Best weird fantasy module I've seen. Not for kids.

Causey is one of the best stylists to come out of the mid-aughts blog scene, though he seems underappricated for his considerable contributions, and Strange Stars is full of style. Like most of Causey's works (Weird Adventures comes to mind) this is a setting, sadly systemless, that takes an underutilized fictional genre, here dayglo post-human pop space opera, and offers a unique appraoch to it. The art and layout are top notch and polished, while the content is wonderful background and inspiration for any space opera game.

Hydra Co-op raises another head! 'Prison of the Hated Pretender' is a small and complex adventure location which is now mated with new supplimental material, commentary, additional art, 5e conversion stats, and a couple useful versions of updated maps.

What you are getting here is a well-made and well-reguarded "intro" or "teaching" adventure from the 2010's D&D revival blog scene, converted and expanded into a 20 page 'zine suppliment that wants to help you run and play fun games set in a wierd, sad and dangerous place. It is worth your consideration and your bucks.

You can read a review of the origional here: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=1254

This adventure has been a classic intro adventure in the online RPG sphere for years, and for good reason. The adventure itself is well-structured, imaginative, and gets right to the point, and now comes packaged with oodles of Gus' inimitable wisdom. Definitely check it out.

A solid introductory adventure for the OSR/retro RPG style of play, usable for DMs of all skill level. Highly recommended!

I ran Lorn Song of the Bachelor a while ago and it's a wonderful adventure. A living regional sandbox, A mythic journey into the psyche of a demigod, a mystery and a jungle adventure that manages to avoid the typical supported by art and writing that work well together and offer up the sense of an actual place. Simple to run, evocative, well paced and a foray into the unusual both grounded and coherent.

There is good reason UVG has won awards. The book just oozes style that is hard to find in the 3rd party RPG market. Get the full copy!

It's very OSR in a gonzo sort of way, but the ideas and inspiration flow fast and strong. Highly reccomended for most any underground fantasy venue- it will keep your players on their toes.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first (and so far, alas, only) installment of this ‘zine depicting the lands of Azurth, a hilarious take on fantasy as seen through the lens of old-time Loony Toons/Tex Avery clocks in at 36 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page of SRD, 3 pages of advertisement, leaving us with 30 pages, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5), so let’s take a look!

We begin this ‘zine with an introduction by the commodore Cogburn Steamalong, a navy captain who also happens to be a steam construct, and who proceeds to present comments on the material provided within. This character is also fully statted with a proper statblock; that being said, the HDs are missing from the write-up, and the Perception values are incorrect. This, unfortunately, is bound to be symptomatic for the remainder of the ‘zine.

But I’m getting ahead of myself: The pdf begins play with 4 different islands, the Motley Isles, and the brief gazetteer is actually really nice and playful, and the whole section is supplemented by a new creature, the dread Frogacuda! This statblock is mechanically the best thing in the ‘zine – it’s a solid write-up and gets all the math right. It also fits in well with a region that has a settlement governed essentially by ritualistically consulting a magic eightball. In these instances, the supplement feels very much like someone had made a Monkey Island/D&D-crossover. A fluff-only pirate generator is also included – 24 names, 24 occupations, 12 notable traits and 12 trinkets act as a solid little supplement. A pirate captain generator with 12 names, 12 ship-names, 12 instances of stuff the captain is known for and 12 pieces of exotic beauty makes for the second generator.

The pdf also includes notes on the homelands of frogfolk (here called “frox”), the chain of fools (An archipelago where you don’t want to tread), a massive mechanical fish. Weird indigenous bird-people “amazons” (well, kind of…) in service to a male priest caste may be found, and the pdf contains 10 smaller entries as well – it should be noted that both Motley Isles and the Candy Isle, which acts as a module of sorts, come with nice full-color artworks. There are no keyless, player-friendly versions included.

The following discussion of the Candy Isle does contain a few minor SPOILERS. Potential players may want to jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? So, the Confection Perfection is basically a divine pastry, and it acts as a linchpin for the angle to explore the location – the Candy Isle! This region, including all of its inhabitants, is made of sweets. The indigenous gummy people (shown on the cover) are an interesting angle, and we do get top-down AND side-view map versions of their temple – once more without a player-friendly version. The mini-module does not have read-aloud text, but does note random encounters. The general presentation is nice, though the set-up would have benefited from a bit more space. And yes, they do want to sacrifice the PCs on their chocolate-y altar. /SPOILERS

That being said, the module also exemplifies well a misconception that is common for designers coming from old-school games to 5e, namely that an abbreviated statblock suffices. They do not, and I don’t get why this booklet doesn’t provide properly presented and laid out crunch when it has proven that it well can. To give you an example, you can read the following: “Melee brittle candy spear (+3, 1d6+1/1d8+1 piercing), Ranged (+3 1d6+1); S +1, D +0, C +1, I -1, W +0, Ch -1;“ You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that the ability scores are missing, and that statblock formatting is not even close to acceptable. There also are errors in these shortened statblocks, and this puzzling inconsistence annoyingly also applies to two sample NPCs, who also get the formatting of features wrong – when the very same booklet offers two instances where they’re correct. I don’t get it. At all. And yes, these NPCs also have more relevant errors in their stats.

