I was fortunate enough to pick up a copy of Pan, His Majesty In Yellow from the first printing, even after having missed the kickstarter deadline. Written by Wayne Robert, I was excited to pick it up because the fantasy work of J.M. Barrie is a setting that I had not seen made more than passing use of in contemporary fantasy work, being as dominated as it is by precedents set by J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Howard. Hastur and the King in Yellow are also among my favorite elements of the Cthulhu mythos, so blending that into the mix is icing on the cake. While it's not flawless, on the whole I very much enjoyed reading this so I thought I'd share my thoughts with the rest of you.

I should preface this entire review with the knowledge that I do not play Old-School Essentials and so the game mechanic elements of this book were not immediately useful. That does not actually diminish the enjoyment or usefulness of this product overall; I can get stat blocks for monsters in any game easily, but rich setting and adventure seeds are useful in any rules set. It is also not terribly difficult to at least pick out a general sense of how a particular foe should feel on the battlefield; Captain Hook is cunning, the fairies are elusive, the crocodiles are beastly. If the THAC0 of an enemy doesn't directly translate over into World of Darkness or Call of Cthulhu game terms, I doubt my players' experience will be impacted.

The outer cover of the book is gorgeous to look at. I received a matt-finish version of the book which I understand was an error, but I'm not sure that i would have preferred a glossy finish if I was given the choice. The black-and-gold with just a touch of green creeping in gives the book an antique and adult look; this is a book to be taken seriously. There is also a yellow bookmark ribbon that adds to this. The interior is in full color and this is used to great effect: nearly every page has a different color scheme to the one before it, which I found kept my attention engaged and made each entry stand out, with only a couple of exceptions. The artwork is a mix of illustrations taken from Barrie's original books (which I quite liked) and A.I.-rendered pieces (which I am neutral towards). The ethical conversation about A.I. generated art is not what I am writing about here, but I will summarize my position as being in favor of whatever option gives the best end result to the consumer of the product. In this case the results produced images that ranged from uncanny valley to blurry watercolor-esque jumbles. And at times, this actually does work for the living-dream impossible-to-clearly-remember nature of Neverland. Looking at the art of the fairies or the nightmare beasts I can't see what they actually look like, but my brain is left with an emotional impression of what they should feel like. I'm sure it saved the author some money on the art budget as well, but I don't begrudge him that.

There is some effort made to incorporate Haitia the Shepherd (the story that first introduced Hastur, before R.W. Chambers later picked him up to include in The King in Yellow), Greek mythology (Dionysis, Pan, and the Hyades mostly) and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan story cycle. This is not an easy task, and probably mostly wasn't necessary. But it does at least establish the essential relationship at play between Hastur and Peter: Hastur is a spurned, jealous god conspiring from the depths of a cosmic prison to reclaim his grip of control over the mercurial boy-king. The rest of the story about a cosmic bull and the Hyades as protective muse spirits is probably not useful for actual play in-game, but I suppose it's nice to have an answer when players ask why things in Neverland are the way that they are.

Peter Pan himself is a FASCINATING character. I had initially expected a mostly heroic figure, having long since internalized Disney's animated take on the character as most of us probably have. Instead what Wayne Roberts gives us is a horror in the shape of a boy. The quickest comparisons I can draw would be this; when encountered in a good mood Peter is like the character Trelain in classic Star Trek's episode "The Squire of Gothos". Giddy and chaotic, joking and delighted to have new friends to play with, you get the impression that he's blissfully ignorant that his games might be maiming and killing those around him. When confronted, the tone shifts into that of the classic Twilight Zone's episode "It's a Good Life", where Billy Mumy played a young boy with seemingly omnipotent power over everything. Everyone from magic fairies to fearless pirates to Peter's own closest friends are terrified of being "wished away into the cornfield" or some even worse fate. Additionally, Wayne gives us a couple of extra masks for Peter to wear in your games; "Captain Pan" for when Peter wants to enjoy some adventure on the high seas, and The King in Yellow himself, for when Peter is descending into a full-on cosmic tantrum.

The fully mapped-out Neverland Islands is perhaps the "meat" of this book. The map (set in the shape of Chaosium's Yellow Sign) wastes no space, and gives players and GM's a large sandbox to explore and adventure in. This is the only place in the book where I felt it got a little thick with "wall-o-text"; there are eight pages of fairly small text describing the many places of interest on the islands, with very little art to break it up. There is a lot here though, and if you don't have a full adventure prepared you could certainly do worse than simply rolling a random hex and airdropping your players in it, Fortnite-style.

