An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first issue of the Broken System-‘zine clocks in at 14 pages, with one page devoted to the front and back cover, one page blank, leaving us with 12 pages of content. However, we actually have twice that length in pages, i.e. 24. You see, each page of the pdf contains 2 pages of the ‘zine: If you print it, you can trim the white borders of the page, and then fold it up, making a little ‘zine DIY, without any hassle: Print the pages on both sides, fold them in the middle, trim the border, staple, done. It took me literally 5 minutes to do so, and I’m notoriously bad at anything even remotely related to crafting.

Anyhow, as far as rules are concerned, we have a pdf that subscribes to the “generic” brand of OSR, which here means that creatures get HD, the number of attacks, a damage value, and a number of creatures appearing. AC and movement is noted with analogues –“MOV: As pack animal”, for example. While this approach is notoriously bad for making crunch, i.e. intricate rules, it works here, considering the scope of the ‘zine. You see, each page of the ‘zine (half page of the pdf) is self-contained in a way, with all pertinent information contained on it. The title is program: The material does not necessarily seek to evoke a singular setting or genre-convention, instead providing what I’d think of as a fractured multiverse, shattered and reassembled. You can take the contents of individual pages and use them, or go for the totality, for it is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ‘zine that the “broken System”-world actually feels plausible in its disjointed manner.

For most groups, this will serve the function of a GM’s miscellanea, a means to add to the game, to jumpstart the imagination. You get the idea. But what can we find within the pages of this ‘zine?

Well, let’s take a look! And on first glance, you’ll witness something about the aesthetics here that makes this special: In many ways, this is depicted as true punk-aesthetic art, using public domain artwork and photography, grainy filters, and text assorted in blocks, in uncommon directions; the atmosphere evoked is one of a well-crafted collage in the tradition of 80s’ zines, but without compromising the functionality. If that art-punky aesthetic is not up your sleeve, it might still be worth checking out!

We begin with a page of typhlotic isles; singular lines tell us that d10 are nearby, d100 minutes by rowboat; a paragraph tells us of waters unstained by star or sun, locked below, isles calved from walls; an artwork is overlaid with the words “d8 * 50 meters across” and an isle has a 70% chance of once having been occupied, with only a 5% chance of current occupants; a table of 20 impressions of a dead culture and 8 materials of the isle complement this exciting backdrop generator, with a brief prose-paragraph, as an explorer’s log, adding a bit of flavor. On the opposite page,w e have the great tuber – a dangerous plant monster drifting in the wind, its leafy funnels draining ability stats and personality/intelligence from those touched – and yes, this includes a brief table of what the tuber drained recently. And yes, I consider them to be remarkably disturbing.

The special form of the layout and its use of text alignment is particularly interesting on the next page, where we have the Vertical Urban Habitat, a somewhat surreal skyscraper-like apartment complex, where star-crossed lovers communicate through candles, steppe warrior girls party on the roof, and the mail boxes are perpetually empty, but still checked. It has a disjointed sense that jumpstarted my imagination in thousands of ways, reminding me of the strange anachronistic fantasy/horror scenario of Pathologic HD. I love this, and I’d gladly pay for a whole setting that manages to capture this sense of foreboding symbolism and unease and strangeness.

The other page here presents a public domain artwork of a three-headed demon: “it comes to you, answering the summons. It does not speak but you know you must choose. You can choose one of the heads, or the items held in one hand – the claw of prey, though, leaves only dust. 4 entries are presented per named head and for the hand. The pdf then presents the tower, perpetually changing (d10 table provided), potentially taking you along; this did remind me very much of China Miéville’s writing in the best of ways. The opposite side depicts a lying spirit, who imitated a god, demanding sacrifice, and the priesthood listened. Now, only calcified skulljars and he spirit remain, with d8 sample lies provided.

What about the singing knives that never break, so long as they are spoken of with respect? They were more powerful back then, when the knives were sung from rock, but now, they are incensed, conjured from rock by war drum provocations. See, this is a good example: Mechanically, this is all but irrelevant: “wielder harder to hit” – yaw. The selling point here lies in the context, the association sparked. Less subtle would be the siege dragon, made and not bred, a thing of cannon and iron.

If you are infested by one of the foul spirits that abound, there are 6 quest-worthy ritual suggestions to purify the host. The Old Man Shade are roughly canine things, using their plumed tails to protect the litter on their backs, but with d8 individuals who want the tail, conflict is ascertained. The half-spirit Shuruppak, named for the Sumerian city, which was destroyed by the rebellion of spirits in this iteration; the entry comes with 8 spirits surviving in the codex and stats. Opposite to it, one can see the Dolmenwood-esque costume of the shaman, with their pyramidal head, and a d6-table of northern artifacts and their new uses; 6 spirits and spheres of influence help here, and much to my joy, you can cross-reference spirit and sphere on a table for a custom glyph.

Somewhat cryptic would be a page that talks of ghouls and their drumming, of territorial goblins and the inquisition, as well as of the fungus-infested king’s orders and the secret messages passed between inquisitors. The Dreamlusts of the Eastern magnate are more straightforward – artwork illustrates the trade, and a table the decadent pleasures he longs for tonight; this lone begs to be used for Yoon-Suin. As do the kidnap crabs, who come with a list of notable victims, a d8 table to determine what’s in their pods, 1d4 boons for their strange mother of pearls, and 1d4 benevolent parasites – the latter two being potential treasures found. Awesome. The Nilfenbergian Helmets are forced onto defeated people, demanding forevermore obedience at risk of permanent disfigurement, though rogue countertechnology has been known to be able to subvert the power of the helmets.

Downriver from everywhere are the ghoul fields, which use a gridded background to provide discernible context for the warning gongs, as the pdf notes that moods and commands are determined by food: Marrow, iron, fat...Protein fiends lurk…”more eyes and more hands than one would ever want to find in the wet clay on a night like this.” This inspired environment is faced by the Geostructure – with d8 rumored functions and d8 actual purposes, a more straight forward, but no less intriguing offering.

The Fog Barons presents a grid-laced field, with 4 factions and the fog; the fog is an anomaly and moves, territory in unclaimed,d8 determines fog-direction, and a matrix tells you how The Hunting Duke and Baron Solipsis get along. This is as minimalistic as can be, and yet really excited me. I’d want that as a fully developed setting/module/book. The mist-eel works rather well with it, once more sporting not only stats, but inspired prose as well. Further creatures include the burdened beast and the fiction raptors.

“If you dig up these bones, this is exactly what you must do…” comes with d8 What and d8 Whys – and they are inspiring. Did I mention the caged worlds, the 6 strange cages – and THE CAGE, which comes with a d12-table to determine “Why such a cage, so great and cruel?”

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout is very much ART, and shows what you can do with talent and an art-budget of zero; this ‘zine may be substance over style in many ways, but it is certainly stylish; I loved the presentation more than many vanilla rpg-supplements. The layout and artwork employed, including the whole presentation, is an example of an impressive way of using very minimalist descriptions and overall presentation to kick the imagination into high gear. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a comfort-detriment for the pdf, but then again, you are supposed to assemble this yourself for the full experience of flipping through it.

Luke Gearing and Alex Chambers deliver perhaps one of the most inspiring ‘zines I have stumbled across in quite a while. In many ways, this managed to evoke the same sense of wonder and excitement I felt when I first read Deep Carbon Observatory. The precise use of words and art, the whole blending of form and function, is genuinely impressive. If this pdf doesn’t manage to inspire you in some way, shape or form, then I don’t know what to do. The ideas range from the weirdly symbolic that I adore to ideas that can be seamlessly plugged into more conventional campaigns for an infusion of strangeness. The one weakness of this ‘zine would be evident in the items, where the lack of commitment to a specific rules-set shows the limitations of the mechanical aspects, which otherwise take more of a backseat to the ideas.

Oh, and guess what? This is PWYW. This is certainly better than a whole array of ‘zines I have read; it inspired me to a huge degree, and made me smile ear to ear. This is worth leaving at least $3-6 for, though the official suggestion is a humble $0.00. I strongly recommend downloading this ‘zine, assembling it, reading it, and then leaving a donation for the authors. Much to my chagrin, this currently is the only issue of Broken System; I certainly hope I have not seen the last of this incredibly compelling and inspiring vision. 5 stars + seal of approval. Oh, and this gets my “best of…”-tag, denoting it as one of the finest ‘zines I’ve encountered.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The expanded 2.0-version (both in system and supplement) of the supplement depicting the village of Hopespyre is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let's take a look at the settlement!

The expanded edition of Hopespyre includes plenty of the things we have come to expect from the series: We get information on local lore, notes on the appearances and dressing habits of villagers, flavor-centric write-ups of key NPCs, some rumors to unearth, etc. The write-up for the village does feature a proper general marketplace section, with price properly adjusted for PF2, though one of the items is not properly in italics.

When I read "Hopespyre", my first association was that of a rural, gothic place, of dark fantasy - a religious tyrant burning unbelievers (or those in his path) at the stake; I thought about a place of oppression. Pretty much the obvious is the case. Hopespyre was founded by a visionary half-orc blessed by the flame as a refuge from the sins of his former life and now represents an enclave of per se nice people, who are still considered heretics by the vast majority of outside forces. Still, the Church of the Redemptive Flame seems to be benevolent, claiming that the eternally blazing pyre in the middle of the place actually burns away past sins. The PF2-version has properly converted the magical effects of the pyre, but somewhat to my chagrin, the supplement does not capitalize on PF2’s cool ritual-engine: The pyre is custom-made to offer religious rites, and misses that chance.

Interesting: Hopespyre is not fixed in a specific environment – instead, the supplement presents advice on how to make it work in forests, hills, islands, etc. This is a good idea, but the implementation is somewhat ineffective: No GM needs it spelled out that some low hills conceal the village; having some terrain-specific hooks here instead would have been a wiser use of wordcount imo. On the plus-side, the deity-write-up has been properly adjusted, including a Divine Font and Divine Skill entry, for example. Speaking of properly adjusted items: The Makers’ Hall sub-marketplace’s items have been appropriately adjusted for PF2.

The dressing table has been expanded for the 2.0-version, now sporting a total of 20 entries for dressing and events where the original had only 6, which I most assuredly appreciated. The addition of notes on local customs and traditions also was nice to see.

Now the brilliant component of this pdf ultimately does not lie in this inversion of expectations evoked by the name, or the sample NPC provided - to me, the compelling nature of this place lies in the truth behind the pyre and the theme. You see, these people have seen horrible things and now, they have found solace, peace, if you will - and much like real world adherents of some of the more bonkers religions, they will fight to retain their place.

When handled correctly, this settlement may provide a thoroughly compelling example of "good people doing horrible things" - especially, since there are forces seeking to destroy the place or use it for their own nefarious ends. From the benevolently creepy to the truly blessed, Hopespyre provides a number of different interpretations a GM can use, blend and play with, for an individualized experience - and this is what makes it great.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any serious glitches on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to RSP's smooth, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes with full bookmarks as well as a gorgeous map, of which you can, as always, download high-res jpegs if you join RSP's patreon. We get pretty neat b/w-artwork. The pdf comes in two versions, with one being optimized for screen-use and one to be printed out.

Jacob W. Michaels is a damn talented author and this pdf pretty much showcases some of his talents - by being as versatile as this pdf is, the village of Hopespyre actually constitutes a fun, unique place that utilizes themes and motives in a rather complex, interesting way - and yes, this settlement can actually end in heart-rending tragedy, allowing you to explore quite a few themes not many supplements explore. Hopespyre is a crown-jewel in the series. In many ways, this is a great supplement; and yet, I can’t help but feel that its pyre is a great example of a supplement not making use of the awesome things that PF2 can do, that other systems can’t. This village is conceptually great, but it falls short of living up to PF2’s potential. As such, my final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The expanded 2.0-version of the supplement depicting the village of Hopespyre is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let's take a look at the settlement!

The expanded edition of Hopespyre includes plenty of the things we have come to expect from the series: We get information on local lore, notes on the appearances and dressing habits of villagers, flavor-centric write-ups of key NPCs, some rumors to unearth, etc. The write-up for the village does not include settlement stat modifiers, but it very much does feature a proper general marketplace section – kudos for the latter, boo for the former – particularly since the first iteration of the village did provide proper settlement modifiers!

When I read "Hopespyre", my first association was that of a rural, gothic place, of dark fantasy - a religious tyrant burning unbelievers (or those in his path) at the stake; I thought about a place of oppression. Pretty much the obvious is the case. Hopespyre was founded by a visionary half-orc blessed by the flame as a refuge from the sins of his former life and now represents an enclave of per se nice people, who are still considered heretics by the vast majority of outside forces. Still, the Church of the Redemptive Flame seems to be benevolent, claiming that the eternally blazing pyre in the middle of the place actually burns away past sins. Speaking of which: The Pyre is actually mechanically relevant and the revised edition does come with 6 sample events for this place – kudos! It should also be noted that the marketplace section has been split and expanded, with Makers’ Hall offering their own list of items for sale – like that!

Interesting: Hopespyre is not fixed in a specific environment – instead, the supplement presents advice on how to make it work in forests, hills, islands, etc. This is a good idea, but the implementation is somewhat ineffective: No GM needs it spelled out that some low hills conceal the village; having some terrain-specific hooks here instead would have been a wiser use of wordcount imo.

