Review: Vigilante City #2 Villain's Guide

Book 2 of the SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City core rules is the Villain's Guide and it was shipped out with Core Rules #1.  It's Vigilante City week, so let us get to it.

Vigilante City #2 Villain's Guide

PDF and softcover book. 300 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art.  For the purposes of this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the soft-cover books I picked up either via Kickstarter or from Bloat Games' own store.

This book builds off of the Vigilante City #1 Core Rules. While it says "Villain's Guide" on the cover it is really much more than that. 

Victory City

We start out with the titular Vigilante City, "Victory City." We get the layout of the city and its districts. We get a great map of the city (and it is reprinted on the back).  

Since this is street-level supers we get a lot of gangs. The gangs do feel like what you might get if you took the gangs from the movie The Warriors and let them populate Gotham City from Batman the Animated Series for a while. Yeah, it is every bit as fun as it sounds. I bet the creative team had a blast working on this. 

There is a great section following about building your own city or adding to Victory City.  Personally, I would rather add to the existing VC.  I mean nearly every superhero story is defined by the city they live in. So for a Vigilante City game, I am going to want to play in Vigilante City.

Anthropomorph Island is our next big section and it is an island of anthropomorphic animals. Not all of them are teenage. It's a neat little addition to the superhero mythos. 

There are a couple of sample adventures, which is nice.

Rogues Gallery

At about 75 pages in we finally get the Rogue Gallery. Ok, "finally" is too strong. Everything up to this point has been great. But let's be honest it is the bad guys that are the most fun.

Nearly 90s pages of all sorts of bad guys (and girls and animals) here and they are all fun.

There are a couple of local heroes, some sample characters, and a bunch NPCs. 

Bestiary 

There is a bestiary that covers normal animals to were-beasts and other threats. Bigfoot is even here! Note: The Dark Places & Demogorgons Cryptid Manual would work great with this. 

Community Content

I *think* this material was part of the Kickstarter where backers could submit heroes and villains of their own. This is that section and it is a lot of fun really.  I mean really, we are getting an official version of the Acrobatic Flea? Worth the price of the book alone!

This book could have been also called the GM's Guide, with all the material here.  It is great stuff. Can you play VC without it? Sure. And you can also have Batman without the Joker and Gotham City but it would not be as much fun.

The Refrigerator for Vigilante City

Time to revisit one of my favorite bad guys for a supers game, Dr. Andreas Gelé, AKA "The Refrigerator."

A while back I introduced you all to Dr. Andreas Gelé, aka The Refrigerator. He is a socially stunted misanthrope with mommy issues and the intellect to act out in the worst ways possible.

This guy came, literally, out of a nightmare.  Around 1982 or so (I was 12) I was hit with a double shot of women being frozen alive, the movies were "In Like Flint" and "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die." It really bugged the hell out of me and gave me nightmares for a long time.  Still kind of bugs me.  Of course, later I learned there is a whole creepy fetish thing related to this.  I think my issue is far more elemental.  I hate being really cold and think being frozen is quite possibly the worst thing ever.

His name comes from the classic Women in Refrigerators website started by Gail Simone.

The Refrigerator in Victory City

What brings the infamous Dr. Gelé to VC? Well, I see him as sort of a Dr. Phibes-like character now, he freezes and defrosts himself periodically to inflict new horrors on the world.  He has moved his operation to VC to once again seek out beautiful women for his collection.  

Once again I went old school for this sheet.

I could see him maybe trying to do research at Victory City University's library (he is old school after all) where he sees my Larina working there in her guise as a librarian. Well...not a guise really she got a degree in this. He decides he needs to add her to his perverse collection completely unaware that she is also the superhero known as the Witch.

His big evil plan might be thwarted by my other big bad.  Who is that? Well, that will be revealed on Friday!

I can see this game taking the place of Icons or Villains & Vigilantes in my life. It is at the intersection of them both for me.

Review: Vigilante City #1 Core Rules

It is the start of Vigilante City Week here at The Other Side for my unofficial Super Hero month of September.  

Vigilante City has been sitting on top of the computer I use as a home server forever.  I figure now is a great time to let everyone know about this great street-level supers game.

Vigilante City #1 Core Rules

PDF and softcover book. 292 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art.  For the purposes of this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the soft-cover books I picked up either via Kickstarter or from Bloat Games' own store.

Vigilante City, or more accurately, SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City #1 Core Rules, is a street-level supers game for the SURVIVE THIS family of games from Bloat Games. The same folks that gave us the awesome Dark Places & Demogorgons and the amazing We Die Young RPGs.  So right away these rules feel familiar.  But this game is more about teenage angst in the 80s and 90s. There are mean streets out there.

