The Shadow of Scandal

The London Spiritualist Society is threatened with scandal! Just three weeks ago, one of the society’s junior members died in the library under strange circumstances and if word got out, its austere and respected reputation as an upright and proper organisation with an interest in the occult and the burgeoning spiritualist movement would suffer greatly. Such is the worry that this will come to pass, that the board of the society has decided that the incident should be investigated properly and fully with the aim of confirming that the society itself was not to blame and that no suspicion of impropriety can be attached to the society. The investigators are of course to be discreet themselves, whilst also bringing to bear their experiences in dealing with the occult and the outré. So begins The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller, a short two-act scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It is published by Stygian Fox Publishing, best known for the anthologies Things We leave Behind and Fear’s Sharp Little Needles: Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror, as well as New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition, which marked the return of a classic. As written, it is intended to be compatible with the publisher’s Hudson & Brand, Inquiry Agents of the Obscure, a Victorian Era setting supplement, published in 2017 when there was no edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight in print. However, in 2025, there is, and The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller can be run with just Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and then with the fourth edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight, and perhaps a little easier now than it was with Hudson & Brand, Inquiry Agents of the Obscure.

The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller begins with the Investigators at the headquarters of the London Spiritualist Society. They can already be members or even associates, but they should all have some experience with spiritualism and the occult and certainly acquired a reputation for discretion. They are informed that three weeks before, a trio of younger members broke in the society’s library and attempted a ceremony, one in which the board member believes they attempted to summon some malevolent spirit. At the end of the ceremony, one of the three was dead, a second was so traumatised he had to be hospitalised in an asylum, and the third resigned from the society. Each of the three represents the Investigators’ opening lines of inquiry. Of course, one of them is dead, although the Investigators will be told where his grave is, but the other two, Sir Peter Wahlmesey and Miss Sarah Mulberry can be visited and both will recant what happened during the ceremony, though with varying degrees of reluctance. Miss Mulberry can be interviewed at her flat, whilst Sir Peter has been institutionalised for his own good. Pleasingly, the scenario actually points out that he is receiving—by standards of the day—very good care at the asylum, and further, the scenario nicely emphasises the fragility of his current state rather than it actually being horrified.

Although the Investigators can learn a certain amount from both participants in the ceremony, very little of this pertains to subsequent events and what pushes the Investigators to investigate further in the second act does feel like a deus ex machina, an intervention signposting where they should go. This comes after a very violent encounter with a horse and carriage which points to the Investigators to the home of the man killed during the ceremony, Richard Keye. This is a small mansion, but one which has been turned into half a slaughterhouse, half haunted house, one marked with some classic horror house motifs, such as something lurking in the bathtub or body parts strangely protruding from the walls. Again, much like the encounter in the asylum, these are nicely underplayed and in some cases, benign in nature and intent, if not outcome. There are some nicely creepy scenes and encounters throughout the house, but ultimately, the scenario funnels the Investigators into a final confrontation with the threat at the heart of the scenario.

Physically, The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller is short and tidy, neat little hardback like the publisher’s earlier Nightmare on the Necropolis Express. It is done in the style of a penny dreadful, though with some colour artwork, some of which is quite decent. The map is clear and easy to use, whilst the book does need an edit in places.

If The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller presents its horror stoutly enough, it wavers when it comes to its other themes, that of impropriety and scandal. With the society of the Victorian Era, there is plenty of scope for it within the scenario, primarily due to the death in the library of the London Spiritualist Society. However, The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller does not explore or really detail what happens if information about the death becomes more widely known. Of course, the scenario was written before the publication of the new edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight, but the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age does include rules for reputation and suffering damage to it. Obviously, this is less of an issue if the scenario is run as a one-shot rather than being used in a campaign.

Although set in the Victorian era of Cthulhu by Gaslight, there is very little to stop the Keeper adapting The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller to other time periods, and whatever the time period, its brevity means that it is easy to slot into an ongoing campaign. Whilst it does not concern the traditional Cthulhu Mythos in any way, its themes of spiritualism and propriety are appropriate to the period, though it does not go as far as it could have done in examining the consequences of impropriety. Nevertheless, and although quite light on investigation, The Strange Case of the Shadow Traveller is an engaging one-session of body horror and possession.

Mauve Madness

From the detective stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the ghost stories of M.R. James, from the adventure tales of H. Rider Haggard to the speculative fiction of H.G. Wells, and the social commentary and mystery of Charles Dickens to the fantasies of Lewis Carroll, from the so-called perversities of Oscar Wilde to the murders of Jack the Ripper, from the fog-shrouded streets of London to the dusty frontier of the Punjab, from the refined and mannered lives of the aristocracy with their downstairs servants to the squalor of the slums and rookeries, there is much that we know about the Victorian Age in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This is the period of La Belle Époque, the Golden Age between the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 when the great European powers dominated the world like never before, their rivalries and tensions affecting millions of people around the world, but barely at home, a situation that would drastically change in the twentieth century when the great alliances that had previously helped to keep the peace calamitously clashed and changed the world like never before. This is a world that will be familiar to many, though both history and fiction, and has been ripe for gaming since “The first ‘Truly British’ role playing game”, that is, Victorian Adventure published in 1983. It is a roleplaying game that William A. Barton certainly saw and reviewed and perhaps was influenced by when he wrote Cthulhu by Gaslight: Horror Roleplaying in 1890s England, published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1986. This boxed set shifted the horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos from the Jazz Age and the USA of the 1920s as presented in Call of Cthulhu in 1981 (and ever since) to the streets of London and the far reaches of the British Empire in the Mauve Decade. It has remained a popular setting for Call of Cthulhu over the years, the setting receiving two further editions in 1988 and 2012, but it returns with a fourth edition with the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide.

The Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age returns the Mythos to the Mauve Decade of the 1890s as a standalone book. What this means is that neither of the Keeper Rulebook or the Investigator Handbook for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is required to run and play Cthulhu by Gaslight. It thus means that the book include both introductions to roleplaying and the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as a comprehensive summary of the rules in the first of its two appendices. The setting and rules are compatible with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos for a more adventurous style of play and with Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West, should a Keeper and her players want to escape the stuffy confines of London and the East Coast of the USA and venture onto the American frontier. It provides a grand overview of Victorian England, paying particular attention to London, but also going far beyond that, as well as looking at Victorian society and attitudes. It also includes a guide to creating Victorian-era Investigators and delves into the quirks and oddities of the period that make history so interesting and help make it come alive. What Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age is not though, is a guide to the Mythos—its gods and greater beings, alien species and monsters, and its horribly human adherents. That is saved for the companion volume, Cthulhu by Gaslight: Keepers’ Guide, and the Keeper’s eyes only.

What is clear about the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age is the wealth of information it presents, more so than any of the three previous editions. And to no little extent, if the player or Keeper has read or used those previous editions, or indeed, has an interest in the history of the Victorian period, then they will find much that is familiar within its pages. There is a guide to Victorian social class, life in the city and the country—including in the infamous slums known as rookeries, politics including the radicalism of the Fabian Society and anarchism, the Royal Family, the nature of domestic service, religion, philanthropy, death and mourning, women and the law, the place of ethnic minorities, and sex and society. It also covers communications—Royal Mail, the telegraph, and the telephone, as well as crime, policing, and the underworld. Throughout, many of these subjects are accompanied by little timelines of their own that highlight the notable events that changed them, often laws passed by parliament to improve the lot of society.

