Cthulhoid Choices: 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026

Call of Cthulhu is the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and has been for over four decades now. The roleplaying game gives the chance for the players and their Investigators to explore a world in which the latter are exposed, initially often indirectly, but as the story or investigation progresses, increasingly directly, to alien forces beyond their comprehension. So, beyond that what they encounter is often interpreted as indescribable, yet supernatural monsters or gods wielding magic, but in reality is something more, a confrontation with the true nature of the universe and the realisation as to the terrible insignificance of mankind with it and an understanding that despite, there are those that would embrace and worship the powers that be for their own ends. Such a realisation and such an understanding often leave those so foolish as to investigate the unknown clutching at, or even, losing their sanity, and condemned to a life knowing truths to which they wish they were never exposed. This blueprint has set the way in which other games—roleplaying games, board games, card games, and more—have presented Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as many as there that do follow that blueprint, there are others have explored the Mythos in different ways.

Cthulhoid Choices is a strand of reviews that examine other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and of Cosmic, but not necessarily Horror. Previous reviews which can be considered part of this strand include Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

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A calendar is useful, if boring. Start of the month, check for appointments and things you are planning to do. Cross off the days as they pass, and when you get to the end of the month, flip over the page and start on the next. Either that or you are ripping off one page, day-by-day, month-by-month, all the way to the end of the year when you will start all over again with a fabulous new calendar. Of course, a calendar can be themed or display pictures from your favourite series of books or television series, or whatever you like, as there is probably calendar for it. What though if you wanted to investigate secrets and reveal a conspiracy, tramp the foreboding streets of Arkham, uncover rumours of monsters human and inhuman, and ultimately confront things that no man was meant to know? Well, of course, the obvious option would be to play Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition with your friends and set it in Arkham. That though would only be at the weekend or of an evening, but what if you could do it every day? What if you sit at your desk every day and, just for two minutes, roll some dice and fight the Mythos? And as you play from week to week, facing ever greater threats, you imperil your Sanity, but gain greater rewards and abilities from one month to the next as you delve deeper into the the secrets of Arkham. As private investigator John Miller in 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 1926, this is what you are going to be doing for the whole of 2026!

365 Adventures – Cthulhu 1926 is the desk calendar that you want. Published by the amusingly named Sorry We Are French, the 365 Adventures: The Dungeon – 2025 is a desk calendar that you can play once a day for two minutes and fight the Mythos for the whole of the year. The first desk calendar from the publisher was a fantasy version, 365 Adventures: The Dungeon – 2025, and Sorry We Are French has followed this up with 365 Adventures: The Dungeon – 2026 as well as 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026. The aim of the game is to defeat the monsters of the Mythos throughout the week before a weekly showdown with a bigger threat on Sunday. The more Mythos monsters that John Miller can defeat during the week, the easier it is for him to defeat the creature on Sunday. At the end of the month the player can then compare his core with others on the publisher’s website. Once a month is done, the player flips it over to reveal both the next month and the story of his and Jon Miller’s progress and discoveries as well as a bonus that will help them both in the subsequent months. Over the course of the month, John Miller will want to avoid accumulating Madness as this will reduce his score. This goes all the way down to the final confrontation in December.

365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026 consists of the flip calendar with a rules leaflet, five six-sided dice, and an Investigator magnet. The flip calendar is marked with days illustrated with various threats—the authorities, cultists, twisted animals, tentacled monsters, and more. Each is numbered and marked with a symbol, either a flashlight, magnifying glass, or a revolver. The five dice come in two types. The two green dice are marked the same symbols as the calendar, whilst the three black dice are numbered from one to five and have the Cthulhu symbol on the ‘six’ face. Lastly, the Investigator magnet represents John Miller. It is a huge step up in useability compared to 365 Adventures: The Dungeon – 2025, consisting of a ring with a separate back. The ring is placed on the front of the flip calendar so that the current location can be seen through and the base is slid on the back of the location on the flip calendar. This holds John Miller firmly in place.

Each day, bar Sunday, John Miller faces down one encounter in the rest of the week. To do that, his player moves him to the day of the week where the encounter is and then rolls the dice. The aim is to roll equal to, or greater than, than the value of the encounter, and also roll the symbol on the green dice that matches the symbol attached to the encounter. The player gets to roll three times against the encounter to defeat it, deciding which dice to keep each time. The Sunday, end-of-the-week encounter works in the same way, but is much more of a challenge. For encounter defeated during the previous six days, the challenge is reduced by one. For overcoming a Sunday encounter, the player earns five points. However, if at the end of any encounter, any of the three black dice show the ‘Cthulhu’ symbol, John Miller gains a point of Madness. Fill up the Madness Meter for the month, and the player loses five points. At the very worst, this can mean that a score for the month drops into the negative. Fortunately, the Madness Meter resets at the end of the month.

Come the end of the month and the player flips over the month and reveals the next one. He also gets to read a little fiction charting John Miller’s progress and John Miller gains certain abilities having been affected by his encounters with the Mythos. For example, from February, encounters become more difficult if John has not accumulated at least one point of Madness, whilst from March, he can use a grimoire to help him against encounters, but this always incurs further Madness. Later on, agents of the Mythos lay traps to prevent him investigating any further and John Miller must find certain artefacts to help him defeat the horrors that he will face come the end of the year. These extra elements add player choice, greater complexity—if only a little, and increased challenge incrementally, adding too, to the play time needed each day—again, if only a little.

365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026 is a day-by-day monster beat ’em, but one with familiar and accessible theme which it applies in a simple, if Pulp fashion. Like any commitment for a year, a player is going to start out strong, playing it and rolling dice day-by-day, but whether he can stick it out for a year is a matter of his willpower. Likely he will lapse occasionally and race to catch up. Beyond tracking the passing of the days, as with other entries in the series, 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 1926 is not much use as a calendar as the boxes for each day is occupied by a monster or trap, but it is not designed as such, being more game than calendar. The game play is not particularly detailed or deep, and so not particularly challenging either.

Physically, the 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026 is nicely presented, full of colour and detail that make you wish some of the creatures were available as card standees for your proper roleplaying game. The art style is cartoonish, but not funny or cute as 365 Adventures: The Dungeon – 2025 was in places. The rules themselves are simple and easy to grasp, helped by an extended example of play, whilst the monthly updates are enjoyable if short and the rules additions clear and easy to understand also.