Conclusion: Editing is very good on a formal level; on a rules-language level, there are a lot of glitches herein – much more than in Mortzengersturm. Formatting, as noted, often needlessly diverges from established 5e-standards. Layout adheres to a nice two-column standard that is mostly b/w, but uses full-color for boxes, maps, etc. – this is a surprisingly nice-looking book, courtesy of Jeff Call’s neat artwork. The cartography by Jeff Call and Jason Sholtis is also nice and full-color, though the lack of player-friendly versions is a bummer. I do not own the print version, so I can’t comment on it. The pdf lacks any type of bookmark, making navigation an unnecessary hassle.

Trey Causey can do better. This digest, alas, while amazing and funny regarding its ideas and creativity, is mired with an unfortunate amount of errors in the rules, non-standard rules-syntax and things that Mortzengersturm did better. I want to like Azurth as a setting, and I genuinely do and want to see more, but this digest, alas, remains a flawed supplement. Add to that the lack of bookmarks, and we have a bit of an issue on our hands. And I really wish this wasn’t the case.

The supplement perfectly shows that it can get 5e right, only to then shrug and fiddle those inconsistent half statblocks together, to botch math etc. Much like the candy theme, this started with a smile, and then proceeded to develop into a moderate tummy-ache for me. That being said, this is still an inexpensive supplement with great ideas – I just wished their implementation had been better. My final verdict, alas, can’t exceed 3 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 38 pages, 1 page page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 35 pages of content, so let’s take a look

So, did the cover remind you of old Tex Avery cartoons or old-school loony toons that were fun and not necessarily politically correct? Well, then you’ve nailed the aesthetics of this adventure. The art by Jeff Call is nigh perfect for the novel and interesting take herein that consciously draws upon quite a few nostalgic components – Mortzengersturm does look a bit like a lion king-usurper planning on establishing a 1000-year reich of hyena. (As an aside – the Icelandic version of “Be prepared” does indeed quote a 1000-year reich, so I’m not drawing this comparison out of my own behind.)

The prismatic peak mentioned in the title is btw. a n oblique, massive prism, with the fortress on top. Nominally intended for 3rd level characters, the adventure is on the easier side, provided the PCs don’t try to murder-hobo everything. The module can result in PCs dying, but as a whole, it is not too tough.

Beyond being often genuinely FUNNY and quirky, the module does another aspect of module design that we only rarely get to see – it presents a pretty well-wrought linear railroad. This module is not about emergent gameplay, instead opting more for a type of fun ride. This is also enforced by Mortzengersturm providing basically a kind of guided tour that is represented as a kind of unique boardgame-like alternate map. I liked this as a notion.

Formally, the module sports a few instances of read-aloud text for singalong and to help the GM get an inkling of how Mortzengersturm acts, of his colossal ego, but as a whole, the module requires that the Gm conveys the quirky and funny aspects of this adventure properly. The module has quite a lot of blank space available to the on each page, as it adheres to a one-column standard; however, the module uses this room wisely, providing short-hand abbreviated statblocks, brief dressing tables and the like. Much to my pleasant surprise, the module gets one thing right that many OSR publishers designing for 5e botch – the full and proper stats (for saves, etc.) are presented in the back of the module, providing the useful abbreviated stats where required in the module, while also sporting the full stats, should you require them. I like this. Considering this, it’s kinda puzzling that not all of the relevant stats are presented in their full array.

There is another aspect that the module gets formally right in a pretty nice manner, only to fall slightly short of excellence – that would pertain the 8 pregens. The pregens are conceptually awesome. There is an asterian (Jetson-like robot lady) monk; a frogling, a dwarf called “Minmaximus” (you see, dwarves are pretty feeble in the setting) etc. – all come with their own artworks and are genuinely cool. Features have their names bolded, but not italicized; spells are erroneously bolded; and worse, we don’t get proper ability scores, just the modifiers noted. The pregens are great for convention play and do their job for a oneshot, but considering how unique their angles are, I found myself somewhat dissatisfied by their rudimentary depiction. Reading that roguish archetype for a character would be player’s choice, but should be one that grants spellcasting also irked me – it defeats the purpose of pregens to, you know, think about how to build your PC. I did notice a couple of instances where the rules of the statblocks may or may not be correct, as with what’s here, it’s impossible to adequately reverse-engineer the material reliably.

It should be noted that the module does contain a brief sneak-peak of Yanth country, a unique region in the realms of Azurth. As noted before, this is a fun-house-like ride, and as such, the module makes no qualms about its primary hook, getting the Whim-Wham stone, being a pretense – alternative hooks are also provided, but ultimately, this module is all about meeting an oh-so-civilized and only slightly cannibalistic wizard-turned-manticore.

From here on out, the SPOILERS will reign. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great, so the PCs ascend the peak via the surprisingly fast Snailevator. Parrot-faced hippogriffs and a patented evil-guy-screen guard the entrance, faced by sunflowers with unblinking eyes inside – eye-rises, one of Mortzengersturm’s creations. Goblin cooks and magical food ingredients/spices (such as slow thyme, which can, you know, slow targets…) may be found as well – the goblins being blue, as Mortzengersturm has modified their goblin smile vats. (As an aside – the artwork is just adorable, and goblins herein are played for laughs in a pretty cool way!) I mentioned that this is funny – and this extends to the hippogriffs: You see, at one point, the PCs can save a horse from being eaten by them, but said being is actually a dwarf polymorphed into horse form.