Following the locations we get a collection of monsters and characters that the players can encounter. Some were more exciting than others. The Bleeding Trees and Byakhee are clear Cthulhu transplants, the Mermaids and Fairies would be expected by anyone familiar with other Peter Pan movies. And then there are more curious entries such as Sir George or the Gingerbread Demon. Why does Sir George ride a giant possum? I'll probably never know. I assume there's no actual answer to that. Shadows, witches, wolves, gnomes, a Kraken and a Hydra round out a good variety of different enemies that players could encounter. Random-name generator tables for Faeries and Mermaids is a very welcome tool, and one that works equally well whatever game system you might be using this to run your game. Tables like these, as well as the "Things Peter might say" and "Wisdom of Hank PuddinbottomS" are vastly more helpful to a story-focused game over stat blocks for combat encounters.

Captain Hook gets a full write up that makes it hard not to kinda root for the guy. He is still a villain to be sure, but he retains a nobility that Peter mostly lacks. And he also gets the worst ending in the book. I am glad that Wayne included a selection of options for bringing him back, because I don't think Neverland would feel the same without Hook in it. His first mate Smee also gets a glowing writeup and is painted as quite likeable for a murderous pirate.

On page 50 we have what is easily my favorite addition to the whole book: a list of 88 Lost Children. Or should I say, cameos from other books, movies and media that feature preteen protagonists. Characters ranging from cultural treasure Pippi Longstocking to Nicktoon Tommy Pickles appear here and almost all of them beg to be the basis of an adventure all on their own, with or without the Players along for the ride. There is a shorter list of pirates that make up Captain Rex's crew, but with one or two exceptions I didn't recognize the names in that list and have to assume that they are either mentioned in the original Peter Pan stories or are Wayne's original creations. This isn't the first place in the book where Wayne has drawn in additional fantasy or pop culture references to populate Neverland; I believe I spotted the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on the map earlier, and elsewhere I think that is Ralphie Parker from A Christmas Story ruling a tribe of feral outcasts straight of out The Lord of the Flies. But page 50 is so packed full of ideas and adventure seeds that I would nominate that as the single most indispensible page in the book.

This does bring me a big missed opportunity as well though. The default assumption of the Old School Basics rules seems to presume players will be some variety of standard fantasy heroes; your Ranger, Paladin, Thief, Wizard, Barbarian, and so on. Presumably a mix of humans, elves and dwarves with maybe a half-orc or hobbit thrown in for variety. Through some planar-exploration mishap the party finds themselves on Neverland and can begin exploring and adventuring. While that is fine as ONE possible entry point for the game, what I really would have liked to see were rules for players to make characters who are a bit more native to the setting; "Pirate" as a character class would have been one option (although I suppose the mixture of Assassins, Fighters, Thieves and others that we're given are workable), but even more important would be rules for playing as Children. Either Lost Boys, or visitors in the same vein as the Darling children. In my estimation this would be almost a default assumption for players if I told them we are going to be playing a Peter Pan game. Outside of "Changeling: the Dreaming" I don't know many rpg systems that have preteens as a player option built into the rules, but they would be welcome here. A selection of weapons like slingshots and wooden swords and paint-launchers could have rounded it out.

Another big omission is the missing Picanniny tribe and their 'princess' Tiger Lily. I do respect that a racially charged element like this needed to be handled with care and sensitivity, but scrubbing them completely from the face of Neverland feels like a new wave of native displacement to me (only this time, the colonial force was Gnomes). Making them specifically red-cloaked gnomes is meant as an allusion to the myths of Redcaps, but also feels a little like a dark reference to Disney's recently censored musical number from their original 1953 animated film. "What makes the Red-cloaks red?" indeed. Like the Lost Boys and the Pirates, the Picanniny Tribe would have been (in my estimation) an excellent option for player characters to be drawn from with baked in adventuring skills and easy stakes motivating why they are on any particular quest that the GM decides to send them on.

The book ends with a couple more interesting characters; Captain Rex and Solomon Caw. These two are the most explicitly heroic characters in the book and both are excellent entry points for bringing new characters into the setting and giving them enough exposition to keep them from immediately wandering into the jaws of a chronodile. A selection of magic items is our final section, which is nice to have and I wouldn't have minded it being twice as long. For as interesting as something like a Coracle Spade or Chronodile Scale are, I feel like players might be on the lookout for simpler things like "Bag o' Pixie Dust" or stats for Peter's sword or Hook's hook as items of interest that could find their way into the players hands after a decisive battle and carried with them on into their next campaign in Narnia or somewhere even stranger..

Although some of my review may feel like it is harping on what isn't in the book, it is not my intention to leave you with the impression that this book isn't deeply researched and providing the buyer with a wealth of information and tools with which to populate an exciting and fantastic campaign setting that is far and away from your run of the mill Middle Earth or Forgotten Realms. Rather, I bring up these points because I see so much potential here and this could easily be just volume one of a larger project.