365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026 is a simple, silly product, thematic in a Pulp style, but probably too simplistic and too silly for some. Nevertheless, it is well executed and applies its theme in a clever fashion. For the devotee of Lovecraft and the fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, 365 Adventures – Cthulhu 2026 offers the player to fight the unknowable and save humanity with a little dice rolling and potentially save the good people Arkham—for the whole of 2026.

Reviews from R’lyeh Post-Christmas Dozen 2025

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

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Daggerheart

Darrington Press ($59.99/£59.99)

2025 was the year of the fantasy heartbreaker seeing the release of several roleplaying games written in wake of the Wizards of the Coast’s proposed re-writing of the Open Game Licence that underpinned so many of the industry’s titles. Designed to appeal to players of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, there can be no doubt that Daggerheart was the most prominent of these. It offers similar heroic fantasy roleplaying, but with an emphasis on the narrative as much as the action with its Hope die and Fear die mechanics. Both are rolled together, and when the Hope die is higher, it generates Hope that can be used to activate various character abilities, whilst when the Fear die is higher, it generates Fear for the Game Master who can use it to power up her NPCs and make things more challenging for the Player Characters. Actual Player Character creation is made easy by the roleplaying game’s cards that detail its Ancestry and Community cards that define background and culture, and Domain cards that define abilities and spells. These come with the core rulebook in their own box and enable easy reference in play as well. Daggerheart makes heroic fantasy roleplaying easy and fun once again.

Tales of the Old West
Effekt Publishing ($60/£48)
Tales of the Old West brings capital and community—as well as faith—to the American frontier of 1873, in a treatment of classic Cowboys & Indians that is more history than Hollywood. It uses the Year Zero engine and a simple lifepath system to create interesting and fully rounded Player Characters who can do all of the things that you expect of a Wild West roleplaying game. Duels, gambling, chases, cattle rustling, bank robberies, and more. However, where it really begins to shine is in its support and capacity for long term play, because it wants the Player Characters to generate Capital and then invest it in their community. The players get to choose the type of community, where their character invest, and how it grows. The community becomes the Player Characters’ home, somewhere to protect, and somewhere for the Game Master to build stories and hooks around, whether in the community or from outside it. Tales of the Old West can do one-shot scenarios, but is really designed for long term play where the Player Characters can live and die on the American frontier, so can their communities.

The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
Z-Man Games ($79.99/£69-99)

Since it was first published in 2008, there have been numerous themes and threats applied to the classic co-operative mechanics against the game itself of Pandemic. In 2025, it has to face the biggest theme and biggest threat of them all—J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In previous board games set in Middle-earth, one player has to control Sauron and the forces of Mordor’s shadow. In The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, the forces of Sauron, the nine Nazgûl and the seemingly endless armies of Orcs, as well as his baleful, lidless eye, are controlled by the game itself. Just as in the trilogy, Frodo and Sam must set for Mount Doom and there, drop the One Ring into the volcano, returning to where it was forged, but the others of the Fellowship must set out hither and thither, essentially to run interference on Sauron’s efforts to find Frodo and Sam and invade Middle-earth. While someone always has to play Frodo and Sam, the other members of the Fellowship are not set in stone and further, every player controls two members of the Fellowship, giving everyone more options and greater ability to cover the threats posed by Sauron. As with other Pandemic titles, the same threats will keep appearing again and again over the course of play, but a mix of careful play and luck on the dice rolls—yes, this is a Pandemic game that involves dice rolls—careful play can thwart them. The best bit about the dice rolls is that you get to use the dice tower shaped like Barad-dûr that looms over the board, to roll the dice. There is a lot of depth and detail to this co-operative version of Middle-earth, along with the replay value of new attempts by Sauron and playing different versions of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd
Bastionland Press ($69.99/£49.99)
Mythic Bastionland combines brutality and folklore in an Arthurian Age when knights, each knighted by a different seer, seek Glory, explore the Realm, and confront Myths. In a world of brutal and bloody medievalism, they must prove themselves worthy of their status, but that can only be done by resolving Myths, public duelling or jousting, entering tournaments, and fighting battles that history will remember. By proving themselves worthy of their rank, they be ready to prove themselves ready for greater duties, of taking a seat in Council or at Court, ruling a Holding, and even a Seat of Power. First, they will search their realm for its greatest myths and resolve them, perhaps at the point of a sword, by negotiating, or simply doing nothing, facing other situations and perhaps, brutal, bloody combat along the way. Mythic Bastionland details some seventy-two knights, including The True Knight, The Trail Knight, The Story Knight, The Rune Knight, The Mask Knight, and The Silk Knight, and every single one of them is different and interesting and will present a different way of playing a Knight. Mythic Bastionland details seventy-two Myths for the Game Master to populate the Realm with, including The Wurm, The Tower, The Spider, The Toad, The Hole, and The Rock, and every single one of them will present the players and their Knights with a different challenge. Each includes a simple description, a set of omens that trigger as the Knights discover more signs of the Myth, a set of NPCs, and a table of random details that the Referee can use to detail parts of the Myth. This gives Mythic Bastionland plenty of replay value in an age of glorious myth and brutality.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Ace/Michael Joseph ($30/£22)

The LitRPG—or ‘Literary Role Playing Game’—comes of age in this first of this eight book series that asks the question, “What would you do if aliens had flattened everything on Earth and turned the inside of the planet into an eighteen-level dungeon, and the only way to save the planet is to fight your way all the way the down?” Fortunately, Carl the protagonist is not totally un-nerdy, so has played a few roleplaying games—both tabletop and computer—and so knows his way around the format. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as it sounds, because the dungeon-that-was-once-Earth is also a reality television series watched across the galaxy and so Carl has to play the fame game as well literally kicking dungeon denizen butt. However, although Carl is the main protagonist of the book, for the watchers of the reality television series, the real hero is Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, the prize-winning show cat belonging to Beatrice, Carl’s late girlfriend, who has been magically uplifted from a pet into a Dungeon Crawler and an ace wizard! This is definitely a novel for the roleplayer and player of Dungeons & Dragons, who will get the most out of this knowing poke at traditional roleplaying.