At the end of Mortzengersturm’s self-indulgent tour of his genius, of boasting and self-aggrandizement, he’ll inevitably attempt to dump the PCs in a pit where failed experiments await – the monsters faced here are actually menchanically-interesting. From the gruebird to a naga/clown-crossover (the Mocka), the module sports quite a lot of delightful monsters.

A boogeyman may be encountered, and there is a former Chantreuse, now washed up and turned vampire who may come originally from our world. And yeah, treating her with respect is a very smart idea . Did I mention the Spider from nowhere, who can only spell his words? Well, there are a ton of such creative NPCs herein. This is chock-full with great ideas and genuinely amusing and novel ideas, presenting a type of fantasy I haven’t seen before.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good on a formal and rules-language level – for the most part, the module does a good job regarding both, but it also sports a few instances where it blunders in the details. If you don’t mind minor hiccups, you’ll have no trouble using this module. Layout adheres to a 1-column b/w-standard, with the original artwork lending a great and unique visual style to the module. I can’t comment on the print version, as I do not own it. The pdf, in a totally jarring decision, lacks bookmarks, making navigation a pretty big pain. I strongly suggest printing this when running it.

Trey Causey’s first trip to Azurth is a module I’d love to recommend more unanimously that I ultimately can. I absolutely adore the Tex Avery/loony toons-angle regarding aesthetics, and this is a genuinely funny adventure with a unique villain that could come straight out of a classic cartoon. The unique monsters and cool locations are like a highlight reel, and from vaults to NPCs, this is brimming with passion and cool ideas – to the degree where the adventure actually makes a linear module work.

That being said, there are a few rough patches in the pregens, there are no player-friendly versions of the maps, and there are no bookmarks for the electronic version. All in all, these factors conspire to make it impossible for me to rate this as highly as I’d like to, and thus, I can’t go higher than 4 stars. However, for presenting a novel and indeed, inspired type of fantasy, this does get my seal of approval in spite of its shortcomings.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The fourth Hill Cantons book clocks in at a massive 112 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 2 pages of ToC, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 106 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue due to me receiving a print copy in exchange for a fair review. My review is primarily based on the print version, to be precise, on the full-color version. That POD-version has one full-color artwork inside, but uses a better quality of paper, so personally, I’d recommend paying the extra buck for the better quality paper. Unlike previous Hill Cantons-books, this one does have proper bookmarks, making navigation of the pdf version, which I also consulted, painless and simple.

Now, if you’ve been following my reviews of the Hill Cantons books, you’ll know that I am a fan of these strange books; if you’ve been following my reviews, you’ll know that the previous releases include the wilderness area of the Slumbering Ursine Dunes, the city-supplement Fever-Dreaming Marlinko and the Misty Isles of the Eld.

Rules-wise, this employs the Labyrinth Lord rules, which means use with B/X is painless, and conversion to other OSR rules isn’t too difficult either. The overall region depicted is best suited for low to mid-level play, and the two adventure-locations included are designated for 4 – 7 characters level 2 – 4. It should be noted that one of these locations is much more dangerous than the other; indeed, the fully-fleshed out locations can be rather deadly and will probably serve to challenge higher level parties as well with minimal fuss.

This book, then presents the hexcrawl umbrella-setting that includes all of these previously-released locations and more, contextualizing them in the greater canton; there is no content overlap with these previous releases.

I’d be somewhat hard-pressed to find a common theme between the Hill Cantons books released so far; while Slumbering Ursine Dunes and Misty Isles of the Eld both feature a somewhat psychedelic metal aesthetic with some surreal components and pretty subdued pop culture references, Marlinko as a city and its content was more gonzo and tongue-in-cheek. This book, then, is closest to Fever-Dreaming Marlinko in theme, in that is it stuffed to the brim with nerd-culture references, particularly regarding the (OSR-)roleplaying scene, and can be designated as capital letters GONZO.

This book does not necessarily take itself all too seriously, and as such, whether this hits the spot for you, humor-wise, will determine significantly how much you enjoy this. It should be noted that the book does include profanity, so if you’re sensitive to the like or easily offended, you will have chances to take umbrage here.

It should be noted that the following does contain SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. . Only referees around? Great!

All right, before we get into the nit and grit of the material herein, it should be noted that the book contains a “bucolic village generator”, which includes a name-generator (including inappropriate monikers), strange villager quirks. These are…well…quirky. To give you an example from the table:

“Sad-faced men and bright-cheeked wives paint bluebirds and vampires and pig designs on sandals. Every sunset and every sunrise the men are strapped to holy cows and spanked with the sandals. The villagers are adamant that this keeps the vampire pigs away.” If this made you smile, then chances are that this has quite a lot to offer. The generator also includes d8 rustic and strange characters, 20 misadventures to have around the canton villages and even a proper carousing table.

