors and a cavern network. Even the latter is quite linear, though the Game Master could expand it if he so decided. There is of course far less room for the Game Master to expand the actual tomb, which consists of a series of rooms, traps, and encounters with the undead, all leavened with sepulchral flavour and detail. Much of it moss ladden and long gone to rot of course. In terms of design it is more realistic than fantastic, mundane even, at least in terms of a Dungeons & Dragons-style game. Where it is more fantastic is in the presentation of the Sightless Serpent, actually a unique variant of the Basilisk which weirdly, has gemstones for its tears. ‘Weirdly’ in a good way, of course, for this is a scenario for use with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy. There is a very good reason for the presence of the Sightless Serpent, as well as for the gemstones it cries. Besides both the greed of the NPC guide and the player characters, that is, though it may not come to light if the player characters decide not to do their homework before setting out for the tomb. 

The primary issue with Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent is the hook—the reason to get the player characters involved. The only one given is greed and that may not be enough for some players and their characters. A few more suggestions to hook the characters in would certainly have been useful, but not beyond the means of a Game Master to create on his own, especially if wanting to run the scenario as part of his campaign. That said, if the player characters consist of tomb robbers and thieves, then greed and the chance to test their skills against an ancient tomb is as good a motive as any.

As a one-shot, Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent is a decent enough, Swords & Sorcery-style scenario which plays down the sense of the fantastic to be found in typical Dungeons & Dragons settings. This allows the weirdness of the Sightless Serpent and gothic undertones of the Xavadar family tomb to come to the fore and so impart some of the feel and flavour of the author’s Hyperborea setting. The various elements of the setting though—the seedy City-State of Khromarium, the Green Death, and the entombed Xavadars—make the scenario easy to adapt to a setting of the Game Master’s own design and work it into his own campaign.

Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent nicely underplays both its weirdness and its sense of the fantastic to present a grim, if slightly gritty affair. Worth a good session or two in terms of gameplay, the scenario can be played as is or easily adapted by the Game Master.

Dungeons & Dragons & Deep Ones

The Mystery at Port Greely is an adventure for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, the Old School Renaissance emulation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons that mixes ‘Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy’ published by North Wind Adventures. It is designed for four to six players of between Fourth Level and Sixth Level. Set in the game’s default world of Hyperborea, concerns the fate of a group of emissaries sent by the Fishmonger’s Guild in City-State of Khromarium to the vassal town of Port Greely. The Greely lobstermen have grown increasingly isolated and recalcitrant over the past three years, but they still paid their taxes, so this was never an issue for the City-State of Khromarium. Yet those emissaries have been missing for two weeks and the good guildsmen of the Fishmonger’s Guild are concerned and want answers. Thus they hire the player characters to sail to Port Greely, even providing passage, to search the coastal town for their emissaries and establish their former good relationship with the Port Greely lobstermen.

Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, is not so much Lovecraftian influenced scenario for a Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone, but rather a scenario directly based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ for use with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea and retroclones. Its influences are not so much worn on its sleeve as seep out from between every webbed finger or two, ooze from under every thick fold of skin around the neck, and gurgle out of every frog-like throat through newly acquired gills. This is a tale of monsters and miscegenation in a wretched hatchery of croaking horror  and batrachian blight.

So the player characters sail to Port Greely and find it a run down, mouldering town. What few inhabitants there on the streets are jaundiced, misshapen, lumpy figures with bulging throats and eyes, and rough, almost scaly skin, termed ‘townies’ in the scenario. They avoid the interloping adventurers and what little can be learned from them amounts to a distrust of men from decadent Khromarium and any further information can be learned from Merlokk, the town’s high priest and de facto leader. Much like the short story it is based upon, to learn anything more of The Mystery of Port Greely, the player characters must speak to the town drunk, Zephæstus. This may or not come after the player characters have been chased through the port and captured by townies who have slunk out of their homes to apprehend them. Clues as to what is going may be found in Port Greely’s most prominent landmark, the Fane of the Esoteric Order of Mother Hydra, but Zephæstus will point the player characters to the four islands of the Greely Shoals as the best place to get answers… Here lies the terrible Temple of the Deep Dwellers, home to the batrachian monsters who have their scaly claws on the future of Port Greely and also the climax to the scenario.