The game really is a great starter for anyone that has played D&D/OSR-like games and wants to get into a supers game.  Like all SURVIVE THIS!! games this one in class and level with levels topping off at 10. 

Right from the start, this game lets us know what it is all about. These are street-level supers. While there might the occasional mutant, anthropomorphic otter, Super Soldier, or power suit we will not be seeing the likes of Superman or Wonder Woman. This is Batman, Captain America, and Tony Stark down all the way to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some guy with a baseball bat.  If this sounds like your kind of game (and really who wouldn't want to play this?) then buckle in, because this is going to be fun.

The Core Rule book covers the basic hero classes (this is a class/level system derived from the SRD) and basic rules.  I am going to point out here that the rules are very much the same as other Survive This!! games with notable areas to aid heroic play.  While in the past I have pointed out that teens of the 80s in Dark Places & Demogorgons can grow up to become the young adults of the 90s We Die Young, there is no logical progression here from those games. To be fair that is also not the designer's intent. I *can* see a world that involves all these games (that and their newer What Shadows Hide line) but let's first appreciate this game for what it is right now and not what inhuman creation I'll make with it later. 

The Basics

We start off with the basic rules, or maybe I should say "Basic" rules since these rules are designed from the d20 SRD to feel like old-school D&D, D&D Basic in particular. As mentioned before it shares this design with all the other Survive This!! games.  You generate attributes, the usual six plus a seventh "Survival," you generate your saving throws, pick your alignments, calculate your Vigilante Points, work out your Origin/Background (every good hero has a backstory!) and then comes the time to choose your class.

Human Classes

Basic D&D's DNA is peaking through here. You have your normal human classes and then a section on "Mega Humans." But let us talk about humans first.  Essentially these are the roles that an everyday, but not really average, human could pick up and say "I am going to fight crime as a ..." Yes a lot of these require training and/or to be born with the right genetic lottery (smart, rich, or both).  

These classes are: Athlete, Crime Fighter, Dark Avenger, Gadgeteer, Genius, Hardboiled Detective, Knight Nurse, Martial Artist, Mentor, Mercenary, Protégé, Sharp Shooter, Street Preacher, and True Vigilante.  Most, if not all are fairly self-explanatory.  Each gets 10 levels of advancement where they gain certain advantages. Like the comics that inspired them the character classes are fairly 2-Dimensional. THIS IS APPROPRIATE. You fill in the blanks with your backgrounds and skills. You can choose "Street Preacher" but you have to figure out if you are Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel's character in "From Dusk til Dawn) or Jesse Custer from Preacher. 

Mega-Humans

Much like the split between Demi-humans and humans in D&D, and Meta-humans/Mutants and humans in comics, we get our section on Mega-Humans. Mega humans are both a "species" and a "class" they can pick up skill packages to differentiate themselves, but largely this is what they are. Again, this fits the tone of the X-man comics.

Our Mega-Human classes are: Anthropomorphs, Borg, Mutant, Mystic, Powered Armor, Psion, Super Soldier, and Super Speedster.  Lots of choices here.  

These classes and their powers (spells for the mystic, psionics for the psion) cover the first 210 pages of or 2/3rds of this book.  That is expected really.

The classes are followed with Skils & Skill Packs, XP/Leveling, Gear, Vehicles, Game Terms and Critical tables.

There is a solid index and the PDF is bookmarked. 

The game has a feel of Villians & Vigilantes mixed with Mutants & Masterminds with the difficulty of Icons.  Any veteran of either of those games will pick this one up fast. Anyone that has played D&D or other Survive This!! games will pick it up even faster.  That is already given the fact that this is a quick and easy game to learn and play.  There are groups out there that are searching for the perfect Supers game and this could very well be it for them.  I find it very, very appealing.  

Like all games from Bloat Games, there is a lot of support online and in other books for this line.

Larina Nix for Vigilante City

Give me a magic-using class and I am going to try it out with my Drosophila melanogaster of magic, Larina. 

Given this is an old-school game I opted to go old school with dice, a printed character sheet, and a pencil.  I spent longer troubleshooting my scanner than I did on this character build!

I like how she came out, to be honest. And I like how fast it was to create a 10th-level character too. I'll pick her spells later. I figure she would have access to all of them. 

I'll do this for the other books in the series as well, adding what each book adds to the game. This will be quite fun really. 

All I could think of while doing all of this was this song.  So play us home Steve!

100 Days of Halloween: Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches (DTRPG)

Something different tonight.  

Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches (DTRPG)

This is the full text of the Public Domain "Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches" by Charles Godfrey Leland published in 1899.