The book also contains a bestiary section, which features the alkonost, a giant bird with a long neck and the head of a woman, and an entrancing and dangerous song that makes the listener forget progressively more of their own being. The bukavac is a pretty hilarious (and deadly) predator: The hexapod attacks in a unique manner. To quote the book: “The bukavac attacks by jumping above its chosen target and, bizarrely hanging in midair, pounding them to a pulp with its six feet. The resulting red ruin is then scooped up by its long tongue. This jump is invariably accompanied by the joyous hell-scream of “BWAAAAHHH!” – theoretically charming, if it were not for the carnage that near-invariably follows.” In case you haven’t noticed: Yes, this book is suffused with a lush and precise prose that often manages to blend the creative with the hilarious. Few books over the years have entertained me to this extent. The book also provdes stats for the dwarf-hobbit crossbreed Kudůki, characterized by extreme identity-confusion. Robo-dwarves and vodnik alongside wereworms (with a nightmare-fuel artwork) may be food, and of course, there are frog-demons to be found. Quite a few of them, actually. (As an aside: There will be a stand-alone supplemental Frog Demon generator at one point, but so far, the hydras haven’t finished it.)

And then there would be the deodands. As a fan of Vance’s writing, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the hydras managed to score the rights for the inclusion of this cult critter. But they are indeed played for laughs, and in a way that may break the immersion of some folks. There is, for example, a purple-skinned variant, the zeodand, that targets folks with sophistry and useless arguments. Oh, and the main lure of deodands? They try to lure in folks with time-share offers. No, I am not kidding.

See, and this is, kinda, where the book loses me. I’m not embroiled within the politics and bickering that one can see in the roleplaying game scene, at least not to the extent that others are. And still, I found a metric ton of wink-wink-nudge-nudge “eastereggs” – of course, there is the Staff of the Ragygi as a treasure. It can, oddly, be used to backstab, and lets the wielder cast Nystul’s Magical Kickstarter, which works as Magic Aura. …if you didn’t get why this somewhat annoyed me, you have more of a life outside of RPGs than I do. ;P Kidding aside, there are a TON of those wink-wink-nudge-nudge moments; more so than even in Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, and here, they somewhat…bothered me. Unlike in Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, there is no dungeon made on a weird character’s concept from the Hill Cantons campaign. (Though there are plenty of notes how stuff from that game worked out – this time around, I considered these tidbits to be inspiring!) Instead, we have a ton of such meta-jokes.

The per se challenging Frog Demon Temple, for example, has a sidebar that displays “D10bestsellers of Hot Hell” that includes “Three Word Title: A Guide to the Naming of Products Auteur and Ludic” or “The Iron Doom Crawling Red Monolith of the Cursed Pod-God Maze.” Did these make me chuckle? Yes. Yes they did. Heck, we even get an artwork of the cover of “Applied Hedonics”, which made me grin indeed. None of these meta-jokes are bad; they’re genuinely funny. There simply are…so…many…of them, that it started to break my immersion. Seeing an illustrated frog demon idol that looks like Kermit? AWESOME. Aforementioned jabs and meta-jokes? Cool. But their accumulation can start to wear on you.

This is purely my personal opinion, but I think the Hill Cantons are better when their humor is less in your face; it’s the contrast between the regularly fantastic and the gonzo strangeness that makes them work; for me, Slumbering Ursine Dunes and Misty Isles of the Eld hit a better balance there. This, however, is, and let me emphasize that, HIGHLY subjective. It may also be a genre thing – I tend to mind such references less in scifi or space opera games than in fantasy. So no, this will not negatively influence the final verdict, but for once, I found myself wishing I got less of the allusions and references herein.

Now, I briefly mentioned that the book does mention in a few places how it worked in the original Hill Cantons game: One such example would be Bad Rajetz, a settlement known for the production of fetish-wear, which, alongside the condo-reference, was the second jarring anachronism that I really didn’t like. (And I’ve been practicing BDSM for the better part of my adult life) – it just comes out of nowhere. The notes here state that the factions in the original game had a 4-way Red Nails-ish standoff, which frankly made me want to see that adventure, that context. Instead, I got a throwaway anachronism-oh-so-quirky line.

On the huge plus-side of things, there is a ton to be loved herein as well: We have an inconvenient, but immaculately-constructed highway fashioned by Hyperboreans; we have strange signposts that are rumored (accurately, as it turns out!) to be cursed. We have some of the best rumor-sections I have read in any book – false components are italicized for your convenience, and most rumors are actually pretty damn creative and oftentimes funny adventure hooks that tie in with the other Hill Canton books. Such references are clearly and precisely noted, which brings me to the component of usability – this book is extremely well-crafted in that context. You won’t need to do a lot of flipping back and forth, with stats noted where required, important information highlighted by being bolded, clever use of italics, etc. As one minor formal complaint, three “see p. XX”-remnants have remained within the book.

