A Game of Thrones Vol 3

Title: A Game of Thrones Vol 3

ISBN: 9780007578580

Price: $26.00

Publisher/Year: Dynamite, 2014

Artist: Tommy Patterson

Writer: George R. R. Martin, Daniel Abraham

Collects: A Game of Thrones #13-18



Rating: 3.5/5

We’re now into the meat of this sprawling fantasy saga. The book opens with the recovery of Eddard Stark, appointed the King’s Hand, a post intended to combine counsel and protection, but despite being an old friend, the King prefers to plot his own course. The problem is not eased by court politics. The Stark family has no time for the equally influential Lannisters, and the Queen is from that family. Matters are further complicated by Eddard’s wife Catelyn holding another Lannister hostage. The cultivated Tywin understands the situation, while resolutely not guilty of the plotting for power endemic to his family, an innocence not believed by Catelyn.

Those used to A Game of Thrones from the TV show will find much here not seen on the screen, as the adaptation is of the original novel on which the series was based. Adaptor Daniel Abraham is able to include far more in the way of detail, and includes the flashback sequences that forged both the cast and their society.

Midway through the book there’s a demise that shifts the entire political scenario, tipping it in one direction, leaving other parties dangerously exposed. Elsewhere, a problem of adapting a novel of such density spread over several locales again emerges. Key player Daenerys Targaryen was barely seen until the conclusion of the previous book, and she’s once again forgotten until the midway point here. We see the staff of the Night’s Watch on the Wall far more frequently, as proof of sinister creatures is now explicit.

Artist Tommy Patterson, possibly for reasons of speed, is resorting more frequently to supplying his cast in cartoon style, but sporadically delivers some fine designs, such as his depiction of Aegon’s iron throne, constructed from the swords of enemies surrendered.

It’s taken some considerable while to move the cast where they need to be, but in this book the tension and intrigue steps up, and there’s barely a scene change that doesn’t tease. George R. R, Martin plots very deeply and diligently, and for those who already know what’s to come there’s a pleasure in seeing how well it’s set up. For those not familiar with the plot in any other form, this book concludes on quite the cliffhanger, to be picked up in volume four.

Witch+Craft: A 5E Crafting Supplemental

Title: Witch+Craft: A 5E Crafting Supplemental

Price: $20.00 (PDF), $35.00 (Hardbound)

Publisher/Year: Astrolago Press, 2020

Author(s): Shannon Campbell, Damon Hines, Dillon MacPherson

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 4/5

Are you a fan of Studio Ghibli movies?  Well, I am and the authors of Witch+Craft: A 5E Crafting Supplemental are as well. And this book proudly and openly displays that love.  But I am getting a little ahead of myself. 

Witch+Craft is a full-color hardcover 214-page book.  The theme of the book is decidedly high magic, and a style of high magic infuses all aspects of the lives of the people of this particular vision of the 5e fantasy universe.  This book is exactly the opposite of "grimdark," wherein magic is everywhere and it is a tool to be used to make things better.   I state this upfront because that is the pervasive philosophy of the book.  It works, and it is a great one to have.  But it will have to fit your style of gaming and campaigns.  I knew this on the onset, and lets be honest, the cover gives this away, but if this is not your kind of game there is not a lot (there is some!) that this book can give you.  

That all being said this book is a fantastic resource for anyone that has ever said "can I use magic to make BLANK?" Where BLANK is anything and everything from clothes that clean themselves, to self-sorting spell components, to fire that heats but won't burn, to well...half a thousand things I have heard from my kids in their 5e games.

While I may have started this review with who this book is not for, who it absolutely IS for is anyone that has ever played an Artificer in 5e or an Alchemist in Pathfinder 2e.

What this book doesn't have, despite the name, is a Witch class.  Ah well. 

Introduction

We get the basics of this book. In bold letters right in the first line of the first paragraph we get : 

This book is about making things.

You have to appreciate this. Some RPG books are never quite as clear as to what they are about. This book is also about rounding out your character with Trade Classes.  Though Trade Professions would likely be a better term. You can take these along with your Fighter, Wizard, or whatever levels. I will get into more details in a bit.

Chapter 1: Domestic Magic

Part 1 of this chapter covers the basics of crafting. The six-step process is listed and then detailed. 