Pan, His Majesty In Yellow (PMIY) is a beautiful hexcrawl for Old School Essentials.

After a brief introduction (and a poem!), the book opens with a nice “Once upon a time…” section devoted to the weird and mysterious life (and death) of Hyas or Pan, touching not only upon the original source, but also in Greek mysteries and the Hastur legendarium. These days I am usually wary of background in OSR modules (as I don’t by OSR for that reason), but PMIY managed to make it not only succinct (just 2 pages) but also very flavorful. After it we get a d66 Things Pan Might Say, followed by more details on the (very weird) Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. In PMIY, Pan is the centre of a struggle between Hastur and Dionysius (or his nymphs). As a result, Pan’s spirit is fragmented and quite mad, split in different personas (including Captain Pan, a pirate, and the evil King in Yellow), while Hastur seeks to reclaim him. If this sounds confusing and dream-like that is precisely the idea. It works beautifully with Hastur’s own mythos. Yes, we get (various) stats for Pan and they are all scary!

The next part is a full description of the Neverborn Islands, including maps (one with hexes), encounter tables, and the weird planar rules of the fantasy realm. “Fantasy” is the word here. The Neverborn Island operate on dream logic and much of the new mechanics are about that: memory loss is a constant threat and death is not the end (this last bit is perhaps the most distinguish factor in PMIY, a campaign setting where forgetting who you are is a lot more dangerous than dying). However, travelers be aware: Pan CAN kill you (permanently). Oh, and yes, if you believe hard enough you CAN fly! The unique mix of new rules makes the Neverborn Island a very interesting scenario to visit and I am already tempted to attach it to most of my current settings just to see what will happen.

Each part of the Neverborn Islands get a small but flavourful description, followed by a few adventure hooks. My favourite locations are those where the dream-like atmosphere and “unrealness” of the setting are highlighted, such as the Dog’s Cemetery. There are a lot of cool references here and there, such as in the Emerald Island and in the Hydra’s Teeth. After the gazetteer, we are presented to the Underhome of the Neverborn Islands (i.e., please insert you favorite dungeon here) and to Carcosa. Both Hastur and Carcosa itself are more of a background threat than a NPC and a location, and PMIY recommends using them to generate an atmosphere of dread and alienation.

The next part of the book is about Denizens, which ran from wonderfully illustrated bleeding trees, blue wolves, and mermaids, to a surreal version of Captain Hook (the undead fairy-slaying pirate, who pillaged Carcosa). Yes, we get a description of the Jolly Roger Pan, together with a map! PMIY’s version of the crocodile is called the Chronodile, a magic warping gargantuam monstrosity. Creatures have stats for OSE, but use some concepts from D&D 5E, such as legendary actions (which work quite nicely in my opinion, but leaves some of the creatures really tough). Other Denizens include the various faeries, Sir George (THE Sir George), the gingerbread demon, a statless Hastur (but with stats for his shadows), the Kraken, Ladon (the famous Hydra), Lost Children, among others. There is a lot of stuff here. PMIY also offer new magic items, including Captain Hook’s coat, the Chronodile Scale, and (of course) the Tatters of the King.

PMIY is a unique book. The flavorful atmosphere, mixing Barrie’s original work with Greek mythology and Ambrose’s Carcosa is so cool that I would still recommend the book even if there were not stats for the Denizens. The fact that the author uses the “original” Hastur and not the Cthulhu pastiche is a plus for me and the part of the setting that I like most. I think that the unique Denizens are a bit too powerful, especially those that use 5E-like mechanics, but that is counterbalanced by the normal monsters, most of which are there more to be interacted with rather than fought (especially the fairies, mermaids, and Lost Children). Finally, it is impossible to read PMIY and not compare it with Neverland by Andrew Kolb. Neverland picks Peter Pan after the events of the original novel and extrapolate a unique OSR for hexcrawling (while updating the setting in matters of sensitivity). Its monsters are some of the best of the OSR. PMIY is widely different. It is a fever-induced mélange of Classics, Ambrose’s alienating Weird Tales, and horror. Both Neverland and PMIY are amazing works and I am happy to have them in my collection. That said, Neverlands is a flavorrful but traditional hexcrawl, while PMIY is a surrealistic, cruel, and tragic scenario. You can visit the Neverborn Islands and try to make sense of it, but if you try to engage it as traditional hexcrawl you will end mad or in the belly of Chronodile in a short time (and yes, that is a compliment!). PMIY reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands at its best: a dangerous and beautiful world that doesn’t make sense where your goal is to keep your wits and survive until you can scape it. In fact, I like it mix of fantasy and horror so enthralling that next time I won’t send my players to Ravenloft, but to the realm of Pan, His Majesty in Yellow, below the Hyades and above Carcosa.