Land of Eem

Exalted Funeral ($150/£110)

To be blunt, Land of Eem had the best elevator pitch of 2025—“The Lord of the Rings meets The Muppets”—and if that does not get your roleplaying juices going, then the question is, what will? This is a game of light-hearted fantasy based on the graphic novel series Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo, and the book series Dungeoneer Adventures, that is both family friendly and fun enough for the experienced roleplayer to play too. It offers the brave adventurers the opportunity to explore the Mucklands, a region once under the heel of the Gloom King, but barely had time to recover before the corporations moved in and began exploiting it and so giving the name it has today. There are opportunities to delve into dungeons and strike it rich, even find Magnificent magical items of yesteryore and become filthy rich. Alternatively, being heroes, the Player Characters could keep such items safe from those that would exploit them, or indeed, put them to good use and help the people of the Mucklands from being oppressed by the tycoons and perhaps save them if the rumours are true about the return of the Gloom King. Land of Eem is illustrated with delightfully whimsical artwork, has simple mechanics, fun character types, and a richly detailed hexcrawl to explore.

TACTA

The Op Games ($14.99/£14.99)

TACTA is a simple card game that simply looks great. Strong neon colours in dots, rectangles, squares, and triangles on jet black divided into six decks. It can be played on any flat surface and all a player has to do is place a card on the table so that one of its features, whether a triangle, square, or rectangle, covers up a feature on a card belonging to another player. Ideally this should with the dots showing and if it covers up another player’s feature with dots, then all the better, but a blank feature will still cover another player’s feature with dots and prevent them from being adding to that player’s final score. A player will also be thinking about how he can protect the features with dots on his cards from being covered over by the other players, so that there is defensive element to placement as well. There are few limits on card placement, the primary being that a card cannot cover another card when played and cannot connect to features that do not perfectly match. And that it is it to TACTA. Short, simple, and elegant, it is easy to teach and suitable for all ages.

Dolmenwood: Adventure and Peril in Fairytale Woods

Necrotic Gnome

Dolmenwood—consisting of the Dolmenwood Player’s Book, Dolmenwood Monster Book, and Dolmenwood Campaign Book—is another consequence of Wizards of the Coast’s proposed re-writing of the Open Game Licence that underpinned so many of the industry’s titles. Previously seen in the Wormskin fanzine and scenarios from the publisher, brings the setting together and presents it as a weird fairy tale adventure game, conjuring the wonder, horror, whimsy, and strangeness of British folklore in a land of standing stones, ley lines, lost shrines, fairy roads, Wood Gods, fairy nobles, and ancient history. All of this is brought together in a three volume set that presents this expansive woodlands in a style that William Morris, Aubrey Beardsley, and the ‘Arts & Crafts’ movement of the Victorian era with a shot of Lord Dunsay.

Dungeons & Kittens: Starter Set

Edge Studio ($39.99/£29.99)

Dungeons & Kittens: Starter Set is yet one more great starter set from 2025, this time perfect for introducing younger players to the hobby. Some time in the future, humans have disappeared following an apocalypse that has let nature grow back in its wake. In time, animals have evolved, including cats, rats, and dogs, who are beginning to explore the world, scavenge the technology left behind by humanity, and for the cats, command meowgic! The Player Characters are kittens exiled from the Kingdom of Cats who have set out to find their way and explore the world. The starter set includes lots of maps and dice and game accessories, as well as a total of five adventures. Three of these are learning adventures, each designed to be played in a single session or less, whilst the other two are full length adventures. The result is a light-hearted, even whimsical roleplaying game that can be run for the family or younger players, but also enjoyed by veteran players too. Plus it even came with its own colouring book!

Doomsong

Caesar Ink. ($65/£50)

The world of Painmye cries out in pain and screams for absolution as the Last Day draws near. Death has already closed the First Gate to Heall and turned the dead away, leaving the unquiet dead to wander… A crusade has been declared against the Traitor Gods and the Templars have already killed their first Traitor God. Day by day, more and more heretics give themselves up to or are thrown on the Pyre, but even those who have been given a chance for absolution for their heresies upon joining a guild by the Church of the Divine Corpse are being tempted once again by the gifts that Traitor Gods promise. Just as those who seek absolution join guilds for the safety in numbers they offer, so too do those who accept such gifts join cults for the protection they offer. This is Doomsong, an eschatological, pre-apocalyptic ‘Roleplay Macabre’ of heretical temptation and divine punishment and survival horror. It is a great looking book and like the best looking books makes the reader want to play on the art alone. The random character generation creates interesting, if desperate Player Characters that you want to find what happens to them. Doomsong does lack a scenario, so the Lord Have Mercy Upon Us campaign is a must.

DeadFellas
Chaosium, Inc. ($4.69/£3.48)
New York, winter, 1982. A black Cadillac, northbound. Four mafiosi inside. A body in the trunk. Their job? Get rid of the body and be home in time for Christmas. One wants to survive. One wants out. One wants to kill. One wants to avoid doing any crimes. One wants a victim. All have secrets. Highly atmospheric four-hander that plays out mostly within the confines of a car as something prods and pulls at the minds of the occupants and secrets and motivations are revealed and their consequences play out. A cracking one-shot scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, this is best run in LARP fashion, with players sat in chairs placed in the same positions as their mafiosi are in the car to impart the claustrophobia and physical space in which they can act as the Keeper moderates the interplay and moves between them, whispering secrets and memories into their ears. Tense and unnerving, and perfect for a single evening’s worth of play, this scenario that showcases the creativity of the Miskatonic Repository community content programme.

Archeterica: The Invitation 

The Imago Cult ($45/£33)

Another late trend in 2025 was the release of starter sets, the biggest and most of which were the Dungeons & Dragons Heroes of The Borderlands Starter Set and the Stranger Things: Welcome to The Hellfire Club set, both from Wizards of the Coast, whilst elsewhere the Dungeons & Kittens Starter Set from EDGE looked the most fun and Free League Publishing’s Vaesen – Starter Set provided utility in the long term as well as a solid introduction. The starter set that outdid them all in 2025 was Archeterica: The Invitation from Ukrainian publisher, The Imago Cult. Described as The X-Files in an alternate Napoleonic era of magic and conspiracies and revolution, it comes with the means to create Player Characters, an introduction to the setting, and three scenarios, what really sets it apart are its production values. Archeterica: The Invitation is simply beautiful, an alabaster artefact that you are going to want to own for its looks alone, let alone the intriguing setting.

Miskatonic Monday #404: That Damned Auction!

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: That Damned Auction!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Man Of Thousand Hobbies

Setting: 1922

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-four page, 5.3 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The biggest MacGuffin of them all! Somebody’s bound to end up dead.

Plot Hook: When the Necronomicon is up for auction, everyone drops everything!