1. Blueprint. You propose a project.
2. Challenges. The GM imposes a Difficulty Level based on the specifications of the project. They will also list the base materials required to make the crafting attempt at all. (7 levels total)
3. Preparation. You may prepare for the project in order to improve your chances of success.
4. Craft Action. You begin the project, rolling to qualify your success.
5. Fine-tuning. After the rolls are in, you may choose to expend bonuses to alleviate any potential flaws.
6. Appraising. When all is said and done, the item is created, and its features and flaws known.

The rules here a pretty simple and even elegant in their own ways.  It does add to the 5e system as a new sub-system.  So while old schoolers will not even blink an eye it does feel "added on."  Now this is not a bad thing.  It feels like the best system for detailed craftwork, as opposed to say "just roll a d20 and beat this DC."

Part 2 deals with Trade Class basics.  This is just a tracking system on how you get better with crafting.  Class is kind of a misnomer here since it is not a D&D Class.  Trade Profession might have been a better choice.  These professions/classes can progress through Tiers (not levels) and have different kinds of media they work in; crystals, drafting, living arts, metals, textiles, and wood.

Part 3 covers Techniques. Or how you can do things.  This also covers tools.  They are presented like feats but are attached to the Tiers. For example "Green Thumb" does more or less what you think it does.  The prereq is "Living Arts or Wood."  While presented like a feat, it does not have any "combat" advantages.  Certainly lots of role-playing advantages.

Part 4 is Picking Your Trade Class.  Here are the actual classes/professions. They are based around the media above.  So someone that works with crystals could be Glass Blower or a Mason or a Jeweler. The builds cover what other materials you can work with, what tools you have, and starting techniques.  Each media get three example builds.

Chapter 2: Cape Verdigris

Cape Verdigris is a setting where all of this crafting and domestic magic can be seen in use. It lists places of interest, guilds, shops, and many major NPCs. It is designed to be added to pretty much any campaign world. 

Chapter 3: A House of Plenty

This is a 40-page complete adventure of a different sort.  The goal here is to restore an old manor house to it's former glory using the crafting skills they have learned in this book.  So in TV shows, you are trading Sci-Fi or Shudder for HGTV. There is something interesting here and I really admire the authors' choices here.  

Chapter 4: Spells

This chapter covers 12 new spells to use in conjunction with the rules.  

Chapter 5: Familiars

Also what it says on the cover, this introduces 10 new familiars. Many are fey, others are animals. Greater familiars are also presented here. If you wanted a soot familiar like the ones in "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Spirited Away" then this chapter has you covered.

Chapter 6: Items

Not just magic items but a whole bunch of mundane and domestic magic items as well.  The blanket of napping is an easy favorite. 

Appendices

Here we get a collection of various stats. 

• Appendix I. The NPCs from Chapters 2 and 3 get their writeups here. Why not with the chapters? Easy, in the chapters, you are supposed to be focused on who these people are how you interact with them, NOT what their combat stats are. 
• Appendix II covers unusual trades like healers and wandmakers.
• Appendix III has various boons and flaws of the items crafted. These can be minor, major or magical/dangerous for boons and flaws respectively. 
• Appendix IV is a list of crafting obstacles.
• Appendix V cover crafted treasures
• Appendix VI is Awakened Objects. So lots of monster stats here.
• Appendix VII covers the stats of various objects; HP and AC.

There is a very attractive character sheet in back. The next few pages cover all the designers and artists that helped make this book possible.  There is also a list of Kickstarter contributors. Sadly there are a few typos here with some names cut off, some listed more than once.  Mine isn't even listed at all. 

There is also an index and the OGL statement.

The book really fantastic and joy to look at.  The art is great, the layout is wonderful and very easy on the eyes.

The audience for this book is a little slim.  There is nothing in this book really that would help in combat, defeating the next big bad (unless he challenges you to a bake-off) or any of the things that people typically associate with D&D.  This is much more of a narrative presentation with a lot of role-playing potential.  

One of it's strengths though design-wise is that since the crafting system is not inherently tied to D&D5 is can be lifted out and added to other games with only minor tweaking.  For example, Chapters 1 to 3 could be lifted out and added to something like Blue Rose AGE edition with a little work.  

I would like to recommend this to Old-School gamers. I could something like this working well with a game like Old-school Essentials or The Hero's Journey. But even those games tend to be combat-heavy at times and really don't have much in the way of the need for various crafting. Not to say that some groups or players wouldn't, it's just not universal.

