Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

B/X Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

The Classes and Equipment book comes in at 44 pages. It begins naturally enough with character creation. Some details, such as Ability scores, are detailed here, but also give a call back to the Core Rules book. Still, though everything is here to make a character. For practice, I made a 7th level Cleric just using this book. It went extremely fast and very little need to flip pages back and forth. I just needed to use the Spells book to pick out spells. The modular design of the B/XE system extends to this book as well. Each class begins on an even-numbered page and extends to the next odd-numbered page. You can then hold the book flat, put it up two-pages at a time on your screen, and read everything you need in a glance. I really appreciate this level of attention paid. Many books do not do this and in fact, look like they were just run off on Word's PDF converter. There is more attention put into the layout here than in most products and to me, that is what sets this above the others. The classes represented here are the 7 classics; Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief and the three demi-humans, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. True to B/X these are "race as class" classes. Equipment, money and of course weapons are covered in the next half of the book.

In truth, I can't say enough good about this. Is it 100% brand new material? No, but that was also never the design goal. The books do exactly what they say they are going to do. If I were starting with a new group using B/X-flavor D&D I would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason NOT to use these books.

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

B/X Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

Cleric and Magic-User Spells would have been my favorite book if B/XE had come out in the 80s. Right now it also has my favorite cover from the entire series. Seriously, I love it. The book itself has 34 pages and covers all the Cleric and Magic-User/Elf spells in the game. All the usual suspects are here. Again when making my recent Cleric I used this book. The modularity again is a huge boon for this book and game. Adding a new class, like the proposed Druid and Illusionists? Add a new book easy!

In truth, I can't say enough good about this. Is it 100% brand new material? No, but that was also never the design goal. The books do exactly what they say they are going to do. If I were starting with a new group using B/X-flavor D&D I would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason NOT to use these books.

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

B/X Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

At 48 pages this is one of the two larger books in the series. This book deals with adventuring and what sort of things you can find on those adventures. So there are traps, monster tables, and all the treasure types and magical treasure. Again we see where combining the Basic and Expert rules gives you a much better idea of what is going on in these "dungeons". This is also my second favorite cover of the line.

In truth, I can't say enough good about this. Is it 100% brand new material? No, but that was also never the design goal. The books do exactly what they say they are going to do. If I were starting with a new group using B/X-flavor D&D I would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason NOT to use these books.

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

B/X Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

Ah, now this is a book I would have loved back in 81. Also coming in at 48 pages this book is about monsters and nothing else. Stat blocks are concise and there is none of the bloat in the descriptions that appear in later editions (ok to be fair that bloat was demanded by players). The book is fantastic with my only reservation in I wish it had been illustrated more. But even that is fine. I can easily see a "Monsters 2" and "Monsters 3" sometime in the future for this line.

In truth, I can't say enough good about this. Is it 100% brand new material? No, but that was also never the design goal. The books do exactly what they say they are going to do. If I were starting with a new group using B/X-flavor D&D I would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason NOT to use these books.

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

B/X Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

This free product is only 8 pages long and is only in PDF. It is the only genre and world-specific book in the line covering the Dolmenwood, the shared setting used by Necrotic Gnome. This book includes two new races, the Fairy Elf and the Woodgrue, both fairy races of the Dolmenwood. There is also a listing of some Fae lords and ladies.

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

Old-School Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

Old School Essentials expands on these rules and reorganizes them some more. There is a Basic Rules that takes place of the Core book and then a Genre book that covers classes and other "D&D" like topics. I imagine that different genre books will have other rules and classes.

Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules This free 56-page book covers all the basics of the OSE line. Picking it up you can see the stylistic changes from B/XE to OSE. Also this book covers just about everything you need to play right now. It includes the four human classes, some rules, some spells, some monsters, and treasure. Enough to give you a taste of what OSE will be like. It has the same modular design as B/XE so finding things is simple, leaving more time for play. There is no interior art in this free version, but that hardly detracts from it.

I am really looking forward to seeing OSE out. But until then I am going to enjoy playing with B/XE!