In actuality, what The Mystery of Port Greely is not, is a scenario of Lovecraftian investigative horror, nor is it particularly Lovecraftian. This is primarily because of what Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea emulates—Advanced Dungeons & Dragons—and those rules predated the introduction of a Sanity mechanic. So there is no deleterious mental effect to seeing any of the monsters in The Mystery of Port Greely, just as indeed, there is no deleterious mental effect to seeing and fighting any of the monsters in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. So whilst The Mystery of Port Greely has the trappings and themes of a Lovecraftian scenario—a viscous quality to a lot of the location descriptions, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness (at least in some of the NPCs if not the player characters), and miscegenation, but this has to be contrasted with the pulp fantasy, swords and sorcery setting of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea with its lusty blood and carnage, civilisation against barbarism, and so on. After all, what the player characters will be doing is bringing the civilisation of the City-State of Khromarium to Port Greely and putting its barbarous and degenerate inhabitants to the sword and the spell.

Physically, The Mystery of Port Greely is well presented and in general well written. The artwork is absolutely fantastic, both in terms of its horror and fantasy, in particular, Peter Mullen’s pieces evoking the art style of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The cartography is also good. This is not to say that the book is perfect. The region map of the area around Port Greely is really too large for the information it imparts, some of the descriptions and their mapped areas do not quite match, and there are parts of the scenario which could have been more developed. In particular, there is no description of Port Greely for the Game Master to read as the player characters sail into the harbour and beyond the Fane of the Esoteric Order of Mother Hydra and the town’s tavern, The Yawning Gourd, there are no other locations detailed in Port Greely. Without the latter, this leaves the players and their characters with relatively little to do in the scenario but follow the fairly simple plot. It would certainly have been good for the scenario to have included a few more locations, both for the player characters to visit as part of their investigations and to hide whilst the townies are chasing them down...

One issue with the plot of The Mystery of Port Greely is that the player characters are drugged whilst in the town. This really has no major effect upon the plot. Rather it serves to get the player characters to Zephæstus in one fashion or another, and there have their fears confirmed. It also sets up the major roleplaying scene in a scenario which is fairly light on interaction.

Deep Ones—or Deep One-like creatures—have existed in Dungeons & Dragons for a very long time, whether it as the Sahuagin of U3 The Final Enemy or the Kua-Toa of D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa and D3 Vault of the Drow. In The Mystery at Port Greely, they are more obviously Deep Ones rather than just another evil amphibious species, for the scenario draws very obviously from ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ for its inspiration. It does not ignore the fact that it is a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure though and the origins of the threat faced in The Mystery of Port Greely is taken from Dungeons & Dragons, even if it is tinged by the Mythos. If the reliance on ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ means that the plot of The Mystery of Port Greely is perhaps just a little simplistic, the adventure more than makes up for it with great art and great descriptions that impart the degeneration at its heart.

A Desert Diversion

Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is an adventure for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, the Old School Renaissance emulation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons that mixes ‘Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy’ published by North Wind Adventures. It is designed for four to six players of between Second Level and Fourth Level. Set in the game’s default world of Hyperborea, it concerns the fate of Ymir’s Serpent, a legendary Viking longship commanded by Sigtrygg Forkbeard that sailed up the River Æolus where its crew is said to have discovered a mine rich in green diamonds. Before the Ymir’s Serpent and her crew could return with their riches, the river dried up and the ship and her crew were never seen again. In the years since, tales have grown of a shimmering Viking ghost ship gliding across the dunes… This is a popular and well-known legend, one that continues to attract the interest of thieves, prospectors, treasure hunters, and others, so it should be no surprise to the player characters when they learn of a wizard with flowing coffers claiming to have the means to locate both the wreck of the lost ship and its cargo of green diamonds. Not only that, but he is also hiring expedition members to help him prove his claims. Thus there is a chance for the adventurers to be rich, very rich…

The adventure begins in the City-State of Khromarium where the heroes are hired by Vul Kovtu, a wizened, peg-legged wizard who has the knowledge, but wants to the help of able-bodied men. They are to sail with him to Cape Calencia and from there to the mouth of the extinct River Æolus where they will disembark and make their way up its dried up course to locate the wreck of the Viking ship and its treasure hoard. Throughout they are to provide Vul Kovtu with both aid and protection. The adventure is divided into two parts,the first ‘The Cursed Amphora’ is suitable for characters of Second and Third Level, the second part, ‘Diamond Desert’ suitable for characters of Third and Fourth Level.