The dressing table has been expanded for the 2.0-version, now sporting a total of 20 entries for dressing and events, which I most assuredly appreciated. The addition of notes on local customs and traditions also was nice to see. Somewhat weird: I do not understand why the perfectly feasible statblock for one of the NPCs in the original iteration has been cut here.

Now the brilliant component of this pdf ultimately does not lie in this inversion of expectations evoked by the name, or the sample NPC provided - to me, the compelling nature of this place lies in the truth behind the pyre and the theme. You see, these people have seen horrible things and now, they have found solace, peace, if you will - and much like real world adherents of some of the more bonkers religions, they will fight to retain their place.

When handled correctly, this settlement may provide a thoroughly compelling example of "good people doing horrible things" - especially, since there are forces seeking to destroy the place or use it for their own nefarious ends. From the benevolently creepy to the truly blessed, Hopespyre provides a number of different interpretations a GM can use, blend and play with, for an individualized experience - and this is what makes it great.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any serious glitches on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to RSP's smooth, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes with full bookmarks as well as a gorgeous map, of which you can, as always, download high-res jpegs if you join RSP's patreon. We get pretty neat b/w-artwork. The pdf comes in two versions, with one being optimized for screen-use and one to be printed out.

Jacob W. Michaels is a damn talented author and this pdf pretty much showcases some of his talents - by being as versatile as this pdf is, the village of Hopespyre actually constitutes a fun, unique place that utilizes themes and motives in a rather complex, interesting way - and yes, this settlement can actually end in heart-rending tragedy, allowing you to explore quite a few themes not many supplements explore. Hopespyre is a crown-jewel in the series – and yet, I can’t help but be somewhat puzzled by the PF1-version’s update actually getting rid of some perfectly serviceable content. While I very much like and appreciate what has been added here, I don’t really get why the supplement was thus changed and deprived of content that existed previously. As a consequence, I wouldn’t really recommend this supplement to anyone already having Hopespyre; if you don’t, then consider this to be a 5 stars + seal of approval file; for the purpose of its function as an expansion/update only, I’d consider this to be 3 stars; as a result, my final verdict for this version will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The supplement depicting the village of Hopespyre, available for the first time for 5e, is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let's take a look at the settlement!

The expanded edition of Hopespyre includes plenty of the things we have come to expect from the series: We get information on local lore, notes on the appearances and dressing habits of villagers, flavor-centric write-ups of key NPCs, some rumors to unearth, etc. The write-up for the village does feature a proper general marketplace section, with price properly adjusted for 5e. One of the keyed locales does offer different items, one of which is missing its italics partially.

When I read "Hopespyre", my first association was that of a rural, gothic place, of dark fantasy - a religious tyrant burning unbelievers (or those in his path) at the stake; I thought about a place of oppression. Pretty much the obvious is the case. Hopespyre was founded by a visionary half-orc blessed by the flame as a refuge from the sins of his former life and now represents an enclave of per se nice people, who are still considered heretics by the vast majority of outside forces. Still, the Church of the Redemptive Flame seems to be benevolent, claiming that the eternally blazing pyre in the middle of the place actually burns away past sins. The 5e-version is somewhat weird, in that protection from energy in 5e does not provide a kind of DR, and instead only yields resistance to the energy type; thus, the celebrants are bound to be…well, somewhat toasty. I am pretty sure this was not intended. The NPC write-ups make use of the NPC default stats beyond the flavor provided.

Interesting: Hopespyre is not fixed in a specific environment – instead, the supplement presents advice on how to make it work in forests, hills, islands, etc. This is a good idea, but the implementation is somewhat ineffective: No GM needs it spelled out that some low hills conceal the village; having some terrain-specific hooks here instead would have been a wiser use of wordcount imo. On the plus-side, the deity-write-up has been properly adjusted, including the domains noted.

The dressing table has been expanded for the 2.0-version, now sporting a total of 20 entries for dressing and events where the original had only 6, which I most assuredly appreciated. The addition of notes on local customs and traditions also was nice to see.

Now the brilliant component of this pdf ultimately does not lie in this inversion of expectations evoked by the name, or the sample NPC provided - to me, the compelling nature of this place lies in the truth behind the pyre and the theme. You see, these people have seen horrible things and now, they have found solace, peace, if you will - and much like real world adherents of some of the more bonkers religions, they will fight to retain their place.

When handled correctly, this settlement may provide a thoroughly compelling example of "good people doing horrible things" - especially, since there are forces seeking to destroy the place or use it for their own nefarious ends. From the benevolently creepy to the truly blessed, Hopespyre provides a number of different interpretations a GM can use, blend and play with, for an individualized experience - and this is what makes it great.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any serious glitches on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to RSP's smooth, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes with full bookmarks as well as a gorgeous map, of which you can, as always, download high-res jpegs if you join RSP's patreon. We get pretty neat b/w-artwork. The pdf comes in two versions, with one being optimized for screen-use and one to be printed out.

Jacob W. Michaels is a damn talented author and this pdf pretty much showcases some of his talents - by being as versatile as this pdf is, the village of Hopespyre actually constitutes a fun, unique place that utilizes themes and motives in a rather complex, interesting way - and yes, this settlement can actually end in heart-rending tragedy, allowing you to explore quite a few themes not many supplements explore. Hopespyre is a crown-jewel in the series. In many ways, this is a great supplement; while I am not happy by the 5e-version’s treatment of the magical fire’s protective effects, it is a matter of taste; if you gravitate towards a more grim aesthetic, it may actually work better for you. All in all, a well-executed version – as such, my final verdict will be 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The supplement depicting the village of Hopespyre, available for the first time in its system neutral iteration, is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let's take a look at the settlement!

The expanded edition of Hopespyre includes plenty of the things we have come to expect from the series: We get information on local lore, notes on the appearances and dressing habits of villagers, flavor-centric write-ups of key NPCs, some rumors to unearth, etc. The write-up for the village does feature a proper general marketplace section, with price properly adjusted for old-school games in scope and prices – i.e. less available than in PFRPG, higher prices, etc. One of the keyed locales does offer different items, which includes a +1 flame tongue longsword.

When I read "Hopespyre", my first association was that of a rural, gothic place, of dark fantasy - a religious tyrant burning unbelievers (or those in his path) at the stake; I thought about a place of oppression. Pretty much the obvious is the case. Hopespyre was founded by a visionary half-orc blessed by the flame as a refuge from the sins of his former life and now represents an enclave of per se nice people, who are still considered heretics by the vast majority of outside forces. Still, the Church of the Redemptive Flame seems to be benevolent, claiming that the eternally blazing pyre in the middle of the place actually burns away past sins. The system neutral version that describes the magical effects of the magical pyre is pretty well-executed, and speaking of which, the class-names etc. have been properly adjusted.

Interesting: Hopespyre is not fixed in a specific environment – instead, the supplement presents advice on how to make it work in forests, hills, islands, etc. This is a good idea, but the implementation is somewhat ineffective: No GM needs it spelled out that some low hills conceal the village; having some terrain-specific hooks here instead would have been a wiser use of wordcount imo. On the plus-side, the deity-write-up has been properly adjusted.

The dressing table has been expanded for this version, now sporting a total of 20 entries for dressing and events where the original had only 6, which I most assuredly appreciated. The addition of notes on local customs and traditions also was nice to see.

Now the brilliant component of this pdf ultimately does not lie in this inversion of expectations evoked by the name, or the sample NPC provided - to me, the compelling nature of this place lies in the truth behind the pyre and the theme. You see, these people have seen horrible things and now, they have found solace, peace, if you will - and much like real world adherents of some of the more bonkers religions, they will fight to retain their place.

When handled correctly, this settlement may provide a thoroughly compelling example of "good people doing horrible things" - especially, since there are forces seeking to destroy the place or use it for their own nefarious ends. From the benevolently creepy to the truly blessed, Hopespyre provides a number of different interpretations a GM can use, blend and play with, for an individualized experience - and this is what makes it great.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any serious glitches on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to RSP's smooth, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes with full bookmarks as well as a gorgeous map, of which you can, as always, download high-res jpegs if you join RSP's patreon. We get pretty neat b/w-artwork. The pdf comes in two versions, with one being optimized for screen-use and one to be printed out.

Jacob W. Michaels is a damn talented author and this pdf pretty much showcases some of his talents - by being as versatile as this pdf is, the village of Hopespyre actually constitutes a fun, unique place that utilizes themes and motives in a rather complex, interesting way - and yes, this settlement can actually end in heart-rending tragedy, allowing you to explore quite a few themes not many supplements explore. Hopespyre is a crown-jewel in the series. In many ways, this is a great supplement, and the system neutral version executes the concept well indeed. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Legendary Worlds-series clocks in at 18 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of introduction, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 8 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

A small, dark planetoid orbits a dying star, its surface barren and lifeless, its gravity low; a mere 3640 miles in circumference, the planetoid’s red sun casts a bloody light atop it; on the southernmost point of this desolation, there is one square building, and past its airlock gates, there is but an adamantine trapdoor, leading below, guarded. Anyone is allowed in. None are allowed to leave.

This is Terminus, the Pit of Despair, and it is considered to be the worst prison in the galaxy. Not quality-wise, mind you, but regarding its conditions for the inmates? Oh boy. Terminus is ruled by the mysterious Overseers, and once you got down inside the spiral ramp – down there, you learn of nightglass, which is mined here…and which you can exchange for food and water. With a laissez-faire approach as long as the nightglass is rolling out this place, it comes as no surprise that clans have formed, making the place a de facto rule of gangs…but things get worse. Something in Terminus taints those that live here: Humans are progressively corrupted into becoming morlocks, dwarves slowly turn derro, and the changes may be slow, but they do affect the offspring of prisoners. It should come as no surprise that the dead have a higher chance to rise as undead as well. On the more interesting side, this strange effect does allow races usually incapable of crossbreeding to do so.

The supplement gives us a brief survey of the 3 most dominant of Terminus’ clans: The All-Folk are chiefly mongrelfolk, result of Terminus’ strange prevalence of chimaerism; the Gloried are essentially human supremacist racists that eat their own dead, including a murky and ill-defined pseudo-religion, and finally, there are the Ironmongers, a group of fatalistic individuals hell-bent on destroying the wardens, making weapon and armor from their remains, The wardens, btw., would be a new type of creature, a CR 8 robot construct that comes with a pretty amazing artwork. They have a calming aura and a stun staff, making even one of them a pretty formidable foe. Neat build! From the slain wardens, the Ironmongers have found away to modify the staves of the wardens to instead generate deadly electric charges, and their makeshift armor from warden plates does fortify to a degree against Blackfire.

The interior of Terminus also knows the phenomenon of Blackfire: Nightglass generates a shock that causes ability score damage to those casting spells or using magic “nearby”; objects are instead subjected to untyped damage. I like this hazard, but wished it specified a precise range for the effect. Those slain by Blackfire may return as a Blackfire Wight – a CR 6 creature cackling with the energy, its touches laced with it, capable of firing it as blasts, etc. – once more, we get a full-color artwork, and these undead can absorb magic… Of course, a bomb-version of nightglass for offensive use, the magebane bomb, is included as well: I liked it, as it reminded me of the Dimeritium bombs of a certain White Wolf.

But why nightglass? Well, one of its uses is the brewing of an elixir called Stygia, a potent drug that grants serious Spell Resistance and immunity to blackfire…but, well, it’s a drug! And yes, it’s properly stated and highly addictive….another control mechanism.

The final half page contains a selection of 3 different adventure hooks: Escape, infiltration and survival – the three general concepts you’d escape from the planet’s concept.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting re very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to the two-column full-color standard of Legendary Planet-supplements, and the pdf comes with several really cool full-color artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Jeff Lee’s Terminus is a neat hellhole in the vein of Riddick, the Gothic videogame, etc. –we get a well-crafted prison-world here, with mysterious wardens that are thankfully NOT overexplained, with well-crafted builds and some cool effects. While I do maintain that that the Blackfire effect should have a range, and while the set-up seems tailor-made for a custom corruption, I nonetheless consider this to be a well-crafted installment of the series. My final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This first installment of the Crepuscular-‘zine clocks in at 52 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 48 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, if the front cover was no clear indicator, there is a certain amount of humor running through the supplement; not to the extent that this would be considered to be a joke-supplement, but very much in the way that it’ll make you smile at some of the components. There is a two-page comic-strip in the middle, which curiously is the one component of the pdf that I didn’t get a smile out of, but you can’t win them all, I guess.

Anyway, the ‘zine can be roughly grouped into 4 large articles: An adventure, a fully-realized patron, items of interest, and a henchman article. The supplement assumes the backdrop of the Nameless World, and more importantly, seems to particularly drive the players towards Xöthma-Ghül (which is hilarious to pronounce if you’re German and actually know how to pronounce Umlaute), one of the great seven cities, which is curiously devoted to Neutrality. I know, right?

So, this is old news for most judges, but it bears mentioning: One of the mostly untapped components of DCC is that it often focuses on the chaos = evil/bad, law equals good/righteous false dichotomy, which is very much true in many DCC-modules, as the PCs are pitted against suitably icky chaos cults. Now, granted, some patrons from e.g. Angels, Daemons & Beings Between, for example, break that mold, but that’s the general traction of the game, one obviously bred from the one-axis tradition. But what about Neutrality? In many ways, this magazine is the “make the Switzerland Option valid” of DCC-supplements, and offers some genuinely cool angles regarding the all but completely neglected Neutrality.