This book is best for the younger D&D 5 player that got into D&D after a steady diet of Minecraft and the ones that loved crafting items in MMORPGs. It is also great for any DM that wants a better handle on making items of any sort.

Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow

Title: Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow 

Price: $5.31 (PDF), $6.00 (Staplebound)

Publisher/Year: Critical Kit Ltd, 2024

Author(s): Tim Roberts

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 4/5

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is a journaling game which enables the player to take to the skies as a corvidae—crow, magpie, jackdaw, or rook—over multiple landscapes and differing genres, achieving objectives, exploring, and growing as they learn and grow old. Published by Critical Kit, a publisher better known for its scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The roleplaying game combines the simple mechanics and use of a deck of playing cards typical of a journaling game with five genres—‘Urban Crow’, ‘Cyber-Crow’, ‘Gothic Crow’, ‘Fantasy Crow’, ‘Clockwork Crow’, and ‘Ravens of the Tower’. Each of these presents a different place and time for the bird to fly over, land on, encounter the denizens, and more. Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is a supplement that takes the game in an entirely different direction, to the edge of Lovecraft Country. As in Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, the player’s crow will take to the air, here encountering the weird and the eldritch, including cults of Pelicans, tentacled terrors terrorizing boats traveling up and down the river, forests where the trees are dying from a luminously purple rot, as well as notables from Lovecraft Country, including Doctor Henry Armitage and Brown Jenkin.

Mechanically, Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, and thus Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is simple. It uses a standard deck of playing cards and when a player wants his bird to undertake an action, he draws a card from the deck. This sets the difficulty number of the task. To see whether the bird succeeds, he draws another card and adds the value of a skill to the number of the card if appropriate. If it is equal or greater than the difficulty number, the bird succeeds. If an action is made with Authority, whether due to circumstances or a skill, the player draws two cards and uses the highest one, whereas if made at a Penalty, two cards are drawn and the lowest value one used. When drawn, a Joker can be used or saved for later. If the latter, it can be used to automatically succeed at a combat or skill check, to heal injuries, or to discard a card and draw again. Combat is a matter of drawing a card for each opponent, adding a skill if appropriate, and comparing the totals of the cards and the skills. The highest total wins each round and inflicts an injury. Eventually, when the deck is exhausted, the discard pile is reshuffled and becomes the new deck.

The play and thus the journaling of Be Like a Crow is driven by objectives as achieving these will enable a bird to advance through his lifecycle. An objective for the ‘Crowthulhu’ setting, might be for example, “A cult of [characters] has stolen [object] from the museum. They are performing a dark ritual with it near [location]. Attempt to stop them.” The player will also need to draw cards to identify the character, the object, and the location, and then as his bird flies from hex to hex across the map, draw cards for events in flight, and then for events when he lands. The player is free to, and advised to, ignore prompts if they do not fit the story, and this may be necessary if a prompt is drawn again, but ideally, the player should be using the prompts as drawn to tell a story and build the life of his crow.

Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow requires the core rules of Be Like a Crow, as well as a standard deck of playing cards. As well as providing the rules, it provides the prompts for events in flight and on land that are standard to each of the roleplaying game’s settings, but what Crowthulhu provides is its own set of tables its objectives, objects, characters, and locations. Two sets of objectives are provided, one for the red suits and one for the black suits, the same again for characters or NPCs, and again for objects and locations for Crowthulhu. Thus locations can be the dreamer’s dimension or the bedsit of an ageing musician, an object could be a scroll of Egyptian hieroglyphics which can be traded with an academic for another object or a miniature flail made tentacles that can be used in an attack, a character a crazed sea captain who talks in riddles or Herbert West, a shamed medical student researching reanimation, and an objective that cats are disappearing from the local area and the crow must find them and prevent further disappearances or a professor at the university has found a dangerous tome and plans to harness its powers, and the crow must go there and destroy it before he can!