The first stop in the adventure is ‘The Cursed Amphora’, set on Cape Calencia and in and around Calencia Village, built on stilts at the rear of Lith Fjord’. The village is known for the high quality of its canoes; the Brotherhood of Khalk-Xu, the monks devoted to the octopus-like ‘The Dimensional Dweller’; and the witches of Calencia’s Peculiar, one of whom is a noted oracle. What Vul Kovtu wants do here to investigate the story of a man who went mad, supposedly as a result of being in contact with ‘green glowing glassware’. After they disembark, there is plenty for the player characters to do here—eating and drinking, shopping (of course), visiting the Oracle, and more. There are though, plenty of rumours to learn and follow up on, as well of course, the tale of the ‘The Cursed Amphora’. Following up on both these rumours and the tale is where the adventure really begins to come alive, drawing the players and their characters deeper into village life and rivalries and then out onto the cape itself. The area around the village is a thickly wooded wilderness, mostly known for being the source of the wood for the village’s canoes and home to the ape-men that occasionally attack the village. It is also home to an abandoned temple complex and dungeon, actually quite small, but it makes for a solid payoff to the player characters’ efforts in Calencia Village.

The second stop takes the adventurers to the mouth of the River Æolus and from there a trek inland and across the desert. Here the scenario not only plays up its pulp roots, but also harks back to the B Movies of the fifties too in its monster selection as well as some standard Dungeons & Dragons monsters. Besides wandering monsters there are some fun encounters with a hermit and a band of hyaena-men riding giant chameleons and this together with the radioactive ants sends the adventure veering awfully close to Gamma World in tone and feel, though it still retains a ‘sand, swords, & sorcery’ feel.

The last stop of course takes the player characters and their patron to not only the wreck of the lost ship and its cargo of green diamonds, but also the source of the diamonds—a mine! Just like the lost ship, this mine has long been abandoned, but this does not mean that it is no longer occupied or worked out. This is a nicely detailed mine, full of weirdness and creepy touches.. The villain in this last part is particularly pulpy in nature and it is perhaps a pity that his backstory is never given space for the player characters to explore it. At end of it, of course, there is treasure to be found. Not just green diamonds, but oddities like a +2 boomerang and a string of knots that when activated, will cause the wind to fill the sails of a ship. There is also a fantastic treasure to found, one that will greatly benefit the player characters, in the long term adding to their legend as ‘great heroes’, but one that will also make them the targets of attempts by kings and queens, let alone other adventurers, to take it from them.

What is pleasing about the adventure is the way in which the main NPC, Vul Kovtu, is handled. Typically in such scenarios, the adventurers’ patron—in this case, Vul Kovtu—inevitably turns on them and betrays them. Now Vul Kovtu is portrayed as a driven and ambitious wizard and during the course of the adventure, the consequences of his ambitions may well be revealed, but at no point is he intending to betray the player characters. That said, as written, he is likely to be driven mad by the end of the adventure, but the GM is given pointers as to how handle him and this need not involve betrayal or turning on the player characters.

Physically Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is very nicely presented. Although it needs a close read through in order to grasp all of the details—especially with regard to the relationships between the inhabitants of Calencia Village in ‘The Cursed Amphora’—the scenario is well written. Whilst the front cover is excellent, the internal artwork does vary somewhat in quality. The cartography is consistently good throughout, though the map of Calencia Village and Lith Fjord is reminiscent of Blackwater Cove and Booty Bay from World of Warcraft. That said, a map of Cape Calencia would have been a welcome inclusion.

Now although Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is written for a retroneclone and a retroclone based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons at that, it is does not overly feel like a typical Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure. Then again it does not quite feel quite like a Swords & Sorcery adventure either. Yet as a combination of the two, Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is an effective and well crafted adventure. Although its final encounters are very much a mystery until the player characters come to them, getting there, the process of the journey that makes up the first two thirds of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is well handled with the party being given plenty to do and involve itself in.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons & Weird

In the Old School Renaissance, the truth is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons does not get as much love as other versions of the classic fantasy RPG. The problem is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is the more complex than the other versions of the classic fantasy RPG, it is not as flexible, and it shows its wargaming roots more clearly. In comparison, both Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons are simpler, more malleable, and have proved the easier basis for multiple Retroclones, from OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry to Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing. Yet this does not mean that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons has not formed the basis for Retroclones, most notably Advanced Labyrinth Lord and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The former is a close emulation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, building from Labyrinth Lord, whilst the latter is not just an emulation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but also a development of it, both in terms of mechanics and setting.

