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.