Now, for the crunchiest part of the supplement, let us talk about the 30 henchman that can be found in Xöthma-Ghül’s vagabond district. Each of them gets a number, (for d30 rolls), a list of gear, brief words that help you roleplay them (“snarky, greedy for gems and jewels”, for example), a weekly salary listed, and full combat-relevant stats. Cool: These are not simply stats: The henchpersons come with unique abilities, like being capable of offsetting item degradation. Most are “serious” characters, but there also are some genuinely awesome, outré ones: Meh-Mahg-Mohm, for example, is the champion of NEUTRALITY! Traits: Dispassionate, collects insects. And yes, the allcaps are taken from the book. This is efficient humor right here. Did I mention Slipperfoot, the giant weasel? Or Dwargyr Tooms, the polite and saturnine ghoul porter? The pixie fan-girl that regenerates in direct sunlight? Or Quvark, the surly, germaphobe humanoid platypus? Perhaps you need a snail-wrangler or a mushroom priestess? Know that you can find them among these NPCs. This whole section is pure win, as far as I’m concerned, an exercise of humor and imagination with truly minimalist means.

The magic items, both of which get their own b/w-artworks, are two – and quality trumps quantity here: We have the Flail of the Snail, which may be wielded by wizards, and neutral spellcasters can channel spells through the weapon, gaining +2 to their spellcasting rolls. Additionally, the weapon may have its head fired up to 20 ft. away, as a ranged attack, by pressing one button. The other button retracts the chain. This explicitly allows for grappling hook and whip tricks that the judge deems feasible. Item number 2 would be the Learned Slug-in-a-Jar of Cornelius Plunk. The item is exactly what it sounds like – a very smart slug suspended in magical liquid that protects it from the ravages of time, but not from ennui and existential boredom. The slug has a 5-in-6 chance to decipher writing, and pressing the head to the jar has the slug whisper the translation – but doing so is dangerous, and may result in ability score damage. Additionally, 1/day, an individual can spend a luck point and ask the judge a yes-or-no question, which the judge must answer truthfully. The slug does hate its life and adventurers, though: Each time it is used, there is a chance its angst reaches critical levels, to the point where it actually explodes. I love this item.

The new patron (illustrated in a rather awesome manner), would be none other than Blorgamorg, the Chthonic Snail, patient and wise, and a force of Neutrality! With gem-eyes in the stalks, minerals and minerals one the rune-studded shell, the image is rather cool. The Invoke Patron results are really cool as well: “Blessing” foes with the speed of snails, calling mighty hail snails, or even a grail snail…the creatures are cool. I mean, sure, they won’t win any Agility contests or the like, but their stats are solid and their effects fun. We even get brief descriptive texts for them! The patron features a fully-developed and pretty extensive 6-entry patron taint list that does its job well: It’s not too punitive, but certainly weird, icky and potentially inconvenient as all hell without making adventuring impossible. The write-up does also feature proper Spellburn effects, and three spells, one for each of the levels 1-3.

Snail Mail conjures one of more messenger snails that slowly (it might take a few weeks) reach the recipients of the message, and then proceed to recite it. And yes, they include return answers. This is outrageously hilarious in all the right ways: Picture it, a snail arriving at your study, essentially growing a mouth and talking to you. XD The better the spell, the longer the message can be: At 30-31, you can dictate up to 300 pages (!!) of message! Yep, the snail can basically act as a correspondent audiobook. This is absolutely fantastic. Shell Shelter nets you a backpack-sized snail shell that only weighs 5 lbs., regardless of contents, and starting at 20-21, it can be used, bingo, as a shelter, with more powerful versions including a staff of 0-level snail butlers, courtier slugs and clam dandies. Clam dandies. XD Suffice to say, AC and HP of the shelter increase. Finally, we have the Love Dart spell, which begins as a standard ranged attack that is more efficient versus Lawful and Chaotic targets; the attack also infests the targets with sluggy parasites: After being hit, the targets have a short span of time before needing to make a Fort-save: On a failure, a variety of snail-creatures are birthed, painfully, from them. This is a bit icky, but fits the theme. Summa summarum: A winner of a cool, awesome patron!

Okay, so, it’s time to talk about the adventure, the 0-level funnel for 12 – 18 characters, the “Sanctum of the Snail.” The module comes with a full-color isometric map (unfortunately sans player-friendly iteration), read-aloud text for each of the 23 keyed locales, and uses a rather handy drawing to illustrate one of the challenges herein; as with the rest of the offering, there is a surprising amount of the artwork of the style also featured on the cover. The module includes means to get a patron bond with Blorgamorg, and there are instances where the module allows players to try out class abilities. As far as DCC funnels are concerned, it is potentially deadly, but not to an undue extent: The usual number of deaths are very much possible, but unless your players botch big time, a TPK is relatively unlikely. The module does come with a nice 1-page handout.

All righty, this is as far as I can go without diving into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

Okay, only judges around? Great! So, the module begins as the characters’ ship towards Xöthma-Ghul shipwrecks, leaving them stranded atop a rocky outcropping; the bodies of the deceased , including a table, make for some impromptu starting equipment before the PCs are attacked by shark-boys, essentially carnivorous shark-like humanoids. It becomes apparent, that, in the long run, it is prudent to explore the strange edifice found on the rock – and thus a vast set of stair leads down. These stairs, as a path, metaphorically represent Neutrality as a valid position, as they neatly bisect the waters at the floor-level, with one half being the waters of chaos, the other half those of law. On their way down, the PCs may platform-hop (including potentially lethal fall below) to a secret cavern and shrine to Blorgamorg, where an avatar of the patron might make for a valid quest-giver for the complex. It should be noted, though, that this is an entirely optional section! If no PC wants to brave the jumping section, the module works just fine, it barely loses this aspect of the potential development. Anyhow, the dungeon is snail-themed in the most rewarding manner: As they move below, snails will attack and attempt to push them off the vast stair, and throughout, a snail-theme is rather prominent: There are slug-men, for example; there is a swarm of carnivorous snails, etc.

The sanctum has plenty of volatile little angles, and PCs can acquire mutations, such as mushrooms growing from their head: Pruning these isn’t smart, as it causes damage until they regrow, but on the plus-side, the PC no longer requires sustenance. The complex also features e.g. the remnants of a deceased giant turtle, which might put the PCs in conflict with giant tapeworms if they’re not careful, to mention just one potential point of conflict. Strange talismans and similar items have a great meta-function, as mentioned before, allowing the PCs to potentially take a gander at some class abilities, and even the un-dead have this high-energy comedy angle. Laughing skulls that have infectious laughter? Heck yeah! The most significant piece of treasure they may find would be a magical, sentient axe obsessed with feeding and grandeur, hidden in someone’s well-concealed crypt. This place is also the choking point of the scenario, if you will: To enter the secret area, up to 4 individuals worth of weight are required for the platform to move down; if the weight decreases, it moves back up. Careless and particularly bad groups of players may end up imprisoned below without a way up. That being said, in comparison to many DCC-modules, that is a harmless issue, and I can’t picture an experienced group of players (or even a moderately competent one) being TPK’d by it. The complex, other than the snail-leitmotif, isn’t exactly strong in the narrative department, but it doesn’t have to be: It PLAYS well, with plenty of interaction points, environmental hazards, interesting enemies, and finally, a errant ex-devotee of Blorgamorg, a sorceress fallen to the lure of chaos, as the final boss. It also should be noted that traps make sense in placement and internal logic, with only one trap in the very end being a bit nasty: The final room contains magical paintings that teleport you out, and one dumps you in an air-less chaos-planet 666 lightyears away; another dumps you in a friendly village. Since the pictures show where they lead, and since this is a funnel, I’m good with the one painting being a save-less game-over. It’s one based on player-skill, after all.

Conclusion: Editing is very good on a formal and rules-language level, and so is formatting, though there is one curious deviation from DCC’s standards, namely an inclusion of a colon after “DC.” It doesn’t hurt, but struck me as odd. Layout adheres to a one-column b/w-standard, with drawings of slime on the sides, and hilariously doofy-looking slugs at the bottom having the page-numbers in their shells. The handout and cartography are full-color-pieces and aesthetically consistent with the plethora of b/w-artworks throughout. My one gripe here pertains to the map: The absence of a player-friendly map is a bit annoying in an otherwise superb offering; similarly, the map lacks scale and grid, which makes it not suitable for VTTs. On the plus-side, the pdf comes fully bookmarked. Unfortunately, I don’t own the physical version, so I can’t comment on its virtues or lack thereof.

Joshua LH Burnett’s “Crepuscular” is one phenomenal little ‘zine; from the 70s-style black-light-poster-ish cover artwork to the content throughout, it features a genuinely funny atmosphere that will bring joy to all but the most dour of tables, all without being a joke-product. This is particularly impressive when considering that the author handled writing, art, and layout. The book is fully useful, and excels in all departments: The module plays very well, the items are cool, and the henchmen? PERFECT. Were it not for the omission of player-friendly maps, this’d get my “Best of”-tag as well, as it represents one of the most impressive ‘zine-style offerings I’ve seen, particularly for a first offering. I certainly hope we’ll get to see another installment of Crepuscular at one point. It is evident, from the proper editing to the obvious playtesting that went into the module, that this is simply an impressive, highly-recommended offering. If you like your fantasy gonzo without going off the rails, if you need a little levity in your DCC-game, or if you just want some NEUTRALITY! In this age of hardened dichotomies, well, then Crepuscular is for! I know I adore it! 5 stars + seal of approval!

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review of the revised edition

Ladies and gentlemen, gather round, as we elucidate upon this latest adventure entertainment provided for your edification! Formerly released by Fat Goblin Games, the adventure entertainment in question has been revised in its journey towards the scribes at R. Talsorian Games, Inc. The adventure entertainment now covers a total of 25 pages, with a total of 2 of the pages being devoted to the paraphernalia of such tomes, thus making the totality of the content span 23 pages.

In case your undoubtedly busy schedules should have prevented you from crafting sample dramatic characters, no less than 6 of these have been provided for your immediate enjoyment. These include lavish pieces of artwork and photography and some guidance to properly depict these fine individuals of, as a whole, more or less proper breeding and education, in the entertainment to commence. These individuals are obviously presented in proper hand-out format, as well as in a form that collates the more mundane information in a few pages, as is proper: After all, the host should have an idea of the capabilities and peculiarities of the dramatic characters. It should be noted that these individuals include the rather outrageous “Duck”, obviously a member of the Faerie, a so-called Padfoot, in case you are not familiar with said individuals; interestingly, this individual does look like a right dapper fellow of the canine profession. Speaking of dapper: Fellow dwarven master Edelweiss, who does have a most suave beard of which I am quite jealous. It should also be mentioned that the former chef of the Kongolese embassy, one Ms Maria Banza, recognized by the Druidic Temple, is included here. And no, your memory does not deceive you, mademoiselles et messieurs, the revised iteration does indeed feature much more colorful (pardon my bad pun) and interesting dramatic characters for our perusal.

Now, obviously only the most dastardly scoundrel of questionable morale would engage in the heinous behavior of reading an adventure entertainment’s pages with the intent of participating in it as a player. However, as a reviewer, I feel it is my duty to inform hosts properly and thus, I will have to discuss the subject matter within these pages. I do strongly encourage all individuals of upright morals and proper standing to avoid reading the following. Instead, let me bid you adieu for now – we will see each other in the conclusion. Hosts, on the other hand, should very much continue reading, this section, so profanely littered with what the common man considers to be SPOILERS in today’s parlance.

… .. .

Are only hosts left at this point? Marvelous! We begin this adventure entertainment with an alphabetical list of the dramatis personae, with full ability-sets included – for the dramatic characters will have plenty of interaction opportunity as they board the Duchess Elizabeth (yep, named after Sissi, empress of hearts) on her maiden journey on the Paris-München-Wien (funnily called Paris-München-Vienna in a bit of a linguistic inconsistency) express line – propelled forward by the revolutionary, eponymous Babbage’s engine in record time; it should be noted that this adventure entertainment is for once not based on the notes of Tom Olam – and while this may sound sacrilegious to some, Grandmaster Stephen Kenson’s notes do act as a more than adequate substitution.

So, the dramatic characters are witnesses and guests of the maiden voyage of the Duchess Elizabeth and they will have a chance to prove their proper upbringing and character by defending Professor Karla Reinhard from some lower class ruffians – upon doing so, they will have an easy means/hook to get aboard, in the case the host has not yet provided such an angle to pursue. The Professor’s child Mau Sascha Reinhardt has also been changed – the individual now eschews traditional gender-binaries, dressing and behaving as fancy strikes them. The eccentric duo is here to install the Automated Telegraphic Punched Card Shuffler, a device crucial to the speedy and remote operation of the eponymous Babbage’s engine powering the train. One nice aspect of the revision pertains to the explicit notion that the train was constructed by dwarven metallurgists, which renders this particular means of industrial propulsion less inimical to the faerie, allowing such dramatic characters to participate in the adventure entertainment in a less challenging manner.