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, some NPCs, two floorplans, three Mythos entities, and the Mythos tome.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Pulpy treatment of a classic Call of Cthulhu scenario set-up

# Easy to adapt to other modern eras

# Can be set anywhere wealthy and coastal
# Suited to experienced Investigators with the Cthulhu Mythos skill

# East to set up and run

# Auction Anxiety

# Paranoia

# Helminthophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Keeper will need to explain the evidence of some dice rolls

Conclusion

# Country house murders, but with murders!

# A fluffy lemon meringue pie of a scenario, complete with soggy bottom  

Miskatonic Monday #403: The Island of Insanity

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Island of Insanity

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jay Sojdelius, Jonas Morian, Alison Cybe, and The Yellow Hand

Setting: New England, Argentina, and Antarctica, 1937

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 25.72 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The island that time should have forgot

Plot Hook: A race against the clock to find a missing author

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, four NPCs, eleven handouts, and five maps, and one Mythos entity.

Production Values: Superb

Pros

# Pacy race against the clock 

# Easily adapted to other eras

# Easy to add to a campaign or run as a one-shot

# Very good looking scenario

# Great handouts
# Decent pre-generated Investigators

# Well presented background

# Automatonophobia

# Carceroophobia

# Antarcticaphobia

Cons

# No Sanity rewards

# Undeveloped in terms of cult reaction

Conclusion

# Superbly appointed, fast-paced race against time

# Cult antagonists need development in terms of motivation, action, and a human presence to lift into a full recommendation 

2005: Serenity Role Playing Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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The Serenity Role Playing Game was published in 2005 by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. It is a Science Fiction roleplaying game—or rather a ‘Space Western’ roleplaying—based on the film of the same name released in the same year. Both film and roleplaying game are set in the universe of Joss Whedon’s short-lived 2002 Fox television series Firefly. It would be the first roleplaying game to use the Cortex System, or rather the first roleplaying game to use what it called the Cortex System, the mechanics having been previously used in the Sovereign Stone roleplaying game, initially produced by Sovereign Press, Inc. and subsequently published by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. Not only would the Serenity Role Playing Game be the ‘first’ to use the Cortex System as named, but it would also actually be named for the system-wide communications and data network that appears in Firefly. The Serenity Role Playing Game would win the 2005 Origins Award for Gamer’s Choice Best Role Playing Game of the Year and the 2006 Gold Ennie Award for Best Production Values. Whilst the licence for Serenity Role Playing Game would lapse in 2011, Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. would return to the setting under a different licence agreement with the Firefly Role-Playing Game in 2014, this time using Cortex Plus, an evolution of the Cortex System that was first seen in the Smallville Roleplaying Game and in Leverage: The Roleplaying Game.

The Serenity Role Playing Game and both the film Serenity and the Firefly television series are set in the year 2517 in a large system of habitable and terraformed planets and moons that were settled by colonists in generation ships from Earth-That-Was. The core two planets formed the U.S.-Chinese Alliance and sought to enjoin the outer planets under their rules. The Outer Planets declined to do so, leading to tensions that would erupt in the Unification War. Despite their best efforts, the Independents, known as Browncoats for the great coats they wore, were defeated by the Alliance and it has been expanding its authority ever since. The remnants of the Browncoats, dissenters, settlers, and others fled to the border where Alliance influence and presence was weaker, but life was tougher since the worlds there had not been terraformed beyond forbidding, dry environments akin to the Old West of Earth-That-Was. This is the ’Verse, where in both the television series and the film, the protagonists are the rag-tag crew of a Firefly-class small transport, the Serenity, getting by on small jobs, crimes, and shifting cargoes and passengers. In the Serenity Role Playing Game, the Player Characters are the same, whether that is the players playing the crew of the Serenity or creating their own characters and their ships. Either way, they will be telling their own gorram stories.

To that end, as well as introducing the setting of the ’Verse, the Serenity Role Playing Game provides the attributes, skills, and traits for each of the crew aboard—Mal Reynolds, Zoë Washburne, Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne, Jayne Cobb, Kaywinnet Lee ‘Kaylee’ Frye, Inara Serra, Shepherd Book, Simon Tam, and River Tam, along with ‘Roleplaying Notes’ that are actually Mal Reynolds’ assessment of them. This adds a lot of in-game assessment and flavour and helps set the scene. Alternatively, the players can create their own characters.

A Player Character in the Serenity Role Playing Game is defined by his attributes, skills, and traits. The six attributes are Agility, Strength, Vitality, Alertness, Intelligent, and Willpower. They are represented by a die type, from ‘d4’ to ‘d12’, although it is possible to go higher. Skills are also represented by die type, again from ‘d4’ to ‘d12’. Skills tend to be general up to a rating of ‘d6’, but higher die types represent skill specialisations. A Player Character must have at least two traits, one a beneficial Asset, the other a hindering Complication, but can have up to five of either. The number of points a player receives depends on the Heroic Level of the characters or characters. This can be either ‘Greenhorn’, ‘Veteran’, or ‘Big Damn Hero’. These points are effectively spent twice, first on attributes and then skills with an extra bonus. The cost for any die type is equal to its size, so a ‘d4’ costs four points, whilst a ‘d10’ costs ten. Assets and Complications can be Minor, Major, or both, the cost coming out of the points to spend on attributes. There are two Assets of note, ‘Reader’ and ‘Registered Companion’, which require the permission of the Game Master for a player to select since they might not match the tone of the campaign.

Name: Arabella Townsley
Concept: Historian gone wild
Heroic Level: Greenhorn
Plot Points: 6

ATTRIBUTES
Agility d8 Strength d4 Vitality d6 Alertness d6 Intelligent d10 Willpower d8

VITALITY 14
INITIATIVE d8+d6

ASSETS
Allure (Asset – Minor), Highly Educated (Asset – Minor), Natural Linguist (Asset – Minor), Combat Paralysis (Complication – Minor), Soft (Complication – Minor)

SKILLS
Artistry d6 (Writing d8), Influence d6 (Lecture d8), Knowledge d6 (History d10), Linguist d6 (Mandarin d8), Perception d6 (Research d8), Scientific Expertise d6 (Historical Sciences d10), Unarmed Combat d6, Survival d4

Mechanically, the Cortex System is straightforward. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the die for appropriate attribute and the skill and adds the total together, the aim being to roll equal to, or greater than, a Difficulty number. This ranges from three or ‘Easy’ to thirty-one or ‘Impossible’. Results that are seven or more higher than the Difficulty number is an Extraordinary success, which the Game Master adjudicates. In combat, it might result in a target suffering a broken limb or being stunned. Various Assets and Complications will add a bonus or impose a penalty on the result. The circumstances can alter the die type to be rolled. If hindered, the die type is stepped down, but if a Player Character has an advantage, it is stepped up. A die type can be stepped down as far as a ‘d2’ and stepped up to a ‘d12+d2’, ‘d12+d4’, and so on. What is notable about the system is that no matter what die types the attributes and skills are, even if they are a ‘d10’ or a ‘d12’—or higher—a player or the Game Master can still roll ones on the dice, and if ones are rolled on both dice, the attempt is a botch. Again, like an Extraordinary success, the Game Master decides upon the consequences of the botch, the most immediate result being a Player Character to lose his next action. In addition, there is no set way in which an attribute or skill can be combined to undertake an action.