Perhaps the biggest factor here and the one that will most obviously affect an Investigator is that of class. Obviously, it plays a major factor in almost every social situation and the expectations of the different classes do limit the ways in which a person of one class can interact with another and do so correctly without being seen to act improperly. What this means is that Investigators of all classes are required to access different social spaces. Thus, members of the middle and upper classes would look out of place in a working-class area or space and any working-class person found there would not necessarily be as readily forthcoming in answers to queries as if they were a member of their own class. There is also a general deference to the classes above you, but this does not mean attitudes between classes did not vary. Although campaigns can be run with the Investigators all coming from a single class or group, the nature of Victorian society begs the question, how Investigators of different Classes be seen together given its constraints? Here is where the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide begins to get that little bit more interesting. It suggests a number of ‘Multi-Class Set-Ups & Locations’ as possible set-ups, such as charities operating in working-class areas, music hall performances, racecourses, seaside resorts, and so on.

This is the first of three sections in the book that suggest ways in which Victorian society was not quite as straitlaced and corseted as we imagine. Evelyn De Morgan, the female artist who painted male nudes, Benjamin Disraeli, middle class and Jewish, who rose to become leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister—twice, and Lillie Langtry, notorious ‘adventuress’, actress, producer, and theatre manager and mistress to the Prince of Wales and advertising face of Pears Soap, are among the notable Victorians listed as having defied the expectations of their backgrounds and so could serve as possible inspirations for Investigators. Similarly, there is a lengthy section on LGBTQI+ Victorians which explores their lives during the period. Unfortunately, the outwardly prudish attitudes of Victorian society means that what we know of it is drawn from its various scandals and criminal prosecutions, although this is contrasted by some calls for acceptance. The third looks at the subject of Race and place of minorities in Victorian society, highlighting the lives and places they made for themselves in the empire. Together—and despite the social mores of the period—the exploration of these three subjects open up a wider choice of backgrounds for Investigators and wider possibilities in terms of scenarios and storytelling than the Gaslight era might otherwise suggest.

Investigator creation is as per Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but with a handful of changes. One of these is class, determined by Occupation, as for example, Acrobat and Labourer are working class Occupations, Clergy and Scientist are Middle Class Occupations, and Aristocrat is an upper-class Occupation. Others span the classes, for example, Police Officer is working to middle class and Physician is middle to upper. Some Occupations are particular to Cthulhu by Gaslight, like Inquiry Agent and the Consulting Detective, whilst some are adaptations taken from Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, such as the Alienist which adapts the Psychologist. The Labourer and Criminal Occupations are further split into specialisations, including the Chimney Sweep and the Navvy for the Labourer and the Footpad and the Swindler for the Criminal. The Adventuress is an exception being upper class, but only temporarily. In addition, there are guidelines for creating Heroes rather than Investigators for use with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos and there is also a list of Occupations from the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook suitable for use with Cthulhu by Gaslight. There is also a good interpretation of skills in the period along with the addition of Alienism (similar to Psychology), Mesmerism (replaces Hypnotism), Reassure (similar to Psychiatry), and Religion. It is a very broad range of options across the three social classes.

Similar to Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England, there are rules for Reputation and how to both damage and repair it in Cthulhu by Gaslight, but they are optional. Suggestions are also provided for several Investigator organisations, including the ‘Mainwaring Society for the Betterment of the Working Classes’, dedicated to self-improvement, the ‘Nonstandard Club’, a slightly dubious dining society for the middle and upper classes which gathers to regale each other with frightening or embarrassing stories, and ‘The Lorists’, a middle-class organisation dedicated to investigating and dealing with goblins, giants, faeries, and weird local customs.

The Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide provides an extensive price list of equipment, devices, and weapons, including a handful of Pulp Cthulhu devices, essentially everything that an Investigator might want at home and abroad. Once fully kitted out, whether for a night out to the theatre or the music hall or a walking holiday in the Lake District or a boat trip up the Nile to visit the Pyramids, the rulebook takes us there too. The book is self-admittedly London centric, so it warrants a detailed chapter of its own, covering the capital’s districts, hospitals and asylums, places of entertainment, museums and libraries, railway stations, cemeteries, places to stay and shop, clubs, and clubs for ladies and gentlemen. In comparison, the treatment of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom feels brief by comparison and feel as if they need a supplement of their own. Of course, this is not the extent of the British realm during this period, so the British Empire is given a similar treatment. Again, this quite literally has a lot of ground to cover, but from Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Malta in the Mediterranean to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji in the Pacific, there is a solid overview of the extent of the British Empire at the time. Alongside this, there is advice on the need for the Keeper and her players to discuss the degree to which colonialism and racism should be present in their game, whilst the subject of slavery is explored historically, but not addressed in the same fashion.

The Victorian Age was one of exploration and adventure, with constant news flowing back from the furthest corners of the then unknown world to the European explorer of discoveries made and places reached to fill column inches. British Investigators need not travel very far to gain some semblance of the strange and the exotic, whether it is attending lectures hosted by the numerous societies and clubs, like the Alpine Club and Royal Geographical Society (to which they could also belong) or simply embarking on the Grand Tour of Europe. Again, and although not extensive, the book provides a good overview of exploration during the period.

For the most part, the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age is a very straightforward and straitlaced treatment of the period, but it does loose its stays and go beyond its ordinary limits and into the outré—and does so in three surprising ways. The first is to visit the shores of the eastern seaboard of the United States of America, noting both the differences in language during the period and violence between the two societies, before providing thumbnail descriptions of New York, Boston, and Chicago. However, the second is that it turns its sights on New England to visit a totally unexpected region, that of Lovecraft Country. Its examination of the major settlements of the Miskatonic Valley—Arkham, Dunwich, and Innsmouth—is cursory at best, but welcome acknowledgement of their existence in this period. A first for Call of Cthulhu. Of course, the description of Arkham in this period would work well in conjunction with Call of Cthulhu: Arkham.

Third and last, the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide goes beyond the mortal realms to examine the Victorian approach to pseudoscience and the occult, having just looked at science and medicine. This begins with the fringe sciences of mesmerism, electrotherapy, phrenology, and more—with a discussion of eugenics along the way—before delving into myth and folklore and the occult. This in turn covers Freemasonry, Druidism, and both the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and The Theosophical Society. Particular attention is paid to both organisations, discussing their history and their beliefs as well as providing biographies of varying lengths of their leading members. So included in the membership of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn are Samuel Liddell Macgregor Mathers, William Butler Yeats, and Aleister Crowley, and in The Theosophical Society, Madame (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky. Also covered here is Spiritualism and ghost-hunting, including the Society for Psychical Research, although in the case of the latter, it feels slightly underwritten in comparison to the other entries. Again though, these are all good solid introductions to their subjects. Rounding out the volume is a good bibliography.

Physically, the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide is a good-looking book. It needs a slight edit, but the book is well written and very readable, and the artwork and the cartography are both excellent.

The Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age is, of course, the book for both the players and the Keeper, so there are a lot of secrets and details of the Victorian era—at least in terms of Lovecraftian investigative horror—that have been left out. Those will have to wait for the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Keepers’ Guide. This does not mean that Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide is by any means a bad book. It is in turns interesting and informative, packed with details and interesting facts, many of which will both intrigue the most ardent devotee of the history of the period and help bring the setting to life when brought into play. The Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigators’ Guide – Mysteries & Frights in the Victorian Age is an impressively informative introduction to the Victorian Era and lays the groundwork for the Keeper to return the Mythos and madness to the Mauve Decade with the Cthulhu by Gaslight: Keepers’ Guide.

The Clouds Above

The Earth’s skies above are lost in a sea of roiling grey clouds, lit by lightning storms, and boiling with pollution. The world’s skies have been hidden for as long as anyone can remember and no one can remember why. There are those who are brave enough to leap into the air and explore what is to be above the clouds, piloting aeroplanes or dirigibles, searching for treasures said to be found there. Some do return with such treasures, but others come with none, or driven mad from their experiences. This is the setting of What Lurks Above, a micro roleplaying game of pulp exploration and danger in a neo-Victorian post-apocalyptic setting. Published by Parable Games—best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, it includes simple easy rules, including for both characters and vessels, and combat between them.

A Player Character in What Lurks Above has four stats—Fortitude, Courage, Intellect, and Agility. These are rated by die type. So, one has a six-sided, eight-sided, a ten-sided, and a twelve-sided die. It is as simple as that. He has a Vigour equal to his Fortitude die size.

The Cook
Fortitude d6 Courage d12 Intellect d10 Agility d6
Vigour 6

To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the die for the appropriate stat and aims to roll high. The Skipper—as the Game Master is known—sets the difficulty by choosing a die type. The larger the die type, the greater the difficulty faced by the Player Character. If the player rolls higher, his character succeeds, but if the Skipper rolls higher, the character fails. The Vessel, whether an aeroplane or a dirigible, also has four stats, which again are assigned die types. The four stats are Hull Integrity, Engine Power, Radar Range, and Weapon Systems. Combat is also handled as opposed rolls, with the winner inflicting damage to the loser’s Vigour. Bare firsts inflict one point of damage, an antique sabre three points, a missile eight points, and so on. If a Player Character’s Vigour is reduced to zero, then they are dead. NPCs and bigger creatures can have higher Vigour values than the die types.

To power play, What Lurks Above offers a series of prompts in a set of tables. These consist of tables for ‘Discoveries’ and ‘Enemies’. Entries for the former include ‘A castle in the sky run by automata who continue to serve their long dead masters’ or ‘A basking shark with a city in its mouth’ and work as scenario hooks, whilst entries for the latter include a ‘Fog Brain’, a floating sphere of fleshy cloud with hanging moss tentacles, and a ‘Flock of Seagull Warriors’ with a penchant for everyone’s leftovers! The Skipper simply has to roll on both to have a prompt to get an adventure started.

Physically, What Lurks Above is a simple tri-fold pamphlet. It is surprisingly and decently illustrated and is an easy to pick up roleplaying game. Overall, What Lurks Above is a very bare bones game, but that allows room aplenty for the Skipper and her players to develop the world as they want.

An Interrupted Party

The Stolen Child is a short, one session scenario for Castle Falkenstein, the roleplaying game of manners and magic, faeries and fabulative fiction, action and adventure all set in an alternate nineteenth century in which Bayern (or Bavaria) leads a Second Concordant against an alliance between Baron Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, and the Unseelie Court, the presence of Dragons and Faeries is commonplace, Prussia has failed to unite the Germanies, steampunk technology is being adopted everywhere, and fact meets fiction and fiction meets fact. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Castle Falkenstein is a highly regarded roleplaying classic that is as polite and as well-mannered a roleplaying game as ever you would want. It is not even so gauche as to use dice for its mechanics! Published by Az AVU Emberei and translated from the original Hungarian, The Stolen Child is easy to add an ongoing campaign or even use as a demonstration scenario.

In The Stolen Child, the Player Characters are invited to the birthday party of Rudolf von Dunkelberg, the son of Prince Johann of Dunkelberg, a principality so small that it can barely be found on the map. However, following an English education and training as an army officer, Rudolf von Dunkelberg has made a name for himself as a loyal and stalwart companion of the Player Characters. Hence, they are invited to his birthday party. They arrive on the day of the birthday ball—the principality being so small it does not have a railway station for its one town, also called Dunkelberg. An early morning stroll in one of the town’s parks throws them straight into the action en media res! A woman’s scream alerts them to the perfidious kidnap attempt of herself and a small boy by three men with scarves wrapped around their faces. The kidnappers make every attempt to kidnap the boy at least—and if they fail, will try again. The authorities do not seem to want to help and if the Player Characters rescue the woman, if not both the woman and the boy, she will be thankful, but initially quite close-lipped about who their kidnappers were and what they want.

Ideally, what should happen is that the boy be kidnapped and the Player Characters rescue the woman, who it turns, is his mother. After the local soldiery arrives to conduct a surprisingly cursory investigation, the woman will reveal that she is actually Irene von Drachenfels, the boy is her son, Hans, and her husband is Major August von Drachenfels, a Prussian armoured officer who is disillusioned with Bismarck’s regime and wants to escape Prussia. Of course, should he manage to defect, von Drachenfels’ knowledge of the LandFortress Works and his experience as a commander of a LandFortress, will provide Bayern and the Second Compact, with a wealth of knowledge about the Prussian military. Understandably, the Iron Chancellor does not want Major August von Drachenfels to what is effectively defect to the enemy and has despatched his own agents willing to doing anything to prevent that, including kidnapping the major’s wife and son.

Unfortunately, the scenario does have an issue in how the Player Characters get from the kidnapping scene to the next scene, no matter whether both the woman and the boy are kidnapped or just the boy. It is possible to chase the automotive vehicle that the kidnappers escape in all the way to a seemingly abandoned shoe shop at the foot of Dunkelberg mountain, but this really requires that one of the Player Characters be a Dragon and thus able to fly. If the Player Characters manage to capture one of the kidnappers, they can interrogate him or find some clues from the contents of his pockets. However, if this is not the case or if the Player Characters fail to foil the kidnap attempt, what should ideally happen is that one of the kidnappers should accidentally drop a key to the door of the shoe shop and since that has the name of the shop on it, should help get the Player Characters to the next part of the scenario.

The town of Dunkelberg and thus the shoe shop abutt the base of Dunkelberg mountain, itself famous for its mines now abandoned. The Player Characters find themselves in a case, running after the kidnappers as they run pell-mell through the mine. Their progress is potentially hampered by a Knocker Faerie who distrusts any intruders, especially after his run in with the Prussian agents. How well the Player Characters do in persuading the Knocker that they are not his enemy greatly influences the amount of time they have left when they confront the Prussians and hopefully rescue the kidnap victims.

Physically, The Stolen Child is simply presented, although there are some nice flourishes around the borders. There are a couple of pieces of period art and it is a pity as there is not more of it as adventure feels plain without more. It does need an edit in places and it does feel as if it is rushed towards the end. More information about the town of Dunkelberg would have been useful if the Player Characters deviate from the linear story of The Stolen Child, as well as extending the usefulness of the supplement. 

The Stolen Child is a simple affair. It does feel underdeveloped, or at least, not as clearly explained as it should be, though with careful preparation by the Game Master this should not be a problem. Overall, The Stolen Child is best suited as pick-up or filler scenario that the Game Master can easily slot into her campaign between longer adventures.

