An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf clocks in at 13 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 9 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5), so let’s take a look!

This review was requested to be moved up in my reviewing queue at the behest of my patreon supporters.

Okay, so first of all, this is a combination of a kind of mini monster-ecology with a grimy dark fantasy/horror flair, and a brief, sketch-like adventure.

The supplement doesn’t adhere to a specific OSR rules system. The stats presented for the eponymous toothcollectors note their HD, their armor “As leather”, and their Move as “Quick, erratic, upside down at night”; now, if you expect a standard tooth fairy trope, or its simple inversion, then you’re most assuredly new to Evey Lockhart’s supplements.

There is constantly this touch of the weird and uncanny. “Upside down at night” certainly evoked a disjointed and odd sentiment in me. The strength of toothcollectors is contingent on their collected teeth – they have 18 slots, and if they jame enough teeth in, they can’t close their mouths or speak anymore. They are superb assassins and excellent at sneaking around, represented by percentile values. They speak the languages of those whose teeth they have collected; and what they need for their services can be determined with 2quick d8 rolls: A blackened incisor, for example. They are obsessive, and at day, they dream, sending rhizomes into the soil, communicating, forming and dissolving strange alliances. A d8-table lets you determine their personality – oh, and nonhuman teeth have special effects. Powers. They crave some of them, yet won’t admit to it…and others will need to be forced into the little…things.

And yes, before you ask: The supplement does describe the somewhat grimy ritual required to call and bind a toothcollector, and I really enjoyed that one. I’d immediately back a book of ritual magic penned by Evey Lockhart.

Brief notes and minor SPOILERS for the low-level mini-module follow. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

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The module deals with a magic-user who won’t leave the basement of a stonemason, which her rented. It’s up to the party to kick out the magic user from the strange, subterranean observatory where he observes the Red, Red Moon with a telescope pointed at the eye of a dying toothcollector. The module comes with rudimentary maps sans player-friendly versions or grid, but on the plus side, effects like acidic paste note how they can be dealt with in ways other than succeeding the saving throw. Also a plus: The magician ahs a few unique tricks, though these do suffer a bit from the system-agnostic approach; not unduly so, though.

Conclusion: Editing is good on a formal and rules-language level. Formatting could be employed in a somewhat tighter manner, but isn’t bad either- Layout adheres to a one-column standard, with a red moon on the side, and the utterly weird, frightening artwork for the toothcollector drives perfectly home how alien they are. Cartography is functional and b/w – not impressive, but it does its job. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Evey Lockhart is one of the RPG-authors whom I’d consider to be auteur, though she’d probably scoff at that. She knows horror and has a distinctive voice and theme; if I’d had to classify it, I’d probably call her aesthetic one resounding from the American hinterlands and the downtrodden; a neon-neo-hobo’s nightmare- and dream-visions. They might not all be for me, but there is something compelling about them. As an avid fan of beat poetry, I tend to adore her more poetic supplements, but this one here? If you dislike the whole poetry-as-game-text-angle, then rest assured that this is not that artsy, and instead depicts a compelling little ecology well worth checking out if you like your fantasy grimy and weird. My final verdict will clock in at 3.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This supplement is essentially an experimental one-page adventure with supplemental material on the back – it comes in two iterations, one with a black background, and one with a white background that’s more printer-friendly. The two versions are not identical in content, though – both have different “back covers”/second pages – think of this as 3 pages of content.

Now, first things first: This is a horror adventure, ages 18+, and prominently features themes of suicide. If the “existential ennui”-header and the “the Gardens of Proserpine”-quote at the top weren’t ample clue, the module also explicitly provides another warning. Two thumbs up for that.

Anyhow, the module works best as a kind of village backdrop and metaplot adventure beyond others – it is surprisingly effective when interspersed into a campaign making liberal use of Raging Swan Press’ Village Backdrop-series. Just saying… While a surprisingly solid b/w-map is presented, it doesn’t have a scale or the like and is pretty small, providing essentially just a theater-of-the-mind style context for you.

The module sports no stats, but actually doesn’t need them, because it does something pretty clever (and fun). The version with the black background sports an experimental poem by Lauren Dove (“Ash Cycle”; If you like bleak and experimental poetry, you might well enjoy this. To provide a brief excerpt:

“Ash black Punkwood soot, still Smoking, Burned stuck onto his Thumb Pressed into your tongue The choking taste He watches, Watches you writhe …” No, I enjoy edgelord/lady-ish poetry and beat-aesthetics, so I appreciated this. It’s highly subjective, though.

What’s not subjective is the second page of the printables-page. But in order to discuss it, I need to go into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion. … .. .

Only referees around? Great! So, Furthest farthing is a little, bucolic thorp, beset by crippling melancholy. The 12 poor inhabitants (all characterized with a brief sentence or two) will all succumb to suicide, due to the malign influence of a black star that feel, fist-sized, near the pool. Whenever a day passes, there is a 10% chance of a target succumbing to severely depression. Each NPC has 1 – 3 checkmarks before existence wears them down and they succumb. The only long-term solution for this mysterious affliction? Well, turns out that a giant, immobile and very hungry frog is guarding it – and the closer you get to it, the more it grows, allowing you to enter.

Inside, the energy conduits inside must be severed, but are guarded by The Thing With The Ten tentacles….which can’t be slain. You see, page two of the printable-pdf is actually a mini-game handout. The Ten Tentacle Thing can attack through the Black Star’s interior,, and you print out that page: On it, you can see the tentacles, and make a kind of border around with a few cuts. Then you roll inside of this handout, and when you hit a tentacle and cause enough damage (or just hit at all – this is system neutral), you sever the tentacle at that part, allowing you to easily mark it off. It’s a fun, unpretentious idea to make the obligatory tentacle-thing fight in many a weird fantasy/horror module more fun.

As an aside: If the above seemed weird to you, I have a picture of the assembled handout on my homepage. I SUCK big time at anything arts-and-crafts-related, and, well, even I managed to assemble it. Feel free to laugh and point fingers at me. ;)

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good for an indie production. Layout adheres to a 3-column vertical standard, with the printable pdf being sufficiently printer-friendly. The pdfs have no bookmarks, but need none at this length. It’d have been nice to get a version of the map sans labels, or for VTT-sized.

