Another awesome title by the publisher! I also backed this on KS and the quality is top notch. This is the perfect setting for my group when we're just in the mood for something wierd. I'm glad to have added this to my collection.

So you bought Cha'alt, turned the final page and still felt you needed more wierdness and hallucinatory power chords in your life? Despair not, Venger - the mad high-priest of gonzo - has your back! Fuchsia Malaise layers extra detail onto the Cha'alt setting: races, places and adventures to draw the brave away from the dark delights of civilization.
Oh, and lots of fantastic tables. Few designers get this right, but dropping the bones on a good random table should spark your imagination and have a gleeful grin spreading across your face. Recommended.

Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise provides additional character races, random tables, adventures, and further details about life on Cha’alt. There are four new races: Blue Velvet Elf, Grog (literal sand-people), Vore (a creature inspired by the 1982 movie “Beastmaster”), and the V’symm (not going to spoil everything). Each of these races have unique gameplay mechanics and can be a lot of fun to use.

In addition to the character races, the first section of the book “Essentials” has numerous random tables and many can be used by both the player and GM. The tables cover things like social interaction, NPCs (pre-built and a generator), motivations, social standing, belief systems, loot, and drug addiction. The content of all the tables varies between “above average” to “truly useful”. However just talking about the random tables is a disservice to both you and the tables. Below is an NPC created using the following random tables from the “Essentials” section of Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise: Enamored, NPCs, Loyalty, Social Hierarchy, Cha’alt Names.

She used to be a beggar, got “saved”, and is now a disenfranchised cleric. A bad career path probably due to her orange skin and tribal tattoos. Her goal was to just go home or at least get off-world. “Was” because when she saw [Player], she would do anything and everything to make [Player] hers. With only 13 obsidian coins left in her pocket, laying claim to [Player] will be difficult. If [Player] accepts her into the party, she can be relied upon unless they treat her poorly. For the sake of [Player], she will engage the enemy but there is usually nothing to show for it. Her name? Viridia.

The city of A’agrybah gets fleshed out in this book. The governing Houses and political structure provides a lot of potential for drama and intrigue style of gaming sessions. There is enough detail here for a GM to turn A’agrybah into the Waterdeep of Cha’alt. Note the word “detail”, there is no hand-holding nor city planning guidelines. The GM will need to do actual “GM work” to make this happen and if they do, the result will be impressive while still fitting in the world of Cha’alt. A d100 random table of “Unlikely Events in A’agrybah” closes the chapter.

The next chapter “Encounters” is a collection of adventure seeds, creatures, discoveries, NPCs, and story hooks. The content here really shows the creativity that goes into the world of Cha’alt. While some of the content is used elsewhere, the things in this section can be added to most adventures with little effort. If you are a GM, this section can help you create a new adventure or spice up a current adventure. For a Player, there is a wealth of background and motivations that can be used for character development. Some examples of what you will find here include the “Clown-Worm” a hideous hybrid of sand-worms and demon-worms with the face of a clown. Tired of walking? The party might encounter a subway. Supporting random tables included.

Most of the content of Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise is devoted to adventures and “Fuchsia Flesh-Pit” is the first. The players will have the opportunity to help La’ala in an environment that only Venger could create plus the plot twists are well done. The “Tower of Vromka’ad” has a unique encounter on each “floor”. The “Tomb of Va’an Zayne” is a dungeon crawl with a lot of creativity. “Elysium” is the Federation’s base of operations with over 50 rooms. In “S’kbah Pilgrimage”, players leave their village to find a solution to the tribe’s ills. While some adventures are better than others, they are all good.

Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise has some great art that raises the bar even higher from the standard set by the first Cha’alt book. The amount of cos-play art was the weakest link in the first book. In the new book, there is less cos-play art and what is there looks more “appropriate”. Overall, the art is excellent, easily carries the tone of Cha’alt with more of an impact than before.

Is Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise perfect? Nope, there are a few squid farts emanating from the pages. Mainly, there are many of instant-kills or save-or-die. Much of Cha’alt feels like it can be a massive campaign but the adventures almost force a one-shot/disposable character play style. Also, the vagueness of some plot points can cause confusion. Some sections must be read multiple times because item or plot details may be explained in the middle or at the end of an adventure instead of at the beginning.

