EN5ider Magazine Issue 9 Release!

EN5ider Magazine #9, image belongs to EN Publishing 

Another awesome experience with the writing team on EN5ider Magazine #9, for the December issue on Spaceship Crash! My contribution is a Villain Spotlight on Krurcain the Conqueror, a psionic warlord, marooned on your campaign world after a ferocious space battle. He is mean, nasty, and coming for magic items to rebuild his ship! Please consider checking out EN5ider Magazine, where you also gain access to the entire backlog of ten years of EN5ider materials by subscribing to their Patreon.

Like many fantasy TTRPG fans, I initially had some mental barriers on having sci-fi in my fantasy setting, but I think the articles in this issue can sit faithfully alongside classic 5e monsters and themes. 

Advanced FASERIP Reactions

As I gradual work through my massive “to-be-read” pile of RPG materials. Advanced FASERIP caught my eye.

Advanced FASERIP is the second edition of a retroclone based upon the mechanics of the original 1980s Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game from TSR. This game is produced by Gurbintroll Games, which appears to be a single creator adapting legacy materials as retro clones under the OGL. The best thing about this is that the creator has released the book along with the first edition of the game as free products on DriveThruRPG. So there’s no reason not to grab your own copy after this article.

It’s noted in the intro that, like many retro clones, this version differs in several ways, such as allowing for more player choice in character creation, and other things to make it easier to play. I’ll note I have no previous experience with the original licensed game that FASERIP draws inspiration from.

While it took a couple read throughs of the basic rules for me to really grasp it, I was struck by how simple the core gameplay really is. Every attribute or ability is rated on a relative scale. How good a character is determines where they consult the x-axis on a universal resolution chart at the end of the book—this can be modified by various powers or circumstances. The y-axis result depends on your percentile die role. Then different categories of success drive interpretation by the GM. While tables aren’t most modern players preferred action resolution system, this isn’t a bad way to go, particularly considering the complexity of other options available when the original game was created. Though not from TSR, my thought often turn to Classic Traveller’s lack of such a common resolution mechanism in its skills application. As what many might consider an OSR game, Advanced FASERIP seems easier to both teach and implement as a GM for modern players to me.

The available powers provide a diverse set of options to create most popular superhero archetypes. As the book notes, it doesn’t seem difficult to design new powers or reskin existing ones either if you find a particular niche lacking. The rank system ensures that they should maintain parity if you model custom ones on those in the book.

NPCs are built on the same mechanics as player characters, which coming from modern asymmetric monster and NPC design, seemed odd to me. However, since all actions are based on the same core resolution mechanic, once NPC villains are made, it seems relatively easy to use them—certainly easier than some 5e stat blocks! The book provides some helpful stats for regular persons or bystanders that might appear in adventures, along with simple goons for those more bespoke supervillains. There are also options for random character creation that I imagine could be used to quickly create a group of villains.

The GM advice section is also worthy of some praise. It provides some useful general advice on creating adventures using the system while threading the needle on avoiding language or examples treading too close to its copyrighted inspiration.

Overall, I found this to be a retroclone I could actually use and teach players—which is perhaps the best praise I can give. The reference tables at the back make this even easier, however not all the info for action resolution and interpretation of the various color categories of success and failure are contained on those sheets, so those might need modifications for some GMs until they become familiar with them. My major criticism is that some of the explanations of rules are inconsistent in using their own mechanical definitions, making some sections more difficult to parse. There are also some tables within the rules that probably should have also been included in the consolidated reference sheets at the end for easy consultation.

These aside, Advanced FASERIP offers rules-lite superhero game for perhaps the best price point possible. With such a low barrier to entry, I recommend at least giving it a look.

Review: The Big Hoodoo

I finally played Trail of Cthulhu!

Looking around for an initial adventure, the premise of the self-described “film noir” adventure, The Big Hoodoo, by Bill White, seemed like it would be a good start. I was sadly disappointed.