There is no additional text or game content included. You are paying for the formatting and the cover. While I am happy to have another copy in my digital library there is nothing additional to what you can get for free on the Internet.

I would have liked to have seen some RPG content since this is on DriveThruRPG.

If you have not read it you can find it just about everywhere.

Here is the Sacred Texts version.

 

100 Days of Halloween: Witches and Pagans

I adore the RPG Mage. Mage: The Ascension, Mage: the Awakening, Dark Ages Mage, and most of all Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade.  The witches of Mage, the Verbena, get special treatment and I am here for it.  The Witches & Pagans book covers them in detail.

Witches and Pagans

PDF. 96 pages. Color cover, Black & White art. 

The cover art is by Christopher Shy who practically defined the look of many occult and supernatural RPGs of the late 90s and early 2000s. So regardless of the actual game, this *looks* good on my shelves; both real and virtual.  All the interior art is by Richard Kane Ferguson. 

Chapter I: History

This chapter covers "pagans" as they might have existed in the World of Darkness if they had survived to the Renaissance.  If this is a bridge too far for the history buffs out there a quick reminder this is a game of world-changing magic in the hands of mortals. 

There is a collection of various "famous" pagans, but no stats to start with.

Chapter II: Knowledge

This covers the pagan magics including all the spheres and how the pagan mages would use them. Note it is not just the Life sphere that the Verbena are traditionally drawn to. Additionally, there are new rotes for mages as well. 

Given all the spheres and combinations of magic this chapter is fairly long.

Chapter III: Wise Craft

This chapter covers how the witches/pagans see their magic.  Central to Mage's theme is that each mage sees how magic works differently. The witches of this time rely on these tools and the ideas in this chapter because that is how their magic works for them.  A member of the Hermetic Order or Cult of Ecstasy has access to the exact same spheres of magic, but they approach them very, very differently. This is the heart of Mage. The pagan witches of the Sorcerer's Crusade are even more locked into this frame of mind.   While this means this chapter is the least connected, game mechanics-wise and more like mechanically supported fluff, it also means it is what makes this book the most interesting AND makes it the most useful for me in other games.

Chapter IV: Weavings

This chapter gets back to game mechanics in a bit but also covers the roles of the various pagan "witches" that go beyond "The Old Crone," "The Bestial Hunter," "The Alluring Temptress," and "Dissenfranchished Warlock."

I also found this chapter useful for other games to be honest.

One of the themes I like to play with in my games is the sunsetting of paganism against the growth of Christianity.  This game plays that out, though 500 years later than I typically do. Still for Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade this is a wonderful theme and a good one. It is not just Pagan vs. Christian, but Magic vs. Science. Makes for a wonderful interplay of forces.

100 Days of Halloween: Witchfinder - A Swords & Wizardry Class

Let's try a little S&W tonight. You can have witches and not expect the occasional witch hunter.

As always, to stay objective I will be following my rules for these reviews. BUT also in this case I want to evaluate whether or not the various witch hunters are a good match for my witches.

Witchfinder - A Swords & Wizardry Class

PDF. 2 pages. One page content, one page OGL. Price: Free.

Let's hit the big points first. This PDF is small, BUT it is for Swords & Wizardry so a page for a class is good really. My own class books notwithstanding.  The second one is this PDF is free. 

For the price the click you have a new class.  Is it worth it?

The class has flavor and enough crunch to make it worthwhile. The details work for me. The XP calcs feel right, the powers they get also track.  I would switch the 17th level Holy Word power to 14th level myself. Clerics of 14th level can cast Holy Word so it tracks for WitchHunters to be able to do the same.  I would also have given them some sort of, well, witch-finding ability. But this was written likely with no specific witch class in mind. 

If you are using this with one of my S&W Witch classes then I would rule that Witchfinder can spot the magics of one of my witches and identify them. 

So yeah, I rather like this one.

100 Days of Halloween: Heroes Weekly, Vol 5, Issue #3, Witchcraft

Some more Pathfinder tonight. This time for the Heroes Wear Masks RPG.

Heroes Weekly, Vol 5, Issue #3, Witchcraft

PDF. 13 pages. Color covers and interior art.

This one is a bit of a mixed bag really.

I love the idea of having an evil witch class. This one is also different enough from the base Pathfinder witch to make it worth a look.

I don't love that they chose to call their evil witch a "Wiccan."  After all no one would make an evil cleric class and call it a "Catholic" or anything like that.

These witches get powers but no spells to speak of; though the powers take place of the spells.

There are some print and fold minis near the end.  The art is mixed. I am not a fan of the cover. If this was for a modern sort of game it feels out of place.  The witch on page 2 would have been a better choice.