1994: Castle Falkenstein

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It is 1870 and the war has been won these past four years. The Battle of Königsgrätz is over. The Second Compact, an alliance of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Sir Richard Frances Burton, Lord Kelvin, the Seelie Court led by Lord Auberon, Science Minister Jules Verne of France, the Templars and the Freemasons, led by King Ludwig of Bayern and Bayernese Aeronavy has stopped the conquest of all the Germanies by Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Prussia and his mighty Landfortresses, and a secret alliance of the Unseelie Host and the Steam Lords of Great Britain with their Babbage Engines. There have been many adventures since as a cold war descended upon New Europa and Bismarck, licking his wounds in Berlin, sought to reunite all of the continent, using whatever underhand means he could. He is yet to succeed though, and so there are plots to be uncovered and treachery to be foiled, as well as romances to be had, places to visit, balls to attend, duels to be fought, and adventures to take far and wide.

This then is the setting for Castle Falkenstein: High Adventures in the Steam Age, a roleplaying game of high fantasy, swashbuckling action, manners and magic, Wagnerian myth, Victorian melodrama, Anachrotech developed from the Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, faerie, and fiction, that would win both the 1994 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules and the Nigel D. Findley Memorial Award for the Best Role-Playing Product of 1995. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., it was then a radical departure that contrasted sharpy with prevailing trends in roleplaying at the time and it was also a conceit. The early nineties were dominated in roleplaying terms by the World of Darkness series of roleplaying games published by White Wolf, such as Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension, horror games that tended towards darkness and introspection. Castle Falkenstein did not. It was bright, exciting, and optimistic. It was also colourful—quite literally. In another departure from the then norm, Castle Falkenstein was in full colour—or at least half of it was—that presented the world of New Europa in a richly painted vibrancy that was startlingly different. The other difference between Castle Falkenstein and other roleplaying games was mechanical. It used an ordinary deck of playing cards rather than dice, because well, cards are more civilised than dice!

The conceit was that the world of New Europa, with its sorcery and faerie, Anachrotech and Babbage Engines, vile villains, dashing heroes and heroines, was real. An alternate universe into which computer game designer, Tom Olam, is kidnapped—or ‘spellnapped’—by Lord Auberon as a secret weapon to help restore Crown Prince Ludwig of Bayern to the throne, and once he finds his place in Bayern, the equivalent of Bavaria in our world, located at the end of the Inner Sea which splits much of New Europa, goes on to serve the newly restored King Ludwig the Second, the definitely not ‘mad king’, and has lots of adventures. He also finds time to introduce a roleplaying game to the aristocracy and write a cross between a novel and diary and that is what lands at the doorstep of designer Mike Pondsmith. The other conceit is that New Europa is a world where fiction meets fact. Sherlock Holmes attends concerts with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne is Science Minister of France even as Robur the Conqueror has designs upon the whole world, and Rudolf V needs rescuing in neighbouring Ruritania! This is a world where it is possible to encounter Captain Sir Harry Flashman, VC, Count Dracula, Lady Ada Lovelace, Captain John Carter, Charles Dickens, Lola Montez, the Time Traveller, and Mark Twain. In the roleplaying game, Tom Olam even describes New Europa as being, “one part Lord of the Rings and two parts Jules Verne science fiction, with a little Prisoner of Zenda thrown in for good measure”.

Castle Falkenstein was upfront about the divide in terms of organisation of the book, with the world and its background presented first in colour, followed by the rules and mechanics of the roleplaying game on the parchment-style pages of the section that followed. It said, “The best way to think of Castle Falkenstein is as a novel that allows you to write your own sequels.” Which made sense, because the means to create those sequels came after the fiction of the setting. That fiction is not so much a novel as a cross between a journal and diary in which Tom Olam relates his experiences and then describes the wider world. Since it is written as a journal, we are introduced to Tom’s situation as he experiences the world, from his immediate arrival after his ‘spellnapping’ through to the aftermath of the Battle of Königsgrätz. In between we are introduced the Lord Auberon and the Wizard, Morrolan, who cast the spell; Castle Falkenstein itself, even more fantastic castle than Neuschwanstein Castle, and Bayern beyond its walls; the companions to be in his adventures to come, including Rhyme, a mad scientist Dwarf; and the threats faced by Bayern in the form of Bismarck and the Unseelie Court allies, led by ‘The Adversary’. Castle Falkenstein does not ignore the wider world and there are some interesting divergences here such as America being divided into three nations—the USA, where sorcery saved the life of Abraham Lincoln, the Twenty Nations Confederation which formed and stopped expansion westward by the white man in 1830, and what was once California, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon are now the Bear Flag Empire ruled by the benevolent, but probably potty Emperor Norton the First. The Ottoman Empire remains the ‘sick man of New Europe’, ruled by a crafty, if insane Sultan and various sorcerously powerful Viziers, whilst China is ruled by the First Dragon Emperors, who are actually dragons! Tom also tells about some of the people he has met and places he has been, some of the Masterminds threatening the world, from Captain Nemo and Doctor Manchu to The Invisible Man and Count Iglio Cagliostro, and many of the ingenious Steamtech devices being invented in New Europa and beyond. These are three types—‘Anachrotech’ consists of Victorian versions of twentieth century devices; ‘Gadgetech’ are everyday items adapted to be powered by steam; and Infernal Devices are typically weapons, vehicles, automata, formulations, and the like, the unique creations of Mad Scientists and evil Masterminds. The Steam Age was not only in full power well before Tom Olam arrived in New Europa, the resulting devices and gadgets were more widespread and progress had been enhanced by Dwarven engineering. Access to the Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci would speed it up further as well as enable Bayern to create an Aeronavy to defend itself.

Although Castle Falkenstein does not stint of the details of the weird and wonderful things to be found in New Europa, including information about the Dwarves, such as their being embarrassed about their ducks’ feet, and all the types of faerie that the adventurers might encounter, it also takes the time inform the lady or gentleman reader about the mores of polite Victorian society. This includes dressing the part, common phrases and manner of speaking, society and manners, the social order—noting that women of this ‘Neo-Victorian Age’ are emancipated, and good manners, virtue, and honour are not enough, then the etiquette of the duel. In Tom Olam’s journal, Castle Falkenstein presents a wealth of background and detail, all of it interesting, useful, and rich in flavour. What is also very good is the way in which the information is presented, all of it in quite short essays. So easily digestible, but at the same giving the Host—as the Game Master is known in Castle Falkenstein—and player alike, enough information without immediately needing another supplement. Of course, other supplements did follow, but as a rulebook, Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age feels complete.