Most, if not all of the entries have a Lovecraftian theme, whether that is investigating why a geologist has been acting strangely after he visited a recent meteor crash or encountering Brown Jenkin who will befriend the crow, but his manner is antagonistic and he probably wants you to fail. Many of the encounters involve FEAR, whether that is with a Deep One or a swan high-priest of Crowthulhu. (Crowthulhu itself is not defined in the supplement, being left up to the player’s imagination to describe.) Fear is the new mechanic introduced in Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow. As with other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, this measures a character’s—or crow’s—reaction to the cosmic horror of the Mythos and ability to withstand its debilitating effects. It comes into play when the Fear prompt is drawn and is tested much like a standard skill or ability test in the game. However, failure means that the crow is fearful and his player must add a tick to his Fear section on the character sheet. Once a crow has any ticks marked off under his Fear, the number acts as a penalty to all of his actions including other Fear checks, representing the traditional downward spiral of the crow’s sanity typical of the genre, though kept simple for the journaling format and style of play. It is possible for a crow to become less afraid. Either by expending a Joker card, which removes all Fear ticks, or potentially just a single one when exploring a new location.

In terms of locations, Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow includes its own setting, the Massachusetts town of Rooksbridge. This is the town in the nineteen twenties, supposedly built on a site where witches were executed in the seventeenth century, but is now best known for its relatively isolated location, along with its asylum and its university, which specializes in American history, and of course, has a library which specializes in the occult. From Blasted Heath and Crowdaw River to Independence Hill and Wytch House, has a decently hinted New England, post-colonial feel to it.

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG

Title: Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG

Price: $7.98 (PDF), $20.00 (Staplebound)

Publisher/Year: Critical Kit Ltd, 2022

Author(s): Tim Roberts

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 4/5

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is a journaling game which enables the player to take to the skies as a corvidae—crow, magpie, jackdaw, or rook—over multiple landscapes and differing genres, achieving objectives, exploring, and growing as they learn and grow old. It is clever and thoughtful in that it makes the reader and player think outside of what they might traditionally roleplay and explore a world quite literally from a bird’s-eye view. It combines the simple mechanics and use of a deck of playing cards typical of a journaling game with five genres—‘Urban Crow’, ‘Cyber-Crow’, ‘Gothic Crow’, ‘Fantasy Crow’, ‘Clockwork Crow’, and ‘Ravens of the Tower’. Each of these presents a different place and time for the bird to fly over, land on, encounter the denizens, and more. The book is easy to read and the rules and set-up easy to grasp, such that the player can start reading and taking inspiration from the prompts in Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG and begin making recording entries in his journal, with little difficulty.

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is not a roleplaying game about anthropomorphic birds. The player is very much exploring worlds and recording the experiences of an actual bird, as it goes from a fledgling to a juvenile to an adult. Each bird is defined by its size and habits such as nesting, diet, notable characteristics, and habitat. In game terms, each type of bird begins play with a certain number of ticks in various skills. Skills are broken down into four categories—‘Travel & Exploration’, ‘Social Interaction’, ‘Tools & Rituals’, and ‘Combat’—each of which has four skills. A corvidae begins play with two ticks in any one skill and one tick in a skill in each category, plus ticks in five skills for his species. He also has authority with two skills. The player’s choice of setting will add ticks to certain skills as well.

• Jay
• Species: Magpie
• Lifecycle Stage: Fledgling
• Setting: Cyber-Crow
• Injuries:

SKILLS

• Travel & Exploration: Fly 1, Hop 1, Search 2, Navigate 1
• Social Interaction:  Befriend 1, Signal –, Scare 1, Mate –
• Tools & Rituals: Dance –, Sing –, Use Tool 1, Preen 1
• Combat: Peck 1, Claw –, Divebomb 1, Evade 1

Mechanically, Be Like a Crow is simple. It uses a standard deck of playing cards and when a player wants his bird to undertake an action, he draws a card from the deck. This sets the difficulty number of the task. To see whether the bird succeeds, he draws another card and adds the value of a skill to the number of the card if appropriate. If it is equal or greater than the difficulty number, the bird succeeds. If an action is made with Authority, whether due to circumstances or a skill, the player draws two cards and uses the highest one, whereas if made at a Penalty, two cards are drawn and the lowest value one used. When drawn, a Joker can be used or saved for later. If the latter, it can be used to automatically succeed at a combat or skill check, to heal injuries, or to discard a card and draw again. Combat is a matter of drawing a card for each opponent, adding a skill if appropriate, and comparing the totals of the cards and the skills. The highest total wins each round and inflicts an injury. Eventually, when the deck is exhausted, the discard pile is reshuffled and becomes the new deck.