Published in 2012 by North Wind Adventures following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Wierd Fantasy takes its cues from two sources. Mechanically, it takes its mechanical cue from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but streamlines many of the mechanics in play, from Saving Throws to the infamous ‘THACO’, whilst also adding a simple resolution system for actions that take place out of combat or do not specifically pertain to a Class and its abilities. Inspirationally, it also takes its cue from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, specifically certain books suggested in Appendix N, that is the weird fiction of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith, and this is expressed most obviously in its default setting of Hyperborea and in the creatures and entities drawn from Lovecraftian fiction that populate its setting.

Currently, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is only available as a PDF, but originally it was published as a deep boxed set containing a pair of digest-sized spiral bound  books. One was the two-hundred-and-fifty-two page Players’ Manual, the other the two-hundred-and-thirty-six page Referee’s Manual. Besides this, the box contained a poster map of Hperborea, six character sheets, and a set of polyhedral dice. Each of the spiral bound books is divided into three volumes. The Players’ Manual is divided into Volume I: Swordsmen & Sorcery, Volume II: Sorcery, and Volume III: Adventure & Combat, whilst the Referee’s Manual is divided into Volume IV: Bestiary, Volume V: Treasure, and Volume VI: Hyperborea Gazetteer. It is this boxed set that Reviews from R’lyeh will be reviewing.

With an RPG like Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, the place to start is with the types of characters that can be played. In terms of Race, the Hyperborea setting gives nine pure races of mankind—Amazon, Atlantean, Esquimaux, Hyperborean, Ixian, Kelt, Kimmerian, Pict, and Viking as well as two distinct mixed races, Kimmeri-Kelt and Half-Blood Pict. In addition to these, men of indeterminate ancestry are simply of ‘Common’ stock. What is important to note about all of these Races is that none of them provide anything in the way of mechanical benefit and they are simply integral to the Hyperborea setting. They are also the only player characters Races available as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea does not include any non-humans as playable Races.

In terms of Classes, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea gives the four basics—Fighter, Magician, Cleric, and Thief—and then a whole lot more. For each of the four basic Classes, there are four or five Subclasses. Thus for the Fighter there is the Barbarian, the Berserker, the Cataphract, the Ranger, and the Warlock; along with the Magician there is the Illusionist, Necromancer, Pyromancer, and Witch; the Cleric includes the Druid, Monk, Priest, and Shaman; and for the Thief, there is the Assassin, the Bard, the Legerdemainist, and the Scout. Most of these look very much like their counterparts in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but some need a little explanation.  The Cataphract is  warrior-knight or cavalryman, the Warlock is a spell-casting fighter; the Necromancer practices black magic and consorts with the undead, the Pyromancer specialises in fire magic, and the Witch specialises in potions, portents, and curses; the Priest is more mystic than warrior, and the Shaman, or Witch Doctor, communes with ancestral and totem spirits; and the Bard or Skald is a warrior, scholar, and master of music, the Legerdemainist is a Thief who uses sorcery, and the Scout is an explorer and intelligence gatherer. The use of these Subclasses is regarded as an option rather the default. Beyond this, a character in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea can only advance as high as Twelfth Level, shares the same attributes as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, uses Hit Points and descending Armour Class, and so on, but there are notable differences as can be seen below.

Olaf the Short
Race: Viking Age: 17
Height: 5’ 6” Weight: 145 lbs.
Hair: Blond Eyes: Brown

Languages: Common, Old Norse
Secondary Skills: Boatwright, Whaler

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Strength 16
+1 Mêlée To Hit, +1 Damage Adjustment, 3:6 Test of Strength, Extraordinary Feat of Strength 24%
Dexterity 16
+0 Missile To Hit, +0 Defence Adjustment, 3:6 Test of Dexterity, Extraordinary Feat of Dexterity 16%
Constitution 10
+0 Hit Point Adjustment, +0 Poison Adjustment, Trauma Survival: 75%, 3:6 Test of Constitution, Extraordinary Feat of Constitution 04%
Intelligence 09
+0 Languages, – Magician’s Bonus Spells Cast per Day, Magician’s Chance to Learn New Spells 50%
Wisdom 14
+0 Willpower Adjustment, One Level 1 Cleric’s Bonus Spells Cast per Day, Cleric’s Chance to Learn New Spells 65%
Charisma 11
+0 Reaction/Loyalty Adjustment, Maximum Number of Henchmen 4, +0 Turning Undead Adjustment