Evey Lockhart’s little excursion to Furthest farthing is a nice offering: It isn’t a mind-blowing revelation or anything, but it is experimental without compromising immediate table-use. You can run this with 5 minutes of prep-work, if you so choose. The mini-game reminded me of dungeon fighter, which I certainly appreciated. While system neutral and probably intended for OSR-ish contexts, it’s also sufficiently easy to adapt to more complex games: With brief statting of the antagonists, using the module for 5e or PFRPG is pretty simple – extra points if you use Everybody Games’ fantastic “Microsized Adventures” for a PFRPG-version…but that’s just a recommendation.

All in all, this is surprisingly and refreshingly unpretentious for a module that features poetry; it is bleak and dark, but also rewarding. Oh, and it’s PWYW. And for that? Seriously worth a tip! As such, my final verdict will be 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This is the second of the brief adventure-sketches/set-ups released by Violent Media that I’d describe as “Weird-Sad”; it clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content. It should be noted that the print version features a ToC as well as a bonus page. Pages are laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5).

So, what is this? Structurally, this is an adventure of sorts, a mystery/Investigation of sorts to be precise. It presents the characters encountered in a bullet-point format that notes station, visage, personality and secrets, if any. The module assumes a kind-of-Victorian backdrop and should equally work well in Early Modern contexts and sufficiently progressive cities. A town of at least intermediate size is recommended regarding the backdrop. For level-range, I'd suggest level 1 - 2.

To give you an example for the bullet point presentation of the NPCs: One notes for “Personality”: Bombastic/Melodramatic/Vain/Delusional. This makes running the respective NPCs surprisingly simple. Regular NPCs don’t get stats within, though the main antagonist does. As far as rules are concerned, the supplement assumes LotFP (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) as the default, but is converted to other OSR-rules easily enough.

As far as navigation is concerned, the pdf has no bookmarks, but instead has hyperlinks to each section at the bottom of each page, capitalizing on the brevity of the supplement. The side-view mini-cartography of the respective homes that the PCs may visit is okay and provides a general notion, with an office and 2 floors of Dame Margaret’s home also getting a top-down view. That being said, Luka Rejec does contribute one artwork that is indeed nightmare-fuel.

As far as rules are concerned, there is a central ability that notes “Saving throw vs. Poison, modified by CHA” – I assume that to be a bonus, not a penalty, though one could argue for either interpretation.

This is a dark adventure that features themes of deceit, old age, mercy-killing and decrepitude. Discretion is advised.

All right, this is as far as I can go sans diving into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

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All right, only referees around? Great! Mayor Preston Hilden Greenbriar II has offered a generous reward to cure a mysterious ailment that has befallen the widow of the honorable Herbert Pearl. (Who was his secret lover over many a year…) and an inept occultist, one Alan Smythe-Worster has been all too willing to accept…but so will the PCs, right? As an aside, the first page provides a couple of quotes that make for a good basis to paraphrase from.

When they encounter Dame Margaret, they will meet the sweetest old lady: Naïve, nice, kind and a true sweetheart, which may well have the PCs suspect Bethany Flora, Herbert’s bastard sister, who constitutes a great red herring. You see, Margaret may be sweet in personality, but she has contracted a truly gross magical, degenerative disease: One arm has cracked off, like from a statue, but to make up for this, extra arms have begun to grow, with some of them sporting disturbing face-like protrusions that occasionally whisper and scream. Pointed teeth, frequent vomiting and a round, weeping eye, usually closed, embedded in her chest, make her nightmare fuel indeed.

She is also utterly unaware of her lamentable state. To make matters worse, the magical parasite that has befallen her takes control of her body while she is asleep, something that she cannot be made aware of: She suddenly becomes a super-stealthy and deadly creature and much, much more deadly. Worse, there is a timer, as, during the 9 nights after transformation, the Margaret-thing will proceed to ritualistically stalk and murder cats, build a twisted nest and lay a horrid egg…and sooner or later, she will attempt to consume her associates in the state before succumbing to the disease…and spreading it further. These occult practices are genuinely creepy and atmospheric.

Now, Margaret, while not under the control of the parasite thing, is a non-combatant, and in order to stop the thing, both she and her subconscious parasite-thing form need to be slain. There is a sad truth underlying all: “Beware of Angels, quick to sing, but black of wing.” – an angel of pity saw her, and these do not exist to evoke pity, but to perpetuate it; it saw Margaret say a prayer for a corpse in an alley. That’s all it takes.

Here is a crucial difference between the pdf and print version: The print version does provide an additional page, an addendum, wherein the means of unearthing this truth are explained, alongside the means to bring the angelic entity to heel. Its stats are also included in a rudimentary fashion in the print version. This one page makes that version superior, in that it allows for a more interesting and alternate resolution; whether the parasitic disease’s banishment reverts Margaret to her former form or not, though, remains up to the referee.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, if not perfect, on a formal and rules-language standard. Layout adheres to a 1-column b/w-standard. I have already commented on the artwork/cartography above. The pdf, as noted, sports handy hyperlinks. The PoD softcover is thin and a bit pricey, and the paper quality, alas, is not as high as that chosen for “Smile with us, Friend”, the previous weird-sadness scenario.

That being said, I do recommend that, if you enjoy this supplement, you support author Evey Lockhart by purchasing the softcover; this humble offering is surprisingly gripping in its set-up, and while it is basically just an adventure-sketch instead of a detailed, thoroughly formulated scenario, it is more original than many brief adventures I have read. The prose, in spite of the brevity, manages to evoke a weird and horrific atmosphere, and I applaud moral conundrums and brains to be the focus here, as opposed to just hack and slash. The red-herring array that each NPC offers also can be considered to be helpful to customize this one, but I still wished we had this in a more fleshed out manner.

Oh, and the pdf? It’s PWYW, so you don’t run any risk checking it out. If you do enjoy it, consider leaving a tip and/or getting the print version. This is very much worth supporting. My final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded down for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The third installment of this experimental series clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 10 pages, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by one of my patreons.

So, in case you’ve been wondering – yes, this is just as experimental and weird as the previous two installments – instead of a standard RPG-supplement, this should be considered to be part poetry, part prose and this time around, it is thoroughly concerned with concepts, not any rules – this is essentially system neutral and should be considered to be a glimpse at a disturbing, psychedelic post-apocalyptic and surreal world. We begin this installment with an expansion of splotch-like overview map of the regions covered so far in the series, with the new locales added.