Half of Be Like a Crow consists of prompts and settings. There are prompts for events in flight and on land that are standard to all six settings, but each setting has its set of tables for objectives, objects, characters, and locations. Only one set of objectives is given for each setting, but the objects, characters, and locations are divided between the black and the red suit colors. This gives thirteen objectives per setting and double that for each of the other categories. Each setting also includes a double-page, full color map. Notes on each setting give the extra abilities and skills that a bird gains at each stage of his lifecycle, from fledgling all the way up to ol’ crow.

The play and thus the journaling of Be Like a Crow is driven by objectives as achieving these will enable a bird to advance through his lifecycle. An objective for the ‘Clockwork Crow’ setting, might be for example, “[character] has gone missing, last seen in [location]. Air ship pirates might be involved. Travel there and find them and return them back to their home in [location].” The player will also need to draw cards to identify the character and both locations, and then as his bird flies from hex to hex across the map, draw cards for events in flight, and then for events when he lands. The player is free to, and advised to, ignore prompts if they do not fit the story, and this may be necessary if a prompt is drawn again, but ideally, the player should be using the prompts as drawn to tell a story and build the life of his crow.

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting

Title: Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting

Price: $19.99 (PDF), $34.99 (Hardcover)

Publisher/Year: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2020

Author(s): Andrew Kolb, Katie Gould, Daniel D. Fox

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3/5

EXPLORE THE ISLE OF MISCHIEF & MYSTERY: Many have heard of the island of Neverland. Stories of pirates, mermaids and Peter Pan are told by parents around the world to send their children off to a happy, dreaming sleep. But, it’s been a long time since the Darlings first flew to Neverland and a new story is about to be told. Your own.

This 171 page booklet details the island of Neverland, from Peter Pan, and it’s 26 hexes, politics, and creatures. Pretty strong usability support a deadly, yet recognizably whimsical/twisted place. It falls down on both evocative descriptions and Adventure Motivation, the later of which is essentially handed by an adventure generator. I think I’m terrible at reviewing campaign settings, but, really, if its organized as a hex crawl then what’s the difference? If I wanted to run a darker Peter Pan themed game then this is worthwhile with substantially more usability than your typical fluff-based campaign setting.

Not that there’s anything wrong with fluff. I like it too, but I don’t think it’s very reviewable. Thus the focus on this thing as a hex crawl. And, in fact, it’s organized as a hex crawl, making it substantially more usable than most settings. It has about 26 hexes, all with something going on in them, and about half or so with some kind of dungeon/lair in it. The last forty or so pages of this book are fiction, so you’re getting about 140 pages of actual content, most of which are new monsters. 

The very first content page of the book gives a general overview of what’s going on in Neverland, organized by the group/faction. This is GREAT. It’s a large book, with a lot going on. Having a one page summary orients the DM to what’s going on and gets their framing together. Now, when they look over a hex that talk about spiders they have more context in to which to place the information; their allies, enemies, goals, etc. Providing context, up front, is a great tool to get the DM s mind in the right place for the follow up information to come. Disney does it with their line queues. You could even think of the “room name” or a keyed encounter doing the same thing. 11 (text) or 11: Library or 11: Spooky Library or 11: Gloom-filled Library might be thought of as various ways to present a key to a DM, with, as it should be obvious, degrees of orienting the DM to the coming content. 

The hexes themselves are laid out one to a page. You get a short little description of a couple of paragraphs, few sentences, a map showing it in context to other hexes, a little isometric art view, and note of some window dressing of what happens in the next during the twice a day “the chimes” go off, as well as about four or five tables to generate content for the hex. Hex travel time is covered up front, each hex being 2 miles, taking four hours to cross as dense jungle … which solves most of the problems of “what can i see in the next hex.” Encounters can be dense, with things generally rolled once an hour or so in a hex, with some significant variation to that timeline through a specific mechanic mentioned. Still, good service of hex travel and encounter generation.

The creatures have a good lore section each, mostly just a tacked on sentence, that is GREAT! Undead dwarves need to be turned face down to keep them from re-rising, for example. This sort of brief hit specificity is present all throughout the setting. Oracular portents, etc, get the same treatment. It’s consistently done at a pretty high level and that creates a campaign setting that FEELS like a place, because of the specificity, but doesn’t feel overwhelming to run … for the most part. The setting comes alive and you are, I think, excited to run it with the possibilities. And the darker twists, like what actually happens to the kids that come to neverland, are generally present throughout, making this a good setting for role-playing. 