In the end, there is not enough here for me to recommend it. 

100 Days of Halloween: Bloodlines & Black Magic - The Witch

Back to a little bit of Pathfinder tonight, though with a modern twist. 

Bloodlines & Black Magic - The Witch

PDF. 21 pages. Black & White art.

This is a supplement for the Bloodlines & Black Magic RPG. A dark modern RPG based around Pathfinder. This one presents a witch class. 

It is largely the Pathfinder witch class with 5 levels. There are some new hexes presented here so that is nice. 

The art is really nice. Black & white, but fits the mood and tenor of the game, so it works here. Color would be a distraction. 

It could work with Pathfinder proper or even with D20 Modern 3rd edition as a Prestige or Advanced class.  Personally, that is what I would like to try with it.

I'll have to check out the full Bloodlines & Black Magic RPG.

100 Days of Halloween: Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Wampus Country

For the most part, my 100 Days of Halloween has been about all the witch or spooky stuff I need to get some reviews done or just stuff I like. Typically everything has been languishing on my hard drive for years.  But not tonight's entry.  I bought it just for this because it looked fun.

Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Wampus Country

PDF. 30 pages 

From the product page,

A Halloween-and-Harvest compilation of articles from the Wampus Country blog, suitable for use with classic fantasy games and related nonsense. Within, you'll learn the dark arts of sucromancy, punch ghosts, explore death masks, and more.

Yeah sounds like something I would like really.  

These are all articles collected from the Wampus Country Blog which has been out there doing its thing for 11 years.  So they are quite upfront with what to expect, but the new format and layout of this PDF is worth the price really.

The articles are a mixed (Halloween) bag, including Candy Magic and Bone Magic. There is a great section on creating random witches, which I really liked. A Ghost Hunter monk subclass. 

The art is Halloween ephemera so it is all rather appropriate. 

It is a rather fun collection of articles to be honest and to have them all in one place for an easy download is worth the price of the PDF easily.

Review: Swords of Cthulhu

Nice mail call last week and I got my copy of Swords of Cthulhu from BRW Games / Joesph Bloch. As always BRW fulfills its Kickstarters in record speed. 

There is a lot to unpack here so lets get to it.

Swords of Cthulhu

For this review and deep dive, I am going to focus on the PDF and Print on Demand, I got from DriveThruRPGvia backing the Kickstarter.

The book is set up much like all the Adventures Dark and Deep books for "1st Edition."  This includes his Book of Lost Beasts and Book of Lost Lore.  One might wonder why this isn't the "The Book of Lost Cthulhu."

The book has the "1st Ed" Orange spine and layout and is a proper 128 pages. If the goal here is to feel like a book that would have been in your book bag in 1986 then I would say it was a success.  

Like the BRW's previous "Books of" this one is for 1st Edition AD&D but no mention of that game is found here. There are oblique references to it, but nothing say to the level we saw in Mayfair's AD&D products of the 80s and early 90s.  Though like those previous two books there is no OGL and no Open Gaming content.  So here are my thoughts on that. One, it doesn't affect the game playability of this book. Two, given that much of the Lovecraftian mythos are in the public domain this feels like a slight really, I mean using essentially IP for free but not giving something back. And three, there is so much of this already in the public domain AND released as Open under the OGL from other publishers it my all be a moot point.  Still I am sure some OSRIC, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, or Old School Essentials Advanced might want to do some Lovecraftian-style adventures for "1st Ed." and this would have helped.

But enough of that. Let's get into what is in the book.

If you are familiar with AD&D 1st Ed, any part of the mythos, and/or BRW's Adventures Dark and Deep books then you could likely predict with a high degree of certainty of what is in this book.  This is not a bad thing.

The spiritual godfather here is the Unearthed Arcana. The book gives us new races; the Deep One Hybrid and the Degenerate.  These feel like they are right out of Lovecraft books, though I would argue that both races have issues moving outside of their realms. Deep One Hybrids away from water and Dagon for example.

We get level limits for the new races with old classes and old races with new classes (not introduced just yet).

The new classes are the Cultist and the Scholar.  The cultist gets different abilities depending on which cult they are in.  Scholars are a "split class" starting out as Magic-users and then switching over to scholars. If you have the Book of Lost Lore then you can split class with the Savant. I would even argue that the Cleric would be a good choice if the cleric has a high Intelligence. 

The is a Skill system, the same found in the Book of Lost Lore, and this recaps some of that and expands it. While again overtly for 1st Edition it could work anywhere, also it can be ignored for folks that do not want to use skills for their games. 