The book, somewhat like Marlinko, also features an array of truly intriguing encounters, both for the individual locales and for the cantons in general. From the war-bear PREVED! (who likes to intrude upon humans in certain circumstances, yelling at the top of his lungs) to the daughter of freakishly honest and racist Fraza, the characters succeed at the great tightrope act of being both intriguing and amusing. A lady with a hierarchy of husbands who then ritually consume the least favored husband, strange trees, the horned oracle “Ozbej the Gighacksian” (yep, another wink-wink-nudge-nudge-moment), talking badgers, a context for the FREE “Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid” and more may be found. It is impossible to even touch upon all the components herein without bloating this review beyond any usefulness.

So, let us talk about the adventure sites: The Frog Demon Temple is a straight-forward dungeon-crawl, and I’ve touched upon some of its peculiarities before; it is intended to be deadly; the PCs may or may not take a brief trip to a salon where frog demons lounge in the Hot Hells and, in a cool angle, finding one of the primary hooks for the dungeon exploration is actually pretty difficult.

The second fully-fleshed out scenario would be more unique – it is a genuine horror-satire, and it WORKS. It lampoons its genre just enough, stays serious and dangerous just enough, to be one of the precious few instances where a satire adventure actually is properly playable, fun to play, funny, and challenging. You see, Ritek, son of Ritek, doesn’t have an easy life. Being secretly an evil priest is hard, particularly when your second half is also…evil. The constant complaints about a lack of social advancement, about sufficient self-case, etc. made him snap one day. ““Did you remember to send the gilt-and-gore-edged invitations to the latest moonlight coven coffee and cake soirée to the Lumpeks, the Neprespans, and those neophyte Novaks?” In a midlife crisis moment of rage, Ritek slew his wife Maliska, buried her, and inadvertently created a funnel for a demonic spirit to inhabit a beet, which then proceeded to grow to monstrous proportions. When the village foreman attempted to…ähem…do things with the beet, he became BEETNIK ZERO!

And thus, we have a beet spawn epidemic that will slowly consume…not much, beyond a few backwater villages and folks. The folks in the hill cantons are incompetent, but not THAT incompetent. The bumbling evildoer’s wife is now a harmless ghost and tries to pin the infection on Ritek, while the demonic beet seeks to spread its influence! Today, the sty, tomorrow the world! The book presents an index that allows for the simple tracking of how far the beet infection/cult has spread, and the fields of the hamlet Ctyri Ctvrt is depicted in a modular point crawl, which allows you t use it an infection index 0 (boring hamlet mode) and at higher infection levels. There is, much to my groaning, an Onionator to be encountered. (This, once more is something that, while kinda funny, I could live without. This is just “lol, oh so random” – it’s trying too hard.) On the plus-side, even though the book does make fun of the notion, there is a sidebar that proposes 5 “Jane Austen – unglamorous backwater edition”-style sidequests I found hilarious and fun it their relatable pettiness.

The PCs can witness a ginormous Beaver that is regularly renewed by beavers, tuber-beetles and cows as a result of the infection, and obviously, time is of the essence. Beyond the general environment, the more detailed aspects of this part of the book are fully mapped as well, making this one of the precious few genuinely awesome and replayable funny adventures I’ve read over the year. And yes, it can be played as creepy. In fact, I’d recommend in favor of playing this with a straight face – makes for a great contrast to the outrageous and gonzo angle.

As a whole, I consider both detailed locations to be resounding successes, which continues the trend started in Misty Isles of the Eld, where the individual adventure locations started to become as awesome as the general setting/world/wilderness.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal level, with only very few typo/oversight-level snafus. On a rules-language level, the book is precise and well-wrought. Layout adheres to a 1-column b/w-standard without much frills, and the book has A LOT of awesome, original b/w-artworks. The cartography in b/w is similarly great, but much to my chagrin, we do not get player-friendly, unlabeled versions to print out or use in conjunction with VTTs. The pdf version comes fully bookmarked (FINALLY!), and the perfect bound softcover features the title on the spine. On my copy, a bit of the color bled to the spine, but that’s just cosmetic.

Chris Kutalik has a thoroughly unique voice, and Luka Rejec (also responsible for the artworks) makes for a great co-author. This book, as a kind of encompassing regional source/adventure-book, had a tougher job than the previous Hill Canton books, and as such, it is fascinating to note how good it is. Extremely usable, this DRIPS ideas on every page, with easily half a year worth of surreal and fantastic gaming, at the very least, that can be wrung from its pages.

That being said, I am pretty sure that this book will be more divisive than the other Hill Canton books. It is very strongly tongue-in-cheek, and not everybody will consider the sheer sequence and extent of insider-jokes and meta-humor to their liking. Personally, I vastly preferred the Misty Isles of the Eld’s balance there. That being said, humor is very subjective.

As a reviewer, this leaves me with the formal criteria, and frankly, I found myself positively surprised by both adventure locales. The horror-satire module is genius and exceedingly fun and funny; the dungeon-crawl may be the strongest dungeon featured in the whole of the Hill Cantons books so far, provided you can stomach the insider jokes. Still, this is one excellent book, and one that has a voice unlike any other; it attempts a tone we usually do not get to see, and in the instances it succeeds, it does so triumphantly – to the degree where, frankly, I consider this a candidate for my Top Ten of 2018 in spite of its humor not always hitting home for me. It is different, creative and plain fun, and perhaps, just perhaps, the roleplaying games scene needs more books like this; books that drive home that we shouldn’t always take our little elfgames too seriously and embrace what they are…fun. Unsurprisingly, my final verdict will be 5 stars, and this does get my seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The third of the Hill Cantons-Sandboxes clocks in at 103 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 97 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5), so theoretically, you can fit up to 4 pages on a given sheet of paper when printing this. HOWEVER, I STRONGLY suggest getting the PoD-version. The pdf lacks bookmarks, which is a huge downside for a book of this size. I do own the PoD-version, which btw. comes with name on the spine and all, and the review is primarily based on that version of the book, though I did consult the pdf as well.