The adventure fails largely in facilitating a quick and easy understanding of its structure and critical clues connecting the scenes together. I’d have expected better particularly as this is highlighted as a good adventure for convention play. I’d feel so sorry for the GM who had to do a low prep, or no prep session for convention players. The writing and inconsistent formatting throughout is really what makes it extremely difficult to get through. In some places, NPC names are bolded, while other names within the same sentence are not, and the reasons why are difficult to discern. Other difficulties stem from lack of clear distinction of read aloud text. Some body text is clearly written to be read aloud as descriptive text for players, but often the format does not differ significantly from clues. Clues are inconsistent as well, with some featuring the skill and point spends denoted in bold and at the beginning of paragraphs, which others are buried in body text. 

Neither connections between scenes nor a flowchart of this information is provided in a standard manner, such as putting a scene that leads from a clue in parentheses or signaling some other way to the GM. In my case, it was difficult to figure out that an invitation to a named address corresponded to another scene, since there was no information in the next scene referring back to the context of the clue. The address was the only link, and that information was buried deeper in the scene description. The lack of robust and multiple connections threatened to cause exactly the roadblocks that Trail of Cthulhu attempts to avoid, particularly with new players unused to matching their clue abilities to a given situation.

While I do enjoy the themes of alternative history, and the tie into classic science fiction, I was also let than impressed at some of the execution. Some clues seemed more red herrings or distractions than anything. The impression was more of a pastiche of various occult or ancient religious bits, then loosely, but not explicitly, tied to the Cthulhu Mythos. The puzzles that did exist were such that my characters would not have been able to solve them.

After more than a couple read throughs, I did have the opportunity to run the adventure. Despite the issues, I managed to muddle through most of it (the linkage to the climax is totally lacking, and the climax is its own mess). At the least I accomplished my initial goal of exposing some of my players to a very different system than they normally try. I would not recommend The Big Hoodoo as an adventure to much people though.

Player’s Secrets of Roesone Review

Glancing over the map of Cerilia, I chose to read the Player’s Secrets of Roesone first out of the many other Player’s Secrets products. Each of these supplements is designed for players to be able to read, gaining information so their character can act as a regent, controlling the domain detailed within. Because this product was intended for players, there are no spoilers. It is credited as designed by Rich Baker.

So to be up front, I really like this supplement overall. I get tired of the in-character NPC narrator voice—in this case the Lord Seneschal of Roesone. However, the details in these 40 pages are a wealth of material to spur both GM and player creativity. 

Built into this domain you have so much game potential—for real political intrigue. The lands of Roesone were claimed by Daen Roesone, a bit of a sell sword and brigand also called the “Black Baron.” There’s some muddied succession and intrafamilial violence that casts a shadow over the current baron’s reign and legitimacy. If you have a player who is interested in creating a character to play the current Baron of Roesone and integrating this rich backstory, there are tons of hooks and interesting story bits to integrate. There’s a bastard cousin who is the only child of the current Baron’s uncle (the original heir to the title) who could try to make some play or at least complicate things for the regent. Another cousin is the only wizard named in the domain, abet a minor one. This Count Bellamie feels historical and personal affinity for Roesone’s neighbors, along with a desire to gain power—does he commit treason against the barony? Other characters can have interesting things built out too—whose side did their family take in previous succession struggles? 

Along with all this intrigue for roleplaying drama, there’s plenty of interesting things to play around with on the regent and domain side of play. There’s tensions on all sides, from the threat of Ghoere, a massive domain to the north with aspirations to reunite Anuire by claiming the Iron Throne. Gavin Tael, the regent of Ghoere, does not align in his vision with most other rulers of Anuire, and rules his realm ruthlessly—and he has a huge army. Serenade and Diemed, though not ruled by harsh regents like Tael, might find themselves drawn into conflict with Roesone over old territorial disputes, or disagreements between their faiths. Meier and Ilien are neighbors and friends to Roesone, but also must see to their own divergent interests. Rogr Aglondier, regent of Ilien also controls half of Roesone’s magical sources, while the other half are held by a wizard of Aerenwe—a great source of tension with friendly neighbors if a party magic wielder seeks to create their own network of magical sources. Finally, there are the old forests of the untamed Erebannien in the south, which could harbor unknown threats, and the long dormant awnsheghlien ruler of the Spiderfell, the mysterious and powerful Spider. 

So we have all the ingredients for political intrigue, within and without the realm. Inter religious conflict, and competition for magical influence. Then there’s the plenty of ancient crumbling ruins within the domain, beckoning exploration. If none of those appeal, the potentially catastrophic threat of the Spider and his armies of goblins and gnolls remain under the shadowy boughs of the Spiderfell.

