Review of Voidling Bound

 

Voidling Bound is a 3D shooter action game that is a wonderful excuse for collecting alien animals, evolving them to unlock traits, and breeding them for the best stats. It is a lot of fun and has a surprising amount of depth. This is an excellent game with some minor caveats. 

The shooting combat is good and feels satisfying. The levels change up their objectives so their layouts don't feel too repetitive, but there is repetition as to the mission objectives and some of the level design.  For example, in one case you will be fighting off waves of enemies to survive in a time limit, and the next side mission will require you to occupy three independent spaces in any order you choose while fighting off more waves of goons.

Voidling Bound is really pretty

At endgame you can sink a lot more time into the roguelike final dungeon, breed your Voidlings (there are NINE species) to achieve genetic apotheosis (there are SIXTEEN unique variants per species), make gene-spliced mega-monsters to break the game over your knee, unlock all the combat traits (Enhancements) of a particular species, and explore for gold eggs/collectables that you missed in previous levels. And there is one more endgame collecting thing I'm not going to go into detail about.

Complete Glick Evolution Tree, one of Nine different species

This is one of those games I want and will buy additional DLC for. Also, the music is good and matches level themes quite well. 

A buddy and I have been playing Voidling Bound independently and here is how we have played the game.  

My buddy found a Golden Kwipeck (Think a Battle-Chicken) from a Gold Egg that had a trait that allows him to get new egg drops from any enemy death at a rate of 3%. He spliced that trait into a New Improved Golden Chicken (Kwipeck) with additional traits so that he could farm resources like mutagens necessary to evolve more Voidlings. Also, he made the spliced Golden Chicken inflict Burn on enemies, and then spliced another trait onto it to heal itself anytime an enemy takes burn damage.

These traits were found from different Voidling evolutionary trees and combined with the Splicing machine.

A Spliced Kwipeck

I followed a different route. I spliced together a Kwipeck that was a circle-strafing dodge tank. I combined the traits that allows a Voidling to move at their max speed while shooting, along with features that gave the Kwipeck the ability to spew out Lightning so that I could cut down robots, who are weak to lightning, at speed. Also, I added a Triple Jump effect to my Lightning Kwipeck and a Glick (think Lizard-Dogs) Trait that gave my Lightning Chicken armor when he landed on the ground.

You can also: have a lighting cat that shoot out homing missiles, a necromancer Gizmo-looking guy that has a damaging ring of bones, a crocodile-dog throw no-shit black holes, a turtle-gorilla that sprays down a carpet of fungus to poison enemies, and a hovering metroid-like Voidling send enemies floating into the air to then punish them with gravity. The list goes on.

A Spliced Glick

Now some critiques.  I’ve mentioned there is some repetition in mission design in the combat arenas with waves of enemies.  Also, the main quest is relatively short (about 15 hours), but it ends on a satisfying note and that unlocks the roguelike endgame dungeon to conquer.  

The Voidling management system could use some quality-of-life features though. For example, being able to lock a Voidling to prevent accidently releasing them into the wild would be very useful.  Also, you should be able to favorite a Voidling and name each Sanctuary box you have for organizational purposes when you start heavily breeding your pets. 

A Spliced cryo focused Glick built for survival

I'm pretty happy with Voidling Bound and I want to see DLC. 

Voidling Bound is $25 and is available on Steam. 

Five Parsecs from Coruscant, a Five Parsecs from Home fan made conversion book review

 

5 Parsecs from Home is a solo adventure wargame where you assemble a team of up to six spacefaring human and alien skirmishers whom you arm with whatever equipment you can scrounge up to take on missions and repay your spaceship’s debt.  I enjoy the emergent narrative of generating a crew and their backstory by the combination of Background, Motivation and Class tables in the 5 Parsecs from Home core book.  In fact, my first real blog post was about my 5 Parsecs crew and their adventures. 

Star Wars needs no introduction, particularly for readers of this blog.  Crimson114 on Reddit has undertaken the heavy lifting for making a Star Wars mod for 5 Parsecs. And it’s good. The 42-page pdf is titled 5 Parsecs from Coruscant and it contains tables, weapons, enemies and some rule changes adapted from the Star Wars universe during the Galactic Civil War to the ruleset of 5 Parsecs from Home. Currently the 5 Parsecs from Coruscant fan project is in 0.5 alpha, was last updated as of 3/31/26, and the author is looking for feedback from the 5 Parsecs community.  It is free so why not download it now!  This is a great way for you to use any Shatterpoint and Legion Star Wars miniatures that you have lying around gathering dust for solo play.  

