So, for some time now, we’ve had a number of RPGs inspired by the works of Robert Howard (swords-&-sandals, low-magic barbarian extravaganzas), and plenty of RPGs inspired by H.P. Lovecraft (the 20th Century vs. Things Man Wasn’t Meant To Know), but we’ve had very few, if any, games inspired by the third of the “Weird Tales Big Three,” Clark Ashton Smith. Smith was a poet whose prose more resembles Lovecraft’s than Howard’s, but rather than set his fantasies amid the fledgeling nations of Antediluvian Earth or the dream-worlds of the sleeping, most of Smith’s tales took place on worlds that were nearing their expiration date, worlds that knew about life on other planets around other stars, worlds that knew plenty about the unfathomable depths of Reality, but that had, essentially, learned to accept it and move on. These worlds had either devolved to a “pre-medieval state,” or never gotten past that state in the first place, and the result was starfaring wizards and “cosmic magic” and a sort of Science Fantasy that really helped to put the Weird in “Weird Tales.”

Enter “Black Void.”

“Black Void,” created by the good folks at the appropriately named Black Void Games, and distributed by Modiphius, comes in at a bit over 400 pages of Smith-esque Weird Fantasy goodness. The basic conceit of the game is that there’s a fairly stark divide between the Cosmic (that which we know and know to be “true”) and the Void (those chaotic, unnameable places where Azathoth and his buddies hang out). Rarely do the two cross paths, but when they do, Bad Shit happens, and when it happens on Earth, circa 2000 BCE, most of our planet is destroyed by Void Storms, and the peoples of the ancient Near East are tossed through the resulting rift to the world of Llyhn, where they end up on the low end of the ladder, surrounded by alien races who have been doing this Reality-Shredding Obscenities thing for quite some time now. We can’t find our way back to our home world, but we can make new homes, out there among the stars, as long as we do it before the bigger, badder species in our general vicinity decide to wipe us out.

I find the book to be fairly well-organized. Choices were made that I would not have made; e.g., I usually like to see an overview of the rules before I jump into character creation, that way I know why I’m putting X number of points into this stat or Y number into that skill.You’ll probably be doing some flipping back and forth for chargen, and this extends to play; “Black Void” is a very “chart-y” game, and they’ve got charts for magical mishaps, blood ritual results, losing sanity, and combat critical hits a la WFRP. In fact, a lot of this game reminds me of the older editions of WFRP: A nice, simple base mechanic (in this case, roll a d12, add your modifiers, and try to get over a target number) to which has been added a number of wrinkles that will probably frustrate some gamers and delight others.

That Warhammer comparison could probably be extended to the tone of the game as well, and this is where they lost me a wee bit. The game proclaims to be about cosmicism: “Poor little Humanity, adrift in a vast universe, unaware of the True Nature of things, and unloved by any higher power that might deign to assist us.” It’s definitely grimdark, and the setting material and various quotes throughout the book reflect that idea: “We suck, no one cares, and we’ll all die alone.” I, however, tend to view cosmicism a bit differently (and this may just be me), and feel that, if there’s no God to help us up when we fall down, there’s also no God to spank us when we break the rules; Humanity is in a pretty tight spot in “Black Void,” to be certain, but they’ve also been given the gift of greater comprehension and the opportunity to (given time) raise themselves to the level of the aliens around them. In fact, a quote you see in several spots throughout the book is “Survival is only the beginning…”, and I feel like the writers could’ve leaned into that mantra a bit more rather than play the nihilism card. This is, of course, something that can be adjusted to taste by the GM (or, as they’re known in “Black Void,” the Arbiter), but prepare yourself for a lot of bitter, black tears on your first reading.

All in all, I’m quite happy with my purchase of this game. I feel like the system is solid, if a little fiddly at times with the charts and tables, and the fluff is well-written, if a little maudlin. Best of all, I finally get the Clark Ashton Smith roleplaying game I’ve always wanted: Wooden galleys with shadowy oarsmen sailing to distant, dying stars; magicians consorting with alien seers in incense-filled cyclopean temples; a vast galaxy that contains plenty of chances for madness and death, but opportunities for wonder as well; and a flavor of Fantasy that, while not entirely unique to RPGs, is seldom seen and which provides a refreshing newness to the hobby.

I backed "Shadow of the Demon Lord" on Kickstarter, on the advice of Monte Cook, and on the strength of "Beyond All Worlds," an adventure that Rob Schwalb wrote for Numenera. I wasn't sure what I'd be getting for my money, but I'm happy to report that I got everything I expected, if not necessarily more.