Since a Player Character is a hero, he also has access to Plot Points, starting play with six, and can earn more through play. This can come from the effect of Complications and the situation, but they can also be rewarded for cool ideas, and completing challenges, personal goals, and crew goals. They can then be spent to buy extra dice for a task—two Plot Points for a ‘d4’, three Plot Points for a ‘d6’, four Plot Points for a ‘d8’, and so on. This must be declared before the roll, but Plot Points can be spent on a one-for-one basis to a straight ‘+1’ bonus. Plot Points can also be spent to reduce damage suffered, trigger certain Assets, and even change the story to some extent. For two or three points, this will be a consequential change, for up to six, the change is minor, and so on, all the way to a major change that costs eleven or more Plot Points!

Combat uses the same mechanics. Initiative is handled by rolling each combatant’s Initiative die types and anyone can take multiple actions, but each action after the first suffers a step down in die type. Defence is also handled as a roll rather than a set value; the roll being determined by the defensive action that the combatant wants to take. The Defence value applies only to the next attack that a combatant suffers and can be active or passive. An active defence enables a roll of both an attribute and a skill, but a passive defence is rolled on an attribute only. The rules account for aiming, called shots, feints, grapples, automatic fire, and so on. Damage is either suffered as Stun damage or lethal Wounds. Armour will reduce either, but both are deducted from a combatant’s Vitality. If a combatant suffers Stun and Wound damage equal to Vitality, there is a chance he is knocked out, and if he suffers Wounds equal to half his Vitality, he is Seriously Wounded and suffers a Step Down penalty.

In terms of play, the Serenity Role Playing Game and the Cortex System is very variable in its results. Where in another roleplaying game, a player will have the flat value of his character’s skill to add to the roll, what he has to rely on in the Cortex System is Plot Points. Which means that the player needs to generate them through play, so leaning into his character’s complication. Offsetting that is the fact that after play, Plot Points can be converted into Advancement Points—in addition to those awarded at the end of a scenario—that are spent on Player Character improvement.

Two lengthy sections in the Serenity Role Playing Game support the technological aspects of the ’Verse. The first looks at money and equipment, including a section on the economics of operating a tramp freighter, emphasising the default set-up for the roleplaying game, whether that is roleplaying as the crew of the Serenity or as a crew of the players’ own creation. The equipment list is extensive and includes a variety of robots and ‘Newtech’ that will originate in the Core planets and be extremely rare out on the Rim. Amongst the items are the expensive and rare laser pistol from the television series episode ‘Trash’ and the LoveBot from the film. The rules for ‘Newtech’ are effectively design rules for creating interesting devices and modifying existing ones.

The second is on spaceships and vehicles and is just as extensive, explaining how they work and how they are operated. Mechanically, they are treated as Player Characters, with similar attributes, skills, and traits. It enables the Game Master and her players to create ships as easily as they can characters and it literally gives a ship character, one that the players and their characters can love and hate as the crew of the Serenity do. The rules do cover weapons and armour, but the ’Verse of Firefly and Serenity is not a setting in which spaceship combat is common. In the main, weapons add to the expense of a ship’s operation and are the province of the Alliance navy. Several vessels are given as examples. These include the Aces and Eights, a Firefly-class vessel operated by a renowned gambler, the Bumblebee-class homestead transport, the Serenity itself, an Alliance Patrol Boat, the El Dorado, a swanky passenger liner, and a Reaver skiff. These are accompanied by deck plans too.

The Game Master is given decent advice on running the Serenity Role Playing Game and exploring its themes of thrilling heroics, hidden secrets, outcasts and misfits, and freedom. It discusses character creation, establishing relationships, designing adventures, and more as well as suggesting campaign concepts other than operating a tramp freighter. These include a planet-based community, bounty hunters operating on the Rim, or even working for an Alliance organisation. Overall, the advice is sound and is accompanied by a cast of ready made NPCs that the Game Master can use in her campaign. This includes many from the film, such as Mr. Universe, Reavers, and the dreaded Operative of Parliament. Rounding the section out are full write-ups and details of the crew of the Aces and Eights, described in the chapter on spaceships. These are the most detailed characters in the Serenity Role Playing Game and can be used as NPCs or as an alternative set of pre-generated Player Characters to the cast of the Serenity. The Serenity Role Playing Game is rounded out with as decent a guide to the ’Verse as was available in 2005 and an appendix that presents ‘Gorram Chinese’, the slang of the Rim and its mix of Chinese and English.

Physically, Serenity Role Playing Game is decently presented with lots of stills from the film and decent artwork, as well as very good deck plans for various spaceships. The layout is tidy, but feels slightly heavy. The book is well written, but sometimes the use of ‘Gorram Chinese’ and frontier slang is intrusive. There is a lot of in-game fiction, which is quite extensive and enforces the tone of the roleplaying game and its setting.

Unfortunately, the Serenity Role Playing Game is not without its issues, most of them to do with its organisation. The roleplaying game and the Cortex System are not challenging to understand, but the Serenity Role Playing Game lacks examples of either play or character creation. There is an example of combat, which does double as an example of play, but it is presented in-game fiction, so is not immediately obvious. There is no index. The organisation is weird. The actual rules for the roleplaying game are almost two thirds of the way into the book after those for money, gear, and spaceships. There is no character sheet. What it means is that the Serenity Role Playing Game is not as easy to use as it should be.