We move from the forest of dead electric, to the waxy green swaths of rocks, with no plant-life, just sparse rain, naked stone and terrible crystals, an emerald wasteland of poisonous salts – the serpentine stretches as depicted in the prose here is a hostile environment par excellence. Within it, there is “The Only City” – the second strange geography.

“There is only one city. They know this. […]” – only braving death in the wasteland may revoke this hypothesis…and there is not much food; soil is mostly poisonous and so, all inhabitants are both skinny and gourmands…the repercussions, though, are left between the lines… And a brief piece of poetry complements the life there atop an eerily captivating image of a city raised atop a tower, overhanging like a flat disc growing on a treetrunk, with escalators or feeding tendrils hanging low, reminiscent of a deep-sea creature from another world. Those condemned have arsenic bronze locked into their hands, sent to mine in the poisonous crater lake, with lethal poppy as the reward for cooperation – basically, the sword & sorcery forced labor trope, through a shade both weird and familiar. 6 sample and obscure reasons for being arrested in the city (including “Displaying unkind eyes”), and mention that horses aren’t real – in spite of there being a horse fountain. It’s small tidbits like this that generate a whole cascade of ideas in my mind – and that you may well enjoy as well.

Beyond the city, there is also the Burning God. The pdf notes: “Some need to see the face of god, and will accept nothing less than suffering.” - a faded sign beckons in the desert and a strange fire awaits beneath air thick with ozone and religion; it is an AI, a strange thing, pondering a question for ages,a question that led to solipsism and made it evolve into what it pondered, at least to itself, and what else matters? Expectations of generations of pilgrims expecting to suffer has twisted any and all notions of divinity; the entity knows many things and is bad information, filtered through not enough logic circuits – it is, in short, a rather scathing satire if you read between the lines…or, well, you could make it just a literal form of adversary, you know?

So, the third of Evey Lockhart’s pdfs of this series also has no bookmarks, sports the neat, disquieting and weird experimental artworks. It sports the same style of information as the previous pdfs – it is an exploration of weird geographies and as such, it is pretty inspiring…though to me, #3 does not reach the full-blown wonder of #2. The concepts here, both the city and the burning god, are well-executed and interesting; their details are intriguing and smart…but the pdf still doesn’t reach the thoroughly inspiring genius of #2, as both are variants of classic tropes, while #2 was just pure, unbridled creativity. For PWYW, this is very much worth checking out, though! And since it is less weird than #2 and more palatable than #1, it may be the best pdf to check out the unique brand of weirdness this offers for people less familiar with experimental fiction. My final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The second installment of this series clocks in at 14 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 12 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by one of my patreons.

This series should be understood as experimental – it is in part artwork and visualized, experimental poetry/prose as well as an almost system-neutral kinda-regional setting. The first pages provides a page, with graphs and splotches of color – these note the locations of #1’s places as well as new ones; the first of these would be the radian forest[sic!] – no, that’s no typo. We get three pictures of a forest, with shifted colors, creating a surprisingly effective, unsettling visual experience that underscores the poetry of the write-ups – take e.g. the outskirts:

“Just outside, living trees still

Hide. Sprouting bodies.

Leaves grasp at the sun.

Generation and Degradation.

Metallic sings grass yellow-

Green, springing

Underfoot.”

If this inspires you, then chances are good you’ll like this pdf, as it goes on to note green fleeing from the forests, orange ascendant; Rain hates and breaks and jumps circuits, unearthing filaments of old gods and dead alike.

The wire slime, a bio-metallurgical processing colony, is next; the tale of its spread and genesis is covered in a one-page prose-section that is supplemented by rudimentary rules for weapon and tech-degradation. From here, we move to 4 system neutral forest tribes – one has the custom of purchasing adulthood with the willing removal of a body part; another consists of radical nudists; another is led by a stoned space-cadet shaman…and there are people sans eyes and ears that communicate via smells…6 armaments are provided and range from ancestral laser guns to hardened vine spears or weaponized slime. There is no differentiation between damage types, fyi.

And then, there is the cabin & the TV. Why and How is it still here? It is a watertight plastic room with a thin plastic TV. “DO NOT” and “Turn Off” are gouged into the frame; the bullet-point notes of the room paint a puzzling, stark image. Ancient sitcom issues amuse people whose realities include electric slavery and warlords; “Perhaps despair coalesces along certain frequencies. Perhaps secret wishes for an ending manifest physically in two dimensions. An X axis of canned laughter. A Y axis of inchoate sorrow.” – that is powerful prose right there, and it leads in and pertains to the reason the TV must be turned off when broadcast ends – in the visuals of two artworks, it can be found, lurking in the signal, waiting to emerge – the static dragon, impossibly sharp. It gains HD while static persists. It may quickly become unstoppable. It is pretty damn amazing.

Much like its predecessor, this supplement is highly experimental, but it is imho better in every way – it does not require shock value to sell its psychedelic, savage strangeness, instead providing a level of original imagination that felt as though Psychic TV or Throbbing Gristle had written an RPG-supplement; this borders the line of art and gaming supplement and I’m frankly not sure where I’d put it. It is more immediately usable than the first installment and the prose, similarly, has improved in quality. I thoroughly loved the weirdness and otherness of this supplement. If you’re looking for something inspiring (and/or enjoy weird poetry/prose), then check this out right now. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf clocks in at 13 pages, 1 page front cover, 3 pages blank,1 page back cover, leaving us with 8 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by one of my patreons.

It should be noted that the back cover sports a doodle of a muscular male body (sans head), including a non-erect penis. If this offends you, well, you have been warned. It should also be noted that this supplement depicts a really horrific place, where institutionalized rape is a theme; a proper and prominent trigger warning before the pertaining section has been included in the pdf, for which I am rather grateful. Still, consider this to be a TRIGGER WARNING for this review as well.

This straddles the line of experimental fiction/poetry and rpg supplement – it is system neutral, lacking stats, and while there is a random “you find this” table, it is a glimpse at some messed-up, strange place. The artwork in the pdf, much like the cover, is a strange array of distortions and color-changes that acts as strange, psychedelic glimpse at the weirdness depicted.