It may be a bit too much to hope that the average player will read any or even most of this book, but I don’t think the Birthright setting is built for the average player. In any event, the Player’s Secrets of Roesone is a great resource for GMs and players looking to create a collaborative campaign or use Roesone in a domain game set in Anuire.

Why Read so Many RPG Magazines?

A few months back, I read Anatomy of an Adventure by M.T. Black. Then I also noticed Black’s highly viewed posts on EN World looking at old issues of Dragon Magazine. He practices what he preaches in terms of adventure and game design—read and copy the masters, and when you finish you’ll have discovered your own style. So though I was reading both old and new RPG magazines before this, it gave new impetus. 

In fact, based on what I’ve read about this hobby, the zine predates the game, and provided a common forum for discussion of ideas and concepts. Later descendants of the fanzine format were and are the official magazines of various publishers. 

These types of products play an important role in continuing to develop the hobby, I think even to this day. Take a look at the names in many of the magazines, old and new, for newer and more established publishers. Then take a look at the writers and designers in their books on your shelve or in your digital library. Magazines provide a place for new freelance writers and designers to cut their teeth in a more traditional publication space. Anyone can make a product and put it on DriveThruRPG (that’s not to diminish the self-publishing route, which is very hard on its own). But the process of working with editors and other designers fostered by magazines seems to fuel the larger TTRPG industry, and is the path towards authors credits in hardbacks from established publishers. 

Take a look at the early publishing credits of most of Wizards of the Coast’s design team if you don’t believe me. Experienced designers learned their craft writing then editing for Dungeon or Dragon magazines. More recent designers have some of their first publication credits in MCDM’s Arcadia. You’ll see En5ider authors in the author and designers credits sections of hardback titles from MCDM, Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, and more.

So if you want to understand this hobby, find great ideas for your home games, or even start writing, take a look at EN Publishing’s En5ider, or Gate Pass Gazette. Learn from the work in Wildmage Press’ Horizons. Read the magazines from decades past and you’ll find things that inspire you, and you’ll drive your own creative energy.

Fan Kobold Press Northlands Adventure: Return of the Azure King - Pitch

I was a little disappointed to discover that my submission to Kobold Press' (KP) most recent open pitch call had not been selected. I would like to offer a hearty congratulations to those whose adventures were selected! According to the latest KP update on their Northlands kickstarter project they were:

• In the Hall of the Hill Troll Chief by Atgeir

• Storm Champion's Barrow by Miranda Crowell

However, I enjoyed my pitch, and I have an abet small platform to share it here under the KP fan content policy, as it uses elements from their outstanding Midgard Campaign setting. Further, the guidelines provided to folks who were eligible to submit is that we can do with it what we please, while of course respecting KP's copyright. So I have decided to post my idea and make a personal goal to follow through as if it had been selected, using the KP fan content policy to share it for free here on the blog.

Over the next couple months, I will draft an 8,000 word adventure based upon my pitch and post it here (perhaps broken into several posts for readability). The non-specific eventual deadline of early Spring 2026 was provided, so I will look to have this project completed by the beginning of March. Significant spoilers for the adventure are in the pitch. I will look at including a brief non-spoiler blurb when it is completed for any readers who would like to suggest this adventure to their GMs, while any GMs potentially interested in running an original adventure set in KP's Northlands region of Midgard should read on.

So without further ado:

Return of the Azure King

For Adventurers of 8th Level

The Cradle Cave at the heart of the city of Tanserhall was breached and the holiest relics stolen, a hammer and anvil of Thor and Volund. The rulers of Tanserhall tracked the thieves to Veles Fang, where the trail goes cold amongst the rivers and marshes. Panicked by memories and legends of Thor’s wrath when he cast Tanserhall down, they request the adventurers’ aid. 

On a journey for the sagas, they encounter Khazzaki riders, Kariv wanders, and dwarven reavers, discovering clues leading to the fabled Red Mounds of Rhos Khurgan. These clues and rumors are dark—that the shadow of Ulf the Azure King has returned, a despot so terrible that fallen Domovogrod and Tsar-ruled Vidim allied over half a century ago to defeat him. There are dark symbols of a god spoken of only in whispers—Chernobog. All leads point to the cursed 32rd red mound. 