There are also, however, numerous misses in the adventure/hex crawl. Cross-references are non-existent. This means that when a hex encounter tells you that you find the dungeon/lair in that hex then you must then dig through the book to find the page it is on. SOME of that can be handled by the Table of Contents, but a simple cross-ref would have worked better. Plus, “the farmer” and “the gatehouse keeper” seems like they could an explicitly cross-ref, given their lack of inclusion in the ToC, yes? Not the end of the world, but not great.

Monsters/creatures, also get some piss poor descriptions. For all their great “one sentence lore” inclusion they essentially have no descriptions at all. Maybe a brief illustration, but the first line of nearly every monster entry in every product should be some visceral description for the DM to use on the players, or inspire the DM when the players encounter the creature. Not here; there’s essentially none. And that lack of evocative description spills over in to the locations, encounters, etc. While the general setting details are present for how Neverland works, the locations themselves are presented in a very fact-based manner [using bullets, so the information is quite easy to find in most cases. This thing is, but for the cross-references, a triumph of organization and ease of use.] But facts themselves do not inspire.

And, of course, it’s really a setting, so there are no real adventures. There’s a table for generating some ideas, as well as another one with about twenty more specific ideas. But, it feels … empty? As if everyone in Neverland is simply repeating the same things and going through the motions. Go find X for Y, or keep an eye on Z and report back to A. The lack of specificity in the room keys is also an explicitly decision the designer made and I don’t think a good one. 

And then there’s the supplemental tables. These are wedged in to the back section of the book, but not the VERY end of the book. AT the very end they would have been easy to flip to and find, in a print version. And some, like, what is the creature in the hex doing and why, are critically important to locate quickly during the game. These sorts of tables should be at the end, beginning, middle … someplace they are easy to locate during play.

Finally, the notion of themes. Going Home, What it Means, Parents. Themes from Peter Pan, the book. This is mentioned in one brief paragraph at the beginning. This could have been strengthened quite a bit with some examples, or, even, examples in the individual NC”s, creatures, or hexes/locations. That would have made the thing MUCH stronger and, even, I think, solved some of the “what do we do now” syndrome that the generic adventure generator tries to solve.

I don’t usually review settings, but, this is more hex crawl with a strong setting element, some hybrid of the two, perhaps. More cohesive than a normal hex crawl but less specific in the actual adventure possibilities. It’s a great work and, brining your own ideas for adventure, could be the basis for a great campaign. But, as a stand alone resource for a hex crawl it leaves too much to be desired. 

OZ: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting

Title: OZ: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting

Price: $19.99 (PDF), $34.99 (Hardcover)

Publisher/Year: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2022

Author(s): Andrew Kolb, Katie Gould, Daniel D. Fox, Carmen Maren, Julie Hurdiss, Holly Swayne, Sierra S. Stanton

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3.5/5

As a child, I was a huge (huge) fan of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. If you only know Oz from the movie The Wizard of Oz, or the musical/movie/reboot Wicked, you may be surprised to learn that around the turn of the 20th century, Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, at the rate of about one per year, all set in a fantasy early-modern setting filled with a range of strange and wondrous beasts and characters. After he finished writing them, the series was taken up by another author, Ruth Plumly Thompson, and continued for more than a dozen new books. All in all, there are about 40 Oz books with several side books (like Queen Zixi of Ix) and nearly all of them are available at Project Gutenberg. I’ve probably read like 30 of them.

Recently, the copyright on these turn-of-the-20th-century novels expired, opening the door for even more creators to work in this setting. Andrew Kolb created a beautiful book called Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting that fully fleshes out the Emerald City into an early-modern urban fantasy pointcrawl. It was wonderful and interesting to read, and the setting is fantastic. The hardback book is beautiful, and definitely worth getting in print, and widely available. (In addition to Oz, Kolb has also written and illustrated setting books for Neverland and Wonderland). And soon, I’ll be starting a campaign in Oz!

The setting of Oz is wonderfully unique; clearly a fantasy setting, but long pre-Tolkien, influenced by fairy tales and by the writer’s idea of modernism and what modern America was like. That means that in addition to magic, there are scams, disinformation, mechanical marvels, people of all types living together, and arguments about forms of life and forms of government, the role of the military, and many other issues that resonate strongly with modern life. Further to that, as I realized when thinking about the setting, Oz is ruled by a canonically trans person (Ozma, who was raised as the boy Tip until she discovered her true self and fairy magic), and gender roles are much less constrained than in Tolkien’s fantasy world. Baum indeed was married to Maud Gage, the daughter of a noted suffragist and women’s rights activist, Matilda Joslyn Gage, who also campaigned for Native American rights and abolition, and was in general a pretty cool person.