Monsters of Mayhem #1 is the latest monster tome from the Mad Wizard himself, Mark Taormino. Mark has made a good name for himself in the Old School D&D scene producing some top rated gonzo adventures. So it should only seem natural that he would turn his attention to making an equally gonzo and fun monster book. Which is exactly what he did. Monsters of Mayhem is 36 pages of monsters for old school games using OSRIC, coughAD&Dcough. I am reviewing both the physical book and the PDF. The book is black & white with color covers and "blue map" inside covers. There are 48 monsters here, most illustrated. The monsters themselves are all fun and all of them are very deadly, or at least they could be in the hands of a sadist DM.

Many have appeared in his adventures, but there are some new faces here as well. Also many will invoke a feeling of nostalgia for anyone that played AD&D back int he 80s. Some are fun, like "The Little Green Bastards" (aliens), some are nostalgic like the "Astral Drifter" and "Star Spawn", and others are just plain disgusting (in a great way) like the "Block of Hungry Flesh". Others still are very deadly like the infamous "Vampire Lich".

Our cover girl is a Demonia Gigantica which was one of the very first monsters I used from this book. The style reminds you of the old school, early 80s, style of books. Save for how over the top everything is it could pass for an 80s book. Well, that and the production values are top-notch.

I high recommend this book. There is a lot packed into 36 pages here. For $10.00 you get a lot and will really spice up your game a little.

Originally posted here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/monstrous-monday-review-monsters-of.html

“You know the first rule of combat? Shoot them before they shoot you.” - Faye Valentine, Cowboy Bebop.

Back in 1998 a new Anime appeared on the scene, something new called Cowboy Bebop. It dealt with the lives and misadventures of a group of bounty hunters in the solar system of the future that looked more like the wild west. There were guns, and terra-formed planets, a corrupt government, the mobs and of course lots of criminals. The crew of the Bebop spent their time doing jobs, keeping their ship together and avoiding starving. While this made for a great show in and of itself, the really cool thing about this were the characters. Larger than life, with secrets, agendas and a history of development that lead them to where they were at that point.

In other words a perfect setting for a Role Playing Game.

The game, Bounty Head Bebop, obviously takes some cues from the series. (AN ASIDE. I understand that this game was supposed to have been an officially licensed product, but I do not have anything to support that with. So instead of explaining all the time why they are the same, let’s just say they are cut from the same cloth and move on from there.)

Bounty Head Bebop (BHB), is a game where you can spend your time flying around a terra-formed solar system hunting down “bounty heads” for fun and profit. The game itself is a slick little RPG with a fun cinematic feel to it. It does what it says on the tin, and does it well.

BHB uses a system called the Inverted 20 system. Basically you have a Target Number (often set by the GM, with guidance), that is modified by ability, skill and or difficulties, your job is to roll that score or under (and different things happen if you hit the number or roll under). The die mechanic is really that simple. Anyone familiar with d20 will catch on fairly quickly despite the roll under mechanic. Now I will be honest, I am not a fan of roll under systems, but I think it works here. To me it seems that Anime based games work best as roll-under. Maybe it is all of those years of BESM or maybe it because it just provides me with a different feel.

Like other d20 games you attributes that despite the name changes look familiar, skills, various edges and flaws, all which work like GURPS. No need to reinvent the wheel, they work fine. Everything is point buy and you spend XP to raise them, like Unisystem.

Details BHB does something REALLY nice here. Puts in a Character Creation Summary so you can get an overview of everything you need to do. Figure out everything in order. Attributes look familiar if you have been playing any game at all. They are scored from 1 to 5 for starting characters, but can go up. Imitative and Movement are derived. As are Saves, Wounds and Vitality points. All pretty simple to figure out.

Skills are next and they are divided up into General, Combat and Specialty. General skills are your everyday skills and like d20 are tied to a specific attribute. Combat skills allow you to fight. Want to be better at aiming or hitting with your fists, then improve the skill. Specialty and Advanced skills are those that you can’t do unless you have a level/points in them. Advanced skills are like advanced sciences.