To paraphrase the first lines of the pdf: The beach once had a calm curtain along the yellow beach; however, the Green Insistence is swelling in slow ruination, and it colors the sky the color of wine. Euclidean lines shift impossibly and it surrounds and sings…and how beings interact with it? In puzzling prose, it is noted. The Pretenders are some of the folks that interact with the Insistence, their city, Driftwood, sporting 3 sample layouts, can be found – and within, functioning Xerox machines hint as a post-apocalypse in a world not unlike our own, where reality has splintered. This is not necessarily all grimdark (though most of the pdf should be categorized as such), though – there is a pitch-black, subtle sense of humor to be found here – when e.g. wacky assassination attempts require that the target must literally fall, for example. Metalheads may smirk at the mentioning of a depressive who is a member of a Doom cult and is hence literally committing VERY slow suicide…

For untold centuries, the wine-red people of the domes, situated in dangerous waters, warred. Everyone who enters becomes a citizen. This is where, once again, the trigger warning has to be repeated, for the cities are a disgusting place, where the right of the strong rules – no challenge may be denied and the winner of a duel gets to rape the loser…and worse, a small part of the population experience violence as euphoric. This is particularly nasty, since, in a harsh and deadly world, the domes sport a disgusting excess of resources – food, armor, superb manacles, healing nanodrones – biomachines and autovends would allow these places to be utopias…and instead, their inhabitants have made them dystopian nightmares.

Two portals are on the beach – one leads to a glass-green beach where the sea is frozen and two portals lead back or to annihilation…or another place like Carcosa, Narcosa…but ultimately, the folks meditating before taking the plunge do not know, their keening scouring the beach.

I am going to deviate a bit from my usual format here: The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a bit of a comfort detriment; the strange photos/artworks conspire with the text to create a strange nightmare-scape of truly savage/post-apocalyptic proportions. The words resonate and what is here is interesting, if gruesome, even for my tastes. Would I want to play in this environment? Not necessarily. The red-domed cities ooze a kind of desperation and disgust with mankind that is almost palpable, but yet, there are aspects of this pdf that most be commended for the strength of the visuals employed with a rather minimalist word-count. Chances are that you’ll either love it or hate it, but, as this is PWYW, you can decide for yourself. Personally, I wouldn’t use the concepts as written, but as a reviewer, I need to try to be as objective as possible, if that’s possible here. Ultimately, there are some cool ideas to be taken from this book, but chances are that most groups and people will balk at the themes herein. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 3.5 stars, rounded down – it is an interesting experiment and has some stark visuals, but it also derives too much of its appeal from shock value.

It should be noted, though, that this verdict stems from the fact that I can see this being 5 stars for some, 1 star for others – you very well may be thoroughly disgusted by this exceedingly dark pdf. You have been warned.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This weird module clocks in at 22 pages in the pdf version – 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial,1 page ToC, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 16 pages of content. The pages are laid out for a booklet/digest-sized A5-size (6’’ by 9’’), which means you can fit up to 4 on a sheet of paper when trying to conserve ink/toner. Enough delays, let’s take a look!

It should be noted that one of the pages herein is devoted to a mutation table that overlaps with Violent Media’s mutation supplement – it is decent, but if you have access to a more detailed one, I’d suggest going with that instead. The pdf does come with a high-res .png GM-map and a player map replicated as a nice .jpg…which ties in with one of the adventure hooks. This is remarkable and cool, as far as player maps go. Why?

Well, to quote the pdf: “Further ensuring no good will come of this, the Consumptive Prophet coughed up a blood-spatter blessing, “depicting” the inside of the complex. He will gladly share the knowledge from his sacred disease, for a nominal fee and small percentage of the loot. Fee up front. No Refunds.” Call me weirdo, but at “Consumptive Prophet, I was smiling. Seeing a blood-spatter map of the complex? Damn cool!

Anyways, it should be noted that I do own both the PWYW pdf-version and the saddle-stitched paperback version, which does come with a bonus chapter. But more on that in the SPOILER-section. It should be noted that, beyond the bonus content, the print version also has a kind of appendix that collates all stats and a page of quick room descriptions, with all relevant bits on one page. It also features a handy encounter-chart. The suggested OSR-rules for use in conjunction with this are LotFP-rules.

As a cool comfort-bonus, the pdf-version comes with a 2-page pdf of printables that collects the maps on one page and sports a handy tracker of the NPCs featured herein on the second page – big kudos!!

All right, this is as far as I can go without going into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

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All right, only referees around? Great! You know, sometimes you want a change of pace, something utterly different than anything you’ve read. This module is just that. Somewhere in the fields, there is a hole in the ground. In this hole, strange spider people exist, worshipping the seven-armed spinner in darkness. These spider-folks, all seven-armed/legged and based on a real-world spider…are actually happy. Kind. Caring even, for the most part. That makes them dangerous.

You see, this dungeon is inhabited by the friends of the 7; for the most part, these spider-people were once sad or even evil folks; now, they have found a place to belong, a family of sorts, all in order to get the blessing of their chthonic and potentially really nasty deity. Still, these beings aren’t out to slaughter innocents. Quite the contrary. They constantly invite everyone they can find to join them and become just as happy.

Here’s the problem: Whenever someone declines a direct invitation to the cult, they immediately exhibit a disgusting mutation. The spiderfolk don’t necessarily want this, but it happens. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Suffice to say, the nearby population has become extremely paranoid of the spiderfolk. Enter the PCs, who get to explore the complex and deal with the spiderfolk…but how?

Sure, the idol can be destroyed…but to get there, the PCs will have to brave the kind-hearted, giddy spiderfolk who want them to join…and finding creative ways in roleplaying to say no sans actually doing so represents a major part of this weird-sad locale. The well-meaning head-spider-thing-cultist in his earnest glee may actually be one of the saddest final bosses I have seen…but even if the PCs murderhobo through this (and probably feel bad about it), there are some honestly interesting places to find, like the blood sand bottoms, where viewing starfish constellations may bestow strange benefits…

Now, I mentioned the print version’s bonus content, right? It’s well worth getting the print version. Over 4 pages, we are introduced to the forest o’ the puppeteer. This landscape is inhabited by strange marionettes – cutting their strings sends then crashing to the floor. Tying a string on a person charms them and those slain here have wooden puppets burst forth from their corpse. There are the stage left and right mountains and the track canyons to limit the area – and at the furthest depths, where the sky no longer has any room to flee, an old man teeters behind the sky’s blue curtain – slaying him turns the victor into the new puppeteer. The second, strange place featured would be the Obedient Place,a park of roiling greens that can never change. There is always a vulpine queen, two ursine dukes. There are 4 cygnine countesses, 8 feline barons and 16 equine knights…and 32 coal-eyed slaves. Killing a slave or the queen turns you into them. Killing a knight transforms the closest slave into a knight. Killing a baron transforms the closest knight into a baron. You get the idea. It’s twisted and interesting.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, though not perfect. Layout adheres to a 1-column full-color standard and the art by Anxious P. is suitably weird. The pdf has no bookmarks, which constitutes a comfort-detriment. However, the high-res maps and cool player-map make up for that. The softcover comes on high-quality, glossy paper and is worth getting, as far as I’m concerned.