The second half of Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age is titled ‘High Adventure in the Steam Age: The Great Game’. This is the roleplaying game itself, devised in what is the third conceit in Castle Falkenstein, by Tom Olam with the assistance of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and King Ludwig the Second. The aim is to present an authentic Victorian Adventure Entertainment, for each player will have his own Dramatic Character and the company will need two decks of ordinary playing cards, ideally of two different colours. One is the Fortune Deck used to determine Fate’s influence during play, whilst the Sorcery Deck does the same for magic in ‘The Great Game’. What is not needed are character sheets, or rather it is suggested that each player keep a Diary for his Dramatic Character. Not only will it be used to record the story of the Dramatic Character’s adventures, but also Offstage activities between Entertainments—as Castle Falkenstein calls adventures—and personal goals, and so on. There is good advice for the Host on running the game and the various aspects she should ideally be drawing from Victorian melodramatic fiction—fiendish plots, insidious peril, imprisonment rather than the villain killing the heroes outright, ladies being menaced by a fate worse than death, and also the archetypes to be used as members of the supporting cast. These are categorised as either Heroes, Heroines, or Villains. A Hero is either a Heroic Hero, a Tragic Hero, or a Flawed Hero, whilst a Heroine is The Innocent Heroine, The Clever Heroine, the Tragic Heroine, or the Fallen Heroine. The Villain is either Honourable or Dishonourable. The descriptions include a good example each, such as Harry Flashman as a Flawed Hero and Irene Adler as a Clever Heroine. Add to this an array of supporting cast and the Host has a good choice of archetypes to choose from when it comes creating and portraying her cast.

The Dramatic Characters of the players will either be Heroes or Heroines. Various archetypes are suggested, including the obvious Adventuress, Consulting Detective, Dashing Hussar, Explorer, Gentleman Thief, Journalist, and Writer. Less obvious are the Anarchist, Mad Scientist, and Mastermind, whilst the Brownie, Dwarf Craftsman, Faerie Lord or Lady, Pixie, and Wizard are particular to the world of New Europa. Each suggests the Suits they are strong in, such as Fencing, Marksmanship, and Fencing for the Adventuress, plus possessions, what in their diary, and why they are involved in the Entertainment. If a Brownie, Faerie Lord or Lady, or Pixie, the Dramatic Character has a Faerie Power, such as Enchantment Faerie Lord or Lady and Love Charm for the Pixie. A Dramatic Character has several Abilities, which can be skills and different aspects of the Dramatic Character. They include Athletics, Charisma, Comeliness, Connections, Courage, Fencing, Fisticuffs, Social Graces, Tinkering, and more. Faerie have Etherealness and Kindred Powers, the first their ability to change shape or walk through walls, the latter their innate ability. Each Faerie also has very limited Sorcery, and it is also available to Wizards. A rating in an ability can either be Poor, Average, Good, Great, Exceptional, or Extraordinary. Each ability falls into one of the four suits from an ordinary deck of playing cards and when cards drawn from the Fortune Deck match the ability suit, a bonus is gained.

To create a Dramatic Character, a player selects an archetype, and then chooses one Ability he is Great at, four he is Good at, and one he is Poor at. He also answers a lot of questions about who the Dramatic Character is, filling in background and also deciding upon ambitions. Most Dramatic Characters will be men and women of good character, but some are also Dragons, Dwarves and Faeries. In their natural form, a Dragon is large, but fragile, being designed for flight, and naturally knows the spell Firecast, but it costs Health to cast. It is also exhausting for the Dragon to switch between his Human and natural forms. A Dwarf is immune to fire and highly resistant to magic, can only be male (Dwarves mate with other Faerie), gain a bonus to Tinkering when working metal, and begin play without a name. Earning a name is an important motivation for a Dwarf. A Faerie is subject to the Rule of Iron and iron and steel can irritate or even hurt him, and although cannot use Sorcerer, will have an innate ability according to the Faerie type.

Mrs. Harold McKinnon

Demimondaine

Abilities: Charisma [GR] • Comeliness [GD] • Connections [GD] • Courage [GD] • Fencing [AV] • Perception [AV] • Physique [PR] •Social Graces [GD]

Health 5 pts

Mechanically, Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age uses a Fortune Deck, represented by an ordinary deck of playing cards. The players share one, whilst the Host has one of her own for the actions of her villains and other members of the supporting. To have his Dramatic Character undertake a Heroic Feat, all a player has to do is compare the difficulty of the task with the Ability required. If it is equal to, or greater than the difficulty of the task, the Dramatic Character at least partially succeeds. For example, to sway a mob requires a Charisma of Great, whilst leaping a yawning chasm of an Athletics of Good. Thus, Mrs. Harold McKinnon, with her Charisma of Great will sway the mob, but with an Athletics that is just Average—the default for any skills not selected—will need to rely upon the cards from the Fortune Deck to succeed or do better.

The cards have a face and a suit. The numbered cards have their straight value, whilst a Jack has a value of eleven, a Queen a value of twelve, a King a value of thirteen, and an Ace a value of fourteen. A Joker is worth fifteen points and when played, the player gets to choose the suit for that action. Similarly, the Ability Ratings also have a value, ranging from two for Poor and four for Average to ten for Exceptional and twelve for Extraordinary. The aim is to ensure that the combined value of the cards played and the Ability is equal to, or greater than, the difficulty of the Heroic Feat. A player has four cards in his hand and can play as many cards as he wants. However, if the suit of a card played does not match the suit of the Heroic Feat, it is only worth a single point, but if it does match, then the full value is used. The Clubs suit is for physical actions, the Diamonds suit is for mental and intellectual activities, the Hearts suit covers emotional and romantic feats, and Spades suit is used for social and status-related situations. The comparison of the total value of the Dramatic Character’s Ability and the cards played will determine how well the Dramatic Character. Results include Fumble, Failure, Partial Success, Full Success, and High Success. The total needs to be equal to the value of the Heroic Feat for the Dramatic Character to gain a Partial Success, equal to half the value of the Heroic Feat again for it to be a Total Success, and so on.

Combat is an extension of this, using either the Fencing, Fisticuffs, or Marksmanship Abilities, and are played out as contests with the quality of the outcome determining the amount of damage inflicted. The rules for duelling are more complex and do take some getting used to in comparison to the standard rules. Duels are fought over several Rounds with each Round consisting of three Exchanges, each Exchange a single clash of blades. Each duellist has a hand of six cards—two black, two red, and two face cards. Black cards are used for defence, red cards for attacks, and face cards for rests. On an Exchange, each duellist selects and plays two cards and both cards are compared. A defence card will automatically stop an attack card, but a rest card will not. So, there is tension built into duels as each participant knows what cards the other has played and it can get quite tactical and even cinematic once the terrain is taken into account. There is a good example of a duel to help the Host grasp the rules.

Combat does scale up once the great war machines come into play. For the most part it will be kept personal, and one way in which it is kept personal is no killing blows. The Dramatic Characters are by nature heroes and heroines and do not simply engage in wanton killing. Thus, in combat a Dramatic Character will wound someone or knock him unconscious, but not kill. Killing someone is a deliberate act and the intent has to be clearly stated rather than being accidental.

Sorcery requires an Ability of at least Good to cast spells. A spell can either be researched or learned at a magical college or society, and every spell has a Thaumic Energy Requirement. This is fulfilled by drawing cards from the Sorcery Deck, which represents the amount of Thaumic energy in the surrounding area. The Sorcery Deck can be depleted, indicating that all of the Thaumic energy is also depleted, but when a spell’s Thaumic Energy Requirement is met it can be cast. This works like a standard Heroic Feat, the difficulty set by the spell itself. Spells have aspects, which match the suits in the Sorcery Deck—Clubs for elemental magic, Diamonds for material magic, Hearts for emotional and mental magic, and Spades for spiritual and dimensional magic. There are guidelines too for magical artefacts and sorcerous duels. Lastly, there are rules for inventing and building Steamtech devices, a short adventure, some scenario hooks, and a bibliography.