Below, I will go over what has been changed by the 5P Coruscant mod.  Clearly Crimson114 is a big fan of both Star Wars and 5 Parsecs who knows what they are doing in writing this mod.  Their conversion has inspired me to write up page of preliminary thoughts on an Eclipse Phase conversion for 5 Parsecs. If there is interest, I will post those ideas in a blog post some point in the future. 

by Eric Whitted

5 Parsecs from Coruscant version 0.5 alpha 

5 Parsecs from Coruscant includes both revisions and reflavoring of things in the 5 Parsecs world to the Star Wars universe.  By reflavoring, I mean taking a 5 Parsecs entry and changing the title to make it congruent with Star Wars.  First off, in Character Creation, the alien types and droids have been changed and revised.  There are now 28 alien types, each with unique non-repeated abilities, and 4 distinct Droid types.  

Some thoughts: I don’t know much about Bothans, but I am particularly amused by their given Characteristics and Advantages, “Bothan’s start equipped with Stealth Gear in addition to any other starting gear and are always the Spy Class.”  Many Bothans indeed. Protocol Droids are actually pretty useful in this mod. They count as 2 crewmembers when assigned to Find a Patron and Trade actions, they roll twice and resolve each result in order.  I think these revisions are great adaptions of Star Wars lore and fun ways to play with the 5 Parsecs mechanics.  

The Coruscant mod’s Background and Class tables are mostly Star Wars reflavorings with the exceptions of Jedi Backgrounds and Force Sensitive Class, respectively.   So, what if you rolled up a Jedi or Force Sensitive, what does that look like mechanically?  First of all, when you generate a Rival for your Force-using character, it will always be the Purge Trooper Enemy and they will follow you from planet to planet. Relentlessly.  Secondly, you will get to choose at least one Force Power as described in the Coruscant mod on page 18.  This Force Power list of six abilities reminds me of some of Knights of the Old Republic’s force powers. All of them are useful in 5 Parsecs combat, but I think Deflect is the coolest. Deflect reads, “If this character is equipped with a Lightsaber, they have a 4+ Armor Save against ranged attacks as if from a Shield and if a 6 is rolled on the armor save against a ranged attack it is deflected back to the attacker and resolved against them. If they do not have a Lightsaber equipped, they have a 6+ save instead.”  Reflecting back blaster fire? Hell yeah, that is what Jedi are for. 

Vibro-Ax by PigJazz on Reddit 

There are also revisions for the Weapons table, the Enemies table and Invasion mechanics.  The Weapons table has certain Star Wars reflavorings, a Military Rifle becomes a Blaster Carbine and a Shatter Axe becomes a Vibro Axe, but there are also new Star Wars weapons as well. You have your Sonic Rifle, your Thermal Detonator, as well as others.  The Enemies tables have been revised with different Star Wars entries and creatures. For example, in the Scum and Villainy enemy table, Black Sun Enforcers and Hutta Guard (slow at a Speed of 3”!) and Shadow Collective Commandos are new.  I’m particularly amused by the Young Rancor on the Roving Threats Enemy table. This creature is Huge making it easier to hit, has Luck 3 from its Thick Hide and will move towards the shooter if you hit it with a ranged attack and don’t kill it.  Very thematic, very Star Wars. 

Invasions in the Post Battle Activities phase of the 5 Parsecs book have some changes in the Coruscant conversion.  In Coruscant, Invasions represent the Galactic Empire invading a world to dominate the planet. As such, only encounters where the crew has fought against an Empire enemy will trigger an Invasion, requiring you to carry out Step 6 of the Post-Battle Activities: Check for Invasion!  

If one travels to an Empire controlled planet, as in the Empire is victorious on the Galactic War Progress table after an Invasion has been triggered, a crew can take jobs but only for the Rebel Alliance.  In contrast to the core 5 Parsecs rules where the Unity Victorius entry on the Check for Galactic War Progress table (Post Battle Activities Step 14) makes it more difficult for another Invasion Threat to occur on that planet again, the Coruscant conversion makes it easier for the Empire to Invade again if they lose, as the Galactic Empire is a crushing fist that will brook no failure in allowing a system to slip it’s grasp.  Very Star Wars, very Darth Vader doctrine. 

by Ryan Dening 

Crew Creation using 5 Parsecs from Coruscant

So, I rolled up 6 Star Wars characters using the crew composition tables from the Coruscant conversion. Primarily this was to test the Coruscant systems but it also gave me an excuse to indulge in a bit of creative writing.  I chose to generate the first two crew members purely randomly, then I restricted my rolls to two common aliens, one uncommon alien and one droid; as that distribution felt very Star Wars to me. The Background, Motivation and Class of each character (except for the droid, as they do not use these tables) were randomly chosen.  The captain of the crew was also decided by a die roll, and the names were generated using either of two Star Wars name generators, here and here. 