"Shadow of the Demon Lord" is a game that is clearly centered on its mechanics; they make up most of the book, and they're definitely the strength of the game. Schwalb's work on D&D shows pretty apparently here. Characters are based on four attributes, and these attributes both provide modifiers for rolls as well as the base numbers for characteristics such as Health, Perception, Insanity, etc. Character advancement is class/level, and characters traverse these levels by way of novice, expert, and master paths, essentially character classes that start broad and get more focused and refined the farther the game gets. Paths grant bonuses to attributes and characteristics, nifty abilities, access to spells, and all the other things you'd expect from a class/level RPG.

To get anything done, you roll a d20 trying to match or beat either your opponent's appropriate attribute (an "attack roll") or a flat 10 (a "challenge roll"). The appropriate attribute provides a modifier to the roll in the form of a simple plus or minus. Rolls can be further modified by boons and banes; when you start accumulating these, they cancel each other out one-for-one until you're left with only one type or the other, at which point you roll 1d6 for each, and take the largest number as a positive or negative modifier. So, for example, if you're about to make a roll that has collected 4 boons and 2 banes, 2 of the boons cancel out the two banes, leaving you with two boons left. You then roll 2d6 along with your d20, getting a 3 and a 5. Since 5 is the largest number, you'll be adding it to your d20 roll. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it's a good way to keep modifiers simple; I would think the easiest way to handle it all at the table would be to keep a big pile of black and white d6s handy, stack up your banes and boons accordingly, and then whittle your stacks down until you're left holding only the dice you need to roll.

Combat is streamlined, and should feel familiar to most anyone who's played an RPG: Hit the other guy, do points of damage, once the other guy has more points of damage than he has points of Health, he falls down. Opponents can be disarmed, knocked prone, pushed, and pulled, but if you're cringing at the idea that power cards are back, don't worry; effects like this are handled in an easygoing, almost optional, manner that won't have players flipping through a 20-page character sheet trying desperately to figure out what to do next. Insanity is handled in a similar simple manner; once your character has more points of Insanity than he has points of Will, he temporarily goes a bit mad, recovering eventually (most of the time) and resetting his Insanity pool to go mad all over again at a later date.

There are a couple of gems buried in here. Players pick their characters' race (their Ancestry) in character creation, but don't pick their class (their Novice Path) until after the first adventure is concluded. This makes the first adventure an opportunity to try a little bit of everything--skill use, combat, spellcasting--and then decide what they like enough to stick with for the rest of the campaign. Groups, not characters, go up in level according to GM fiat, usually whenever an adventure is completed. This means that there's no bookkeeping individual experience points for each character, and ensures that everyone on the team is ready for the next trial. And then there's the eponymous Shadow of the Demon Lord, a buffet of world-warping mechanics that the GM can add to taste to put the DARK in dark fantasy, everything from "permanent eclipse" to "zombie apocalypse" to "trees will eat us all," and more. All of these rules are nice little bits of baroque in a system that's otherwise solidly workmanlike.

As for the setting, there's not much to say. For the most part, it's one of these new-school, post-medieval, steam-engine, "now we can shoot our orcs with guns" fantasy worlds. Again, it's workmanlike, and I get the feeling that it's largely there to explain the existence of certain races, paths, etc.; it's a setting in the same sense that Mystara was a setting when it first appeared as part of the blue box, and while it may grow more interesting as Schwalb releases gazetteer-style supplements for it, it's currently nothing to get excited about. Fortunately, we know that the Demon Lord swims through the Void, chowing down on worlds like some sort of perpetually pissed-off Galactus; we also know, per the Kickstarter, that we'll be getting a second Mad Max-style setting eventually, and perhaps even a space opera setting some time after that. It's pretty easy to divorce the mechanics from the background, and if you're willing to put a little work into designing appropriate Ancestries (not nearly as tall an order as you might think), you could certainly come up with a world of your own to tear apart with foul magics and ravenous demons.

Bottom line: If you like D&D, you'll probably like this game. If you like WFRP, you'll probably like this game. I happen to like both, and I like this game. I'm not sure it's a stand-out now, but with its foundation of solid mechanics, swappable settings, and focused style, it would only take a little nudge to make it a stand-out, and in the meantime, your $20 will get you a very playable game with a ton of potential.