Edges and Flaws work like GURPS or any other point buy system, though there are no points. You start out with 3 Edges and get up to 6 with 3 more Flaws. Edges can be bought with XPs and Flaws bought off. The list is pretty typical, your Hard to Kill, various “Gun Fu” moves, various pilot and criminal related Edges too. The list looked good and nothing jumped out at me as not being there. There are also various new Psychic/Feng-Shui powers too (details in a bit). And some computer related ones, with the promise of new book dedicated to hacking and the net (for your own “Radical” Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky the IV). Now you don’t need to take any Flaws at all if you don’t want, but I think that might be missing the point of this game really. These characters are yes over the top Anime characters, but they also have issues.

Feng-Shui gets it own chapter and it is the province of the Inuit Indians (yeah, that confuses me too, but I’ll go with it). None of the powers seem out of control, so no anime style Ki based special fx here, but a lot of good solid powers. Danger Sense, Locate Objects, manipulate objects, things like that. More power masters can influence minds or regenerate their bodies. There are seven areas of power (spheres) you choose one and you progress through it. It reminds me of the pschic powers from AFMBE’s “Enter the Zombie”. Given that, an ability to bend bullets might be cool in this game. Of course with power comes psychotic episodes. Do it too much and you WILL go crazy, just like they said.

Given this chapter I can see, and hope that the cyber book works the same way.

A money and equipment chapter follows. Money, though very important to the focus of the game, is game mechanic rather than collected. Similar to D20 Modern in a way. And of course lots of guns, spaceships and other things you need, like food and permits. While money is always going to be an issue, since that is the primary motivation of the characters, doing the system like this was a nice cinematic way of dealing with things.

A chapter on “doing things” follows after that. It is your basic rules chapter, but most things are handled with the same mechanic, so this chapter breezes by. I appreciate transparency in my games. “You can do this and this is how you do it.” BHB takes the basic d20 system and really streamlines it to it’s barest essentials (even more so than True20) yet nothing seems lost. Thus this chapter is very short.

Combat is more involved, since the bounty heads aren’t likely to go quietly. The combat chapter is again, easy to read and uses the same simple mechanics. Skills and your rank in them are what is important here. This sets it off from the d20 crowds and puts it back into GURPS/Unisystem territory. In a neat twist you can use the same “to hit” roll as a damage roll, thus speeding up your games. There is logic in this and I like the effect.

The Setting Chapter both pleased me and irritated me. The solar system is the setting with a nearly uninhabited Earth and terra-formed planets and moons. Briefly object hits the Moon, destroys it, sends Earth into chaos where meteors rain every day. But some of those rocks were used to jump gate tech to allow quick travel throughout the solar system and was a key element in terra-forming.

Now humanity is all over the system. There is a real wild west feel to the plaents. Mars is the center of human population now, Venus is like a giant mob controlled Vegas, the moons of Jupiter have food production and so on and all have their own hazards. There is a Solar System wide police force, but they are few, overworked, underpaid and spread too thin. This gives us lots of crime and the opportunity for bounty hunters (like you!) to capture bad guys and bring them in for fun and profit. Mostly for profit.

What irritated me was that this chapter was so short. Sure, I know it is so I can later buy the Mars book or the Io book, but it just touched the surface. Yeah I could go back to the anime (or other shows, Blake’s 7 comes to mind) for ideas. But I was enjoying reading when it was over.

The book has a very nice index, a character sheet that looks familiar to us all and a summary page on how to spend XPs. But the coolest thing is the included adventure in the back. Gets you and going on your first Bounty Head hunt in no time. The adventure itself is good, and even shows you what can be done with the system in terms of story. Sure this could have been a simple bounty hunt, but this one has moral layers and corruption and the hosts of a “Big Shots” like show (nice touch).

What Did I Like? Simple system, very easy to figure out. Plus it was also easy to figure out what to do with the game. Concepts came with every page (more or less). The book itself has a nice simple layout and it is easy to find everything. Plus it “reads” well too. The text is concise and gets right to the point. I also like the Luck and Surge points, which are basically like Drama Points or Hero Points.