A vast improvement undertaken by the honorable individuals tasked with improving this experience, would be the fact that we now do get proper maps for the Duchess Elisabeth, making the adventure entertainment significantly less work-intense to research for the host who is not into cutting-edge technology such as the Duchess Elisabeth. Of course, it is only a matter of time before the inevitable arrival of some dastardly rogues hell-bent on attempting to kidnap the professor…which, after a scuffle, results in the train’s entire car being stolen via the massive airship that he dastardly villain of this tale commands! Apologies, my dear hosts, for I am getting ahead of myself, failing to note that the train can act as a perfect way to introduce some of the famous individuals of our age – from Arsène Lupin to Mark Twain, there are more than a few famous individuals on board, though these colorful persons and their involvement in the proceedings to come ultimately depend on the needs of the host.

I was elaborating on the vile mind behind this most despicable ploy, correct? Well, one Lord Anton Dire, indubitably of questionable parentage, lord of a tin-pot Germano-Slavic micro-nation, has managed to construct this airship, courtesy of a strange material called Radium -and he considers Babbage’s engine to be one step towards his imminent rise to power. The whole capture of the dramatic characters, alas, lacks crucial freedom for the respective guests entertained; it is simply assumed that they are overwhelmed and brought into the hidden hangar of aforementioned lord – at this point, I distinctly recalled Mr. Olam telling of a series of tales of a man named “Bond”, projected in moving images, not unlike those generated by a laterna magica; the similarities are peculiar indeed, including an all but moustache-twirling villain-monologue. This exceedingly galling piece of railroading, if you pardon my excursion into puerile humor, has, much to my chagrin, not been rectified. While the adventure entertainment does feature a few pieces of advice for handling such digressions from the plotted course, I nonetheless cannot help but consider it less than proper to be forced to impinge in a thus pronounced manner upon the freedom of choice expected by the guests of my soirées.

The inevitable escape of the dramatic characters from the map-less base of the archfiend is, alas, once again glossed over. This can prove puzzling, to say the least, for we are living in an age of high adventure and it is hard to picture something as adventurous as climbing outside of a train car, hijacked by evil forces unknown, to bring righteous battle to the adversaries, whether to the devious devices, or within the labyrinthine fortress…but I digress. The escape is supposed to be relatively easy for the dramatic characters, though I do consider it to be similarly still lacking in depth – while Lord Dire does adhere to at least basic premises of honorable conduct, I nevertheless found myself to be a bit flustered here: The adventure entertainment does try to justify the lack of a map for the baron’s fortress, but considering the tropes of espionage, a proper means to plan for the dramatic characters would have greatly enhanced the experience here. On the plus side, the revised edition does account for the notion of a proper duel, though it does turn out that my assertion did hold true – Mr. Dire, yes, I will not dignify his delusions of grandeur, has no noble bone in his body, going to far as to renege on his most sacred of words! For shame, Mr. Dire, for shame!

Ultimately, the dramatic characters will have to attempt to pursue the Reinhards and the Baron onto his flying platform (which receives the proper statistics for use in the Grand Game, and this iteration does indeed also provide rather nice cartography of said marvel), where the villain escapes with the younger Reinhard as hostage on an ornithopter – and potentially, an interesting chase begins, concluding this brief adventure entertainment with a well-written epilogue.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no serious issues. Layout adheres to a beautiful, elegant 2-column full-color standard and the artworks constitute a wonderfully chosen blend of period piece photography and fitting art. The electronic format sports navigation helpers, commonly referred to as bookmarks, for your convenience, and the inclusion of more cartography does increase the utility of this humble offering.

The revision of grandmaster Stephen Kenson and Mister J Gray provide an adventure entertainment, which structurally mirrors the means of propulsion that is at the center of the proceedings depicted: To put it bluntly, this is a railroad. If an engagement of your higher faculties is what you are looking for, then I do suggest “Firearms & Margarine” instead – which, to me, is the vastly superior offering. Why? Well, this, as the pedestrians would call it, thrill-ride sprints from evocative scene to evocative scene and paints in gorgeous colors a vision that makes great use of the unique peculiarities of this gorgeous world of ours, capturing the spirit of high adventure rather well; alas, while the prose paints the proceedings of the plot in poignant highlights, the details that are expected, if we remain within the metaphor employed, remain sketches that are not filled out, an issue that has not been rectified in this novel representation of the adventure entertainment.

As long as the dramatic characters follow the linear structure of the plot, this works brilliantly, and does have a proper raison d’être as an entertainment for those conglomerations commonly referred to as “conventions.” For the more cerebral of hosts and guests, however, there are plenty of times when the proposed course of action may not necessarily make sense from the dramatic character’s perspective. Here, the illusion of choice remains very thin indeed and as a whole, even in the more open sections of this offering, the host will have to engage in A LOT of improvisation.

To cut my lengthy and sufficiently verbose analysis short: While the revised iteration of this adventure entertainment has improved a lot of details, its structural shortcomings remain: It buckles under the weight of its own ideas and simply does not spend enough time and pages to adequately develop the respective scenes. As long as the host can maintain a brisk pace and sweep the dramatic characters from scene to scene, all’s well…but there are plenty of potential hiccups if the protagonists-turned-watchers start tugging at the very thin curtain that’s hiding the proverbial wizard.

All of these criticisms may not apply to some groups out there, but the sense of dissatisfaction on a high level remained with me – with about twice the pages allotted for the details, more freedom of choice, and less automated scenes and progressions from scene to scene, this could have easily went down in the annals as a true masterpiece. In its current state, however, I cannot rate this adventure higher than 3.5 stars. Now, the improvements in the details, as well as the fact that this is offered for our perusal for FREE, does render this an improvement, which is why I will round up. If your group prefers action, then you should round up as well; if you’re like me and prefer Castle Falkenstein of a more versatile, cerebral bent, then I’d recommend another adventure entertainment over this one.

I bid you adieu for now, Mesdames et Messieurs,

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This adventure clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, 1 page editorial, 1/3 of a page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 15 2/3 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This module was penned for the Swords & Wizardry-rules, which means that we get ascending and descending AC, one save, standard movement of 9, morale, etc. HD are provided, and sometimes, but not always, we also get specific HP-values for the entities within. The module, unfortunately, does not consistently implement the formatting-conventions of Swords & Wizardry, and instead sometimes uses bolding to highlight e.g. entities and monsters in the massive text-blocks, but does so inconsistently. The dungeon does not sport a random monster table, and the module has no read-aloud text for rooms, but does spell dialogue out for you. Cool: For those using Option 2 combat rules, Dexterity scores are provided for enemies. Conversion to other OSR-games is pretty painless.

The adventure is intended for a group of level 1 – 3 characters, but no number is given; after testing this, I’d recommend 5-6 characters, which should be able to cover all roles of the traditional adventuring group. The module is relatively average regarding its difficulty-levels for an old-school adventure. You can very well die if you don’t take care, but it’s no meat-grinder and should not result in a TPK if tackled by an experienced group.

The adventure is set in the world of Messoria, which is at once the greatest strength, and greatest weakness of the adventure: The module starts in Mersey Town, which is fully mapped (alas, sans player-friendly, key-less version), and hints at several things I very much like: There is a rich lore underlying everything, though one that is not required and can be easily ignored, if so desired; there is a sense that non-divine magic is eyed with, at best, suspicion, while divine magic operates in its stigmatizing of others in a way reminiscent of Christianity. From titles featured like “Atar” for priests to other small tidbits, these details bring the place to life and make it feel like a setting on the verge of, or currently in the process of emergence from the traditional fantasy pseudo-medieval backdrop, which is also further emphasized by the presence of Du Sharid Manor. In a way, this reminded me a bit of a cross of old timey New England aesthetics and the traditional fantasy tropes, particularly due to another component of the story: The module’s rich mystic backdrop and underlying magical logic hinges in part on there being two moons that sometimes sport specific constellations. While you can ignore that aspect and run the module just fine, as you can ignore the aesthetics of the world, doing so deprives the module of a lot of its charm.

And this is as far as I can go without diving into serious SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only referees around? Great! So, it all began when Ol’ Ed Butterbot found a strange item entangled in the petrified roots of one old tree: The local priest Atar Lobe Du Sharid took the item off the man, and fascination grew with experimentation – the Atar and a few of his men had become a cult, one that would take their experiments to the Wild Hills, High Crescent Hill, to be precise. In spite of attempts at secrecy, small towns are as they have always been, and just as a mob with the traditional pitchfork and flame-implements was about to arrive at the cult’s site, aforementioned constellation of the twin moons happened, opening a rift and swallowing the cultists; a massive rift remained, and the cultists were presumed dead. Non-corrupted individuals were instated, but ever since, the villagers have been rather afraid of the area and the rift. Time to clear up that mess!

As you can see, this is pretty much traditional fantasy with a small dose of the weird and cosmicism strewn in, being generally something I enjoy. So, after some research in the relatively detailed town, it’s time to go down the rift, where the dungeon part happens…and the beginning of the dungeon is as lame as can be: We get a couple of goblins and some kinda-skeletons…though there are aspects here that rock: That strange thing on the cover? It’s a cave kraken, probably beyond the ability of the PCs to slay, and it is per slumbering; even if woken, it can be pushed back, and makes for the most interesting combat encounter. The most interesting social encounter happens upon subterranean shores, where the PCs may meet the Ants of Mixolodia. These ant-people come with a princess-egg, want to clear the goblins as well, and travelled here via natural diving bells generated by their lobotomized water spiders. This is pure awesome, and I want an adventure that takes place in the culture of those ants!

Since a massive goblin horde is approaching underground (noted in a throwaway line), making peace with the ants may be wise. Anyhow, it should also be noted that e.g. a pit trap’s placement makes sense. I also felt myself engrossed in the unearthed complex showing a variant history of the deeds of ostensibly noble people, but once more, the impact of all of that is lost when you strip the module of its flavor, and when the PCs and players are not familiar with these heroes and cultures. On the usability side of things, the hidden cultist base beneath the ancient catacombs unearthed suffers from its access, hidden by a secret door, not being noted by the actual text of the module. The second level, where it obviously turns out that the corrupted Atar is still alive and needs killing, is shorter and thoroughly unremarkable. It is not linear, I’ll give it that, but it’s one of the least interesting sub-levels I’ve seen in a dungeon in a while. The McGuffin, the White Heart, i.e. the artifact (sans precise powers) that opens those rifts, opens two more in the distant manor, which can lead to further adventures. Beyond the ant vs. goblin war. Beyond the conflict of orthodoxy vs. the information gleaned here below. Beyond the secret door that can only be opened via knock that leads to further adventures of the GM’s own devising.

And this is perhaps the worst thing about this: the entire module feels like a set-up of awesome things to come, but doesn’t itself deliver on them. It feels like one of those annoying teasers designed to make you get the full (and so much more awesome) product. Only that, well,a s per the writing of this review, none of these elaborations have materialized.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are decent, if not impressive. Formatting does not consistently adheres to S&W-standard. I noticed a couple of typos, and the information-design adheres to the “wall of text”-aesthetic; prepare to use your highlighter and annotate the text, for you won’t find the prudent information on the fly while running this. Layout adheres to a two-column b/w-standard with no frills. The module does come with extensive bookmarks, which is a plus. We get a nice, hand-drawn map of the village, and regular maps for the dungeon complex. All maps are per se functional, but all of them lack a scale. No player-friendly versions are included, which is a comfort-detriment, particularly considering the number of secret doors.

Extildepo’s freshman offering is exceedingly frustrating for me as a reviewer, mainly because it tries to be an adventure, but doesn’t do a good job there. The whole appeal of the adventure, its entirety, did lie in the lore for me; Messoria looks like a truly exciting campaign setting, and I’d have loved to know more about its religions, cultures, social mores, etc. Similarly, I wanted to know more about the ants. The module, though? It’s unfortunately neither particularly interesting, nor especially well-executed. Crucial information like the presence of secret doors that are required to progress is omitted and requires consulting the map, just to make room for more lore.

The lore is good and neat. It sinks the adventure. In a way, the module made me think that the author wanted to write a gazetteer or setting supplement, and went for a module out of some inscrutable reason. The result, unfortunately, is not compelling. Worse, it’s obviously not due to a lack of ideas! The module is LITTERED with better ideas, in throwaway paragraphs, in hints of things to come; the novel creatures used are exciting – so why do we deal with boring, cookie-cutter goblins throughout? There are so many hints of cool things to come, and none materialize herein. In a way, for the better or for worse, this reminded me of the old serialized pulp/Weird Tales stories, in that it constantly makes you crave more. Alas, it also reminded me of Lost, in that the module opens a metric ton of plot-points, but doesn’t close any of them.

And then there’s the fact that the background story loses its occult underpinnings when used in another setting; and that the potentially setting-changing challenge to church orthodoxy falls flat on its face in another setting. Essentially, all really cool ideas herein fall flat if divorced from a setting we know next to nothing about. Combine that with the actual dungeon not being that exciting, and we unfortunately have a book I can’t recommend.