So, what is this? One could consider this to be a cross between a regional sourcebook of a plug-and-play mini-setting/environment, a pointcrawl adventure, and/or a massive ecology of the eponymous eld. All of these are true to an extent. While nominally, the module component of this supplement is intended for 4 – 7 PCs, with a total of 14 – 20 levels, the misty isles can easily challenge higher-level PCs, particularly if they’re not smart. A referee could easily escalate things, just fyi. Rules-wise, this has been written for use with labyrinth Lord and B/X and is easily adapted to other OSR rules-sets.

While this adventure/sandbox takes place in the Hill Canton world, unlike Slumbering Ursine Dunes and the Fever-Dreaming Marlinko supplement, it may be inserted more easily into other worlds: Shrouded by mists, the eponymous isle can replace other components of the campaign setting in an invasive manner not unlike Ravenloft; indeed, traversing the mists (which is codified in rules) is a risky endeavor, and has a good chance of wrecking the PC’s vessel.

This is, however, where similarities with Ravenloft cease. The supplement calls this chart btw. the “Fuck, we sailed into the mist”-chart. So yeah, this does include vulgarity, PG 13 references to sexuality, and has a tone that is firmly tongue in cheek, but without ever becoming annoying. This is pretty impressive, as usually, opinionated writers constantly interjecting stuff into their works tends to annoy me to hell and back. Here, the metacommentary is left firmly on the referee-side of things, and actually managed to make the reading experience here more fun. One favorite to give you an example, drawn from the description in a creature table: “Hell-Marines are as subtle as a second edition plotted adventure. “ If that didn’t get a laugh or at least chuckle out of you, then you never played a 2nd edition plotted adventure. ;P

One of the reasons this works so well is the fact that the eld are depicted as pretty much absolutely HORRIFIC. Capital letters EVIL. Yet also kinda hilarious. Tonal control, though? It rests solely in the hands of the GM. You could emphasize the darker aspects and make this a grimdark, surreal hellscape, an incredibly funny romp – or, if your referee-mojo is up to the task, you could use this in its best way: As both.

The following, while containing mostly discussion of mechanics, does contain SPOILERS for some of the weird stuff to be found. If you plan to partake in this as a player, please stop reading NOW.

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All right, only referees around?

All right, but the book does have more to offer than being an adventure-locale, so let’s take a look at that stuff first! So, this pdf does include a new class, the psychonaut, which is a take on a quick and easy to use psionics system and class that can easily coexist with e.g. P/X: Basic Psionics Handbook (review forthcoming): The psychonaut gets d6 HD, must have Int 11 and Wisdom 14, and uses the magic-user’s XP-progression, though level 8, the final level of the class takes 10 K XP more than the magis-user’s, requiring 160,000 XP to attain. At 3rd level and every odd level thereafter, the class gets a defective mutation, which means you roll a d6: On a 1-4, you roll a d20 on the physical deformation table (which may net you a withered arm, a rotted nose, a third nipple, etc. – these can be purely cosmetic, or have rules-relevant repercussions, though they are never pure drawbacks, always also featuring benefits. On a 5-6 on the initial d6 roll, you get a mental deformation. These may, for example, include Psychobabble. To quote the book: “There is a 25% chance that this character will begin shouting in a manic, incoherent manner each time she opens her mouth to speak (much as though she was speaking in tongues). This condition will persist for 1d6 turns. Strangely, religious zealots and oral health specialists will understand the character just fine.” That made me laugh.

The psychonaut starts with a 1st level power, powers are organized in 4 levels, and the class gets up to 4 1st level powers, 3 2nd and 3rd level powers, and 2 4th level powers. The powers note how often per day they can be used, and 6 1st level powers, 7 2nd level powers, 6 3rd level powers and 6 4th level powers are provided; some of these duplicate spells and note how often they can be used, which provides enough guidance to craft your own powers yourself. Powers include the mighty mook-sweeping brainsploder, quips so biting they may see you rocking for days on end, and e.g. the antiorgasm. You see, eld are colossal pricks. They have antiorgone weaponry that will wreck your sex-life, and this ability is one of the debuffs that taps into this concept.