What Didn’t I Like? Still not a fan of roll under mechanics. They seem wrong to me. Would have loved more setting information and some basic computer hacking rules.

Other Notes Art. The art is nice, but a lot of it is used again throughout the book. Pictures of some of the planets would be nice, what does Venus Vegas look like? How about the domes of Mars? That sort of thing.

What Can I do with This? Well there is basic premise, go out and hunt bad guys. But there are plenty of other ideas. The Stainless Steel Rat: Play the bad guys. Sure hunting them is fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun to be the bad guy or the mobsters avoiding the SSPB and the Bounty Hunters? Reservoir Dogs: You get pulled into a heist gone really, really wrong. The Usual Suspects: You bring in your small fry bounty head only to uncover that maybe, maybe the most notorious criminal mastermind might be involved or even one of your marks. Witch Hunter Bebop: Let’s combine Sunrise’s two best anime ever, Cowboy Bebop and Witch Hunter Robin and make a game where you need to hunt down marks using their Feng-Shui powers illegally. Firefly: Yeah it has a game and I really like Cortext, but I’ll be blunt here. There is nothing in Firefly that Cowboy Bebop didn’t do first and better and with a better soundtrack. You can do the same here. Plus the solar system of BHB makes more sense.

Who should get this? If you like Anime or space adventures with bullets rather than lasers then this is your game. If you want to do something like Traveler but don’t want the overhead of the system or the mega-plot then this is your game. You might be able to do “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” but we have better choices for those games. This would be perfect for “Buck Rodgers” or “Flash Gordon” though and of course “Cowboy Bebop”.

You can never have too many monster books in my mind. Even I use one or two per book and my players are surprised or go "what in the hell is that!?" then it is money well spent. Monsters have taught me so much over the years. Monsters lead me to Greek Mythology. Monsters helped me learn how to write code to create databases and then later helped land a DBA job while I was still in school. One day I'll update my old Access95 Monster Database, but that will have to be later.

In many ways I actually like M&B2 more than M&B1. This book is 110 pages with 150+ monsters. Again we have a color cover (which is fantastic by the way) and black & white interior. In fact all the art is a step up. If M&B 1 was akin to a MM3 or FF2 then this one is the next in line, but with no loss of quality. The monsters are new and quite deadly or at least the ones that are not deadly are interesting. I have not picked up the softcover yet, but the PDF is fantastic. 10 bucks for the pdf or 20 for the pdf + softcover book is a pretty good deal. Especially for a bunch of new monsters.

You can never have too many monster books in my mind. Even I use one or two per book and my players are surprised or go "what in the hell is that!?" then it is money well spent. Monsters have taught me so much over the years. Monsters lead me to Greek Mythology. Monsters helped me learn how to write code to create databases and then later helped land a DBA job while I was still in school. One day I'll update my old Access95 Monster Database, but that will have to be later.

Malevolent and Benign has long been a staple on my game table. 128 pages with 150 monsters, all in OSRIC format. The monsters are all new (to me), with some converted from other OGC sources. The art is quite good and the feel of the book is something like a Monster Manual 3 or a Fiend Folio 2 really. It sits on my shelf right next to my monsters books, or in theory, it does. It is actually out on my game table more often than not. The softcover is very nice to have and the PDF is fully bookmarked.

The book also has a small section on new magic items associated with these monsters.

For $10 it is a good deal.

You can never have too many monster books in my mind. Even I use one or two per book and my players are surprised or go "what in the hell is that!?" then it is money well spent. Monsters have taught me so much over the years. Monsters lead me to Greek Mythology. Monsters helped me learn how to write code to create databases and then later helped land a DBA job while I was still in school. One day I'll update my old Access95 Monster Database, but that will have to be later.