Fighter Level 1
Attack Rate 1/1, Heroic Fighting (Attack Rate 2/1 versus 1 HD or less), Weapon Mastery (+1 Hit, +1 Damage with Spear and Axe)
Fighting Ability: 1
Armour Class: 4/3
Hit Dice: 1d10 Hit Points: 9

Saving Throw: 16
Saving Throw Modifiers: Death +2, Transformation +2

Equipment
2×Hand Axe (1d6, WC 1), Short Spear (1d6/1d8, WC 3); Chainmail, Large Shield (+1/+2)

What is noticeable about the derived factors from the attributes is that Strength differentiates between the To Hit and Damage bonuses and has both Test of Strength and Extraordinary Feat of Strength factors. These equate to Open Doors and Bend Bars/Lift Gates respectively in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the Test of Strength being rolled on a six sided die and the Extraordinary Feat of Strength rolled as a percentile. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea goes further and applies the two resolution mechanisms to Dexterity and Constitution as well as  Strength. The ‘Test of…’ is a way of handling a character who wants to take a non-standard action that relates to a physical attribute, whilst the ‘Extraordinary Feat of…’ represents a player character undertaking a superhuman action.

Perhaps the biggest change in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is the addition of Fighting Ability. Every character has this. It does two things. First, it simply measures how good the character is at physical combat when compared to a Fighter-type Class of the same Level. The Fighting Ability of a Fighter will always increase as he goes up a Level, up to the maximum of Twelfth Level, but a Cleric or a Magician will not. Thus a Thief will have Fighting Ability of 1 at First Level, of 2 at Third Level, of 3 at Level Four, and so on. Second, it simply serves as a Class’ bonus to hit at any one particular Level, this bonus or Fighting Ability being applied to the one table. All Classes possess the Fighting Ability, but some Classes also have the Casting Ability, the capacity to use sorcery (which will be examined later), and Turning Ability, the capacity to turn or control the undead. However, Fighting Ability is so beautiful in its elegance and simplicity, let alone the fact that it deals away with multiple tables for handling combat.

Armour Class works as you would expect, but minor tweaks. Notably that it provides some damage reduction, whilst larger shields provide better Armour Class adjustment against missile attacks. 

Saving Throws are also streamlined. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons there are five categories of Saving Throw—‘Paralyzation, Poison, or Death Magic’, ‘Rod, Staff, or Wand’, ‘Petrification or Polymorph’, ‘Breath Weapon’, and ‘Spells’. In Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea there is just one generic Saving Throw for all Classes which improves as a player character goes up in Levels. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea also breaks its Saving Throws down in five categories—Death, Transformation, Device, Avoidance, and Sorcery—but rather they become modifiers to the core Saving Throw. The type of modifier a player character has will depend upon his Class. For example, Olaf the Short, is a Fighter and therefore receives the modifiers Death +2 and Transformation +2. A character’s Attributes may also provide additional modifiers. Like the Fighting Ability and Casting Ability, this is a streamlined and elegant method of handling an old mechanism that also avoids the need for big tables.

Alignment is similarly streamlined. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea reduces the seven options found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons to just five—Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral. It removes the purity of both Law and Chaos and perhaps may not be as nuanced as some Gamemasters and their campaigns, might like.

The approach to skills in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is ambivalent. Just like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the Thief Class in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea includes a list of skills useful to all aspects of theft and stealth and detecting traps and so on. This is rolled on a twelve-sided die, not percentile dice, and may be modified by a Thief’s Dexterity if high enough. So for example, a First Level Thief would have skills of Climb 8:12, Decipher Script 0:12, Discern Noise 4:12, Hide 5:12, Manipulate Traps 3:12, Move Silently 5:12, Open Locks 3:12, Pick Pockets 4:12, and Read Scrolls –. The Ranger’s Track ability works in a similar fashion.

In addition, there is a mechanic for a character undertaking an action not covered by his Class, that is, a nonstandard action. For example, a Magician might want to pick the pockets of a merchant or a Bard wants to recall what he knows about a hero of old. The chance of this is expressed much like the Test of Strength, but is typically low, for example, 1:6. At least there is a mechanic for this, but why not turn it into a unified task resolution and have the Test of Strength, the Thief’s skills, the Ranger’s Track ability, and this unskilled test all resolved on a twelve-sided die and allow a character’s Attributes to modify the results? Having separate small mechanisms in this fashion is an annoying hangover from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and makes no sense in terms of aesthetics or design.