Edward Lockhart’s pdfs had not really impressed me that much up to this point. It’s strange, but sometimes, I have a very strong impulse to get something I know nothing about; the cover looks strange, sure, but I am to this day not sure why I bought the print version of this supplement, apart from perhaps wanting to show a bit of support. As a result, the booklet did lie around for a while before falling back into my hands. I began reading it, downloaded the pdf for the maps and review-purposes as well, and frankly, I haven’t looked back.

“Smile with us, Friend…” is something you only very rarely get to see – a thoroughly unique module. The premise is interesting and not something I’ve seen before. Billed as “weird-sadness”, the tag-line does perfectly sum up the flavor of this module. This can be a somber experience or a hilarious mutation hackfest, depending on the inclinations of your PCs, though the detailed and intriguing NPCs imho deserve being interacted with...and it’s damn funny to watch how long PCs can try to ROLEplay themselves out of mutations…

In short, this is an amazing module. Even if you don’t play with an OSR-system, this is worth getting and converting. The bonus environments provided for the print version are amazing and creative as well. Better yet: You can get the electronic version for PWYW, check it out and then determine whether this is worth a tip and/or getting the print version. Personally, I absolutely ADORE this humble module. Strongly recommended! My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

What did I just read?

Seriously.

This is '80s-era Heavy Metal magazine meets Salvador Dali.

If you are over 18, go read this.

NOW.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf clocks in at 8 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC (also including introduction notes) and 1 page SRD, leaving us with 4 pages of content. Additionally, there is a second pdf included, which is 3 pages strong if you take away the front cover. More on that one later.

So, one strength of OSR gaming as opposed to more complex systems, would obviously be the easy to grasp rules - the entry barrier is very, very low. While PFRPG, 13th Age and similar systems require that you read a huge tome, OSR system basics, enough to play anything but spellcasters, can be explained in 5 minutes. There is one step during character creation (and if you play the same modules and games I do in the system, you'll be making your fair share of them...), which puts a bit of a brake on immediately starting the game.

I am, of course, talking about the pregame shopping spree. This pdf tries to streamline that process, with the default assumed system being LotFP and a silver standard, though other OSR systems work just as well....but how does it try to streamline the process?

Each character gets 1 silver coin, appropriate clothes, a rough canvas sack, a small water flask, a crust of bread and the material within one equipment kit. Priests receive a holy symbol, more arcane magic-users a spellbook.

Depending on your preferences, you can either let the players choose the respective kits or have them roll randomly. Now we get two pages, with a table of 10 kits each: The first would contain equipment for violent types: From Men-at-Arms to Assassins and barbarians, we have a nice selection here. These kits also provide, somewhat akin to 5e's starting equipment choices, some player agenda - assassins can e.g. choose an egg filled with fine glass shards, a vial of weak poison or manacles. And yes, the rules for these items have been included - the pdf also sports a sidebar for laminar/lamellar and scale armor, bucklers and improvised weapons.

Beyond these choices, there are also 3 d20-tables: Useful Wilderness Items, Useful Adventuring Items and Seemingly Useless Items. Depending on the kit chosen/rolled, you also roll on these to e.g. gain a tent, a pan flute or a hand drill.

Of course, there also would be occupations that are less martially inclined: The second 8-entry-strong kit-tables sports occupations, from butcher to barber-surgeon, which may or may not be particularly useful regarding the challenges faced in the adventuring life. To offset that, half of them - those that feel particularly...öhem...humorous, convey a 10% XP bonus from level 1 to 2.

Now I mentioned the second pdf in the beginning. This one is provided so you can just print out and cut out all those kits and just hand them to the players - not even notation is required! That's pretty damn cool and useful. Oh, and the final pages of this bonus-pdf actually has empty, form-fillable cut-outs, in case you want to design your own kits. And yes, before you're asking, each kit PRECISELY states what's included in it.

That is not all - the pdf also sports a bit of dressing for the GM: The final page contains a table of 20 entries, depicting what's in a dead guy's belongings, as well as 12 hastily scrawled poems. The poems range in quality, but there are some solid ones.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no serious hiccups. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly, no-frills 1-column b/w + green highlights-standard or a 2-column standard, depending on what makes more sense. The pdfs are printer-friendly, with only editorial and cover sporting artwork. The pdfs have no bookmarks, but need none at this length.

Edward Lockheart's "Quickly Equipped Murderhobo" is one fine little toolkit; particularly for convention games, campaign trips or the like...or any time you don't want to carry around a ton of books, this is absolutely amazing and further quickens the action, allowing you to get right into the nit and grit of the game. The system is elegant, simple and can be expanded and developed further without any hassle. Ending up with a former baker magic-user or an Int 5 fighter who carries a scholar's kit can actually make for some interesting roleplaying.

Now granted, I wished that this was longer. the kits are damn cool and getting more would have been nice indeed. At the same time...this is PWYW. It costs literally zilch to take a look at and is VERY MUCH worth leaving a tip for. If you're like me and gravitate towards the more simulationalist side of GMing and are willing to invest a bit of time, you could conceivably use this as a basis to make 5e's kits more defined as well, which is just one of the unexpected uses I got out of this one.

In short, this is a short, sweet and very useful little gaming aid of a pdf. While I wished it had more tables (particularly for magic users etc.), this is a nice little pdf worth getting. My final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This little pdf clocks in at 25 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank, 3 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 19 pages of content, though it should be noted that they're formatted for A5 (6'' by 9'')-sized booklets; you can fit 4 of them on one sheet of paper, if you choose to print them out, so let's take a look, shall we?