Blood & Treasure 2nd Edition Monsters II. This is the second book for the Blood & Treasure 2nd edition game. This one has 197 pages, over 500 monsters. Color cover with black & white art. No this is what we buy monster books for! New Monsters! At 500 some odd monsters there are some here that can be recognized from the records of myth and fairy tales, (lots and lots of dragons!) but there a plenty of more that are completely new to me to edge it out over Monsters I. There is similar material from the Monsters I book; conditions, attack descriptions and the like. But the bulk is dedicated to new creatures for your game. This book also has a Chimerical Monster table for making your own chimeras. Tables on mutant dinosaurs and vermin. Also a combined monster listing of both books. If you have Blood & Treasure Monsters then you will want this one. If you just like new monsters then get this one too.

You can never have too many monster books in my mind. Even I use one or two per book and my players are surprised or go "what in the hell is that!?" then it is money well spent. Monsters have taught me so much over the years. Monsters lead me to Greek Mythology. Monsters helped me learn how to write code to create databases and then later helped land a DBA job while I was still in school. One day I'll update my old Access95 Monster Database, but it will have be later.

Blood & Treasure 2nd Edition Monsters is for the Blood & Treasure 2nd edition game, but can be used with any Old-school game. The system is a mix of Swords & Wizardry and AD&D 1st Ed/OSRIC so reading the stats is really easy. 215 pages, over 600 monsters. Color cover, black & white interiors.
This one has all the usual suspects from the various SRDs and that is fine for me really. There are some new descriptions and there are new monsters. There are things in this book that make it more worthwhile than just monster stat blocks. There are a number of conditions and definitions ported over from 3.x OGC that are very welcome additions to the "OSR Ruleset". There are guidelines for Monsters as a Character Race which are quite nice. Another import from 3.x are Monster Templates. Now you can a Celestial Gnome or a Draconic Goblin among other things. Really expands your creature database. There are even four mini-adventures included. Not at all bad for just under $10. Highly recommend!

Now I have gone on the record, many, many times, talking about how much I love monster books. My first glimpse into D&D was way back in 1978-79 when I first saw and read the Monster Manual. Very few books have come close to that feeling of unlimited potential. So when a new monster book comes out, I have to take a look and usually grab it.

Beasties II from Night Owl Workshop has something of a pedigree in my mind. The art and text are from none other than Thomas Denmark. He is responsible for some of my favorite art during the d20 boom, in particular, Citizen Games' "Way of the Witch". Plus I LOVED Beasties I so grabbing this was a no brainer for me.

Beasties II is a digest-sized book. 90 pages with black & white art. According to the sales text on DriveThru the book contains: 27 Monsters 8 NPC's 40 Drawings 1 Map Article on Goblinology

The book follows the same format as Beasties I. Like the first Beasties it certainly punches above its weight class in terms of monsters and content. All the text and art is by Denmark himself.

The book is designed for "Original Fantasy Rules" but plenty of conversion notes are given for OSRIC and Basic Fantasy. There are also some conversion notes for Nite Owl Workshop's other games Colonial Troopers, Guardians, Warriors of the Red Planet, Raiders of the Lost Artifacts and Freebooters.

The definition of "monster" is certainly very old-school too, with some traps, "minor monsters", and NPCs included for good measure.

But the REAL reason to get this book is goblins. There are several goblin hybrids; Blorc, Bugbearzerker, Gnomblin, Hoblin, Hoblin (Cruel), Koblin, Zoblin and a whole article on Goblinology or the Ecology of the Goblin. Frankly, the book is worth it for all of this alone.

Seriously. If you like goblins then grab this now.

There are also some undead and some really fun fiends. The Drumph gets a full publication so that is now. A new aquatic humanoid race is introduced, the Shahatha. I rather like them to be honest and will be porting them over to my 5e game.

The NPCs are also a lot of fun. One, Isaina Lyd’ar, reminds me of the work he did for Way of the Witch. So much so I might convert to a White Box Witch. She looks like she would be fun to play. Maybe she is a Sinderan Witch tradition.

So a lot of great content for $4. Plus the entire work is released as "Open" under the OGL so that is a nice touch.

Bookmarks in the PDF would have been nice as well as a PDF clickable table of contents, but that is a minor thing really.

If you love monsters get this book. If you love goblins you REALLY need to get this book.