Exploring the red mound, the adventurers discover the truth. Fjolmod, son of the Azure King, has returned from exile in Vellarsheim alongside troops of the Thursir warlord Mensnark Obsbane. Allied with cultists of the Cauldron of Chernobog, Fjolmod seeks to imbue his father’s weapon, Menneskelig-dod, with unholy power and conquer the whole of the Northlands.

2e AD&D Birthright Campaign Setting Review

This article is spoiler free, only providing specific information that the original books describe as safe to share with players as part of setting background.

Birthright is an interesting setting, and frankly not discussed much in my abet limited experience in the hobby. On ENWorld I've seen its fanbase called "small but vocal." It is small indeed, with much of the community residing on a fan website that has existed for roughly two decades and a more recently created discord server. For me personally, I didn't hear about Birthright until I heard it mentioned in passing in a video by Matt Colville. Appearing later in the life cycle of 2e AD&D, it seems as though Birthright never got as much attention as other settings like Planescape and Spelljammer. 

It's also of note that as older materials, the Birthright Campaign Setting and other supplements, available on DriveThruRPG, include the disclaimer that "Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today." Those interested in exploring this setting should keep this in mind and use player safety tools. 

The setting and rules of the original box set is laid out in three books. Let's take a look at them.

Atlas

Really interesting overview, providing the meat of the setting lore. It is written from an in-character perspective, by a chamberlain waiting for a wise emperor to rise and rule the fallen empire once more. I found the narrative style less annoying personally than when it was used for the Planescape 2e sources. The lore sets the continent of Cerilia up as a land that has been settled by humans, in a generally low magic setting. There still remain untamed frontiers to explore, which seems a major idea for some regions (there are some potentially problematic themes of colonialism as elves, dwarves, and orog peoples lived in Cerilia before the arrival of humans). 

The background of the setting is that a thousand years or longer before the present timeline there was a massive battle between the forces of evil and good, in which the gods also participated and destroyed one another. Their energy created new gods from some of the combatants and also diffused amongst those who survived on both sides, creating powerful magical bloodlines amongst the humanoids and also creating the dark antagonists, the awnsheghlien. These adversaries are functionally immortal and are natural bad guys for your adventures. 

There is a mystical element to the awnsheghlien, particularly as these are unique monsters, which I think is sometimes lost in D&D. So while normal versions of monster stat blocks might easily be used for some of them, it would also make sense to make modified or legendary versions of some (like a modified medusa stat block for the Gorgon).

Then the setting takes the bloodline theme and combines it with the divine right of kings to create a feudal system of rule. After the battle an empire arose that unified much of the continent, but it fell as the ruling bloodline weakened. The seeds of a plot that could be as radical as reuniting the empire, or as small as dealing with the local politics and the threat of nearby neighbors emerges. The rules presented in the rulebook then support this different style of gameplay. I like the fallen empire trope, and already planned to employ a similar theme in my own world. The world is distinct and interesting, and I’d definitely consider a campaign here.

The descriptions of the various lands are interesting, and I think you could do worse than using Cerilia without the domain system as an adventuring setting alternative to others like the Forgotten Realms.

Rulebook

Character Options

It’s always been interesting considering the class and character restrictions based upon ancestry which are included in older sourcebooks. Honestly seems rather silly at this point. However, I do appreciate the brief sections on each people that detail their culture and what makes them unique.

Domains

The domain system is what really makes this setting unique and cool. It will not be for everyone. There's a lot conceptually you need to take in and understand to effectively use the system. The GM really needs to be an expert, and it is more akin to a strategic simulation game than a roleplaying game. It's the intersection of these two styles of games that makes Birthright truly shine though.

First, you really need this beautiful stitched together map of Cerilia to understand this system. If you want to use another setting with this system, you'll need to figure out how to divide up the map according to provinces, which according to the book should be between 1,000 and 1,500 miles square, or about 30-40 miles per side if you are doing rough squares. The book notes the exact dimensions aren't important, but if you want to maintain some of the verisimilitude in ability to communicate and travel quickly within the area then this is a good rule of thumb. You don't need to do the entire map necessarily though, just the area you are interested in running your campaign. Then you can follow the principles of spiral campaign development as your players venture further afield, then detailing the provinces and new regions they are going to.