So, on the first page, we actually get a public domain extract from a German ethnographic collection, including a bit of text, which was somewhat hilarious and fitting to me, contextualizing the concept presented within these pages. So, what are fetishes in the context of this pdf? They are items that must be worn or held and their construction requires the arts and a ritual, but not necessarily any staggering costs and any of these fetishes may be used by any spellcaster. A total of 12 such fetishes are included in the pdf, with 4 qualifying as ancient fetishes - more on those later.

Well, for once, they represent items that low-level magic-users can have. That make them somewhat less of a liability. GASP I know, I know, heresy and all such, but let me state something here for a second: I'm all for weak casters at low levels. It explains why the land's not flooded with arch wizards and makes getting to the levels where you can pulverize whole legions an accomplishment to be proud of. It's the reason I prefer even my rules-heavy systems to have an imbalance in the progression of characters as opposed to e.g. 4th edition's fighters and casters feeling so similar. It's a matter of taste.

Now in OSR games, I do like that playing a low-level magic-user is a PAIN; depending n the system you use, a housecat can arguably kill you RAW. However, as much as like old-school gaming, I can't deny that I do have serious experience with more rules-intense versions of the game...and with these, obviously also came a certain feeling of entitlement. Not regarding power, mind you - I always prefer my games on the gritty side. But regarding OPTIONS. You know. Player agenda. Not being restricted to the 5-minute adventuring day. Being able to modify magic to make it feel...well. Magical. Strange. Alien. It's a reason for me liking LotFP's occult feeling, unstable and dangerous take on magic that may royally screw over the careless - it's risky...but it has a bit more options, a bit more agenda.

The items herein follow a similar design paradigm. They come with hefty, yet affordable silver prices. They also feature construction rituals. Let me give you a taste: When a human warrior is slain on the battlefield via treachery and when the human has taken at least one goblin life, that's when teh sacred sightless, goblins that have blinded themselves, goblins that have never seen the hated sun, can smell the corpse. The body will be desecrated and defiled, its components strewn through the wilds, its jawbone kept intact and chewed free of most flesh. The bone will then be hanged from a widow's walking stick and dried there; finally, 6 raven feathers are attached to the jawbone, the loosened teeth rattling as it is shaken. All damaging spells thereafter cast through the item inflict +1 damage versus human and also inflict the spell's damage inevitably again on the following round - though the wording here could be more precise: One could read this echo to pertain only to the bonus damage, when the whole spell is meant. Oh, and non-goblin users risk a chance of becoming goblins when using the fetish.

This example should illustrate pretty well the strengths, but also the weaknesses of the pdf. The construction requirements for the fetishes generally are well-presented and evocative, as is their activation. At the same time, the rules-language honestly leaves something o be desired. And no, OSR does not equal tolerance for sloppy rules; one look at S&W, LL or LotFP shows pretty clearly that these rule-books actually are VERY precise beasts.

There are more precise items, like mirrors of obfuscation that can be rather interesting, which allow you to stealthily cast spells, but at a small risk of forgetting that you have cast the spell AND the spell from the spellbook, which can actually result in an interesting plot. There is also a defensive fetish that increases the duration of defensive spells greatly - which is cool...but brings me to a nitpick. While some spells are noted, the fetish fails to present a precise list. This may be a mostly cosmetic thing in actual use, but can still yield some issues, which is why many OSR titles assume a default system - here, that would be LotFP - but when one assumes a default system, why not present a concise list?

That being said, the items themselves do feature some seriously cool options - like an artificial jaw into which you insert a dead man's teeth and thus can talk to the perished, even without requiring a functional body...but there is a chance that the spirit will be stuck in the fetish. Another fetish enhances arachnid-related spells, but makes you foe and preferred target of arachnid creatures encountered. What about a rose that greatly increased the potency of your charming spells, but has a serious risk of falling in love with the spell's target? Lenses that make you perceive the whole truth, fused to your body. There also would be ram's horns that generate bursts of deadly energy, providing a taste of later level's potency, though the direct damage, if you presume LotFP's standard design paradigm, are pretty valuable - the particular item imho fits LL or S&W more.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are pretty good on both a formal and rules-language level - while both can be improved, the pdf generally is solid. Layout adheres to a 1-column full-color standard in A5 (6'' by 9'') with fitting stock art. The pdf has no bookmarks, which constitutes a comfort detriment.

Edward Lockhart's collection of fetishistic arcana is a somewhat mixed bag. The pdf's items are interesting and often can jumpstart an adventure or two by means of the complications they offer. The detailed construction notes similarly are nice and flavorful. So, on the plus-side, we get some seriously cool options for magic-users, in particularly to make low-level existence less of a hassle and more rewarding; not less deadly, mind you - but more versatile, which is good as far as I'm concerned. At the same time, the rules-language components could be more precise than they are. How to rate this, then? Well, to me, this file is a mixed bag, slightly on the positive side - which is why I'll settle on a final verdict of 3.5 stars, rounded up due to the PWYW-nature of the pdf. Well worth contemplating for your OSR games and idea-scavenging...and leaving a tip for.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This little pdf clocks in at 10 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The idea is pretty simple: You have 5 pages, each of which sports 6 mutations. You take 12 or 20 of them, put them on a chart and roll - the pdf suggests 1d12 or 1d20 for that. Mutations may replace previous versions of the mutation, stack with it, reverse it, etc. Yep, this does mean that the respective mutations have several degrees of severity, which you determine by rolling 1d6, with the higher results yielding the more potent abilities.

The pdf has an interesting 1st-level spell which mutates the target...but if it saves, the caster must save as well to avoid being mutated! I really like this, as it emphasizes the danger inherent in magic and makes magic...well, feel more like magic.

So, what do the respective mutations cover Well, let's take a look at scaled skin: That one can yield either psoriasis, ichtyosis vulgaris or actually armor-bonus-granting scales. You could also turn into an anthropomorphic dragonfly (which RAW, weirdly, does not have the mandibles of the middle mutation)...and there would be boils that can actually scald those popping them...but is the damage applies to an attacker? The one with the boils? The mutations are per se imaginative, but their rules-language simply could be more precise.