This reveiw also appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/03/monstrous-monday-beasties-ii-from-night.html

The trouble with most "gamer fiction" is you can practically hear the dice being rolled in the background. Sometimes, and it doesn't matter how compelling the story, you can't bu help see or hear game terms being thrown about.

Thankfully that is NOT the issue here with Shadowtide: A Blue Rose Novel by Joseph D. Carriker, Jr.

Carriker gives us a story we can get into and characters we can care about, that is the job of all good storytellers; whether that medium is a novel, a play or a role-playing game. In this case, we get a good novel that preserves what we like or want from the RPG but still satisfies as a novel.

The story opens with the disappearance (likely murder) of two envoys from the Sovereign's Finest. The Sovereign is Queen Jaelin of Aldis and her envoys are tasked with helping out where they can and mostly fighting the forces of evil. The two envoys are tracking down a reported case of Shadow Sorcerery in the Veran Marsh east of Aldis. Shadow is more than just black magic, it is a taint of the unworldly, of the unnatural. Contrasts are turned up in Aldis, the evil are very evil and the good...well the good try to be very good, but as this book reminds us even the Envoys of the Queen, the very symbols of good, have to make hard choices.

The story begins with a trio of envoys. I would say "unlikely" but in truth the envoys are a varied lot. We have Soot who is a Rhy-Crow, or an intelligent crow with the abilities of an Adept. Morjin Brightstar, a lovable rogue and rake who works best alone, but is constantly falling love with whomever he meets. A note. Morjin is a character who in a lesser hand would have been VERY annoying. But Carriker invests a lot of attention and dare I say love into Morjin that you feel for the guy. He is a former Roamer, a nomadic culture similar to the Romany of our world, but he has been exiled from his clan. So it becomes easy to see how his happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care nature hides a profound sadness of what would be a good heart. Finally the last of our trio is Ydah (pronounced EE0dah). She is a Night person, or what might pass for a half-orc in other books. She is the fighter to Morjin's lover. She is also recovering from recent grief and hides her sadness behind a gruff exterior and a desire to beat the living crap out of people. Which she excels at.

The trio finds themselves in a hidden smuggler's town called Serpent's Haven. Where basically everyone is a criminal or descended from a criminal of some sort. Their mission here is to discover what happened to other envoys and figure out what the nature of the Shadow they were looking for.

I don't want to spoil the plot, but suffice to say it involves cults, crazed cultists, a Dark Fiend and the ever-present danger of Shadow to all that are around it, friend and foe alike.

Naturally, comparisons will be made to the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey, of which Blue Rose is inspired by, but those comparisons are mainly superficial here. Sure one can tell a "Valdemar" story with Blue Rose. One could also tell this story with Blue Rose. The differences to me lie at the heart of what Shadowtide and Blue Rose are really about. The characters of both the novel and game try to do Good with a capital G. But often the only choices they have are goods with a little g. They can't fix every problem. The difference I think then between a Blue Rose character and say a D&D character is that it is the good they can't do is what bothers the Blue Rose characters, and this makes them want to do and be better next time.

That is certainly true for our trio of heroes here. Morjin feels bad about how treats certain people when he knows he has worked towards the greater good. Ydah feels bad about having to kill (and kill she does) cultists, but she needs to stop an even greater evil. Soot, well Soot has some problems all his own and shows us how dangerous the cult they are dealing with is.

In the end, the characters care about their actions. They care about how others see them as envoys and they care about how others are treated. They know there is injustice in the world, even Ydah mentions the stares she still gets in "enlightened Aldis", but they are working to make things a little bit better. Because they care they are not the "murder hobos" of other games or stories and we care more for them as well.

The book ends, but room for a sequel is left open. I certainly hope so. The characters are entertaining and the mystery they are delving into is a fascinating one. Kudos to Carriker for giving us characters whose motivations I believe and whose stories are compelling enough to make me want more.