Up next are spells. In the Cthulhu mythos books and tomes of occult lore and knowledge never lead to good things. These spells are part of that yes, but this is also an "AD&D" game and not "Call of Cthulhu" magic serves a different purpose here.  We get about 36 pages of spells. There is even an optional rule for human sacrifice that fits the tenor of the tales well.

There is a section on running a "Lovecraftian" game along with the tropes found in an AD&D game.  These have been covered elsewhere, but this version fits this tome well.  In particular how to mix demons in with the Lovecraftian mythos creatures. Something I have covered in my own One Man's God. 

You can't do the Lovecraftian mythos and not deal with sanity. Now. I am going to be honest. The overwhelming majority of RPGs get sanity and insanity completely wrong. I say this a game designer and as someone with degrees in psychology (BA, MS, Ph.D.) and who spent years working as a Qualified Mental Health Professional for the State of Illinois who specialized in treating schizophrenics.  How does this book do? This one introduces a new saving throw versus Insanity. Not a bad solution really. I will point out that "Insane" is largely a legal definition. "Madness" would be a better term of choice here. 

The definitions and descriptions used for the various modes of insanity (keeping with the book) are fine. We are not trying to emulate the DSM here. Though "Schizoid" is off. What is described there is more of a compulsion disorder. The Mulitple Personality one is always going to be problematic and I personally would drop the occurrence to more like 1 or 2%; even 3% is too high. I would re-do it as something akin to a "fractured" personality.  It is a usable system, but it lacks the integration of the SAN system of Call of Cthulhu. Though this is understandable.  Side note: I always look for "dementia praecox" in the list of insanities. When I see that and it is used properly I know the developer did their homework. It is not here and I had hoped it would be.

Up next we get to what is really one of the big reasons people want a book like this.  The monsters.

There are about 30 monsters here in AD&D 1st Edition format. If you use nothing else in this book then this is pretty fun stuff. The art is good and works well here.

This is followed naturally by the magic items. Plenty of books and tomes to terrify players and delight GMs. Yes, the Necronomicon is here.

Ah. Now we get to the stars of the show. The main course of this seven-course meal. The gods.  

All the usual suspects are here and the format is familiar to anyone that has read the Deities & Demigods.  IF playability is your largest concern then yes this book WILL replace the 144-page Deities & Demigods for you. No more having to lurk on eBay or hope for that rare score at Goodwill.  The stats are not exactly the same, nor should they be, but they are what I think many would expect them to be. 

We end with an Appendix of suggested reading (a must really) and lists of random tables.

The PDF is currently $9.95 and the hardcover is $24.95.  Perfectly within the price I would expect for this.

Now before I render my final judgment on this one a few more things.

I don't think it is unreasonable to ask "What does this book have that others do not?" For starters, it is developed specifically for AD&D 1st ed. I will point out that we do have plenty of other books, games, and resources that also do this for other OSR games and their relatives as well. Conversion is a matter of personal taste.

Briefly here are the main Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos-related games/products I pulled from my shelves for this and how they compare. I am going to focus largely on the monsters and gods since that is the most common element. 

Table of Cthulhu

• DDG = Deities & Demigods
• SoC = Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu
• RoCC = Realms of Crawling Chaos (Labyrinth Lord)
• ASSH = Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (Only including Cthulhu/Mythos creatures)
• CoC d20 = Call of Cthulhu d20 edition
• SP CM5 = Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5th Edition
• WSH = What Shadows Hide 

In most cases, I am restricting myself to the "Core" Mythos creatures and the ones I really like.  Some names are different, but I will try to go with the common names. 