Combat is for the most part little different to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, with attack rolls on a twenty-sided die made against an opponent’s Armour Class, with damage inflicted then being deducted from his Hit points. The rules cover most eventualities, notably unarmed combat—always an issue in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, whilst the advanced rules cover a variety of options and manoeuvres from Arrow Setting and Disarm to Throw and Attack and Two-Weapon Fighting, as well as Critical Hits. Initiative is handled normally, except that a combatant armed with longer weapon against one armed with a shorter weapon, may be able to strike first. 

Perhaps the first real disappointment with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is in its approach to sorcery. It provides spell lists for each of its various spell-casting Classes, the spells starting at First Level and ending at Sixth Level, as well as covering learning and casting spells, researching spells, and so on. Now this is all well and good, but the spells do not inspire and they do not feel appropriate to the genre that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is based upon. Magic in Swords & Sorcery is typically dangerous, not just to those it is cast upon, but also upon the caster, and the magic in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is never that. This is because it does not really deviate from the magic of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, of E. Gary Gygax and Jack Vance.

Xanthe Pontos
Race: Atlantean Age: 17
Height: 5’ 5” Weight: 140 lbs.
Hair: Black Eyes: Yellow

Languages: Common, Hellenic (Atlantean Dialect), Keltish (Pictish Dialect)
Secondary Skills: Messenger, Bookbinder

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Strength 13
+0 Mêlée To Hit, +1 Damage Adjustment, 3:6 Test of Strength, Extraordinary Feat of Strength 08%
Dexterity 10
+0 Missile To Hit, +0 Defence Adjustment, 2:6 Test of Dexterity, Extraordinary Feat of Dexterity 04%
Constitution 18
+3 Hit Point Adjustment, +2 Poison Adjustment, Trauma Survival: 95%, 5:6 Test of Constitution, Extraordinary Feat of Constitution 32%
Intelligence 16
+1 Languages, 1 Level One, 1 Level Two Magician’s Bonus Spells Cast per Day, Magician’s Chance to Learn New Spells 75%
Wisdom 12
+0 Willpower Adjustment, – Cleric’s Bonus Spells Cast per Day, Cleric’s Chance to Learn New Spells 50%
Charisma 15
+1 Reaction/Loyalty Adjustment, Maximum Number of Henchmen 8, +1 Turning Undead Adjustment

Necromancer Level 1
Read Magic, Scribe Scroll, Sorcery 
Fighting Ability: 0
Casting Ability: 1
Turning Ability: – 
Armour Class: 9
Hit Dice: 1d4 Hit Points: 6

Spells
First Level: Animate Carrien

Saving Throw: 16
Saving Throw Modifiers: Death +2, Sorcery +2

Equipment
Quarterstaff (1d6, WC 3), Dagger (1d4, WC 1)


The bestiary in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is a mix of the old and the new, or rather the old and the weird. What is noticeable by their absence is the Goblinoid family of foes—Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears—although Gnolls, here called Hyæna Men, and Orcs, here called Dæmon-Picts, are present and take on a more bestial and more demonic natures respectively. The rest is mix of the traditional Dungeons & Dragons creatures and the weird of Cthulhu Mythos. So we have the Aboleth, the Black Pudding, the Chimæra, the Gargoyle, the Gelatinous Cube, and so on from Dungeons & Dragons, whilst the Deep Dweller, the Elder Thing, the Great Race, the Night-Gaunt, the Shoggoth, and so on, from the Cthulhu Mythos. There are some changes and new entries too. For example, Hill Giants are known as Formorians and Golems are called Automata, and whilst the materials they are constructed from remain the same, whether clay, flesh, iron, or stone, take on the feel of ancient technology rather than magical constructs. New creatures include Leaper Camels (a kangaroo-like marsupial ridden by the Abominable Snow-Men and the Men of leng), Lotus Women (plant-like vampires that lure their prey with lamenting song), Minotrons (bronze clockworks in the form of Minotaurs), Oon (subterranean humanoids who serve the Mi-Go), and Thew Wagons (bequilled slug-like beasts that can be trained as giant beasts of burden). It is a delightful mix and in a great many cases, the monsters from Dungeons & Dragons do not look out of place alongside those from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Again treasure in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea feels the same as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but different. So alongside Plate Mail +1, Sword +2, Flame Tongue, Potion of Gaseous Form, Ring of Water Walking, Staff of the Snake, Boots of Speed, IOUN Stones, there is also the Girdle of Golden Serpents (creates a greater globe of invulnerability that has a chance of ceasing function for its current wearer, but will work for the next wearer), the Sphere of Blackness (grants use of various shadow-related spells), and the Vacuous Grimoire (reduces the Intelligence and Wisdom of the reader). Other items of treasure draw from the Pulp Sci-Fi genre, for example, the Sword +2, Laser—Star Wars eat your heart out, but then the weapon has always been there at the periphery of the Science Fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. Other Science Fantasy weapons include the Paralysing Pistol and the Radium Pistol.