Spinnerets, scorpion stingers, snake tongues, which nets "+1/6 for searching where smell is relevant" - that should probably be 1d6 or +1 in 6 chance or something like that, when referencing how that is usually phrased in LotFP and some other OSR systems... What kind of plague do plague buboes inflict? On the plus side, diverse metals as skin is interesting. A mutation that splits the character in multiples refers erroneously to wizard instead of mutatee. Players retain control over the characters...but that makes me wonder if the split copies have a kind of self-sustaining drive. The process may be reversed by consuming the copies, you see...A wizard pearl growing in the throat is cool idea-wise...but does that impede breathing/swallowing/talking? You get the idea: The mutations are interesting, but could be slightly more precise in their respective effects.

The pdf also contains 3 magic items, the first of which would be the returning vial, which raises all nearby its possessor when the creature is slain...but those raised receive several mutations. Secondly, there would be the pipes of abandon that cause those that hear its tunes to be forced to dance, granting powerful benefits...but at the cost of being aged and the player risks mutation. Thirdly, there would be a wand that casts spells as though they were 1d6 levels higher...ouch. Depending on the precise system used, this can be pretty potent...but, once again - excessive use will mutate you.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting on a formal level are pretty good. On a rules-language level, these aspects could be slightly more precise. Layout adheres to a 1-column/2-column b/w-standard and the pdf has no unique artworks. The pdf has no bookmarks, but doesn't necessarily require them at this length.

Edward Lockhart's little mutation engine does not stand up to the more massive ones I have for diverse systems, from OSR to PFRPG etc. This does have a raison d'être, though - this is PWYW, after all, and as such, is actually worth taking a look at if you need a quick mutation array. My final verdict will hence clock in at 2.5 stars, rounded up for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This collection of charts and generators clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page blank, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The first page of this pdf contains name-tables - 10 male names, 10 female names, 10 last names and 11 over the top fantasy names for males and females with the 12th entry of said table denoting "roll twice and combine". From an internal consistency point of view, it's a bit weird to see the regular name table clearly distinguishing between male and female names in two columns, while the fantasy names separate male and female sounding names with an "or" - but that just as an aside.

Page two provides 6 troublesome treasures, which all come with sp/gp/xp values, though the latter are 1:1 the value of gp, which may upset some particularly ardent champions of "their" OSR-ruleset. These also are very powerful - 5K for a mace+4 whose wielder always acts first? SERIOUSLY? 4 unusual reasons to wander are more interesting, ranging from having denied a fey lord hospitality to now be cursed to wander and bring strife to...the very common blood oath of vengeance versus immortal wizard xyz. Somewhat weird - this one capitalizes a lot of words that shouldn't be.

The next page contains 6 unique holy symbols, including decent visual representations: Festering, molded wounds, ropes of twisted hair or the tooth of a dead man...interesting choices here and the first table ended up enjoying, even though capitalization is once again somewhat inconsistent. 8 interesting locales are next and range from a rock, where faeries may mend broken metal objects or a weirdo berates the PCs for not understanding how noble the way of the goblin is...

I also liked the 12-entry "strange payment"-table, where the PCs may be awarded a thief's courage, a father's heartbreak or similar abstract things...or water stolen from a sacred well. Worthwhile contemplating! The next page represents the first true generator herein, one for stronghold events: You roll a d8 and then check a sub-table: 4 plagues/floods can kill off population, there are 4 burglary severities and there would be visitors/raids: d6 determines the descriptor, 4 the typo of visitor. If there was an assassination, it occurred similarly d6 days ago and harvests also come in 4 entries. Decent, if very minimalist fortress event generator - I have seen better. (Plagues, in particular, will potentially quickly wipe out the population with 2 unlucky rolls of the dice.)

The 10-entry-strong table of "what finds you in the wilderness" would, once again, be a pretty nice ones, with the 7 deadly sins as well as nothingness, fear and beauty making for metaphysical experiences of a rather dream-like nature that are particularly suitable for excursions into the realm of dreams, the fey realms or similarly mutable places where places where shepherds with kingly jewels and the like could make sense, where greed making these riches never quite enough has a tangible draw.

The 20-entry strong table on why a monster wanders has a more universal appeal, but similarly is not as captivating. still, with gone fishin' and monsters currently...ahem...relieving themselves, it can result in some uncommon encounters.

The final table is titles "The Entity requires strange rituals or has inscrutable demands." and represents basically an easy generator - 40% chance for ritual required, 50% for a demand, 10% for both. You take the sentence: "First, yourself the ____" and roll d4s for each blank. Alas, the results can become...awkward, and not in a good way: "First, abstain yourself with the blood..." is for example a valid result here. 6 rituals and 6 demands are provided, to follow after the previous sentence-fragment. These are interesting and include only moving towards one cardinal direction for a week, for example. Similarly, the demands range from the traditional beautiful virgin (The pdf acknowledges the entity to be a traditionalist) to the character's immortal soul. NOW. However, it'll be returned, on credit even! A mixed bag table.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting is still okay, considering the PWYW-nature of the pdf. Layout adheres to a 2-column or 1-column color standard, depending on the tables. The pdf doesn't have bookmarks, but does not necessarily require them- Artwork, where present, is either solid for PWYW or stock; still solid for what it is.

Edward Lockhart's table-collection is decent enough, considering that it's PWYW. The metaphyiscal "what finds you"-table is nice and while others are pretty basic and not too exciting, and while there are some hiccups in the details, as a whole, this does contain a couple of gems for idea-scavenging. The pdf is probably not worth printing out, but for a quick idea-scavenging, it may be worthwhile checking out. Now, granted, the title is misleading - this is basically a chaotic miscellanea of tables and that's it...and, for the most part, it's not strange...but as a PWYW-pdf, this is relatively decent.

And...honestly, I don't have more to say about it. If you're not willing to pay for some of the more detailed, focused generators out there, this may be worth checking out and leaving a small tip. If some of what I noted interest you...well, you can download it. Compared to many of the better generators/miscellanea-pdfs I've read, this feels unfocused, and the generators presented...have some minor hiccups. I feel like a jerk for doing so, but considering the quality of these generators and how strictly I tend to go to town on them, I can't rate this higher than 2.5 stars, rounded down for the purpose of this platform...in spite of being PWYW.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This little PWYW-scenario clocks in at 6 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 4 pages, so let's take a look!

If that stuff is relevant for your interests, the module makes use of ascending AC as well as the silver standard championed by LotFP et al. The pdf begins with a table of 10 male and 10 female names as well as 10 last names and 11 more fantastic names. From an internal consistency point of view, I don't get why the latter table has no separate column for male and female and separates them with an "or" - but that is just me nitpicking.