Of Gods	DDG	SoC	RoCC	ASSH	CoC d20	SP CM5	WSH
Cthulhu	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Abhoth			Y			Y
Atlach-Nacha			Y			Y
Azathoth	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Chaugnar Faugn					Y	Y
Cthuga	Y				Y	Y
Dagon		Y	Y		Y	Y
Ghatanothoa		Y
Hastur	Y	Y			Y	Y
Hydra		Y	Y		Y	Y
Ithaqua	Y			Y	Y	Y
Mordiggian					Y
Nodens					Y
Nyarlathotep	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y
Shub-Niggurath	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y
Shudde M'ell					Y
Tsathoggua		Y	Y		Y	Y
Yig		Y			Y	Y
Yog-Sothoth	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y
& Monsters
Ape, Devil			Y	Y
Bhole		Y				Y
Beings of Ib			Y			Y
Bokrug			Y			Y
Byakhee	Y				Y	Y	Y
Cave Beast			Y
Colour Out of Space			Y	Y		Y
Crawling Reptile			Y
Cthonian / Spawn of Cthulhu		Y			Y	Y	Y
Deep One	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Deep One Hybrid		Y		Y	Y	Y	Y
Dhole					Y	Y	Y
Dimensional Shambler					Y	Y	Y
Flame Creature / Fire Vampire	Y				Y	Y	Y
Flying Polyp		Y			Y	Y	Y
Ghast			Y	Y		Y
Ghoul			Y	Y	Y	Y
Great Race of Yith	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Gnop-Keh					Y	Y	Y
Gug		Y				Y	Y
Haunter in the Dark		Y	Y			Y	Y
Hound of Tindalos		Y	Y		Y	Y
Man of Leng		Y	Y	Y		Y
Mi-Go / Fugi from Yuggoth	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Moon Thing		Y	Y			Y	Y
Night Beast			Y
Night Gaunt		Y	Y	Y	Y
Primordial One / Elder Thing	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Rat Thing					Y
Serpent People			Y	Y	Y	Y
Shantak		Y	Y			Y	Y
Shoggoth	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Spider of Leng		Y			Y	Y	Y
Tcho-tcho					Y	Y
Young of Shub-Niggurath		Y	Y		Y	Y
Voormis			Y	Y
White Ape			Y	Y
Y'm-bhi		Y
Zoog		Y	Y			Y
Open Content	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

It looks like Swords of Cthulhu fares pretty well, to be honest. No one book has everything. Now comparing anything to Deities & Demigods is a touch unfair since space in the D&DG was limited.  Likewise comparing to Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5th Edition (or Pathfinder) is also unfair for the opposite reason; it has so much and few people have written or said as much about the Cthulhu Mythos as much as Petersen has.

But comparing Swords of Cthulhu to say Realms of Crawling Chaos or Hyperborea is appropriate.

Realms of Crawling Chaos

These two books complement each other well. While there is a very, very slight difference in underlying system assumptions each one offers something the other lacks in terms of gods and monsters.

Hyperborea

Formerly Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, this game is closer to AD&D than it is to Basic D&D and the tone of the world fits well. Where Hyperborea stands out in the inclusion of and the predominance of Howard and Ashton-Smith mythos as they relate to the Lovecraft ones.  So lots of the same monsters and gods, but more Clark Ashton Smith.  While Swords of Cthulhu gives advice on how to integrate the mythos into your "AD&D" world, Hyperborea gives us a world where they are integrated. What is the difference? In Hyperborea "sanity" is not really an issue since the mortals here already know of the gods and these creatures.  Still, Hyperborea is not everyone's cup of tea.

I would argue that the combination of the three would give you the best Mythos game. Or maybe it would give *me* the best mythos game since I tend to lean into more Clark Ashton Smith tales than H.P. Lovecraft's alone.

Conclusion

Swords of Cthulhu is a great addition to the already crowded field of Mythos-related RPG books. No one book seems to have everything, and maybe that is fine really. If your game is AD&D 1st Edition and you want something a bit more than just what you get from the Deities & Demigods then this is your book.

If you play a lot of OSR games including their spiritual ancestors and you like the mythos, then this is also a fine book, but check with my table here to be sure you are getting what you want.  

For things like "which is better 'Swords of Cthulhu' or 'Realms of Crawling Chaos'" it is a draw. Both do what they are supposed to do well.  Both are good resources. SoC looks a bit better on the shelf next to all my AD&D books, but likewise, RoCC looks good on my Basic-era OSR shelf.

I vacillate on whether we have too many mythos-related RPG titles to thinking one more book won't hurt.  Currently, the word "Cthulhu" produces over 5,450 titles on DriveThruRPG. So there is a market.

With so many choices you need to decide what fits well for your games. Swords of Cthulhu is a great choice but it is hardly the only choice. 

Monstrous Mondays: Monster Manual V (3.5)

We are getting to the end of the D&D 3.x Monster Manuals now. There are more 3.x monsters to be found; not just official D&D ones, but thousand through the d20 explosion.  Today though I want to spend some time with the Monster Manual V.

Monster Manual V (3.5)

PDF. 223 pages. Full-color covers and interior art. 

For this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and my hardcover I had a number of years ago.

Published in 2007 this was one of the last hardcovers published for the D&D 3.5 game prior to the announcement of the D&D 4e.  

I picked this one up cheap at the local RPG auction and I think I sold it back at next year's auction. Not a ringing endorsement I know, but in mine (and this book's) defense I was reducing my 3.x collection to make room for more OSR books and the upcoming 4e.  I am glad I picked up the PDF though.