Here are the results of the random tables with the randomized elements from 5 Parsecs from Coruscant in bold.  

The first member of the crew is a human named Khromi Storm.  This man, from Endor, is a scoundrel with political motivations.  As fate would have it, he is the captain of the worn freighter that he has repurposed and renamed “Stormlord”.  He and his band of lovable rogues hailing from a variety of planets in the Galactic Core and Outer Rim have a common enemy in the Empire and usually take jobs from the Rebel Alliance, but are not above mingling with space scum, criminal syndicates, local governments or corporations; which they view as all the same, really.  I imagine Khromi barreling down the halls of power in Coruscant, knocking on doors of the Senate, his Endor green cloak fanning out behind him.  And of course, getting an equal number of doors shut in his face because he is from Endor and the Ewoks do not have an effective lobbying block. 

Adventurers of all kinds are welcomed onboard the Stormlord, but only WuFei the human colonist from Mandalore has been consistent and stayed with the crew.  A refugee who does not speak about his past or the Mandalorian Civil Wars, he none the less is extroverted and loquacious at ship parties.  The perceptive among the crew sense this is a well-crafted front to cover for personal past experiences, but none disapprove of his easy manner with Rebel patrons who offer the Stormlord’s crew jobs.  In strict contrast to this is WuFei’s utter discipline and devotion to close combat arts. Wielding a blade, or his family’s vibrosword for special missions against the Empire, WuFei eschews ranged combat for taking the fight up close and personal to the enemy.  Whether this is bravery or madness to quench some personal pain, only time will tell.   

photoshopped by WohlfePac 

Sira’kyra the Twi’lek technician is much more than that word implies; she is an engineering genius. Enslaved by the Empire but allowed to continue to exist as a technical specialist in a research outpost, Sira’kyra was worked to the bone, memorizing the ins and outs of every complicated device in the facility.  When the research outpost suffered from a series of mysterious explosions that covered the Stormlord’s escape, and Sira’kyra was “found” to have “stowed away”, none of the crew batted an eye when Khromi promoted her to chief engineer on the spot.   Only a utility belt with a set of tools remains from that lonely Empire facility, tools that Sira’kyra puts to good use with her new found family.   

Game Notes: Her species Twi'lek, Class, and Background give her +3 Savvy already. Savvy is the "I interact with stuff successfully on the battlefield" attribute. Her Utility Belt gear gives an additional +1 Savvy in Battle for a +4 total.  That is absolutely insane and I’ve never randomly rolled a character with that level of competency. 

Apprenticed to Sira’kyra is Gialjarjarir, the Mon Calamari mechanic. Ship hopping from space station to space station to better familiarize himself with different hyperdrive and fusion drive models, Gial, as he is referred to by the crew, is on a mission of discovery to better himself and earn his place as a true journeyman back on the Outer Rim system he calls home.  Having discovered Sira’kyra’s brilliance and knowing a golden opportunity for a master class in education when presented to him, that planned departure back home grows further and further into the future with each adventure.  Having been around more cantinas than most sentients can count, Gial knows how to mingle with the shadier crowd and hold his own.  His marked Sabacc deck has seen much use in such places.     

Game Notes: Gial’s species and his Motivation gives him +2 Savvy.  Since I rolled up another Savvy professional, I made him apprentice to the godly Twi’lek.  I did make one change from the 5 Parsecs from Coruscant text. I randomly rolled Loaded Chance Cubes as gear for Gial, but I decided to reflavor them as a marked Sebacc deck as that makes more in universe Star Wars sense to me. 

Blazeout is the name of the Republic Clone who, like all clones of his type at this time, is a Clone War Veteran and Soldier.  However, even the Republic cloning process seems to have variations, as Blazeout is driven by Fame.  Getting wind of this singular clone trooper who robbed Imperial banks and excelled at deeds of derring-do, but had been jailed and was in need of rescue; Captain Khromi and the gang arranged a harrowing prison breakout, and Blazeout gladly joined the crew as a loyal member. 

E-3PO, source

What would a star ship crew be without a droid? Specifically, a Protocol Droid when one is jumping from system to system, interacting with aliens of all stripes, individuals nefarious and virtuous. W3-Y4 came onboard the Stormlord as a package deal with the Twi’lek Sira’kyra. Originally an average E-3PO Imperial Protocol Droid, that all changed once Sira’kyra removed his restraining bolt and made some interesting modifications.  W3-Y4 followed Sira’kyra to the Stormlord at the time of her escape from the Imperial Research Outpost, and has since acquired a wide wardrobe of clothing from the different cultures he has encountered with the crew.  And then there are the guns. Oh yes, the guns. A fan of the infinite complexity by which groups try to do harm to one another at range; W3-Y4 happily modifies, tinkers, and recombines blasters and other devices in his off time when he is not translating for the crew of the Stormlord or holding heated high stakes negotiations in a corporate boardroom or criminal underground lair. 