There is loads of potential here; I genuinely hope the author continues writing, for the things hinted at? I want to play those modules. Which is more than what I can say about this one; apart from the lore and Lost-like suggestion of awesome things to come, the module delivers a cookie-cutter adventuring experience that is neither particularly interesting, nor compelling. My final verdict can’t exceed 2.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This class-supplement clocks in at 53 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 9 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 40 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreon supporters.

This class uses the initiator system featured in Dreamscarred Press’ Path of War-books, but does not necessarily require them – as a nice courtesy that avoids book-flipping, we get all reference material herein; this includes the Eternal Guardian, Solar Wind and Thrashing Dragon disciplines, as well as Pathfinder Unchained’s Stamina-engine.

If you do not like Path of War’s design decisions, you might want to read this review in its entirety nonetheless; there is a good chance that the voltaic might work for you and your table, even if Path of War is generally not deemed suitable for the type of game you’re playing.

In case you are new to Path of War, it should be noted that the sub-system assumes a power-level beyond what PFRPG-classes usually offer; it is closer to a power-fantasy than other subsystems released for PFRPG, and operates under different design-paradigms than standard-PFRPG. I strongly encourage you familiarizing yourself with the system in depth before introducing it in your game. In can be a godsend for some tables, but it can also break the game for others. That being said, I review materials supplementing sub-systems within the context of their respective sub-systems, so please bear that in mind – this review takes a look at the voltaic in the context of a game that has determined that Path of War works for them.

Okay, that out of the way, let’s take a look at the voltaic! The class gets d10 HD, 4 + Int skills per level, proficiency with simple and martial weapons as well as all armor and shields, including tower shields. The voltaic has full BAB-progression, good Fort- and Ref-saves, and begins with 3 maneuvers readied, and increases that up to 12, though it should be noted that the voltaic is pretty different from other initiators, which are tied to new feats, so let’s talk about two feats here.

The first of these would be Spark of Inspiration, which requires a BAB of +1 and no levels in a martial initiator class or martial maneuvers from another source, preventing abuse there. This feat nets you a stamina pool and the ability to spark in combat; the feat lets you spark when an enemy critically fails to hit you, or when you critically hit an enemy, and also nets you the Eye of the Storm stance – more on that later. If you dislike this, or have one player who just seems to be too lucky (in spite of what the laws of probability dictate!) there is an XP-based variant as well. Good! Why? Well, two sessions ago, one of my players, for the first time in over 20 years, failed to roll at least 2 crits in a single session.

Anyhow, the basic idea of sparking is using a new maneuver bia a kind of stress-unduced mid-battle insight, treating their BAB as the initiator level, but still needing to meet all other prerequisites. When a character rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, they can choose to replace the critical confirmation roll with an Intelligence check vs. DC 10 + the level of the maneuver to be learned. On a success, the character learns a single strike or boost they qualify for, from any discipline that counts the weapon that scored the critical hit as a discipline weapon. The maneuver is then placed into the character’s suite of maneuvers as a readied maneuvers. Alternatively, when an enemy rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll versus the target, the character may attempt to spark, learning a counter instead. If the check is successful in the latter check, the counter is automatically triggered in response. Finally, when performing a skill check in combat and rolls a natural 20, the character can attempt to spark and learn a boost, with the skill corresponding to that of the discipline. The CR of the creature thus used must be at least equal to the character’s class level, avoiding abuse there. A hard cap is imposed to prevent abuse: A character may only spark 1 + Intelligence modifier times per level, not including temporary increases to Intelligence. The list of maneuvers readied via sparking can include up to 2 + ½ BAB (minimum 1), with a total possible maximum of BAB + primary initiation modifier. An excess can be used to replace a previously learned maneuver with a new one. This may also be done via 15 minutes of uninterrupted rest.

Psionic and spellcasting character takes a penalty to Intelligence checks made to spark equal to their highest level spell or power or SP; racial SPs are not counted for the purposes of this limitation, and interestingly enough, akashic options are accounted for as well, using the total number of binds unlocked as the equivalent of the highest spell level known. This is an elegant take. Once a maneuver has been learned, the sparking character does not use the usual recovery methods; instead, the character has a stamina pool equal to character level + Constitution modifier, and using a maneuver expends points equal to the level of the activated maneuver. A character with 0 stamina is fatigued, and the character gets to recover Constitution modifier points such points by taking the total defense action, and the pool is fully replenished after 15 minutes of rest. But what of Stances? Well, stances are learned via the Learn Stance combat feat, which has a similar exclusivity-cause that prevents other initiators from taking it, and the feat may be taken multiple times.

Now, this engine might look pretty simple on paper, but it actually creates a rather unique experience in play – in many ways, it could be likened akin to a more anime-esque way of treating how maneuvers are learned (which is perfectly in line with Path of War’s aesthetics), and it feels, as a whole, very organic; sufficiently so that I can see some groups generally preferring it to a sufficient degree to make a switch to this variant initiation in its entirety. In an interesting manner, the engine inherently rewards exposing the martial character to risk, learning new maneuvers as a consequence of being exposed to danger – the whole angle feels surprisingly right when employing it, and makes the engine feel more martial. I seriously like it.

But let us get back to the class at hand: The voltaic begins play with martial flexibility, allowing them to take a move action to gain the benefits of a combat feat for 1 minute, with 3 + ½ class level (minimum 1) uses per day, and feats with limited daily use take their assortment of daily uses from this array as well, so no cheesing there. At 6th level, two feats may be thus retained at a given time, with one available as a swift action, two as a move action; one may be used as prerequisite for the other. 10th level improves that to three at a time: 1 feat as a free action, 2 as a swift action, three as a move action; at 12th level, one combat feat may be gained as an immediate action, three as a swift action; at 20th level, any number of combat feats may be gained as a swift action, but in all instances, each feat counts as a daily ability use. The voltaic begins play with Spark of Inspiration. 2nd level nets Learn Stance, with 5th level and every 4 levels thereafter netting an additional Learn Stance.

At 3rd level, we get the high voltage ability, which adds +1d4 electricity damage to the voltaic’s natural attacks, unarmed attacks and manufactured weapon strikes, which explicitly stacks with shock et al. This die roll is also added to the Intelligence checks made when sparking in a rather cool way. At 7th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the die size of this die increases by one step according to a well laid-out progression in die-sizes. This bonus damage may be suppressed or reactivated as a free action taken once per round.

At 4th level, the voltaic chooses one of 4 paths of the storm, which proceed to grant scaling benefits every 4 levels, including the capstone, so this one should be well-contemplated. The path of the echoing thunder lets the voltaic retain one feat from martial flexibility until the class feature is reactivated, with 12th and 20th level increasing that by +1 feat, and 8th and 16th level netting Extra Stamina as a bonus feat. The path of focused strikes nets Weapon Focus, and when martial flexibility is used, the voltaic may select one additional feat, but loses them all during any round they make an attack with anything other than the Weapon Focus weapon. 12th level nets an additional martial flexibility bonus feat; 8th level nets Improved Critical with the focus’d weapon, and 16th level Critical Focus. 20th level provides the option to manifest said weapon as a weapon of pure lightning, which is treated as a +5 weapon dealing electricity damage.

The path of the rolling thunderhead nets additional bonus combat feats, making this the most prosaic of the paths. Path of storm’s flurry, finally, is my favorite, as martial flexibility increases the high voltage die size while active (two die-sizes at 16th level), and the voltaic, when making a full attack with a single weapon, gets a 30-ft.-range ranged touch attack as part of that attack, dealing high voltage as bonus damage, with a -2 to atk as a payoff for such flurries. The range of these increases at 8th level to 60 feet, and 12th and 20th level provide iterative attacks here. This is a very cool core engine, and it could be justifiably be used to build a whole class around it.

At 14th level, the voltaic gets static shield: The first time each round that the voltaic deals electricity damage to a target with high voltage, they add the number rolled on that die as a deflection bonus to AC for 1 round. At 18th level, half that amount is added as an insight bonus to saves for the same duration. Electricity damage reduced to 0 does not trigger this effect. Once more, the static shield ability is a compelling one, and could justifiably carry an entire archetype with a finer differentiation and flexibility – I genuinely like it. The class comes with favored class options for ceptu, elfves, gnomes, humans, oread, sylphs and wolgers.

If the above weird races were no indicator, and in case the logo meant nothing to you: The voltaic comes with a whole page of unique characters for the context of the phenomenal City of 7 Seraphs campaign setting, including anon-binary oread, mirrorkin, rhyzala…the flavor-centric write-ups are genuinely great, and I wish we got full stats for them. Really nice and flavorful, and I’m happy to see that we get more material for C7S!

I got a big chuckle out of the header for the “sparketypes” – love me some unobtrusive humor to lighten up crunch! These archetypes are intended to allow other characters make use of the sparking engine. The unlimited warrior fighter loses heavy armor and tower shield proficiency in favor of 4 + Intelligence modifier skill points and an expanded class skill list. Spark of Inspiration is the first-level feat, and 10th level’s bonus feat is replaced with the ability to use stamina as a buffer to prevent falling to 0 or fewer hp: I like that one. The capstone presents a delimiter for sparking.

The deathseeker rogue gets simple weapon proficiency as well as a single exotic or martial weapon of their choice; trapfinding is replaced with Spark of Inspiration, and the archetype uses class level as BAB for maneuvers readied. 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the rogue talents gained then are replaced with target weakness. This ability allows the rogue to decrease the size of their sneak attack damage die to gain ghost touch, increase them, but make the attack mind.affecting, set the damage to 2 per die and transform it to force damage, or reduce sneak attack damage die amount to impose negative levels on a failed save. These all are interesting, and could conceivably carry a more complex design as well. As an aside: A moderately talented designer or GM can make this archetype work easily with variant rogues such as the legendary rogue – just saying.

Finally, the volt dancer unchained monk must be chaotic, and gets Spark of Inspiration at 1st level as the bonus feat. Ki strike’s DR-overcoming abilities are replaced at 3rd level with storm strike, which allows the monk to use ki as a swift action to change damage types to cold, electricity or sonic. 10th level’s ki power is replaced with average maneuverability fly speed equal to fast movement bonus, with 12th and 15th level improving maneuverability.

Now, the pdf also presents a whole new discipline, the spark of battle, which has Acrobatics as the associated skill, and the weapon groups heavy blades light blades and close weapons. We begin with the customary list of maneuvers by level, and then proceed to list the maneuvers in alphabetical order, which is slightly different from the level-based presentation in the reference material, but that is a purely aesthetic gripe. One unique property of the discipline, unsurprisingly, is that many maneuvers have a Special-line that allows for unique tricks if the initiator has the Spark of Inspiration feat. Take the very first ones, Aerial Dash – it’s a boost as a swift action that increases speed and lets the initiator walk through air, falling if not reaching solid ground…though the use of stamina can keep them aloft! Aerial Step is a lower level version that allows for controlled descents. The Backfist level 1 strike lets you execute a weapon and unarmed attack at the same time, with -2 to atk for both…and here, the use of the Spark of Inspiration angle is perhaps more interesting, as it lets you 5-foot-step between these attacks, even if you have already!

Bladestrike, the level 1 counter, is also exciting – it is one of the counter that let you, unsurprisingly, counter an attack by targeting an enemy weapon with a…sunder attempt! Yeah, I know! I expected to read about an easily-cheesed skill check as a substitution attack roll here, as that has always been my primary issue with the whole Path of War engine….but no skill check here. In fact, the discipline is wholly BEREFT of the more glaring core problem of Path of War’s martial discipline-engine, in that it does not substitute skill checks for attack rolls. Not once. Instead, it uses skill checks with the associated skill in order to ENHANCE the benefits of the respective maneuvers, or to determine the extent of their effectiveness; in the latter case, the discipline shows a strong awareness of how easy it is too boost skills via items etc.

To give you an example: Soaring Falcon Flurry is a level 7 strike that is initiated as a standard action. The initiator jumps into the air, and makes a DC 20 Acrobatics check, making a single ranged touch attack versus a foe within 30 ft., who takes 5d6 sonic damage, and is staggered for 1d4 rounds on a failed save. For every 5 points by which you beat the DC, you get an additional such attack against a different target, up to a maximum of 6 total attacks versus 6 targets. If you have Spark of Inspiration, you can spend a stamina point to treat the result of the Acrobatics roll as a 15. This has a proper cap, a potentially devastating damage output, and yet can’t be cheesed. It has this awesome anime/WuXia-aesthetic that I love, is appropriately powerful, and yet won’t break the game. Or take Skyscream, which increases the damage die size it causes if you make your Acrobatics check. Grounding Rod lets you use Acrobatics in lieu of a saving throw, but only versus electricity damage, which might sound lame at first…but you get to redirect the attack!

I absolutely adore this discipline. I mean it. Did I mention that the strikes, boosts, etc. are consistently typed with descriptors? Heck yes.

The pdf closes with the aforementioned reference material, which takes up 22 pages, with a general recap of the martial initiator system’s rules taking up another 2.5 pages.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch on both a rules-language and formal level; I noticed no significant issues in this book. Layout adheres to an elegant, nice-looking two-column full-color standard with awesome full-color artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, with nested bookmarks and all.