Although the Serenity Role Playing Game was a success and won awards, and would be supported by several supplements, that was more due to the licence than the roleplaying game itself. It was a decent sourcebook for the Firefly universe when there was relatively little information about it, but its Cortex System was not popular. In many cases, the Serenity Role Playing Game was purchased for its background rather than its rules and the setting run under different rules. TheCortex System drew comparisons, often unfavourably, with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, which has proven to be more successful. This is despite the fact that over its history, the Cortex System was used for a number of licences based on popular television series, including the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game and Supernatural Role Playing Game. However, it would receive critical acclaim with the development of the more narrative focused Cortex Plus System, first seen in the Leverage: The Roleplaying Game and the Smallville Roleplaying Game.

One of great aspects of the Serenity Role Playing Game is how easy it is to pick and play. Mechanically, it is neither too complex nor too simple, and the familiarity of its setting—Firefly only having been broadcast three years before and the much anticipated film fresh in people’s minds, made it accessible. To be blunt, the Cortex System, more serviceable than great, is nothing to write home about (whereas to be fair, Cortex Plus, was), and that means it is neither intrusive nor difficult to learn. An experienced roleplayer will have no problem picking up the Serenity Role Playing Game and learning how to play. However, the inexperienced or new roleplayer—perhaps attracted by the fact that it is based on the Firefly setting—will find learning to play much, much harder than it should have been.

Overall, whilst far from perfect, the Serenity Role Playing Game is a combination of a stolidly functional set of rules with a good adaptation of its source material that is easy to learn and play.

An Intriguing Invitation

This is a beautiful artefact. Inside the stark black and alabaster box is a cornucopia of gaming content and again, all of it is beautiful. This includes a small white silk bag—almost like a wedding favour—containing two six-sided dice that are done in the style of early nineteenth dice. Below that is a hard back book. This is the fifty-four-page ‘Archeterica Invitation Rules’. Linen finish and heavy stock paper with line art. Below that is the first of three scenarios. These are ‘Game Scenario: The Good Mayor’, ‘Game Scenario: The Bastinarys’, and ‘Game Scenario: Shady Deals in Strange Alley Ways’. Each of these is sixteen to twenty-pages long and again printed on heavy paper stock, but with sturdy card covers with a linen finish. There are two envelopes. One contains nine quite lovely handouts, whilst the second contains character sheets for six pre-generated Player Characters and six blank sheets, all of which are on sturdy paper stock. Penultimately, there are thirty-four standees and twenty-four counters, the former depicting the six pre-generated Player Characters and NPCs in the three scenarios. These are laser-cut on wood. Lastly, there is a Combat Status Chart which tracks the position of the Player Characters and the NPCs and their actions in combat. Along with a letter from the publisher, this is everything in Archeterica: The Invitation. Everything is delightfully tactile and again, it is a beautiful artefact.

Archeterica: The Invitation is published The Imago Cult following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The Ukrainian roleplaying game describes itself as the ‘game of genteel conspiracy’. It is set at the Dawn of the New Times. The opening years of the nineteenth century as the world is beset by revolution and occultism. The Industrial Revolution brings changes to the daily lives of workers, bankers, and the increasingly rich industrialists, whilst actual revolution brings about political change as bright young republics burst in existence alongside the older, staid monarchies and colonial powers. All of this takes place on the Disc, for no sailor is yet to brave the edge and beyond to see whether some scholars’ claims that the world is a sphere is true. The Old World lies in the west, its continents of Adriano and Al-Avid being similar to Europe and the Near East, respectively, whilst the New World is in the east, its continents of Salmandia and Graaldo being similar to Africa and the Americas, respectively. This is an alternate world in a Napoleonic Age of its own.

This is no mundane world though. It is full of secrets and conspiracies and the paranormal. Proper society dismisses such subject matters and discussions of them as being the realm of the fool and foolishness, often pointing to the countless charlatans, pseudo-scientists, and straight-up madmen that indulge the gullible or indulge themselves in such matters to no good end. Yet there is hidden truth in the occult and the Unearthly is real. Curses are real, paranormal abilities are real, rituals that take months of study and research that when enacted have the potential to grant enlightenment or change the movement of the heavens are real. Artefacts known as ‘Diablica’, perhaps ritualistic or occult objects or devices employing technologies not yet known, brought home from the New World or constructed by the enlightened (or the mad), continue to fascinate both researchers and collectors, yet their possession is banned by churches and governments alike. The authorities consider such artefacts dangerous sources of spiritual corruption and fear the powers they grant lest they be turned to revolution. Yet interest in the occult and diablica is rife, with amateur occultists forming local societies of their own to research and discuss such matters, their interests often benign, but all too often becoming a danger to themselves and others. Other societies have transcended mere parochialism, growing in power and influence, abutting, competing, and feuding with not just other occult brotherhoods, but also secret political and criminal organisations. Fear and suspicion of these secret cabals is fuelled by the sensationalism of the yellow press which sees and blames conspiracies everywhere.

The elevator pitch for Archeterica: The Invitation is The X-Files in the Napoleonic era. It is not though a roleplaying game about alien invasion or the fear of alien invasion, but rather a roleplaying game of Napoleonic conspiracy and the occult. Inspired by the television series Sharpe and Taboo, the film The Prestige, the Assassin’s Creed series of computer games, Archeterica: The Invitation casts the Player Characters as seekers of enlightenment, occult researchers, conspiracy theorists, and so on, who investigate both signs of the occult and conspiracy and work to prevent either from having too strong an influence on society.

A Player Character is defined by a concept, Narrative Attributes and their associated Talents, Burdens, combat skills, and inventory. The concept is who he is, whilst each Narrative Attribute represents an area of expertise or knowledge, profession, background, or previous experience. For example, a student radical might be represented by the ‘Student’ and ‘Firebrand’ Narrative Attributes, muckraking yellow journalist by the ‘Agent’ and ‘Journalist’ Narrative Attributes, and dilettante occultist by the ‘Aristocrat’ and ‘Occultist’ Narrative Attributes. Talents are the skills associated with a Narrative Attribute. Burdens are his personal flaws and weaknesses and are rated I, II, or III depending on how much of a hindrance they represent. Archeterica: The Invitation gives four options for combat skills—‘Fine Choice’, ‘Resourceful Ranger’, ‘Artful Daredevil’, and ‘Peaceable Socialite’.

