I am a fan of the Hellboy comic and of the d20 RPG that was inspired by it (and pulp action in general). And I was excited about the the fact that there are going to be published adventures written for it. But I was disappointed by what I bought. I find this product short and lack luster. I bought the PDF for $5 and found out that it is 12 pages...including the cover, the page with legal boilerplate, and one page with a brief introduction that explains that Cannister 7 is meant to be part of a series of adventuers. This adventure (or the outline of this adventure) is covered over the other 9 pages.

In very broad strokes: The heroes are sent to collect a dangerous McGuffin in Berlin. And one or two groups intervene to try and steal the McGuffin from the heroes by force.

Things Canister 7 does well:The layout & graphics are proffesionally done and have actual Hellboy art inside from the comics. Good and good. Though the mission is very simple, the authors think about the likely choices/responses the heroes are going to make. And provides outlines for how the adversaries will react to those choices. The heroes won't necessarily be railroaded into specific situations. Good.

Things that are missing: There are zero maps provided. Yuck. Where the action takes place will varry by PC choices, but maps of a sasfehouse, a warehouse and a roadside would all be very useful. Can a GM figure this out on their own? Sure. But if I'm buying an adventure I expect to be able to prep and run it with minimal elaboration on my part. There is also zero boxed text or sample dialogue offered for the adversaries. (?!?) Double yuck. The villians might as well come as 2 dimensional cut outs from cental casting. The only potentially interesting people for the PCs to talk with are the 5 NPCs provided for the "hand off" of the McGuffin. And it says that their "face" would love to exchange two or three sentences and then vamoose. Many PCs won't interact with the only NPCs who have anything resembling a personality. Finally there are no stats. You are sent to the Hellboy book to access stats there for the generic opposition.

What I think this really is: a useful outline to prompt a GM to create their own 1-3 hour adventure from.

I pay $5 for PCI's Arcanis adventures which make for an interesting comparison. Arcanis adventures run around 30 pages, run over 4-8 hours, have maps, colorful indivual NPCs (with box text or bullet points for info and how they share it) and stats for unique enemies. They don't have the groovy graphic design and layout...but as a GM I find them an excellent value. For $5 I don't think this is a good value despite recycled Hellboy art. I hope Nightfall Games puts more meat on the bones of the next instalment.

Disapointing.

I am a fan of the Hellboy comic. And I thought that Mantic Games did a good job with thier Hellboy RPG main book. So I had hopes for this product. But this line of adventures continues to underperform. I am not sure if I will purchase the third or other future parts.

For the price of a $5 pdf you get 7 1/2 pages of adventure plus a title page and some legal boiler plate. Anyway you slice it, I do not consider this a great (or even a good) value. There are no encounter maps. Only one NPC (and not even the central one) gets a last name. Some obvious NPCs don't appear at all - for example the PCs are almost certainly going to investigate at a hospital and liason with local law enforcement. No names or characters given. The PCs are told to avoid the tabloids. No reporters or tabloids given. Which I guess explains why there is no complications for them actually geting involved. I guess the writers want to do a "sandbox" style adventure, but its hard to do on 7 and a half pages. And some of those pages are filled with art...which while lovely don't help flesh this out beyond a basic outline.

I want to like this but am frustrated by everything that should be in here but is missing. In college I had all day to prep stuff to run as a gamemaster. As a working adult I don't. I'm looking for more than what's on offer.

I give this three stars rather two or one because there are some improvements from Canister VII. The NPCs want to talk to the players in this one! And the plot, threadbare as it is in its 7 pages, captures some of the goofier energy the Hellboy comic sometimes has. A fairly standard argument between neighbors results in a botched summoning that spirals out of control without quite killing anyone ... if the heroes can contain the chaos. A lighter adventure its potentially a fun palate cleanse between more serious campaign beats.

Arcanis is the award winning setting developed by PCI. Codex of the Mind is their book of all things psionic in nature. You probably want it. CotM has 8 chapters and 3 Appendixes including a small collection of threats at the end. I'm giving it a full 5 stars because it's pretty strong across all phases of what it does. Good mechanics? Check. Beautiful art? Check. Proffesional layout? Check. For followers of the Arcanis setting ... expose previously hidden mysteries? Check. Terrifying villians and monsters? Check.

Mechanically the book introduces three new core classes and a few psionic archetypes that can be added to other classes (I particularly like the Rogue Occissor). The psion class is loosely based on the warlock and the idea of foci. Your foci essentially grant you your boons. But you also burn foci to manifest your powers/spells which create bigger effects in combat ...but which also mean you loose a focused ability/boon until you get your foci back after a short rest. The Psychic Warrior also uses foci and is loosely based on the D&D paladin. You will use your foci to smite as well as manifest a few spells. Finally a class called the wilder has less range of spells than a true psion but hits somehwat harder. Its the "barbarian" of the spellcasting set. All of these have a large collection of archetypes ... about 50 new archetypes across all classes in the book .. hope you like creating characters or have time to start a new campaign or three.

The fluff is set within the world of Arcanis. Depending on wether or not you actually play in the Arcanis setting (you should!) this material is either must have for the secrets of the worlds history that are revealed ... or just interesting material to mine stories from for your own campaign. The fastest summary of Arcanis you need to know as a potentyial buyer is that it's loosely based on the fall of Rome (the Coryani Empire is in decline) and the human controlled lands are ruled by various "val" Families. Who alone posses the power of psionic magic due to their ancestors alignment with the Pantheon of Man. In 2016 at a special event at Origins the Arcanis Living Campaign first heard of a secret family that once held power in ancient Empires. The val'Cessari. Now 7n years later their history is included and revealed.

Visually the book is as good as other Arcanis products ... which is pretty good! In addition to Pat Loboyko who has been the "face" of ARcanis for some time, the book also has great art from a number of newer artists. Sjoerdie Devos does creepy monsters very very well.

Chapter 8 deserves a special shout out for all the GMs reading this. Eight is about the Silence, the shadowy behind the scenes uber villians of the Arcanis setting who seek to turn off the Universe. Psions in Arcanis have lived a priveleidged life because they are supposed to stop the Silence in "the End Timns." Good luck to them. Arcanis has Voicessless Ones rather than Illithids. To its great sorrow. This chapter talks a little about the known history of the Silence (not a lot!), its goals as Inquisitors understand them and some crunch for the building of cultists and monsters that serve it. You could build a campaign out from this chapter if you wanted to.

I have a few nits to pick but they're small. Gamers old enough to remember the first and second edition of D&D will see a ressurection of "Psionic Combat" in an Appendix with Attack Modes and Defenses as optional rules. I wasn't a fan then, and one look at the current expanded rules, looks like paralysis by analysis. But maybe you've missed them all these years? Along with THAC0 ... if so I won't judge. Still I would have prefered those pages be spent on something else. That's my most serious criticism.

Does your campaign desperately need a different spellcaster? If yes then stop reading and buy it! But even if your response is maybe not, you should consider a look. There is A LOT here that can be mined and used in your campaign.

Five stars