Christen N. Sowards and Michael Sayre have done it; they achieved a vision that I had since the beginning, since Path of War first hit digital shelves: They have used the powerful engine, the amazing anime/WuXia-esque aesthetics of the system, and stripped it of the things that can be easily used to break the game, cheese attacks, etc. I am incapable of crying due to joy (I instead enter a flabbergasted mode of stammering where my usual eloquence falls by the wayside), but if I were capable of it, this might well have done it; in many ways, it showcases what I’ve been saying all along: Path of War doesn’t need any of its broken components, of the aspects that needlessly limit it, to work, be fun, or succeed at its design goal. In the future, I’ll just point at this masterpiece and rest my case.

Power-level-wise, and regarding the playing experience, the voltaic is a potent class – it’s not intended for gritty low fantasy, obviously – but it works within the design paradigms of the upper end of the game. If your game tends to favor lower powered characters, I have a little suggestion for you that anybody can implement: Limit the voltaic to the new discipline. Done. You’ll have a powerful character, but not one that’ll break your game.

The balancing employed here is sublime, and if anything, being set against the reference material herein, which is btw. not close to the highest power-level you can get with Path of War, this difference in quality will be evident.

In short: The Voltaic is Path of War, thoroughly – it breathes the aesthetic, it is exciting to play, and showcases how well you can use the system… all without Path of War’s more problematic parts. And we get a novel, fun alternate initiation engine that you can customize to boot! I frickin’ adore this book. I’d recommend it even to people like yours truly that limit Path of War use to certain types of games, but love e.g. akasha, psionics or pact magic. I really found myself wishing that we had a whole revision of Path of War to the standards set herein – such a book would been all but mandatory in my games. This is absolutely phenomenal. 5 stars + seal of approval, recommended not only to fans of Path of War. This also gets my "Best of"-tag, as it's imho the best Path of War-design to date.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The second adventure in the Brindle-series clocks in at 39 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 36 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by my patreon supporters, to be undertaken at my convenience.

So, first things first: This, unlike the previous module in the series, is a dual-system adventure, with stats and rules intended for both OSR and 5e-games; the OSR-rules employed are OSRIC, in case you were wondering. The module is intended for 3-5 character of 4th to 5th level, and it is an old-school module: You can’t just hack and slash through it and hope you’ll live to tell the tale. This does require some smarts, and the group’s survival rate will increase drastically if the majority are capable of operating with stealth and subterfuge. Having a thief/rogue on hand is highly recommended.

Now, if you recall the first module in the series, “The Bogey of Brindle”, you’ll be surprised to see both systems mashed into one book; personally, I am not a big fan of this approach, as dual-stat books by definition make you pay for some content you won’t be using, and you have to account for the peculiarities of both systems: If e.g. system A nets flight at 3rd level, system B at 6th level, you have to account for flight in one system, but not in the other. In short: Writing a module as dual statted tends to introduce a lot of instances where rules or logic might fail. Dual stat books also require that the reviewer rates the entirety: If one system works super well, but the other one doesn’t, this would result in two ratings for dedicated versions – one good, and one not so good. For dual-stat offerings, one is forced to instead rate the book as a whole. “The Bogey of Brindle” has been my favorite Fail Squad Games adventure, so here’s to hoping this book can expand on that – but can it improve on the botched 5e-version of its predecessor?

Well, before we go into the nit and grit, it should be noted that the module comes with read-aloud text, and that it does not require having completed “The Bogey of Brindle”, though doing so is helpful. You see, there was this gate in the dwarven mine taken over by kobolds – it’s time to go through this gate. The pdf provides, in brevity, the scene from part 1; this gate is btw. also easily inserted into pretty much any dungeon context, so integration of the module is swift and painless. The module takes place entirely in a dungeon complex, and random encounter tables are provided for the respective sections of the complex.

Okay, and this out of the way, we have to go into SPOILER-territory to further discuss this. Potential players should skip ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! So, the lore surrounding the kobolds and area around Brindle noted that, at one point, the dwarves that lived here vanished. Well, we find out what happened to them. Basically, they were beaten. Their conflict with black dragons escalated, and they led an attack on the survivor (whose lone egg the kobolds found…), but were, ultimately, soundly trounced by the enraged, magic-imbued apex predator finding his family slain. Opting for a more exquisite punishment, the dragon Nagareth the Poisoned managed to transform the dwarves into servitor-creatures, the grotesque drillo, and has been displaying the mighty regalia of the dwarves ever since. While the way by which this whole conflict took place is a bit opaque, as is the drillo transformation, those aspects are ultimately not that important.

The idea of the module is pretty simple: A frontal assault on an alarmed complex would be suicide at this character level, but with the magical axe unearthed, the PCs essentially enter the complex by means of a gate that had been dormant for ages, which makes for a good reason why the dragon never demolished it. The dragon has no reason to suspect intruders, and the PCs have very good reasons to make sure it stays that way as they explore. While no shifts, patrols or the like are provided, a capable GM should be able to evoke a sense of threat throughout. Interesting here: The PCs arrive not that far from the dragon, and the dungeon exploration, in many ways, is treated more like a stealthy, lite-investigation than a kill-all romp. You see, there is a tribe of troglodytes that can make for unconventional allies, as they really don’t like being enslaved by the dragon. Their stench also is a good reason why nobody bothers to keep a closer eye on them.

From the sub-level of the dungeon sporting giant ants to small tidbits and terrain (the troglodyte caverns are color-coded on the map), the module manages to evoke a sense of cohesion and plausibility – the dragon is deservedly arrogant, and its behavior makes sense in-game. Smart players may also unearth a means to undo the curse of the drillo and revert them to their dwarven state – particularly the dwarven hero Grimfolk Dain would be more than helpful…and that is highly recommended, for the goal is, ultimately, to take down the dragon. If the PCs fail to take care of the drillo, they will have to face both Nargareth and his servitors – suffice to say, that is not a smart choice.

So yeah, this is a potentially very deadly adventure that, while not perfect, runs surprisingly well and is a fun, exciting romp. Formatting tends to be relatively consistent, and though there are instances where spells and the like have not been properly formatted, and while magic items consistently flaunt OSRIC’s conventions, the module works for the most part. There are a few inconsistencies, such as when the pdf mentions physical attacks being repelled, but doesn’t state whether that’s supposed to mean negation, or that the assailant takes the damage instead.

In OSRIC.

As far as 5e is concerned, the same cannot be claimed. If I ever felt dread at a module’s starting passage, the following paragraph exemplifies it perfectly:

“Some creatures and challenges don’t always convert seamlessly to 5E from OSRIC / 1E, so a GM should use discretion while running the game, i.e., 2 zombies facing a party of 4 first level characters in OSRIC / 1E may not be the same challenge as 2 zombies facing the same characters in 5E because of various abilities, powers, and effects. We have done our best to take these into consideration during conversion, but the details may need some adjustment to adapt to your game, homebrew rules, and character play style across editions. The entries and descriptions in context are apparent if they are intended to be a serious challenge or simply cannon fodder for the PCs.”

No. Just NO. This is what we buy modules for. That’s what a proper conversion, particularly to a more rules-heavy system, DOES. It adjusts a module or supplement, and tweaks the challenge and rules to conform to the playstyles of the target system. This did not bode well, and is frankly an insulting notion. I had a sentence by sentence vitriolic disassembly of the statement above at one point in the review, but I elected to delete it in favor of something more constructive. Suffice to say, this really riled me up. If you can’t be bothered to make your module work in the target game system, THEN DON’T DO IT AT ALL and write material for a game you CAN be bothered with doing right.

In the spirit of trying to be constructive, formatting is better than what I’ve seen in previous Fail Squad Games attempts at 5e. For the most part, the statblocks, items, etc. are formatted correctly, though e.g. Skills are often listed incorrectly.

…

And that is the extent of the positive things I have to say about the 5e-version. It is a horrible, sloppy, broken mess. Name the bug, and you’ll find it here. DCs missing? Check. Incorrect HD? Check. False ability for a check? Check. Saves vs. skills? Check. No understanding that “poisoned” is not the same as “poison damage”? Check. Misunderstanding how a spell works? Check. Obvious issues understanding how Stealth and passive Perception work? Check. Incorrect HD for monsters? Check. Incorrect HP for the HD? Check. Incorrect trap/hazard-formatting? Check. Incorrect skills, saves, DCs, damage output? Check. Incorrect average damage for damage incurred? Check. Cut-copy-paste glitches in stats taken from the MM? Check.

Those are the basics that denote a bad conversion. The module goes further, though! Beyond that, it fails to ever codify the drillo transformation properly in rules; it also seems to lack understanding regarding how dangerous a frickin’ challenge 14 dragon is in 5e. While it is not utterly impossible to take the fellow down, the weaksauce allies won’t help half as much as in OSRIC, where numbers tend to mean more than in 5e. And don’t start with accounting for long/short rests or some of the intricacies of 5e, or its rules language. This module does not work properly in 5e, and is an at best sloppy, at worst insulting conversion.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are okay on a formal level; on rules-language level, they are okay for OSRIC, abysmal for 5e. Layout adheres to a two-column b/w-standard with neat, original b/w-artworks. Cartography is full-color and functional, but not particularly detailed or captivating. There are no player-friendly maps included. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a seriously unacceptable comfort-detriment. I can’t comment on the print-version, since I do not own it.

Lloyd Metcalf’s second part of the Brindle-trilogy deserved better; while the OSRIC-version is a fun experience that would have benefited from a slightly closer eye towards the formal criteria, it is an adventure I could recommend as an enjoyable, nice old-school romp, somewhere in the 3.5 -3-star vicinity.

Unfortunately, I can’t rate it as such, because the 5e-conversion by Ric Martens and H.M. Sims is atrociously bad. While at least rudimentarily functional in theory, this version will not survive any contact with tables, unless accompanied by copious GM-calls to make up for the bad job done here. I wager most experienced 5e-GMs who actually bothered to learn how the system works could do a better job. This version would deserve, at best, a 1.5-stars-rating.

It is much to my chagrin, then, that I have to rate these two iterations as one composite entity, because one deserved better, and the other deserved worse. Averaging out, we thus arrive at a final verdict of 2.5 stars. Usually, I’d round up in favor of the OSRIC-version and my in dubio pro reo policy, but from lack of bookmarks, to no player-friendly maps, to the INSULTING 5e-version, I just can’t bring myself to doing so. 2.5 stars, rounded down. This adventure deserved better.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Occult Skill Guide-series clocks in at 39 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 35 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreon supporters.

So, pact magic! Finally! As you all know, I am a huge fan of pact magic – the Grimoire of Lost Souls for PFRPG is one of my favorite crunch-books for the system, and I’ve been a fan of it since the 3.X days of yore – so is this just another conversion of PFRPG material to SFRPG?

The answer, thankfully, is a resounding “No!” It is my pleasure to announce that this is not the case! Instead of grafting a new subsystem onto Starfinder here, the book elects to use the very elegant Ritual-engine already employed by the Occult Skill Guide series as a basis, which is a rather interesting angle. I assume that you’re by now familiar with the ritual engine, as I’ve explained it in my previous reviews of the series.

So, the ritual that’s the base of the system here would be spirit binding, which is a level 1 necromancy [pact magic] ritual that has a casting time of 10 minutes and requires that the ritualist has researched the spirit’s ceremony and seal as the Characteristics-component; as a Focus, a twelve-faceted crystal is required, and reagents are stick of chalk and any reagents demanded by the spirit; if you wish to get the spirit’s vestigial companion, you must provide a sacrifice as well, one that corresponds to the spirit’s allies or enemies, as noted by the spirit. The ritual may target the ritualist, or a helpless or willing creature, and the duration is 24 hours or 1d2 days; Will negates and SR applies. On a failure, we have a disadvantageous pact. Additionally, you roll 1d20: On a 5 or less, you gain a pact malady of the GM’s choice. The ritual does come with notes on adventure ideas/hooks, and then proceeds to explain spirits.

You can have two types of pact with a spirit: An advantageous pact is what you’re trying to get – it lasts 24 hours, nets you control over the spirit’s gifts, and lets you accept 1 Influence Point to roll twice on a d20 and take the better result. You can also hide the sign while you’re not using the spirits power as a move action, if you want to; on a disadvantageous pact, the binder (the term for the one using spirit binding) is subjected to more of the whims of the spirit; binder level is set to a level, duration is 1d12 days, all gifts must be accepted, and you gain an Influence Point sans benefits and must always show the spirit’s sign. Binder Level is interesting: This is a level denoting the power of the gifts you gain from a spirit: As noted, you can choose this if you make an advantageous pact, but if you make a disadvantageous pact, the spirit gets to choose them! Binder level must be at least 1, and cannot exceed your total level.

Gifts generally fall into 4 categories: Apotheosis is a kind of transformation of the binder, often acting as a polymorph. Major Gifts represent serious power – once you’ve used one of those, you can’t use any other major gifts for 1d4 rounds. Minor Gifts may be used more freely – some require the expenditure of Resolve Points, others don’t. Vestigial Companions make a companion creature out of a sacrifice, and you may only have one of those at a given time.

Each spirit has its own ceremony and backlash, and most belong to one of 12 constellations: Angel, beast, dragon, fiend, hero, mage, noble, scholar, seer, skull, tree. There are also spirits that are unaligned – the starless spirits.