Physically, Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age is a book of two halves. It is well written and an engaging read, but the appearance of the two halves differs radically. The first half, the background, is gorgeous. In 1994 it looked amazing and it still looks good today. The second half, the rules section, works as a notebook, but is plain and even unattractive. It could also be better organised, so that the various sections are not interrupted by advice for the Host.

—oOo—

Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age was reviewed by E. Ken Fox in ‘Closer Look: Reviews of Games and Related Products’ in Shadis Issue #116 (November/December 1994). He was highly complimentary, starting by calling it, “… [O]ne of the most exciting games in the industry today” and praising the look of the book, “With its incredible artwork and layout the book fairly transports you into the realms of the world, while not taking away from the exchange of information. While some may find it difficult working within the boundaries of this format. I personally find it an exhilarating change to what has become the Standard Format.” Finally, he concluded by describing it as a “A sure-fire system with a fantastic world of adventure: isn't that just what we all have been looking for?”

As a ‘Pyramid Pick’ in Pyramid Number 10 (November/December ’94), Scott Haring was equally as praiseworthy of Castle Falkenstein, saying, “This is not a game of sullen anti-heroes, angst and moral dilemmas; this is a grand game of world-spanning plots, pure heroes and diabolical villains. [Designer Mike] Pondsmith has done a great job of setting the stage for grand dramatic battles between good and evil without once letting it descend into melodrama or parody. This is a game that believes in itself and its premise 100%, but without drowning in pretentiousness or self-importance.” His conclusion was that, “Castle Falkenstein is a breath of fresh air in roleplaying, a game where real heroes matter and don’t have to apologize. The book is physically gorgeous, the game mechanics fit the tone of the game world like a glove, the writing is wonderful, and the game world is enchanting.”

In the issue’s ‘Feature Review’ of Castle Falkenstein in White Wolf Inphobia #51 (January 1995), Rich Warren asked, “It’s high adventure in the Victorian age with a mixture of magic and technology. They’ve all been tried before, so what makes them work now?” He awarded the roleplaying game four out of five and said, “The game’s mechanics are simple but unique; it can take a while to adjust.”

In Dragon No. 214 (February 1995), in ‘When dungeons won’t do; Alternative fantasy RPGs’ for ‘Role-Playing Reviews’, Rick Swan reviewed Castle Falkenstein alongside ARIA and the ARIA Worlds Book, awarding a rating of six out of six and stating that with Castle Falkenstein that, “… [T]his is about as good as it gets.” He described the setting of the roleplaying game by saying that “… [T]is isn’t Victorian London per se, but an alternative reality that’s one part fact, ten parts fun house; it’s as if Pondsmith tossed a history text, a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and a Monty Python video cassette into a blender. New Europa, the game world, is a crazy quilt of steam-age technology and social anarchy.”

Castle Falkenstein: High Adventure in the Steam Age was voted in at number forty-five in ‘The Top 50 Roleplaying Games’ in Arcane Issue 14 (December 1996). Editor Paul Pettengale said, “Castle Falkenstein is one of those games that people tend to either love or hate. It has a unique atmosphere, combining alternate history, Celtic mythology, steampunk and a somewhat whimsical, fairy-tale feel. Likewise, the rulebook itself is quite different from many, being laid out as a novel, with important information pulled out in sidebars, and the rules coming later. This reflects the main thrust of the system, which is heavily geared towards roleplaying and storytelling over game mechanics and numbers, and drops dice in favour of a couple of packs of playing cards.”

—oOo—

Castle Falkenstein: High Adventures in the Steam Age is a marvel of its age—optimistic, fun, and exciting—and like any classic, it still stands up not just as a superb design, but an innovative one as well. Its choice of mechanics are not only civilised, but they give a player choice and agency as to his Dramatic Character’s actions too. Above all, Castle Falkenstein: High Adventures in the Steam Age is a tremendous fabulation of fantastic Victorian fiction, Ruritanian romance, and swashbuckling Steam Age action.

Miskatonic Monday #257: Glimpses of Terror: The Works of I.G. Payne

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Glimpses of Terror: The Works of I.G. Payne

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Nikk Effingham

Setting: Victorian era Birmingham

Product: One-Shot Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-six page, 3.29 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Madness in Moseley

Plot Hook: A philosopher goes mad in Moseley… and beyond

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, six handouts, two NPCs, one map, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# One-shot for Cthulhu by Gaslight

# Room for expansion

# Playable by one to six players

# Potential convention scenario

# Nicely detailed investigation once the Investigators get to it

# Automatonophobia

# Pachydermophobia

# Agoraphobia

Cons

# Heavily directed opening scenes

# No map of the house

# Area map could have been clearer

# No NPC descriptions (by design)

# One solution is effectively a murder-suicide pact!

# Really does want the Investigators to become the monsters
# The weirdness of the scenario accessible only by becoming monsters

Conclusion

# Initially, heavily plotted scenario opens up into an interesting and potentially personal dilemma

# Really wants the Investigators to become the monsters and they may miss the true horror of the scenario if they decide not to

Quick-Start Saturday: Dracula’s Empire

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is the quick-start for StokerVerse Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of dark and twisted Gothic horror during the late Victorian era, in which the adventurers and investigators confront Vampire courts, Werewolf clans, Jekyll and Hyde, and even Frankenstein’s Monster whilst Jack the Ripper stalks the fog swathed streets of London.

It is a sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It is designed to be played by five to seven players, plus the Author (as the Game Master is known).

It is a seventy page, full colour book.

The quick-start is very lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent and foreboding. The rules are a slightly stripped down version from the core rulebook, but do include examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game.

The themes and nature of StokerVerse Roleplaying Game and thus the Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, specifically the horror and its bloody nature, the seductive nature of vampires, and the subversion of good society, means that it is best suited to a mature audience.

How long will it take to play?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start and its adventure, ‘Dracula’s Empire’, is designed to be played through in two or three sessions.

What else do you need to play?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start requires six ten-sided dice per player. One of these dice should be a different colour to the rest, ideally, black.

Who do you play?
The seven Player Characters in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start consist of Lord Godalming Arthur ‘Art’ Holmwood, Mister Johnathan Harker, Dr John Seward, Police Sergeant Albert Enshaw, Miss Primrose Hampden, Madame Lisa De Villiers, and Mister Daniel Seagrove. Of these, Lord Godalming Arthur ‘Art’ Holmwood, Mister Johnathan Harker, and Dr John Seward will be familiar from the novel, Dracula, whilst Police Sergeant Albert Enshaw is a London police officer, Miss Primrose Hampden is a sketch artist who has the power of second sight, Madame Lisa De Villiers is a veiled medium, and Mister Daniel Seagrove is a research assistant for Van Helsing. Together, they are all members of, or connected to, The Brotherhood. All seven Player Characters have a full character sheet and

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has six stats—Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge, Concentration, Charisma, and Cool. Stats are rated between zero and six, whilst the skills are rated between one and four. A Player Character can have Traits, such as Club Tie (Polite Society), Natural Aptitude (Profession: Solicitor), Contact (Dr Phillips - Director Purfleet Asylum), Legal Authority, Unconscious talent (Shadow Sight: First Impressions), Occult Secret (Shadow Sight), and Occult Studies (Shadow sight). There is a preponderance of Contact Traits amongst the Player Characters.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start uses the ‘S5S’ System first seen in SLA Industries, Second Edition. This is a dice pool system which uses ten-sided dice. The dice pool consists of one ten-sided die, called the Success Die, and Skill Dice equal to the skill being used, plus one. The Success Die should be of a different colour from the Skill Dice. The results of the dice roll are not added, but counted separately. Thus, to each roll is added the value of the Skill being rolled, plus its associated stat. If the result on the Success Die is equal to or greater than the Target Number, ranging from eight and Challenging to sixteen and Insane, then the Operative has succeeded, but it is a ‘Close Call’ or a ‘Yes, but...’ result. A ‘Solid Success’ is a result of exactly two successes, whilst three or more success is an ‘Extraordinary Success’.