This can also be seen among the eld artifacts – you see, the eld hail from the Cold Hell, and are basically Lawful Evil, decadent elves with elongated heads, a flair for industrial art deco, and a penchant for biomancy and super-science. They also ooze David Bowie. As such, eld artifacts are plentiful and include e.g. antiorgone grenades, mighty blastotubes guns that fire razor discs that may decapitate you on a crit, self-cranking crossbows, items that can generate ice, plasma welders…and there is the intelligent and mighty mustache of grappling. Yes, you can move on it. Dr McNinja would be proud. And I have but touched the surface here – from hoverchairs to their bubblecars, the strange tech the eld employ very much defines them as antagonists, and a random tables to determine shapes and functions can allow you to further improvise more artifacts. And yes, it is very much intended that PCs experiment with this: The artifacts are grouped in 4 classes, which require an increasing amount of d6s to be rolled under Intelligence, and if you succeed, the less complex ones can be taught to others, provided they’re smart enough. Some artifacts also require a combined high Int and Wis and psionic abilities. This easy to use engine is elegant and makes interacting with NPCs desirable and provides an interesting leverage versus murder-hoboing PCs: “You know, I can teach you to use these could flying bubblecars and their fireball-burst weaponry…”

The bestiary section also mirrors the focus on the eld – there is a massive, bloated face with tine baby arms and bone ridges that terminate in gatling gun-like born shards. There are the purple-boned intelligent servitor ghuls with their translucent skin and strangely inborn belief in a religion of liberating flesh; there are the vatborn creatures of the eld, symbiotic mental worms, flesh blobs and energy things created by eld artifacts. Masokocka, the meatkitty, is the cloven-hoofed hunting animal of the eld, and even their weirdo domestic animals are odd. The eld are wicked – they have created a whole race as a practical joke, the stygian hound: A dog that’s perpetually (and painfully!) on fire. See how this could be utterly tragic and horrible, or kinda funny, depending on how you play it? That’s the strength here, the impossible tightrope act that the author constantly performs with panache aplomb. For every horrific deed, there’s a line like the acknowledgement that the eld have decided not to defecate, because it’s undignified. (Plus, obvious, a leader who has a golden-plated, decadent toilet in a secret room as a secret vice…) And yes, this may sound puerile. Rest assured, it is not. One final note on the creatures – they are good, but not all are as interesting as some of the best ones out there; they do their job at depicting the unique ecology of the eld, though, and this is only worth mentioning in contrast to the excellence of the remainder of the book.

All right, this is as far as I’ll be going into the mechanical components of the book, so let’s talk about the proper adventure-sections, shall we? This means that the following contains SERIOUS SPOILERS. Potential players should definitely jump ahead to the conclusion.

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All right, only referees around? Great! So, beyond the hooks (which do tie in with the Slumbering Ursine Dunes and Hill Canton Lore), the isles take an interesting twist: Being particularly lawful, the isles of the eld are only within the world, courtesy due to the energies coursing through them, which are measured by the anti-chaos index. The PCs destabilizing their operations actually will shift the realities of the isle. The isle itself…is easily one of the most unique and astonishing locales I have seen in my entire reviewer’s career. Not hyperbole.

Picture a mist-shrouded isle of black sands, where ginormous ridges of stone allow for pointcrawling between their majestic elevations (for an explanation of pointcrawling: Basically picture overland adventuring from keyed locale to keyed locale; a more detailed explanation can be found in my Slumbering Ursine Dunes-review); a heavy charcoal-cloud laden sky looms over all, and personally, I’d like to imagine all tinted in a greenish tint in an eternal predawn twilight. No winds howl between the ridges – who btw. are gigantic grubs that may well pupate into quarter-mile moths on gossamer wings in a tantalizing, local apocalypse for the eld.

Speaking of whom: The artworks provided for eld, structures and servitor creatures (like vatmen – clad in black vinyl-like material, with pallid human faces and a horn that extends from their forehead, expressing their emotional state in a kind of…phallic protrusion) are lavishly illustrated by Luka Rejec, whose blend of art déco, eastern quasi-Japanese aesthetics, 70s heavy metal psychedelica and Bowie-esque strangeness generate an astounding visual identity for the eld. One that is deliberate in the best of ways, with non-eld characters, like a mute and friendly albino minotaur paladin that the PCs can ally with, deliberately being drawn in another style. Same goes for the vistas of the locations, who tend to be more realistic, using a strange blend of the industrial, pseudo-Eastern, and the monolithic structures one would associate with games like Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, etc.

Art and text provide a surprisingly holistic totality here, and we do get artworks for key eld leaders, and we do get the command structure explained – and different alarm levels as well as the edlish defense plan. Eld patrol random encounters come with detailed strategies and write-ups, and reinforcements sent by the mighty overmind of the race allow the referee to amp up the danger significantly, when e.g. Über-Lieutnant Mozz is concerned. I also got a chuckle out of an Eminem-reference of all things in the descriptive text of Mid-Altern Virmuun – certainly did not expect to see that here. These leaders btw. also come with a bit of sample quotes.