Ottilie van Tulleken
Concept: Campaigning Journalist

GENTLE FOLK
Мanners II, Etiquette I, Social Connections I

JOURNALIST
Journalistic Reputation I, Subtle Bribery I, Reporting II

DETECTIVE
Information Gathering I, Sharp Eye I

BURDENS
Feminist II, Adventurism I, Vanity I

COMBAT SKILLS – PEACEABLE SOCIALITE
Classic Fencing II, Shooting I, New Beginnings 2, Instinct 3

INVENTORY
Pocket Pistol, Dagger, Umbrella, Small Set of Tools (lockpicking kit) Aristocratic Wardrobe, 1 mark in savings

Archeterica: The Invitation does detail several Narrative Attributes and their Talents as well as sample Burdens. A player is free to pick these or create his own and they do give a surprisingly wide choice. The creation process is not fully explained however, and it is only clear from the example that ranks are applied to the Talents. It does include some tables for character ideas, suggesting a character’s home country, social class, and former secret society. The entries for the table of home countries do draw parallels between the nations of the Disc and those of our Napoleonic era. Alternatively, the players can instead use the pre-generated Player Characters included in Archeterica: The Invitation. They include a ‘Gentleman Incognito’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Gentleman’ and ‘Malefactor’; a ‘Barricades Queen’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Revolutionary’ and ‘Commissar’; a military ‘Pioneer’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Sapper’ and ‘Expeditioner’; a ‘Foreigner’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Secret Broker’ and ‘Mystic’; a ‘Modern Day Hero’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Doctor’ and ‘Businessman’; and a ‘New Times Child’ with the Narrative Attributes of ‘Courier’ and ‘Opportunist’.

Mechanically, whenever a player wants his character to undertake an action in Archeterica: The Invitation, he rolls two six-sided dice, attempting to beat a Narrative Test Difficulty Level, which ranges from three and ‘Trivial’ to twelve and ‘Desperate’ with eight and ‘Challenging’ being the median. A player can lower the Difficulty Level by using his Talents, but the Game Master can increase it depending upon the character’s Burdens. Talents at Rank II or Rank III also enable a player to ‘Flip’ a roll, that is, to Flip it up or down, by turning the dice over to reveal and apply their reverse faces. In general, a player will want to perform an Upward Flip to have his character succeed at a task, but certain situations might mandate a Downward Flip. A player may only perform an Upward Flip once every twelve hours and it always incurs a complication of the Game Master’s choice. This might be to suffer Stress, which if ever reaches twelve means that the Player Character breaks down under the mental trauma, but it could also be a time delay, a loss of reputation, and so on.

In comparison to the core mechanic, combat in Archeterica: The Invitation is more complex. Actions require the expenditure of Action Points, whether that is step from one hex to another, run, aim, shoot, reload, cock a weapon, and so on. However, the number of Action Points a combatant has each round is rolled randomly. An attack requires a Mastery Test determined by comparing the attacker’s Mastery against the target’s Difficulty and rolling equal to or higher than the given target value. Although there are plenty of firearms listed, fencing is the preferred form of combat. It allows a combatant to attack as well as react to an attack against him. Such a reaction also costs Action Points, so it is wise to save some for that very purpose. Five styles are given, including ‘Classic’, ‘Savage’, ‘Court’, ‘Knightly’, and ‘Trickster’, and each comes with its form of attacks, reactions, and stances, all with their own Action Point costs.

Success indicates a successful strike and damage is rolled on two six-sided dice—for all weapons and attacks, though it can be modified depending on the weapon or type of attack. Some armour is available, which blocks damage, but all Player Characters have twelve Endurance Points whilst NPCs have ten. When a combatant’s Endurance is reduced to zero, it indicates that he has suffered an extra effect, the severity depending upon the amount of damage inflicted with the blow that reduced his Endurance to zero. This might be an insignificant scratch, being knocked out, receiving a scar, a severe wound, or death. Once every twelve hours, a player can Flip Down the damage his character receives in a single blow to reduce it. Each combatant’s number of Action Points and Endurance Points can be tracked on the Combat Status Chart.

Ottilie van Tulleken is conducting an investigation in a rookery when she is set upon by Albert, a thug who does not like her poking her nose into things. Albert has ten Endurance Points as an NPC, plus Savage Fencing II and is armed with a club that does three to seven points of damage (2d6/2+1). In the first round Ottilie has five Action Points and Albert has ten! Albert opts for a Battering Assault as part of his Savage Fencing Style. It costs him seven Action Points and will leave him with three. This enables him to attack twice. Ottlie opts for a Clean Block as a Reaction, using her umbrella. It costs three Action Points and will leave her with two. Not enough to repeat the action though. The Target Difficulty for Albert is seven because Ottilie has Classic Fencing II, which reduces it to five. Similarly, Ottilie’s Target Difficulty is also seven because of Albert’s Savage Fencing II and her Classic Fencing II. The Game Master’s Mastery Test for Albert’s first Battering Assault is ten, meaning his first punch lands, but Ottilie’s player’s is twelve meaning she blocks the first blow with her umbrella. For Albert’s second Battering Assault, the Game Master’s Mastery Test is nine and his second connects. This time Ottilie cannot defend against it and the Game Master rolls for damage. This is on two-sided dice and halved because it is non-lethal. The Game Master rolls ten and Ottilie’s Endurance Points are reduced to seven.

In the next round, Ottilie’s player rolls eight for Action Points, whilst the Game Master rolls four for Albert. With little he can do, Albert backs off, but not before Ottilie thwacks him one with her umbrella. This is a standard test and her player’s Mastery test result is six, meaning that she has succeeded. Unable to defend himself, Albert takes five points of damage from the Thrust. Ottilie still has four Action Points to spend. In turn, she uses two Action Points to draw her pocket pistol, another to aim it, and her last one to cock it. Albert finds himself at the point of her gun and steely gaze when she asks him, “Who sent you to lay your hands on me?”

Throughout, a Player Character can suffer Stress, which is tracked on a twelve-point scale, from ‘Clarity of Mind’ to ‘Onset of Madness’. The Game Master imposes Stress upon the Player Character, anything from a minor misfortune like the death of an acquaintance, worth one or two points, to the five or six points from the loss of a loved one, regarded as a major tragedy. That said, a Player Character resist Narrative Stress by making a Desperate Test, halving the number suffered, and when suffering an Archeshock from encountering the Unearthly, a Player Character can force himself to forget the experience and replace the memories of it with something mundane, or retain it and suffer the Stress. In the long term, taking a holiday or engaging in a hobby can reduce Stress. If however, the Player Character’s Stress exceeds twelve, he does go insane and he gains a point of Deep Stress, which cannot be removed. The nature of the insanity is a matter of discussion between player and Game Master, giving the player control over the effects. Should a Player Character’s Deep Stress also rise to twelve, the madness is permanent and he becomes an NPC. One side effect of Stress is that if the Action Point roll in combat is under a Player Character’s Stress level, he panics rather than acts.