Luck can be spent to Stat by one for a single test, substitute the values of a skill dice for the value of the success die, transfer the damage of a successful attack to themselves, and to gain the initiative.

How does combat work?
Combat in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is designed to be desperate and dangerous. Damage is rolled on five-sided dice, modified by successes rolled.

How does the Occult work?
In Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, two of the pre-generated Player Characters have Occult abilities. Miss Primrose Hampden has ‘Unconscious talent (Shadow Sight: First Impressions)’ and Madame Lisa De Villiers has both ‘Occult Secret (Shadow Sight)’ and ‘Occult Secret (Wards)’. Both require the use of the Occultism skill. Shadow Sight provides the user with intuitive feeling about someone upon first meeting them, whilst ‘Wards’ are used to contain and restrain the forces of evil. This requires the use of a spiritualist’s kit, expending a point of its Ammo, and a two-step process. First, a preliminary barrier is created and if successful, the number of successes determines the Protection Value and Integrity of the barrier. It can be continued to be shored up, but this is emotionally exhausting.

What do you play?
In Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start, the scenario is ‘Dracula’s Empire’. This is a detailed investigation set in London after the events of Dracula. Mina Harker has gone missing , after her return to London; there has been a rash of disappearances of children and the morgues are filling up with bodies drained of blood—and there has been a cover up of both; and a mysterious dark-haired woman has been seen traversing the streets of London and attending high society balls. Are they connected? Could the mysterious woman be Mina? Or worse… Lucy returned from the dead? The scenario has multiple avenues of investigation, including tracking down the mysterious woman, attending one of the society balls—held on Mornington Crescent, no less!, digging into the missing children, bloodless bodies, and so on. Each of these is handled in scenes of their own, which are nicely detailed.

Is there anything missing?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is complete and it even comes with advice for the Author on running the game. A map or two in places would have been helpful.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start are relatively easy to prepare. The Author will need to pay closer attention to the plot of ‘Dracula’s Empire’, in part because there is no clear explanation of what the plot is and how its strands tie together. In addition, the backgrounds for the Player Characters and their character sheets are separate, so the Author will need to ensure that they are together for each player.

Is it worth it?
Yes. It needs close preparation to bring the multiple strands of the investigation together, but Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is a meaty, bloody investigation against the background of London’s fogbound streets, official obfuscation, and the heights and lows of society.

Where can you get it?
Dracula’s Empire: StokerVerse Roleplaying Game Quick Start is available to download here.

Miskatonic Monday #253: The Neighbor

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: The Neighbor

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Quico Vicens-Picatto

Setting: 1890s Liverpool

Product: One session one-shot
What You Get: Seventeen page, 10.96 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Madness begins at home
Plot Hook: Possession of a new home leads to possession of another kind.

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, ten NPCs, and two handouts.

Production Values: Colourful

Pros

# Cthulhu by Gaslight one-shot

# Fantastic cover

# Weird sense of impinging horror

# Porphyrophobia

# Eisoptrophobia

# Trypophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Potential for domestic abuse and violence

# No solution except their end

# No NPC stats

# No floorplans
# No street plans

Conclusion

# Uneasy, queasy horror that eases into the torturous

# Mature players-only scenario which includes potentially difficult subjects in a nasty case of eviction

1993: For Faerie, Queen, and Country

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

For Faerie, Queen, and Country was the first ‘Universe Book’ to be published for the Amazing Engine game system, the first attempt at a generic system from TSR, Inc. It is set in an alternate Victorian Era, roughly in the 1870s, with Queen Victoria on the throne, with some radical differences. The most obvious of these is the presence of magic and the fae. The Unseelie Court has long been a presence on British Isles, ever since its horde rampaged out south from the Highlands of Scotland to be defeated by Aurelius Ambrosius and they continue to be a threat today, often hand-in-hand with the Esteemed Order of Thaumaturgists, which has connections in both Scotland and Ireland. In particular, it claims that James of Calais is the rightful claimant to the throne that Queen Victoria currently occupies. This is despite the Prince of Scotland having an important role in Scotland’s governance title established in 1701 as a condition of accepting the Hanoverian Succession to the throne. Ireland remains part of the empire, but Tir Nan Og remains under the independent rule of the Tuatha de Dannan, only adding to friction between the authorities and those fomenting for the settlement of the Irish question. Even so, every Tuatha sidhe barrow requires a sperate embassy of its own lest a fairie noble be slighted.

Abroad, France remains a rival led by Napoleon III, the grandson of the Corsican Ogre, whilst Otto von Bismarck foments not just a Prussian resurgence, but a German one. America is the crown in the British Empire, returned to her embrace following the defeat of the rebels in the War of 1812 and the Limited Rule and Tax Reform Acts of 1821. Great Britain has colonies dotted here and there around the world, but to date, the magic of the Moguls of India have limited European inroads into the Indian subcontinent.

In For Faerie, Queen, and Country, the Player Characters can be Human or Tainted, Marked, Blooded by Fairy Blood, or even be Full Fairy. Fairy features include arched eyebrows, bulging eyes, hooves, pointed ears, and more. A Fairy can be a Brownie, Bwca, Grugach, Gwragedd Annwn, Killmoulis, Piskie, Tuatha de Dannan, Urisk, or Wag-at-the-Wa’. The greater the degree of Fairy Blood a character has, the greater his susceptibility to cold iron, resistance to fairy glamours, and may even be able to cast glamours himself. A Player Character must either be English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Anglo-Irish, or Foreign, although a Foreign character cannot have fairy blood. There is some social distinction between the Pagan Irish and the Church Irish, not dissimilar to that between Protestants and Catholics of our own history. The type of Fairy will also determine where he comes from in the United Kingdom, since fairies vary from region to region. His Social Class—Working Class, Bourgeoisie, or Gentry—determines the professions open to him.

To create a Player Character in For Faerie, Queen, and Country, a player takes the base character he created using the Amazing Engine System Guide and adds a flat twenty points to each attribute. He rolls for Fairy Blood and Fairy Type—if necessary, selects Nationality, and determines his Class from his Position attribute, and thus the Professions open to him. A Player Character typically has one or two Professions, each Profession offering a number of skill pools from the player can choose from. A Full Fairy will not have a Profession, but instead selects skills based on his Intuition rather than his Learning attribute.

Our example Player Character is a Blooded Fairy, a half-fairy whose father was an Urisk, half-man, half-goat. Douglas Gunn is a farmer’s son, who was always willing to defend his Fairy origins with his fists and until this got him arrested and given a choice of gaol time or taking the Queen’s shilling. He choose the latter and served for ten years in Queen Nicnevin’s Own Highlanders. He earned a battlefield commission for bravery which he retained upon retirement.