(Major aside: Khorvaire in Eberron, and Midgard are good settings to potentially look at for this. Khorvaire would function well if you wanted to play out the Last War, and Midgard has this type of intrigue and warfare baked into the setting already. The Forgotten Realms works less well because the Sword Coast is primarily city states, and the nobles aren't as tied to geographic holdings in the lore outside of those cities).

Provinces are assigned a level (the book essentially suggests these will primarily range from 0-9). The level assigned generally reflects the population, and through that the economic and political potential of the province (the book says importance and prosperity, but words from actual scholarship are much more descriptive and helpful to us in conceptualizing these). A major city of greater than 40,000 people is at least level 7 (i.e. a province containing Ptolus would be 7 or 8). 

Within a province you have four types of holdings:

• Guilds (Associated with the 2e Thief class)
• Law
• Sources (Sources of magical energy derived from the land itself)
• Temples (Centers of divine power and influence)

There are a number of slots for each of these holdings within a province equal to its level (except for sources, they have other rules later). There is also a limitation based on the size of the province for how many regents (rulers) those holding slots can be divided between (for instance, a level 3 province can only have one regent per type of holding. This is true even if the holding doesn't use all the available slots. Meaning this province can have a level 1 temple holding, but no other regents can take those slots.

Next the various types of assets that a regent can have are discussed, which is essentially anything other than a holding, including armies, money, and more. 

Reading this, it becomes very apparent that some sort of digital ability to manage data is necessary—those folks who did this by hand in the ‘90’s deserve a round of applause. A CSV file might suffice, with holdings nested under provinces and listed with their respective levels and regents. Regents' assets need to be tracked too. There's also the added wrinkle of tracking the interrelations of regents, scions, and their bloodlines. The type of hyperlinking available in Foundry or other non VTT document management tools also could be a way to provide lists of provinces, the holdings, and regents, along with their associated resource gain each turn.

In addition to all of this, there are the procedures for running domain turns and a skirmish battle game with cards for units (wait this sounds familiar). These rules provide some parameters that to me make them more usable that the more amorphous domain rules that Kingdoms & Warfare provided, certainly inspired by this previous product. Though you definitely need digital tools to keep track of everything, the procedures follow a certain logic, and some lists and flowcharts nicely demonstrate how everything ought to flow. The domain rules also explicitly are designed to work alongside adventures and guidance is given on how to advance time and interweave the domain turns with adventures—a degree of specificity that I find more helpful than the tired “make it up as you go” advice that I've also seen. The framework allows for deviation better than having to haphazardly create something on the fly.

Ruins of Empire

This book is densely packed, providing the domain data for a number of NPC regents and domains in Anuire, which is essentially a European fantasy themed portion of the setting. The level of detail included in this and other Birthright supplements (which we'll also take a look at in future posts) 

Final Thoughts

This setting offers a type of play not everyone is interested in. That’s okay, but I’m glad that people still continue to think about domain management and building kingdoms as part of the fantasy TTRPG hobby. This is an interesting setting from a historical point of view and offers one example of how to approach this problem. Various aspects of Birthright could be drawn from or combined with other systems—for example, division of a map up into regions is very similar to A5E’s exploration mechanics. If I were to run this setting, I might make use of the exploration encounters from A5E in this way to do pointcrawls with regional nodes.

You can also see how Birthright emphasized an ideal of generational play, with characters developing their holdings, perhaps gaining control of a province with regency, and passing on their power to a trusted heir. I like this idea in other works I've seen it in, like the much more recent Broken Weave. Similar mechanics from games like Pendragon could be adapted too.

There are also obvious different styles of play available in Birthright. For example, each player a ruler of a kingdom, which would focus significantly on the domain level game, and potentially include conflict between player domains. There's also the ability to place an NPC or a player in charge of a kingdom, with the others acting as vassals, promoting both cooperation, or providing a smaller scale for intrigue. There's also the option of simply adventuring in the setting with no players acting as scions or regents, but getting to interact with the politics and intrigue.

I would love to try out this campaign setting one day. For more reading and reflections from an older fan of the hobby than me, check out the blog post from Grognardia on the setting.