There are just over 110 monsters in this book (ranging from CR 1/2 to 22), the least amount for any of the "Monster Manuals" for 3.x. There are 11 templates, and many companion and summonable creatures. There are even new feats and spells.  So at least this late in the game there is (or was) new material that could be shared.

The monster entries are again limited to whole pages. To make up the space there are "Lore" entries on some monsters. Others even have a Sample Encounter, Typical Treasure and/or how the monster appears in various campaign worlds.  I admit these do not feel like padding and instead feel like a value-added feature.

Alignments are also prefaced with "Always" or "Usually" in some cases, giving more variety to alignments. 

Among my favorite creatures here are" the Arcadian Avenger, the various new demons, the unique Dragons of the Great Game, Frostwind Virago, the God-Blooded creatures, Kuo-toa (finally!), Mindflayers of Thoon, Skull Lord, Spawn of Juiblex, the unique vampires, and the Wild Hunt.

While I was expecting a lot of "also-rans" and some diminishing returns on monsters this one actually is pretty good.  The details are greater for each monster entry, so this explains the low monster-to-page ratio here.  

Still, you have to be playing D&D 3.5 to really get the most out of these monsters.

100 Days of Halloween: Sade Stock Art

A long time ago I picked up a bunch of stock art for my witch books.  I never got around to using all of it.  I might one day. But until then here are some reviews/overviews.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Be-witched Stock Pack

10 High-res CG images of witches.

I like Sade's style and I would love to find more places I could use this art. 

I used some of this art for the Sisters of the Aquarian Order.

Fae Folk Stock Art Pack

A cute little frog-fae girl. 7 images, beautifully done with transparent backgrounds.

Girls of Fantasy #1

6 images, three different figures with a transparent or detailed background each.

The art is good and I am glad I bought it, I just need to find a good use for it.

Moon Witch Stock Pack

The art is good and hi-res. Not sure why it is called a "witch", "moon elf" would be better. I had been using these for characters in my old D&D4 game.

Arch Druid Stock Art Pack

Good art for a character concept. The variety of images/poses are good.

Unnamed heroes #2

Nine images of the pictured hero.  Works great as a noble or other important NPC.

The art is very good.

Dawnbreaker Stock Art Pack

Fantastic works of art. Human (or half-elf) cleric/druid girl in a variety of poses and backgrounds. 3 with backgrounds and 8 without. She wears armor and carries a staff. 

There is no attached license though the main page says for commercial or personal use. The lack of a clear-to-understand and read license is a bit of a downgrade for me, but if you are looking for art for your own personal use then this is a 5/5.

Sorceress

8 image files of a redhead sorceress.  Various poses with transparent backgrounds.

She is partially armored and carries a staff.

100 Days of Halloween: In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

The second game that many draw on for Lilith is the classic In Nomine.  I spent a lot of time with this game in the very late 90s. Right around 1998 to 99 when I was looking for a new modern supernatural game to play.  There was this one, World of Darkness, and the ultimate winner, WitchCraft. Though I used ideas from all three in my WitchCraft games then.

In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

PDF. 43 pages. Black & White art.

This document contain notes and stats for both the In Nomine RPG and GURPS: In Nomine. By extension, it could be used with any GURPS game.  Despite the publication date (2005) I think this is all for GURPS 3rd Edition. But I could be wrong.  Just checked, yes GURPS 3rd Edition.

This supplement features all the strengths of most good GURPS supplements. That is there is a ton of information here, some stats, and a lot of great fluff.

This one also gives us the history of Lilith and what she has done in her immortal life. In the In Nomine game she seems to be one of the few immortals that can move between the devils and angels with some relative ease.

While I have not touched In Nomine in over 20 years (much to my own disappointment) there is a lot of great material here and makes want to dig up my old copy (if I still have it). In any case, true to the nature of GURPS this booklet can be used just about anywhere. There is nothing here that could not say be combined with Revelations of the Dark Mother. Where there are contradictions...well only Lilith herself knows the truth and true to her nature there are likely to be thousands of contradictions. 

While this might not have the art that RotDM has, it does have plenty of game material. 

Lilith should be wonderfully complex in any game and this supplement helps with that.

100 Days of Halloween: Revelations of the Dark Mother

Time to get down with some OG World of Darkness.  So much that has been written about Lilith in RPGs can be traced back to two sources. This is the first.

Revelations of the Dark Mother

PDF. 126 pages. Black & white art. 

Once upon a time, White Wolf focused more on plot and background. 

This is a crunch-lite, fluf-heavy book that deals with Lilith, the mother of all Vampires (so to speak), and maybe Mages as well in the original World of Darkness. 