Overall, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea presents a good mix of magical items, but not necessarily a great one. Again, the issue is that they are too much like Dungeons & Dragons and not weird enough, not dangerous enough. The Hyperborea of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea feels as if there should be a danger to using any one of the magical items, but unless they are specifically cursed, there is very little of that. Also missing is a means for the player characters to create magical items beyond potions and scrolls, which befits the ancient, but lost knowledge aspect of the Hyperborea setting. Of course, that is only lost to mankind. Some of the older and ‘elder’ races, such as the Deep-Dwellers, Dwarves—here described as “...foot-long, sickly yellow maggots” and “...cunning, evil, greedy, and lecherous; equally they are tireless forgers and brilliant dweomercafters”, Elder Things, and members of the Great Race, may have the means to create such magical or scientific devices.

Rounding out Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is the Hyperborea Gazetteer, which details and describes the mythic ‘micro-setting’ that is Hyperborea, that might be a land long lost to Earth or a land that lies at the North Pole. Wherever it lies, Hyperborea is an ancient land over which a giant red sun hangs, around which it has a thirteen year orbit which includes one year of midnight sun and one year of polar night. It was once home to a great race, the Ancient Hyperboreans, but whilst they were able to survive an Ice Age, their civilisation did not survive a  plague known as the Green Death. There are few Ancient Hyperborean survivors and their once great civilisation now consists of ruins to be picked over by other men. The Gazetteer covers everything from Hyperborea’s astronomy and calendar to its races and religions—many of the latter including faiths and devoted to Great Old Ones like Kthulhu and Azathoth. It provides a thorough overview of Hperborea, including some mysteries and marvels, such as the great black obelisks and ancient R’lyeh.

So the question is, what do adventurers do in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea? According to the website, they “...delve dungeons filled with horrifying monsters, lethal traps, and bewildering puzzles; they explore savage wilderness frontiers and hostile borderlands; they probe ancient ruins and investigate cursed tombs; they match steel against sorcery, and sorcery against steel; and they plunder for gold, gems, and magical treasure in a decaying world inhabited by bloodthirsty monsters and weird, alien beings.” The next question is, how does this differ from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons? The answer to that is that it does not and this is disappointing. It does not help that there is no adventure included in the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea boxed set, an adventure that would showcase the game in action. (The box though, does include a poster map of Hyperborea, a set of character sheet pamphlets, and a set of polyhedral dice.)

Given the presence of the weird and certainly the Cthulhu Mythos in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea it seems odd that there are no rules for handling the weird and the uncanny. There are essentially no Sanity mechanics and that, when combined with the lack of threat in spellcasters using magic, points to the flaw in the RPG’s design—it never makes the weird feel personal and so never quite really brings the character Classes provided into the Hyperborea setting. Lastly it would have been nice if an equivalent of Appendix N from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons could have been provided as inspiration for the Gamemaster.

Physically, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is very ably presented. It is well written and everything is well explained, the language in places being mature and rich enough, that in places it was necessary for Reviews from R’lyeh to look up the meanings of certain words. Both volumes of the rules are nicely illustrated by Ian Baggley, his dark pencils nicely depicting the dark dangers of Hyperborea.

As a retroclone, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea had the potential to be a superb development of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but unfortunately, it never gets quite beyond interesting. Mechanically the RPG provides interesting choices and some elegant redesigns of standard Dungeons & Dragons mechanisms, and there is potential in both the setting of Hyperborea and the threats it should present. Yet for all that potential, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea never quite escapes the bonds of Dungeons & Dragons and never quite fully embraces the weird of its inspirational genre.

—oOo—

The second edition of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: A Roleplaying Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Wierd Fantasy is currently funding on Kickstarter. Please check it out.