The abilities bestowed by spirits are called “gifts”, and Influence Points are a means to classify the degree of influence a spirit ahs over a given character. Binders without any Influence Points are free-willed; beyond that, the pdf presents a new kind of track, the overbound track: At 1 Influence Point, you become stained; at 3 Influence Points, you become darkened, and at 5 Influence Points, you become eclipsed – nice differentiation here, and very much in line with SFRPG’s design-aesthetics. They are also genuinely INTERESTING. When stained, you take scaling nonlethal damage when acting against the wishes of the spirit; this may also increase Influence Points. When Darkened, the spirit puppeteers the character when the victim’s asleep, dazed, etc., which can be VERY interesting. While eclipsed, the spirit gains complete dominance for the pact’s duration.

A spirit has 3 components: Ceremony, gift and rites – all may be discovered via a Mysticism check versus DC 15 + 1.5 times the ritual’s level, equal to the spirit’s level, each of which requires 8 days of study per level of the spirit. The pdf provides concise rules for discovering spirits beyond roleplaying.

Spirits offer supernatural abilities, and for each one you accept, you must accept 1 Influence Point OR lose a replacement class feature, which is yet another aspect where the system makes great use of SFRPG’s rules-chassis, and it precisely states how this works with e.g. archetypes, etc.. This choice is obviously not up to you if you have a disadvantageous pact, though.

If you want to get rid of a spirit, you can do so as a full action, trying to expel it, but failing to do so will net the spirit a LOT of Influence Points, and you can only try to do so once per day. Alternatively, you can try to get rid of the spirit with the exorcism spell.

Amazing: The Spirits come with artworks, organized in a circle – blue lines denoting allies, red lines denoting enemies. If the one-glance-you-get-it artwork/diagram is not your cup of tea, each constellation also lists the appropriate allies and enemy. If a spirit considers a binder an ally, they may reroll one check during the binding ritual; if the spirit considers the binder an enemy, the binder has to roll ALL checks twice and take the worse result. Totems, certain requirements you can fulfill, increase your chances to bind a spirit – each totem nets a +1 bonus to all checks made to make a pact with a spirit.

Okay, so what spirits are covered here? Well, we have, for example, Aza Azati, the Green Wyrmling, as a level 1 spirit. Aza Azati offers one major gift, acid gout, which nets you a scaling breath weapon of acid; 5 minor gifts are available: Acid Belch lets you have a decoupler pistol-like ranged attack; if you’re proficient with longarms, you instead get decoupler rifle-likeabilities – and scaling is handled via item level/character level. You can also get draconic senses, woodland stride,, the ability to sniff out gold, and scaling at-will shrink. The apotheosis nets you scaling DR, swim speed and a bonus to saves vs. paralysis and sleep, and you can be permanently shrunk if you have that. As a vestigial companion, we get the pocket wyrmling.

Second would be Coralene, Sovereign of Silver, who lets you sense your mark up to 1 mile away, and nets you bonuses regarding subterfuge, etc.; the major gift here lets you step into the Byways for short-range teleports/skirmishing – awesome. The cat burglar companion is also cool, netting you a common house cat capable of perfect hand-manipulation. I love this one!

Speaking of love: Kevix the Quick, the skittish skittermander – his legend is amazing and struck a chord with me: It is written as a bed-time story/morality tale for skittermander-kids; you see, Kevix was special – he never slept, he constantly busied himself, all while the rest of his culture, oddly, seemed to be lazy! Seeing this frantic activity, Kevix’ parents drugged the little skittermander, rendering him tired and able to sleep – but when a threat came, it was Kevix speed and hyperactivity that saved the day. This is genuinely heart-warming. Oh, and apotheosis? It nest you skitterarms, of, if you already have 6 arms, you gain a bonus feat. The spirit lets you temporarily phase out of reality. Ever helpful with better aid another, and a means to use Resolve for extra move actions, this spirit is powerful and INCREDIBLY charming. As far as I’m concerned, this fellow warrants getting this pdf all on his own. Oh, and as always: Skittermanders should be CORE!

Rextavious Zul is also pretty epic: As a Focus, you need 243 wargaming miniatures that depict a historically accurate pre Nova Age vesk army, with paint-job; for the spirit is that of those vesk tasked by their glorious deity to conquer the stars and bring order –even at the cost of their free will. Great take on the conqueror, with suitable combat abilities and the ability to call soldiers. Oh, and you can make living weapons.

Tommy Greenspout, the immortal rapscallion, is also damn cool: Knock twice on an object and get a secret base extradimensional space? Really cool when coupled with the aging rules: The fellow can also temporarily make targets a Child. Another mechanically distinct and flavorful one here. Yith’anu the Body-Snatched gets mind switching and wiping tricks, as well as some kyubi points – the entity is a kind of blend of yithian and kitsune tropes. Neat!

The pdf concludes with the rules to design your own rituals.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no serious hiccups on a rules-language or formal level. Layout adheres to the series’ elegant two-column full-color standard, and the pdf comes with plenty of full-color artworks and cool sigils for the spirits. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Alexander Augunas does it again, the nigh impossible, as far as I’m concerned. He has crafted a pact magic engine that not only seamlessly integrates into his phenomenal ritual engine, it also feels distinctly SFRPG in all of its rules and way it handles the game; this is no conversion, this is its own beast – and frankly, I LOVE that pact magic is no longer class-bound. In my homegame, I champion a similar approach, and this delivers – as they say in my group: Pact Magic is for everyone! This is imho the best rules-chassis for pact magic that we ever had. I adore it to bits, and I so want more. 5 stars + seal of approval, and this is a candidate for my Top Ten of 2020 – can we please get more?

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 50 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page introduction, leaving us with 45 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5), so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue at the request of my patreon supporters.

First things first: I called this “module”, because it is one properly developed module, and the other two are essentially slightly prolonged adventure hooks. All have a leitmotif of, well, things you’d utter “Forgive Us” for – as you can imagine, that makes them all pretty horror-centric. As often for LotFP (Lamentations of the Flame Princess), the queasy need not apply. The modules all sport a horror-theme to some degree. They are intended for low-level characters (level 1 – 4 work; it's designated for 4th), and are pretty deadly in various degrees. A note if you’re one of the many people annoyed by some of the meta-game shenanigans in some LotFP-offerings: This book lacks those. It also thankfully lacks “wrong thing, world explodes”-BS; the PCs can very much screw up with far-reaching consequences, but they’ll have to LIVE with that, so if the “blown up campaign world”-angle bores you by now, this won’t hit that pet-peeve. As horror-modules, the content is obviously not suitable for kids, and if you’re easily triggered, particularly by suicide or infanticide, this is not for you. The main module would be a perfect fit for Warhammer, just fyi.

All of the modules are nominally set in England, AD 1625, and includes a brief NPC-name generator. The modules sport a total of two one-page letter handouts between them, and the author also handled cartography and artworks: You can see the style on the cover, and rest assured that, this comic-like look notwithstanding, the drawings do manage to convey horror. Anyhow, the cartography bears special mention, as does the information-design: For one, the pdf is heavily cross-referenced with internal hyperlinks as well as bookmarks, making running the module from the pdf surprisingly convenient. Secondly, an area comes with fully drawn b/w-cartography, with the write-ups of the respective rooms showing lots of details, from fallen over chairs to beds etc. The maps sport a scale, but no grid for VTT. Some rooms have more “interaction points” than others, which are listed separately – this makes running this with just a bit of minimal prep-work easy. There is but one thing about this module that it gets really wrong in that department, and it’s, for me as a person, the most important one: There are no key-less versions of the detailed maps, which is particularly odd since LotFP is usually good at that sort of thing, with layered pdfs and the like. So no, you can’t turn off the annoying numbers, the tell-tale Secret-door-S-indicators or the like, which severely limited the usefulness of the excessive cartography for me. This is also annoying, because the map of Norwich included suffers the same issue.

It should be noted that the two “bonus-hook”-scenarios in the back do not have cartography or the like included – the above only holds true for the primary scenario. Which brings me to one point: The setting the stage section on Norwich is interesting and grounds the module, but I genuinely wished it was longer; the page-count allotted to the bonus scenarios would have helped here, as well as with the finale of the main module, but we’ll get to that next.

In order to talk about the adventure + hooks herein, I’ll need to go into SPOILERS right now. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only referees around? Great!

Let’s start at the back, with the adventure-sketches: “Death and Taxes” is contingent on the PCs being friends to a fellow –ex-soldier called William Blake; this man has died, as a letter informs them (one of the handouts), and they are invited to the funeral. Blake’s been buried with a dark treasure, and his daughter, precocious and surprisingly adept at surviving in the wilds, has gone missing. The kid followed her late dad’s instructions; after finding her, the PCs will probably have to dig up their friend’s corpse t get rid of the item, for the taxman coming to town with his retinue is actually a cultist in disguise who also wants the contents of the buried box. This adventure sketch is pretty basic, and suffers from its brevity: With a properly depicted service, some more detail on how good a fellow Blake was, etc., this would have gravitas; instilling how taboo digging up the dead was and the social scene of the village would have also helped make this exciting. As provided, it is imho dead real-estate, a dud.

The second adventure-sketch “In Heaven, Everything is Fine”, deserves a trigger-warning…sort of. But not really. You see, the module takes place in the small village of Ashmanhaugh, where stories of a ghost abound. A nearby tower invites adventuring, and the strange, ghostly manifestations are disquieting indeed! But here’s the thing: Ashmanhaugh is mostly fictional, a super-complex illusion woven by a thing from the stars that masquerades as a toddler. “Anthony”, this thing, has the power to bend perceptions and reality, making tower and the vast majority of people in the village figments of its imagination…but the power comes at a cost: The entity consistently drains life from those in the illusion, which has reduced the actual population of the village down to 5, including his delusional “mom.” Not counting the ghost, that is, for the ghost is actually a man who, due to a head-injury, can’t be affected by the illusion: His “hauntings” are attempts by the simple-minded and good-natured fellow to scare away others from a phenomenon he can’t grasp, but perceives as dangerous. Obviously, all the loot and dangers encountered in the tower etc. are figments, which some groups won’t appreciate. While I am not a fan of the shock-jockey-esque “kill a helpless cosmic entity masquerading as a kid”-visuals or roleplaying situation to solve the adventure sketch, I can’t help but really like the whole concept; in many ways, I wished that this had instead been expanded into a detailed, full-blown adventure, with progressive accumulations of glitches in illusions, mysterious deaths of the remaining villagers (who’ll show up once more, perfectly fine, as Anthony’s illusions…), etc. This could have been a clever, damn cool psychological horror scenario. With its meager 5-page page-count, it can convey its basic idea, but anything beyond that is up to the referee to handle, limiting its utility.

Now, as for the eponymous “Forgive Us”, the actual full adventure, it is an honest, well-executed dark fantasy/horror-yarn: The thieves guild known as “The Tenebrous Hand” has become too confident: Their base consists of an entire block of buildings, including interior courtyard, and the entire block is lavishly-mapped, in an angle that I have so far only seen in Rogues of Remballo. Every room and building here is properly depicted, and the module manages to evoke a really neat survival-horror aspect: You see, the guild has stolen a strange stone sarcophagus from a weird cult; unfortunately, this cult, the “Brotherhood of Pus”, is a disease cult (substitute Nurgle, good to go for Warhammer…), and the contagion thus released is genuinely gruesome: It mutates the hands of the affected, if present, into claws, and the head mutates into a grossly-conical, puckered thing, with the openings sporting licking tendrils or tongues. Those hit risk catching the highly mutagenic disease and joining the ranks of the mutated monstrosities.

The Tenebrous Hand managed to seal the worst in the vault, but it was too late for them: Faced with suicide or mutation, they chose the former…enter the PCs. Mutated dogs in fly-infested butcheries, a madman, half-mutated suicides (see cover) – this is a pretty epic and atmospheric scenario that builds up tension and paranoia well, also courtesy of its details. If the PCs unleash the horrors in the vault, they’ll have plenty of reasons to ask “Forgive Us” – provided they don’t manage to stop the things, which seems unlikely, as there are a LOT of them. On the plus-side, the loot in the vaults and how it’s depicted? Awesome. Each piece of loot comes with an artwork, as well as a glyph that denotes if it’s oversized and unwieldy, or has a negligible impact n encumbrance. I really wished we’d gotten a hand-out version that doesn’t spell out values and effects of the items, though: That way, I could give this to my PCs, ask them to choose…”Grab the Loot and Run” is quite the well-chosen moniker here.

Now, if your PCs are particularly sensible individuals who don’t want to open the vault, fret not, for there is an additional chaos-factor: A group of 4 particularly…weird (??) adventurers; three of these fellows have special abilities; the fourth recently died and accompanies them now as an undead. Whether as suckers that open the vault, help in combat or competition, this group adds a helpful wildcard to the referee’s arsenal when running the module. The two-page spread of these monsters ravaging the town is nice, even though, if the PCs do their job well, is not something that necessarily happens.

All in all cool, right? Well, there is one thing that is somewhat of a missed chance: The module has a denouement as well, where the PCs go to the fully mapped house of the Brotherhood of Pus and eliminate the cultists. This was a pretty lame section, with the icky cultist’s lab left mostly t the GM#s devising. Using the 10 pages of the additional adventure sketches to elaborate the end of the main adventure locale and this denouement would have imho been a wiser choice here, and elevated the module further. Ideally, an illustrated selection of despicable cult treasures, perhaps a mini-dungeon or some antagonist responses for the cult might have helped make the finale less anticlimactic.