This is nice since I can drop it into any other game I like and it is a great background. If you have any interest in the subject of Lilith then this is a fun read.

This was written by Phil Brucato (with additional authors) who is pretty much the expert in everything Mage. So from the start you know this is going to be some deep WoD material. 

The art is by Rebecca Guay, Eric Hotz, and Vince Locke with the covers designed by art director Aileen E. Miles. I call this out because the art in the book is really quite good. Even given that this is 20+ year old book. Every portrait or portrayal of Lilith is evocative. You are captured in Lilith's tale in these and makes this more than just another game book. This book feels like a coffee table book (in the best possible way) that happens to be connected to a game world.

It is stunning and still a work of art all these years later.

100 Days of Halloween: Lilith

Continuing my mini-dive into Lilith in various games.

Lilith

This book is by RPG luminary Ken Hite.  It is only nine pages but it presents some background on who Lilith is including her "Herstory" (look if you don't know who Lilith is and why "herstory" is FAR more appropriate than "history" then I can't help you.)

We get an overview of her time in Babylon. A bit on the Burney Relief (the cover takes its cue for that) and how they are working under the assumption that it is Lilith or Lilîtu. (Personally, I like the idea that it is Ereshkigal.)

After this there are sections on what Lilith is doing in various Pelgrane Press games like Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues, and the Dying Earth RPG.

Wonderful concept.

The zip file comes with PDF, MOBI, and EPUB versions of the book for ease of reading.

There are very few historical characters you could do a product like this with, so I really admire this choice.

 

Monstrous Mondays: Monster Manual IV (3.5)

While I have a lot of goals I pursue in my various Monstrous Mondays, be it the creation of a new monster, adaptation of a monster from another source, or a review, my goal with the various Monster Manuals is to see if there is growth or even refinement of the monster entries.

This can easily be seen in the AD&D 1st Edition monster books as each, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II, builds on the other adding refinements to the stat block.  The same can be said for the 4th Edition books.

I would like to be able to say the same for the 3rd Edition books. Certainly, we saw improvements from MM1 to MM3, but those were largely due to the change in the rule system; that is 3 to 3.5.  

I am particularly interested in these sorts of changes now that we are on the verge of One D&D from 5e.  One sec, need to sip my Kool-Aid.  Ok.  Better now.

All is well and good, but what does that mean for the 3.5 Edition Monster Manual IV?  Let us find out.

Monster Manual IV (3.5)

For this review, I am only going to consider the PDF from DriveThruRPG. I had owned this in hardcover largely due to the Blue Dragon on the cover (my oldest loves blue dragons) but it was auctioned off when I downsized my 3e collection.

PDF. 226 pages. Full-color cover and interior art.

This book does show some refinements and evolution. There are about 140 some odd monsters with a bit greater detail than previous ones. Often the monsters come with other details like a lair or use as characters. 

Among the monsters here the ones I found most useful were the Avatars of Elemental Evil, the Balhannoth, some new demons, a few new drow types, some more lizard folk (I can't help it, I love those guys), some more orcs, the Spawns of Tiamat is rather fun too, and some new Tuan-ti.

There is not a lot of undead here, only 6 new monsters. 

The biggest feature though is that all monsters are now on a "1 monster per page" layout, or span multiple whole pages like 2nd Ed and 4th Ed.  This increases the value of the PDF in my mind and now I am not that sad I sold off my hard copy.  Yes, today is the first time I have looked at this since then.

In many ways this book is superior to the Monster Manual III, layout just being one of them.

100 Days of Halloween: Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

Another Lilith to consider tonight. This time for a D6 game.

I had this desire a while back to give the D6 system a try. I was thinking of something to do with vampires, and likely include Dracula and Lilith.  So I bought this back then. 

Sadly I never got out of the "wow this would be cool" phase.

Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

This supplement is for the Shadow Sprawl D6 RPG.  It says it uses the Epic D6 system but if you are familiar with any D6 system then you can figure this one out.

It is set in a world like our own but ... you get the idea. Hey. No stones being cast by me, this is a world I come back to time and time again both to play and design games for.  Right on down to the Morpheus font on the cover.  

This supplement adds a number of new features to the game, in particular things from the history of vampires in this game.  Since they are taking the "Cain route" here there are a few pre-historic weapons added.

We get backgrounds and stats for Caine and Lilith.  Caine was made into a vampire by Lilith.   Also we get some of Abel's line including a son and his wife.  Also there are dryads here for reasons I am not entirely sure of.

There is a quick start for the game playing in this prehistoric time when Cain and Lilith still prowled the night. So a nice touch there. 

Several points for some new ideas, but some other ideas have been done many times before.   Still though, a fun read.