Another great feature of Oz as a setting is that, like other older settings, there is a long tradition of lore to draw from, if you so choose. Here, for example, is the terrifyingly comprehensive Oz Timeline site. There are comic books. There are podcasts. There is everything your heart could desire. You want to know what the A-B-Sea Serpent looks like? There are several different versions.

The cover of the book says it’s compatible with 5e. However, if you are used to playing 5e, as I am, this book is somewhat baffling, for a few reasons:

• There’s little guidance about how to create a player character in terms of backgrounds or races that might be suitable. With the new 2024 rules, that is even more true.
• The monsters use stat blocks that are in a (very) non-standard format and lacking some familiar elements like challenge ratings. Many DMs will need some help interpreting and running these monsters.
• It is taken as read that the players will make their own adventure, in a sandboxy sort of way; but many 5e players and DMs don’t really know how to do that.

Thus Oz really lies in this nameless valley between OSR and 5e – OSR in vibe, ostensibly 5e. You could play it using Shadowdark rules (which also exist in that valley) or Old School Essentials rules (which are D&D Basic/Expert rules from 1981, and squarely OSR), but I thought I would write about running it in 5e, which its author seems to have intended – although not to to the point of really spelling it out. Please feel free to comment with your own ideas, especially if you’ve also run an adventure or campaign in this setting.

Rat Queens Vol. 4: High Fantasies

Title: Rat Queens Vol. 4: High Fantasies

ISBN: 9781632158994

Price: $14.99

Publisher/Year: Image, 2017

Artist: Owen Gieni

Writer: Kurtis Wiebe

Rating: 3.5/5

The Rat Queens are finally back! And in attempt to save the comic from a controversial series of events, creator Kurtis J. Wiebe attempted a, sort of, reboot. Rat Queens is a raunchy, comedic series that features adventurers Hannah, Dee, Violet, and Betty, in a mock Dungeons & Dragons world. In the first two volumes of this comic series, our four main adventurers (sort of) saved their home of Palisade from the spawn of N’rygoth, an ancient god who Dee once worshipped, albeit destroying much of Palisade in the process, while the third saw Hannah’s storyline diverge from the others as she attempted to rescue her step-father after he was arrested by the Mage University that she'd attended. We’ve learned a lot about these characters, their backstories, their personality quirks, their hopes and fears, and some of the past volumes really delved deeply into hard-hitting issues… and then there’s this volume. 

To give those who don’t know some insight into the controversy surrounding Rat Queens, we have to go back to the very first volume. Originally the artwork for the series was done by Roc Upchurch, a comic veteran, who (in my opinion) captured the series and the characters the best. Unfortunately, Upchurch proved to be a bit of an asshole. He was involved in some domestic violence, and was quickly taken off the Rat Queens project, and rightly so. In his place came Stjepan Šejíc and then Tess Fowler… neither of which did a really good job at capturing the feel and look of Rat Queens. Fowler eventually left after allegations that Wiebe was trying to bring Upchurch back, and it seemed like Rat Queens was doomed. This latest volume of Rat Queens, the fourth in the series, is illustrated by Owen Gieni, who, of all the replacement artists, does the best job at capturing Upchurch’s original design and style. And in fact, the artwork is at it’s best here since Upchurch’s original style. Unfortunately, the artwork was my favorite part of this volume.

Volume 4 kind of picks up in a weird place. It almost ignores the ending of volume 3, despite there being hints that relate back to the first three volumes - for example Palisade is still a mess and some of it’s denizens have become worshippers of N’yrgoth. Wiebe has addressed fans and stated that the new volume is tied to the others, and that we’ll have everything answered in time, so I guess we’ll just need to be a little patient before the dots get connected for us. While it was good jumping back into these characters, nothing… really… happened in volume 4. There wasn’t any character development, there weren’t any subplots, there was hardly a story. It was mostly just the Rat Queens (including their new Queen, Braga, the fan favorite transgender orc warrior) questing and drinking. Volume 4 is definitely not the strongest volume in this series. My personal favorite is the second, The Far Reaching Tentacles of N’rygoth. But it’s good to have the Rat Queens back, and hopefully this means we’ll see more of them in the future, and delve some more into their individual characters.