Beyond the massive point-crawl over the isle, we have 4 different mini-dungeons/adventure locales. Now, in the previous Hill Canton books, these did tend to be somewhat weaker than the rest of the book. This is NOT the case here: We have a monument that chains the 5th god of Marlinko; a delightfully strange eld plantation; a pretentious city of majestic pagodas that actually are home of the local leader, but also pretty much an empty shell, akin to a Hollywood scenery, and there would be the nightmarish industrial vat complex, which has been taken over (at least half of it!) by a demon from the Hot Hells, who was freed when a possessed kid was fed to the flesh vat tubes. This is the darkest complex, and definitely the one that will make the PCs want to exterminate the eld, if the rest hasn’t aready done the trick. All of these locations come with b/w-maps that are really cool, but lack a player-friendly, unlabeled version for VTT-use or guys like yours truly that like to cut up maps and hand them to players as they explore. Said demon, btw.? Morbidly obese and acne-ridden. And thankfully slow, so “kiting” is actually kind of encouraged here. Did I mention that the PCs can save Samuel Taylor Coleridge from a grisly fate, who is convinced he is trapped in a particularly nasty opium-dream? Did I mention the deformed outcast psychonaut eld with the multiple-personality disorder that developed due to having two brains? Or the eld caught in amber-like resin, forever staring at cascading waves in a bathtub? The secretariat, where tiny, purple-furred, 4-eyed pseudo-monkeys madly punch at typewriters, keeping eld bureaucracy running, while vat-born giants lumber 3/4th of the reports in an incinerator, the rest to the overmind?

Where in previous Hill Cantons books, the respective dungeons never managed to capture the weirdness and unique tone of the upper world, this book seamlessly combines them in a unified aesthetic and level of quality.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to a one-column b/w-standard with a ton of great original artworks that have a truly distinct style. Cartography is b/w and well done, but the lack of player-friendly, unlabeled maps is a bummer and the one downside of this book. The pdf, as noted, has no bookmarks, which is a huge detriment – I strongly suggest getting the print version. For the pdf-version, you should detract a star from the final rating.

Chris Kutalik, with additional design by Robert Parker, has surpassed the first two Hill Canton books, which already were excellent offerings. The Misty Isles of the Eld, though? They are masterclass level of design and writing. This book has more jamais-vu coolness inside than most whole product-lines; the unified aesthetics of the eld, their tools and all – it comes together neat, seamlessly and all is subservient to the requirements of the referee: Counter strategies, cool NPC-dynamics, flavorful tidbits…you won’t read a single page in this book that does not have some sort of brilliant idea, funny component or downright creative and outré component. Sure, we have seen bubble cars before – but not like this. We have seen evil elves before – but the eld have NOTHING in common with drow and are totally and utterly distinct.

The blackened shores of this isle have actually invaded my dreams, managing what precious few books achieve. I have had this book for more than a year as per the writing of this review, and rereading it, going through it with a fine-toothed comb, it has lost nothing of its impact, its splendor. I’d go so far and claim that this book is worth buying, even if you don’t play OSR-games. The ideas herein are so cool, so dense in how much awesome stuff is within these pages, that it’s worth its price even when divorced of its rules. This is easily one of my all-time favorite OSR-books out there, and, in spite of the lack of unlabeled maps, it is most assuredly worth 5 stars + seal of approval, and gets my best-of tag to boot. If you are even remotely interested in a book that dares to be different and brilliant, in something novel, then get this ASAP. One final suggestion: If you want to increase the eld’s biomancy-angle, adding Gavin Norman’s “The Complete Vivimancer” to the fray can add yet another facet to an already radiant gem of a book.

Endzeitgeist out.

A fantastic, weird gonzo exploration into the deeps. This module is an imaginative romp through a mysterious and evocative underworld setting filled with giant chaos godlings and remnants of advanced beetle civilizations. This module will tick all the right boxes for those who love a humurous gonzo themed adventure, but may not appeal so much to those who prefer a grittier, more 'serious' style of play. The only issues with this module are the layout and presentation of information which at times is not logical or helpful for the GM when running at the table. Information should be provided in a logical manner that assists with quick scanning during play, this module at times fails on this point. Other than this, this is a solid module and should not be missed by any lover of OSR systems. 4 out of 5.

This is a great dungeon crawl into the depths. It has the weird sci-fantasy gonzoness that hits just the right spot. Info is given on the factions players will encounter. The monsters are great, as is a lot of the artwork.

The adventures and setting elements presented in What Ho, Frog Demons (WHFD) are fun and intereting in their rarely seen comical, almost grotesque approach to adventure design. The adventures themselves are well structured. NPCs, locations and plots are presented individually in neat lists, easy to cross-reference to create an adventure that works at the table.

The content itself is very weird and wild, with inspiration form tons of different sources mixing into a decidedely surreal whole. This is a great part of the charm of the Hill Cantons setting. Still, other books in the series (Slumbering Ursine Dunes, Fever Dreaming Marlinko, Misty Isles of the Eld) are more unified in a particular theme, where WHFD comes across as more eclectic. This might be a function of the scope - WHFD describes a larger area, with a more diverse range of possible adventures. The result is the tone of WHFD ends up being harder to pin-point.

If you are in for a wild ride and do not mind a few bumps on the road, WHFD does provide a large and interesting world to explore. There is much to use out of box, take inspiration from or simply salvage into whatever shape you want to use. I might perosanlly tone some of the deliberately silly elements down in some places, while cutting out some of the more gory elements to find a middle way that suits my group's style of play. Thankfully, the module makes this easy by presenting everything in a format that allows for maximum mixing and matching.

The art is also excellent, reminding me of old black and white pages from old issues of Heavy Metal magazine. I am eagerly waiting for a print version of the book for easier use at the table.