Douglas Gunn

Fairy Blood: Blooded

Fairy Type: Urisk

Nationality: Scottish

Profession: Farmer/Soldier (2nd Lieutenant, Queen Nicnevin’s Own Highlanders (Ret.))

Physique (Rank 1/Dice 8): Fitness 61 Reflexes 53

Intellect (Rank 4/Dice 4): Learning 30 Intuition 42

Spirit (Rank 2/Dice 5): Psyche 38 Willpower 52

Influence (Rank 3/Dice 5): Charm 56 Position 28

Stamina: 21

Body Points: 13

Skills: Brawling 53% (Athletics), Fairie Lore 30% (The Craft), Farming 42% (Rural), Rifle 53% (Marksmanship), Woodlore 42% (Rural)

Glamours: Conceal

Notes: +10 resisting glamours, +5% to all reaction rolls by the fairy folk, -5% on all reaction rolls involving non-fairy NPCs, suffer one point of extra damage from cold iron.

Languages: English, Scots Gaelic

Mechanically, of course, For Faerie, Queen, and Country uses the percentile of the Amazing Engine, as does the combat system. In the Victorian Era, brawls and knife fights are not uncommon, whilst firearms are primarily used to commit crime, and are wielded by criminals and some police. General ownership is not uncommon, but mostly in the home or on the owner’s land. Combat can be brutal in For Faerie, Queen, and Country, not just because a Player Character has lower Hit Points than in other Universe Books, but because alongside their loss, there is a chance of the injured suffering a complication, ranging from a scar, fever, or infection to deafness in one ear, mild paralysis, or a limb requiring amputation!

The most mechanical attention in For Faerie, Queen, and Country is given to its magic system. Magic in the setting is so important that there are even several regiments of Royal Thaumaturges in the British army and magic can be studied at university. ‘The Art’ of magic falls under the sciences and can include Alchemy, Divination, Goetic, and Wizardry, whilst Divination, Fairie Lore, Folk Medicine, Herbalism, Hyperaesthesia, and Spiritualism fall under ‘The Craft’. ‘The Art’ is studied at universities and in colleges, though Goetic magic, the evil practice of trafficking with spirits is not taught at any reputable institution There are also innate spell effects that Fairie can cast called Glamours, primitive magic taking the form of either illusions to fool the senses or enchantments to betray the heart.

Apart from the Glamours for the benefit of the Game Master, For Faerie, Queen, and Country does not include a list of off-the-shelf, ready-to-cast spells, but instead asks a would be spellcaster to literally formulate a spell using several factors. These are Agent, Action(s), Target, Effect, and Conditions, which all increase the difficulty of casting the spell, whilst Taboos, which place restrictions on a spell, reduce the difficulty. Typically, this preparation takes time and it is also possible to research spells, although that takes days. Ultimately, the Game Master has to give her approval of any spell and total difficulty value reduces the ability of the spellcaster to cast the spell. It costs Stamina to cast a spell and spells can be resisted. It is possible to formulate and cast a spell on the fly, but this reduces the chance of being successfully cast. The system is handily supported with some examples, but this is perhaps, despite the intended simplicity of the Amazing Engine, quite a demanding aspect of the setting and any player wanting to play a spellcaster will need to have a good grasp of these mechanics work as each spell requires actual preparation and set-up upon the part of the player, let alone his character.

The counterpart to magic in For Faerie, Queen, and Country are the clergy and the church. Across the United Kingdom there are parallel denominations to those our own, such as the Church of Albion, the Old Church, and the Reformed Church of Scotland. Members of the clergy do not cast spells or perform miracles, but their faith enables them to use the powers of ‘Sanctify’, ‘Fortify’, and ‘Cast out’. The Church and its grounds are anathema to the Fairie, and in most cases, the Fairie loath the church. Whilst the chapter covers the equivalent of the different Christian denominations, For Faerie, Queen, and Country unfortunately not only ignores other faiths which might be found in the United Kingdom, it also ignores paganism, the practice of which is found across the country, often entwined with the Fairie.

For Faerie, Queen, and Country includes a wealth of background on the Albion of its 1870s. There is a list of goods and services and their prices, money and savings are discussed, an array of awards and forms of recognition are given, but For Faerie, Queen, and Country comes into its own when with a pair of chapters written as in-game pieces. The first is ‘Peak-Martin’s Index of Faerie’, a series of three lectures given to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1877. This categorises the Fairie as well as giving stats for the Game Master to use for NPCs and providing an overview of the Unseelie Court, the Seelie Court, Tir Nan Og, and more. There is also a guide to portraying Fairie for the Game Master. The second is ‘Crompton’s Illustrated Tourbook of Great Britain’, a relatively decent guide to the United Kingdom, which begs for expansion and which any native of the British Isles will find wanting. Anyone from Wales will be disappointed to find folded into the description of England. This is followed by ‘The Glorious British Life’, a guide to life in the United Kingdom, which covers money, rural and urban life, how much your servants should be paid, how things are done without modern conveniences, transport, how to conduct research, government and politics, crime and law enforcement, pleasures and pastimes, and more. In comparison to ‘Crompton’s Illustrated Tourbook of Great Britain’, this is solidly useful content. Enjoyably, For Faerie, Queen, and Country comes to a close with ‘How to Speak Proper’, but not just in the Queen’s English, but also for rural speech, Scots and Irish Gaelic, then briefly and poorly, a little Welsh, and lastly, a lexicon of criminal phrases.

There is a lot to like about For Faerie, Queen, and Country. Primarily this is the range of Fairies described, the magic system which will force players to think about their character’s spellcasting long before they cast anything, and the general background. In the fact, the latter feels not dissimilar to What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century. However, anyone from Wales will be severely disappointed by its lack of coverage in For Faerie, Queen, and Country compared to that of Scotland and Ireland, similarly, its treatment of paganism is non-existent in comparison to that of the Church. Mechanically, For Faerie, Queen, and Country is simple, but it is not always explained as clearly as it could have been, especially the means of creating characters. Further—and despite the wealth of background—that background is not always easy to use or extract to be used, and it does not help that For Faerie, Queen, and Country lacks a scenario or even scenario hooks. That said, an experienced and determined Game Master will be able to mine the background for ideas and hooks.

Where this leaves For Faerie, Queen, and Country is a setting that is playable, but not complete. In some ways, it works better as a sourcebook for other Victorian Era-set roleplaying games than it does as a stand alone roleplaying game. Had it been further developed, that might not have been the case.

Physically, For Faerie, Queen, and Country is decently presented, but lightly illustrated with publicly sourced artwork, so the book is text dense. It comes with a pull-out, full colour map of the United Kingdom.

As the first Universe Book for the Amazing Engine, what For Faerie, Queen, and Country does is showcase the possibilities of the system and what it can do. It also hints at the radicalism of the ideas that were to follow in subsequent Universe Books, as if the writers had been set free to design interesting settings with intriguing ideas that they might not have been able to bring to fruition had they been for Dungeons & Dragons. Ultimately, For Faerie, Queen, and Country for the Amazing Engine is definitely not without its charms, but it does not feel as complete as it should and it leaves the reader wanting more.