In terms of Player Character development, players are rewarded three types of points. The first is Narrative Points which are used to buy and improve Talents. The second are Combat Points, used to improve Combat Techniques. The third are Burden Points which can be exchanged for Narrative Points, Combat Points, or used to reduce a Player Character’s Stress. The neat aspect is that the higher the Ranks of the Burden and the more of a hindrance, the better this exchange rate is. Although more complex than simple Experience Points, this encourages players to roleplay all aspects of their character as they will be rewarded for doing so.

Mysticism is the study of occult secrets and otherworldly knowledge, found in the whispers spread in the most select salons, in spirits that haunt the edge of vision, and tomes of esoteric knowledge that appear to be nothing more than the ravings of the deluded. However, the line between delusion and the actuality of the Unearthly is uncertain, giving scope for the charlatans, the believers, mystics and occultists, and the unfortunate who have been driven mad by their experiences. Archeterica is the pseudo-scientific study of Occultism and all that relates to the Imagosphere, the otherworldly plane of ideas and images, the Hexen Cauldron where the boundary with the Imagosphere is at its weakest and where most Diablica are found, and the Vladyfus, the ethereal rulers of Otherworld who have attained True Enlightenment and who most occultists want to emulate. All beings and some artefacts have an Imago, their esoteric essence and reflection of their soul. This is manifested in mystics, otherworldly entities, and artefacts as their mystical powers and represented by Imago Strings, ranging from between one and twelve. The greater the number of Imago Strings, the greater an Imago’s power.

For the Player Character, it is possible to increase the number of Imago Strings he has. To do so, he has to acquire Focus Points, whether through spiritual practices, studying occult literature, suffering shock enlightenment, or experiencing events of historical significance that further herald the Dawning of the New Times. He can also purchase Mystical Abilities such as Intuition, Manipulation, Fortune’s Favourite, and Anomaly Compass. Only six such Mystical Abilities are detailed and they are relatively low key in their application. As with the capacity to either ‘Flip Up’ or Flip Down’, they can only be used once every twelve hours. Conversely, a Player Character or NPC can gain a Metamorphosis, the mystical manifestation of a sin that they have committed, such as hearing ‘Wicked Voices’ or suffer ‘Sinner’s Shame’. There are ways of Absolving yourself of a Metamorphosis and its sin, but this would be a demanding task.

Rounding out the ‘Archeterica Invitation Rules’ are details of several of the Shadow Clubs, Shadow Leagues, and Shadow Empires lurking across The Disc. These are its secret societies, from local clubs to grand conspiracies, such as ‘The Evercourt’, the society of aristocrats and kings and queens, many of whom who have been forced into exile following revolutions; ‘The Blackwater Marauders’, Strangers from the other side of The Disc who have inveigling their way into societies across this face of The Disc; and the travelling warlock communities known as ‘The Wandering Cities’. Each description includes details of known agents, known vassals, and associated conspiracy theories.

‘Archeterica Invitation Rules’ is surprisingly comprehensive, but far from complete. The secret societies details are large rather than small and there is no advice for the Game Master or any discussion or presentation of any threats. So, no monsters or NPCs. The description of the occult is understandably brief, but one of the pre-generated Player Characters does have Mystical Abilities that will show off that aspect of the setting in play. However, what Archeterica: The Invitation does have is three scenarios. Each of the three comes with a good introduction, some character hooks that can be used to get the Player Characters involved, a breakdown of the plot, the dessert, and handouts. Some also include some lore as well, but the ‘dessert’ actually gives the supplementary information for the Game Master, including the stats for any NPCs or Imago.

The first of these, ‘Game Scenario: The Good Mayor’ is designed as an introductory scenario that can be played through in a single session. The Player Characters are employed by the Senate Special Services in the small town of Tsaplyny in the Brasian Republic to stifle any news of the death of the town’s mayor. It quickly escalates into a search for the body and a race to get a new one! The second, ‘Game Scenario: The Bastinarys’, switches the action to the end of the eighteenth century during the revolution in the Spohledian Protectorate that led to the founding of the Brasian Republic. It takes place in the capital of Bramastadt where the Revolution Commissary appoints the Player Characters to take control of the Bastinarys, the city’s royal fortress prison. They have to decide which faction they need to align with and free the prisoners previously incarcerated by the monarchy. Unfortunately, one of the inmates is much more than they expect and ultimately, they need to avoid ending up being executed by the Revolution Commissary. The third scenario is the most sophisticated of the three. ‘Game Scenario: Shady Deals in Strange Alley Ways’ begins with the Player Characters in possession of a mystical tome as they attempt to find a seller in Bramastadt without attracting the attention of the authority. Each of the scenarios in their own way deal with the occult elements of the setting, but not the conspiratorial elements. That will have to wait for a fuller longer scenario or game.

Physically, Archeterica: The Invitation is—as already mentioned—lovely. The quality is amazing and the artwork is superb. The writing is not always as clear as it should be, but the examples of play help illustrate the rules and make it easier for the Game Master to grasp them. Of course, it is so lovely that really, as the Game Master, you do not want your players getting their grubby little mitts on it.

As a starter set, what Archeterica: The Invitation is missing is perhaps ready reference material for both the Game Master and her players. Some tables and explanations of what various aspects of each Player Character are and how they work would have been useful. The setting itself probably does not receive as much attention or explanation as it should, and in places the rules really rely upon the examples to impart full understanding of them. It also leaves the reader wanting to know more about the Occult and the things that threaten the real world.

Of course, what grabs the reader first about Archeterica: The Invitation is its stark physicality. This is a gorgeous boxed set whose contents are genuinely delightful. Yet this is not just a pretty box with pretty contents. Inside the very well appointed quick-start not only makes a ‘I want to play now’ elevator pitch of a Napoleonic-era meets The X-Files world of the occult and conspiracies, but whilst not quite perfect in its execution, delivers on that promise. Archeterica: The Invitation is absolutely worth accepting and it would be impolite not to try this, the introduction to the first Ukrainian roleplaying game to reach the English-speaking hobby.