Even with it’s faults, Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise is highly recommended. Considering how the content is structured GMs can throw-out the parts of Cha’alt they don’t want or add parts of Cha’alt to other realms with little to no problems. The concepts and ideas in Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise run deep, drink freely if you dare.

Let me start by saying, Cha’alt is “stupid gonzo” and satirical take on metal-band album cover science fantasy. If you worry about content, maybe ask someone who has it, or give it a pass. If you are punk, irreverent, have a bent sense of humor, or just love oddity in large scoops – the deserts of Cha’alt call. Just, and I am not kidding here, bring a few pre-gens. Life is rough and cheap here, but it is also interesting and amusing.

Fuchsia Malaise advances the history for Cha'alt 18 months. In that time, a new enclave of no-goods has arrived from the stars in the form of the people of the Federation. Those who know Venger’s other works will recognize them as the same group that plagues the long nights of Alpha Blue. Elysium is a camp of these off-worlders that has taken control of the lucrative zoth mining of the planet. They have banned zoth fracking techniques and instead use manual labor which they attract by distributing the titular Fuchsia Malaise, a drug that keep workers docile and compliant.

A new entity roams the skies dripping a healing ichor that can occasionally have disastrous effects. Healing can be deadly when the thing wrong with you is...you. A cult arises around this creature, because the people of Cha’alt are prone to that sort of thing.

The new zoth mining techniques are also causing some sort of environmental issue that is eliminating moisture at an alarming rate. Seabeds are receding, uncovering wrecks that have lain unseen until now. Adventurers flock to the opportunities and dangers these wrecks present.

The product itself is colorful and has the same artistic flair of the original book. The material here is a buffet of options, not a single meal. Many charts and tables present new options and goodies to help keep your game gonzo, madcap, and dangerous. A number of new locations are mapped out, three mini-adventures are put forth, and some details of new major encounters are fleshed out.

The material here is modular, fits the ‘stupid gonzo” feel of Cha’alt, and is loaded with the pop culture love and ham-fisted but loveable satire of the original Cha’alt. I was glad to see Venger start pulling his works together by brings in the Federation onto Cha’alt. Fans of his other works will no doubt be glad to cross-over things between the product lines.

The product ends up with three addendums that contain previous freebies published as stand alone products. The first two are Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 (revised) and Cha’alt Ascended, which together present a minimalistic and simple D20-flavored system for quick pick-up games. This system is best suited for play online, with its simplicity and rapid boot-strapping.

The final of the appendix offering is, to a paraphrase, OSR like an F-ing Boss. It is a list of points for running Old School renaissance style games. It is a simple manifesto of the core OSR concepts and a discussion of how to apply those to have fun with the style.

Insane, crazy, and gonzo, if you like your apocalypse with a heaping help of the utterly bizarre this is for you!

I bought this. A solid purchase. You get lots of page count chock-full of crazy-gonzo, imaginative goodness for your dollar, much more than what the author is charging for this PDF. A funhouse of OSR gaming using the author's simple - but not simplistic - OSR system 'Crimson Dragon Slayer d20 Revised' ... which is fully included in this PDF! So you get the author's in-house game system plus this great adventure setting. Highly recommended.

Venger's Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise setting/dungeon book. This monster clocks in at two twenty five & it really brings home the fact that this is a far more advanced book then the normal Cha'alt book. Adventure & campaign events in Cha'alt have moved on as more then eighteen months have passed. Don't let the cover artwork fool you. This is a straight up monster of a campaign book. This book details & fleshes out In this book the city of A'agrybah, and its within this city that adventurers are going to want to start their Cha'alt machinations. The real gem of the Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise the offworlder high-tech facility called Elysium which is both faction & adventure goal. These folks are literally Dune like world ravagers & these folks should not be taken lightly. There's tons of ideas literally dripping at the goo of the pages but its actually indexed & better organized. There are tons of random tables & adventure options for the table top and beyond for adventure design! The whole book has the asthetic of a 80's D&D book that you'd hide from your mom and read under the covers with a flash light. The planet here reeks of corruption, danger, & the nastiness that we've come to expect from Venger! On the whole whole cloth of the book is essential for the Cha'alt dungeon master & experience! For me Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise is the advanced options book for Cha'alt & it does what it needs to so well. Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise really brings into focus the hard core essence of the game system. Buy this book!

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery Blog Want More OSR content?! Subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/