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

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Only referees around? Great. So, 3 kids have gone missing, the friendly neighborhood murderhobos are contacted and the priest suspects the pagan burial site to be the source of the issue. The path to the mound can sport a random encounter (or not) - the creatures featured herein can be found on a total of two pages on cut-out style mini-cards.

The missing boys, btw.? They are a random encounter. They are talking of devils and want home....which may be, at least for mercenary type adventurers, an end for the module before it even began.

The culprits, the devils, would be the eponymous little devils - basically constantly cursing anti-cherubs that can spit with various effects: A 2d4 table lets you customize these fiends, with hair/horns making for a cosmetic variation and spit for a mechanical variation: Their spit can cause hallucinogens, grease, be acidic or be fire, with the stat-cards sporting the precise effects. The burial mound is a brief 4-room exploration and slash-fest versus these anti-cherubs...only to find a desecrated statue whose fingers have been broken off save for middle finger and thumb. It is said vandalism that births 2 of these devils an hour. Yeah...better solve the vandalism...with more vandalism and destroy it utterly.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are pretty good, I noticed no significant mistakes. Layout adheres to a basic two-column b/w-standard with VERY bright, red highlights for tables. The (very) small map provided is decent enough and does its job. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Whether you enjoy Edward Lockhart's little devils depends on basically two things: Do you think that an adventure killing goat-legged, horned cherubs with vestigial wings and various spit attacks sounds like fun? You may like this. Do you think it'd be uncomfortable at your table? Well, don't get it. When seen from the perspective of a PWYW-monster-spotlight, this is a decent offering. As a module, it is severely lacking, with the burial mound being horribly opaque, bereft of interesting interaction points or atmosphere building. As written, exploring the place and not running into the kids is very possible, which mirrors a ploy used in a more controversial LotFP-module, though, due to its brevity, it can't really build up to it.

In short, as far as 1-page adventures (+supplemental materials) are concerned, I have seen better. Being Pay what you want, you can easily check it out and determine whether you consider it worthwhile. With the weaknesses in setting the locale, I can't go higher than 2.5 stars for this one, and in spite of being PWYW, I can't really round up - the trope with its shock value is represented better in other modules, if that's what you're going for.

Endzeitgeist out.

I use this a lot, it's made getting new players into the game a whole lot easier and made things more a lot more interesting in general.

The "shopping" part of character generation always takes a really long time, and isn't ever that evocative or interesting since everyone's always getting the same leather armor and short swords and rope and whatever, you get the idea. With this you can just eliminate all that and roll a couple dice instead, then hand your players a cutout list of their gear. Now you end up with Fighters who carry soap and cooking pots and Magic-Users that are also butchers. Excellent.

Mutations (especially randomly assigned ones) are a guilty pleasure of mine. In explanation, I can point a finger at 1st Ed Gamma World. Although I played and loved Moldvay's Basic Set first, I totally fell for James Ward's post-apocalyptic game, its random character generation rules, its wild esoteric charts and of course, the mutations. Played RAW, there is no way to min/max a classic Gamma World character. And, for the most part, the same goes for classic D&D as well. Good and bad, you deal with the whims of the dice. If this anything-goes, the-weirder-the-better outlook describes you and your players, this product could be perfect for you.

Violent Media's Mutations Mutable by Edward Lockhart is a list of mutations applicable for use in old school fantasy games. It would work just as well in other era old school games — sci fi, pulp adventure, revolutionary war tales, you name it. (I would suggest it would be too limited a list of mutations to base an entire post-apoc campaign around, but that's what Mutant Future is for.) This list adds some odd, creepy flavor to the game via a spell or magic item. (The 10-page PDF has 1 new spell, "Creation Unbounded", and 3 new magic items that serve as ways to introduce other-worldly mutations to your players or NPCs.) The PDF suggests a few ways (via both analog and digital methods) to randomly access the 30 mutations listed inside. After you roll for a mutation, and read a short explanation for it, you are asked to roll another 1d6 to find more information concerning the severity of the mutation. Lots of cool mutations, and lots of granularity in application.

The content of the PDF product is great. I have no negative comments on the content whatsoever. In the interest of positive criticism, I can only pick out a few things that could be improved, and most of them are design-related. (I am a graphic designer by trade, and a bit of a type nerd, so bear that in mind.) The PDF has a DIY feel that lacks any real design aesthetic. It looks like it was put together in Word with little consideration for font choice. I can forgive the wonky glow effects applied to the type on the cover of the PDF. But when it's applied to the headlines of the page titles, it just looks bad -- like the titles are blurry. The PDF contains just a few graphics (one of which is indecipherable). At least the rainbow/spectrum graphic on the last page ties into one of the new magic items -- or else I'd be whining about that, too. (In my opinion, layout and design just doesn't matter too much in the world of small press RPG products. Especially when it comes to OSR-related products, aping '80's era TSR layout is considered a design goal. Usability concepts and access to graphic design tools have come along way since then. Therefore the design issues I've called out above might not matter to the users interested in this product. If you are sensitive to the power of good graphic design setting a work apart from its competitors, look elsewhere. If design matters to you, be forewarned. Design snobs unite! Tonight we ride... oops, sorry, got carried away.)

One small complaint concerning usability, as well. Each of the 5 most important pages of the document — the mutation lists — start each entry with an asterisk and continue with the mutation's title and description, followed in most cases by a few results (based on the aforementioned d6 roll). The asterisks are not nearly as helpful as numbering the entries would have been. Analog-randomizing methods be damned, I wish a simple 1 though 6 were printed at the start of each entry.

But the lackluster design and sole usability complaint aside, this product is a ton of fun for the price. I will make use of it at my table, and that's the highest praise of all. I love the idea of a DM/GM/Judge/referee/etc. slapping a few of these mutations on the next wizard in the party who plays with something they shouldn't. And I love players who are cool running with the radiated hand (or slug-like tongue, as it were) they were dealt, and role-playing the hell out of it. What could be better — a cheap RPG product that makes the game we love even more fun. Here's to more not-so-vanilla fantasy products from talented small press creators like Mr Lockhart.

Down & dirty: 30 super-fun and creative mutations to share with the old school players you love, wrapped in a visually unappealing package Format: 10-page, 8.5' x 11" 4-color PDF Price: $1 Verdict: Buy it now