It should be noted that the lethality of the module and the infection in general, is somewhat contingent on how much access the PCs have to cure disease. A single scroll can be found among the treasure, but before the PCs have the spell, the module may well be a TPK, even on a triumph, if all PCs got infected. This might also make this an efficient one-shot or convention-scenario. Just saying.

Nice: The book comes with a bonus-pdf, a 9-page conversion guide to PFRPG, penned by Jukka Särkijärvi, and to my pleasant surprise, the little pdf actually presents quite a few solid statblocks; correct formatting, math that is mostly correct (some minor snafus), and we even get a proper and solidly-executed template. The magic item included fails to list its crafting feat, but as a bonus I wasn’t even aware of existing? Cool, and certainly appreciated! For PFRPG, I’d recommend the module for levels 1 – 2, in case you’re wondering. As an aside: This bonus conversion-pdf is better than many full-blown dual-format OSR-modules that profess to have stats for/work with 5e or PFRPG…

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level in the main pdf; the bonus-pdf fares slightly worse, but is still better than many books I’ve covered. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 1-column-standard for the most part, and as noted, the b/w-artwork, which took me a bit to get used to, works really well as a whole; we get a ton of it, and the cartography is qualitatively really nice and detailed. The only strikes in the aesthetic department is the absence of player-friendly maps. The pdf comes fully bookmarked. The softcover print-version sports matte paper and properly lists the module’s name on the spine – nice for the bookshelf.

Kelvin Green’s “Forgive Us” is a neat, unpretentious and well-executed horror/dark fantasy scenario, one that can be run with groups too grossed out by the misery-porn that is e. “Death Love Doom.” In many ways, I can see this work in many campaigns, and while it can have serious repercussions, it is easier to integrate and maintain in your campaign than most LotFP-scenarios. It also was, to my knowledge, Kelvin Green’s freshman offering, and considering that, it’s an impressive achievement indeed. It’s gritty, grimy, somewhat icky and dark, and yet it gives the PCs a fighting chance and is thankfully bereft of trollish “Gotcha”-BS. My main gripe with the module, apart from the missing player-friendly maps, would be that the adventure-sketches in the back deserved to be either cut (Death and Taxes) or developed into a full-blown adventure (In Heaven, Everything is Fine); the page-count they take up could have elevated this scenario from being a good module, to it being excellent. As provided, my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This supplement clocks in at 8 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, leaving us with 6 pages of content, with each page containing one new Troika!-background, so let’s take a look!

Okay, so the first thing you need to know here, is that this is a satire-product spoofing certain individuals in the OSR/indie gaming scene. In its original iteration, this was clearly a satire in the tradition of Juvenal, i.e. designed as a take-down. Most of the backgrounds made fun in a scathing and entertaining way of some gaming tropes in a parodist manner…but two of the backgrounds featured in said original iteration were obviously very savage takedowns of certain individuals. I am not stating which (though that was rather obvious), since the author has since replaced the content, and it’s not up to me to drag that back to light.

Anyway, how savage were they? Well, if you’re into battle-rap, I’d consider them to be as close to a bodybag-level take-down as I’ve ever seen in RPG-design. I was sitting at my screen, and couldn’t help but go “Oh, damn, that’s brutal!!” Soul Khan vs. J-Fox or Caustic vs. Jefferson Price levels of brutal, in context.

Now, these two backgrounds were the only ones that targeted specific individuals, and while I considered them to be HILARIOUS, they were essentially unplayable by design, having only the most rudimentary skills, useless possessions and in fact, seriously negative skill-values.

While I fully admit to bemoaning this imho somewhat hilarious savagery being removed from the supplement as a person, as a reviewer, I am grateful for that, as the new material is actually playable, making the new iteration a better gaming supplement. The supplement does make use of Troika’s openness for advanced skills and invents quite a few, as recommended by the game.

It should be noted that this is still the most savage satire I’ve seen in the guise of a RPG-supplement; it is somewhat crude, deliberately scathing, and certainly not for everyone.

Not deterred by that? Okay, awesome, so what are the backgrounds?

The first background would be the eponymous maiden of the snubbed one. Regardless of your gender, if you’re an adherent of the Small God known as the Snubbed One, you’re a maiden, and you get zines, bronze peaches, and packets of flax seeds if you choose this background. EDIT: A minor line-break glitch has been rectified in the pdf. For advanced skills, we get Bureaucracy, Rant, etc. One of them would have warranted some minor explanation in my book: “Secret Sign: Cockroach Trails.” It’s not impossible to improvise, sure, but it’s weird and specific enough to make me want to know more.

…and now it’s time for me to write the sentences that I never thought I’d write. The second background…is the “sentient used condom.” No, I am not kidding. This one lets you fire….ähem…semen as a ranged or melee attack, as a pistolet, and you have modest armor. Each “shot” does cost 2 Stamina, though. You can also pay 3 stamina when someone eats your…ähem…content to heal them as if they had eaten a provision. Instead of consuming provisions, you must convince individuals to use you in your intended way...which obviously becomes progressively ickier. There’s a reason you get Repulse as an advanced skill…

The first of the new backgrounds would be the friendly board game. This one nets you two free-form d6s that you can add either one or both to any roll, expending them to the next day. You can also test your Luck to have the GM answer a yes/no question. You use your pieces (only some of which are actually ones for your game!) to communicate with others, which can be rather interesting if roleplayed properly.

Next up among the new ones is the haunted typewriter (Typewrighter) ; you may suck big time at Arithmetic (-6), but you do get Writing, Reading, Second Sight…and Monkey Handling for the chimpanzee that you start play with. Minor nitpick: Pretty sure Arithmetic should read Mathmology instead.

After this, we have the nemesis of the no longer represented edgy devs: The soy lord, who actually does know his Mathmology (and has a hand-held device as starting possession that helps there), and has both impeccable outfit and manly beard – as such, Barbering 4 and Etiquette are advanced skills, and these fellows do come with knife and axe fighting as well as a random spell.

Finally, there would be the “Sexy snake person.” To quote the pdf: “You are a sensuously sinuous sexy snake sophont. […] Remember, you are a sexily scaled serpent, not some slimy, but sexy in their own ways slug.” This background nets you boobies (your choice if they’re detachable or not), two penises (if you want them), a sexy snake tongue that helps with oral tasks requiring finesse, a No kink-shaming t-shirt…you get the idea. The Advanced Skills include constricting, seduction, etc., as well as Fang Fighting, but the background doesn’t specify as what weapon the fangs are treated: Small Beast or Modest Beast, or something else?

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are okay; not great, but certainly functional. Layout adheres to a simple, printer-friendly b/w-standard, with public domain artworks used; these artworks are not explicit, mind you. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Whether you’ll like this pdf or not will be highly contingent on what you value in a supplement. If you want some backgrounds that do a solid job at offering some unique Troika-options, then this MIGHT be for you. It’s an okay supplement if you disregard the whole satire-angle, and probably somewhere in the lower 2.5 to 3-star vicinity. Without context, it loses some of its appeal, and its rules are not always as tight as I’d wish them to be.

However, personally, I’d primarily recommend it to people aware of OSR/indie gaming-drama, who enjoy reading brutal takedowns. This delivers, and it does so in its revised version with more actually useful content. I like that, and I try to rate supplements primarily for what they are – and this is, primarily a satire that happens to also be playable content. As such, my final verdict for this will clock in at 3.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Occult Skill Guide clocks in at 17 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 13 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Okay, so the concept of the Soulless was first introduced at the very end of the run of the mini-series for PFRPG, but this is NOT a simple rehash/conversion of that file. Oh now. This is more.

We begin on the introductory page with a neat summoning graft for calling the soulless, which changes the type to outsider, nets see in darkness and darkvision 60 ft, incorporeal,, immunity to mind-affecting effects, and the gloom and flatten abilities – more on those below. Since incorporeal is so powerful in SFRPG, the creature loses DR, if it has DR. The creature adds Stealth skill-wise, and the creature’s natural attacks deal half kinetic damage (type of your choice from the physical damage types), and half sonic damage. It also nets blindsight 60 ft. (souls). The pdf also precisely codifies the soulless subtype graft.

Anyhow, instead of beginning with stats, we get a proper soulless corruption, and yes, the corruption rules are explained if you’re new to them! The corruption’s associated save is Will, the ability score is Charisma. You can catch this corruption from a soulless’s consumption ability, from being overwhelmed by base emotions (Hello, anime trope! Nice!), or from meddling with the dark powers lurking in the Byways.

As for the latent stage, anytime the victim experiences a base emotion, they gain one corruption point, plus an additional one for every 10 minutes they experience that emotion. For victims using an ability that causes the victim to experience these, the tally is increased to 1d6. Manifestations of the corruption are exempt. If you’re wondering: The save starts at 13 + half victim’s level +1 per saving throw attempted since last stage entered, with each stage increasing the base DC by 2. At the latent stage, embracing virtuous emotions truly cures some corruption points – so yeah, curing is fully contingent on nuanced roleplaying! Nice!

At the latent stage, the character gets the soul consumption manifestation: When you attempt an ability or skill check, save or attack roll, you can accept a number of corruption points of up to 1 + your corruption stage. Anyhow, when you do choose for this bonus, you gain an increasing die size of corruption points, with die-size resetting each day. I love this ability; it appeals to the edgelord antihero-liking guy that’s not really hidden deep within ole’ me.

At stage 1, the character can now be detected as an afflicted by the proper targets, and gets the call the soulless manifestation: You can summon creature for 1d10 corruption points, with the critters having the soulless summoning graft. The spell level is equal to 1 + 1 spell level for every 3 level or HD, maximum 6th. This SP is at-will., but recasting it makes the previously summoned critters vanish, so no spamming. Nice!

At stage 2, you count as both your original type and as an outsider with the gloom subtype, whichever is more detrimental, and you get the Gloom Anatomy, which makes your attacks count as magic and having the ghost killer weapon fusion, here called infusion. At stage 3, whenever you’re subjected to a critical hit, you get to roll a flat 1d20 against DC 10 – on a success, you ignore the attack’s critical effects; if you succeed by 5 or more, you only take normal damage! In the endstage, you turn into TWO monsters – the soulless, moth-like thing, and the undead soulshell; if properly destroyed, these can be recombined…sounds like a great quest to me!

After this, we essentially get a full mini-bestiary of the soulless: At CR 3, we have the soulless gloom, which can flatten itself into a 2-dimensional shadow; the build uses the combat array and is correct. The CR 5 gloomball is made via spellcaster array, and pure amazing, easily one of my favorite artworks by Jacob Blackmon ever – the critter has a bloated head that reminded me of Majora’s Mask, and it can shrivel and suddenly expand in a super effective and pretty nasty attack – extra bonus points if you combine that with a creepy sound-effect at your table…

The CR 10 Syngloom can flatten itself, but still attack while flattened, and attempt to paralyze foes while flattened…oh, and trick attacks... The CR 13 Gloomigre is pretty awesome, as it had pretty nasty incorporeal armaments that can switch damage types and critical effects, cause bleed, and they can shadow step; they can use their Resolve to plunge their armaments into the ground to make a devastating AoE-attack…awesome.

One of the most brutal SFRPG-creatures I’ve seen so far: The CR 15 gloomtide, which is an amalgamation of corrupted souls, behaving as a swarm: Every attack makes them spawn tiny glooms, which they can attack and reabsorb – they are vulnerable versus magic, and you better use that…with incorporeal and swarm defenses, as well as whirlwind, these are brutal.

More brutish would be the CR 16 Gloomhemoth – obviously inspired by the classic Final Fantasy creature, including the option to switch between upright and bestial gait. They can use Resolve to leave magical darkness, summon copies of themselves – and these copies may be detonated! They can eat darkness to buff themselves as well. Epic, deadly, awesome.

The gloomtitan, at CR 18 reminded me of another awesome critter from my favorite JRPGs…can you guess which? Well, they get a massive gravity aura, and can use Resolve to draw those in the aura closer. They can also shatter a titanic sphere of soul energy atop their heads, raining soul-seeking missiles. They can crush the souls of those grappled, swallow targets whole and shear off sections of the target’s souls.

That’s not all. Finally, there is the Gloombringer, at CR 20 – who was obviously inspired by Persona’s Reavers; they can generate blasts of elemental magic in cones, lines or spheres, and they can sue their spellslots to bolster these effects; in their vicinity, stabilizing is difficult and may result in the victim’s soul being extracted, and these beings can spend Resolve to cast any 5th level or lower mystic spell. BRUTAL. Love it!

Conclusion: Editing and formatting re very good on a formal and rules-language level; layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard. The module sports full-color artworks for each of the soulless, and they are awesome – some of my favorite monster-drawings from Jacob Blackmon so far. The pdf comes fully bookmarked at your convenience.

Alexander Augunas’ Soulless not only offer a fantastic new corruption, they are also some of the most awesome monster-builds I’ve seen for SFRPG so far; each of them is somewhat unique, meticulously-crafted, and deadly – the supplement is absolutely awesome. 5 stars + seal of approval, and for builds like the soulless behemoth-thing, this gets a nomination for my Top Ten of 2019. Get this!

Endzeitgeist out.