Serpentine - Oldskull Serpent Folk from Oldskull, aka Kent David Kelly is a nice RPG for adding and using Serpent Folk, known as Serpentine here, in any old-school like game. The book is 41 pages with cover and OGL statement. Everything is 100% open minus the usual trade dress and some names. The book is full color, but mostly public domain black and white art.

The purpose of this book is to bring together various mythos and stories together to present a cohesive whole narrative of a primordial race of serpent people. In this respect, it works rather well.

History and Pre-History of the Serpent Folk. Drawing on the works of Dunsany, Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith Kelley weaves a history (or Hisssstory!) that combines the Hyborian Mythos and the Cthulhu Mythos, with other myths of the world added for good measure. While overtly for the Oldskull world it can be added and modified as any game master needs. One of the reasons it works so well here is that Kelley draws on some primordial myths and legends. The same that influenced the authors of the stories being used. Quotes from those authors are found throughout this book.

Up next we get a Serpent Folk Truename Generator. A useful tool to help you name all those NPCs (or even PCs) you plan on using. This is followed by Description or what your serpent folk looks like. A section on Ability Minimums, Maximums and Modifiers is next. After that are sections on Behavior, XP modifiers, and views on Alignment.

There is a list of serpent folk deities from other myths. It is a good list, but I have a few issues with some of the gods on it; for example Brigid. But the vast majority I see why they are there. Mostly Serpent Folk are going to worship Yig and/or Tsathogga, though Set is a close runner up.

We get into a section now on Class Options for Serpent Folk. Most are going to fall into the various fighter classes and thief-related classes. Also presented here is the new Soul Slaver class, which combines Cleric, Shaman, and Necromancer all in one serpent-related class. It's a good class and it adds a lot of flavor to the Serpent Folk. I might tweak it to be less Necromancer and more Shaman myself, but that is only personal bias, not a shortcoming of the class. Basically, the class draws on the souls of the deceased to perform magical feats. There are spell lists, mostly from the classical B/X and Advanced sources. They advance as Magic-Users, but have their own spell progression and, in a nice old-school touch, level titles.

There is also a section on Racial Powers serpent folk get and what kinds of snakes they are likely to summon. This also included specail attacks and special limitations.

There is a nice section on how Serpent folk get along with Dragons (spoiler, they don't) that really sealed the deal for me. I have been using various serpent-like races (Yuan-ti, Naga) as the ancient ancestral enemies of the Dragonfolk (Dragonborn) for years.

We end with a recomended reading list.

Plays Well With Others

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has been my obsession over the last few weeks. Given the background of both AS&SH and Serpentine, it should really be no surprise then that I see the two of them working quite well together. With the addition of Serpentine you can really "punch up" the stats for Sanke People in AS&SH. Already an interesting monster, now with this addition Snake People go from "just another monster" in the Bestiary section to potential Big Bad material. Growing cult activity? Serpent People. More dinosaur sightings? Serpent People. Increased slave trade? Yup. Serpent People. Plus AS&SH and Oldskull Serpentine draw from exactly the same sources. They just rearrange things in a different order. Both books feature Yig and owners of one book should find it to be of positive use when used with the other book.

Serpentine features the often used Clark Ashton Smith god, Tsathoggua. Here he is considered to be a god of the Serpent People. AS&SH has the god Xathoqqua, which is the same god. There are some differences in how they are portrayed in each book, but gods are supposed to be mutable. Of course, the best source for Tsathogga (yet another spelling) is from the Frog Gods themselves in their Tome of Horror Complete. Here he is presented as a demon, but that is perfect for me really. The same book (and the Tome of Horrors 4) have the Inphidians, which are their versions of the Yuan-ti, save Open for the OGL. Speaking of the Frog Gods, in their Monstrosities book feature Ophidians, a name I have also used in the past, as snake men.

The OSR games Blueholme and Adventurer Conqueror King System both have rules within their systems to allow Serpentine player characters. All you need really is the Serpentine book.

So for just $3 and a little over 40 pages this book packs a lot in. There are so many cool ideas it is hard to figure out where I want to start with it. I think that since Kelley tapped into some primal myths here that all gamers have an idea of these creatures, he just put it down in writing for us.