Game Notes: I chose the E-3PO Imperial Protocol Droid model based on this youtube video about Star Wars droids here.

Closing Thoughts

5 Parsecs from Coruscant is a great 5 Parsecs from Home, Star Wars conversion that is in production (currently version 0.5 alpha) by one designer, Crimson114.  I am very eager to see what other elements they adapt from Star Wars to integrate into the systems and mechanics that Ivan Sorensen, author of 5 Parsecs, devised.   Though I may not get my 5 Parsecs from Coruscant crew to the wargaming arena to test all of the new weapons and enemies soon, the Coruscant tables are fun to generate interesting backstories for crew members that are fully within the Star Wars universe. 

Neuroscape, After Action Report and Review

So, how much time do you have to devote to entertainment?  Seriously, sit with that question for a moment. What if I told you there was a competitive card game with minimal setup, engaging gameplay, interesting tactical decisions, card synergies, and you could get a game done in 10 minutes, 25 if you are learning the game?

It exists. I’ve played it. It’s good. It is called Neuroscape and it is a cyberpunk themed trading card game where decks revolve around card synergies, but do not limit you with arbitrary blockers like color requirements or class restrictions for deck design. This means you can use pretty much any card in your collection to make a deck. The reason why is that every card is fueled by RAM, which is a resource you can accumulate and, in some cases, must devote continually to certain cards in order to play them.

Let’s get into the two games I played with the intro decks at my Friendly Local Game Store, Brookhurst Hobbies, with the excellent advocate for Neuroscape, Leo.

I was playing the Hackers deck (control) while my opponent was playing Cybernetic deck focused on cyberpsychosis (very aggressive). More on that last word later.

In Neuroscape gameplay there are two unique elements of the system that are immediately apparent.  The first is that there are two forms of life points: 20 Mainframe Health and 20 Bioframe Health.  These represent the health of your neural computer or physical body, respectively. If either of these health pools reach zero, you have lost the game.

The Hackers deck I was playing focused on doing Mainframe damage, while my opponent’s deck was pure Bioframe damage execution.  To distinguish them in game, I just thought of them as “digital damage” and “meat damage.”

The other unique element of Neuroscape gameplay is the use of the Mainframe card.  Your Mainframe card is sort of your neural computer and the center of your deck. You only get to use one Mainframe card in a deck.  I mentioned that Neuroscape is foundationally built on card synergies.  Your Mainframe card gives your deck potentially two synergies.  For example, with the Mainframe card Synthetix if you have two Cybernetic Characters, all Characters you control get +1/+1 for each cyberware attached to them. That is the first synergy.  You don’t have to commit any RAM for that particular ability; it just happens.

So, the Mainframe cards function as a force multiplier and increase the pace of the game.  This adds to the tension of play and makes every decision count, because you are not spending a lot of your time slowly building up your forces to eventually make a strike. 

Speaking of strikes, when you put a Character card into play from your hand you may use it immediately to attack or carry out an action if you have the RAM to run to do so.  “Running RAM” is basically the equivalent of tapping lands (in this case RAM) in that venerable five color fantasy card game that we all know and love.      

To add to the pacing discussion, every turn (with the exception of the first turn of the player that goes first) each player may decide to draw 2 RAM cards, 2 cards from their deck, or one RAM card and one card from their deck.  Again, this accelerates the speed of gameplay as a player almost always has a card they can play from their hand or the resources to do so.     

So how did it play?

To summarize, the gameplay was fast, brutal and tactical.  Since I was playing the Hackers control deck, my strategy was to load up my opponent’s Mainframe card with Viruses or Trojan programs.  My Characters on the field had utility abilities, were sometimes offensive like the awesome Digital Spectre that could be unblockable and dealt more damage to a player if it successfully attacked, or were speedbumps to prevent the opponent’s Characters from damaging me.

This begs the question however, what are Trojans and Viruses and how do they play?  Trojans and Viruses are essentially “enchantments” that occupy a slot next to or above the opponent’s Mainframe.  Not only does this take away a Mainframe slot from the opponent, they also function as Trap cards in Yu-Gi-Oh.  Virus cards are played face up, but Trojans are played face down so there is an element of bluffing and known unknowns with Trojans.

Specifically, in my Hackers control deck, the Trojans I deployed were cards that could damage my opponent in digital damage for each attacker he declared or annihilate all of his attackers outright.  However, victory was not certain, because my opponent had counters, including a card that could destroy one of my Trojans/Viruses for a certain amount of RAM.

In my first game that is exactly what happened.  I heavily invested in Trojans that would damage my opponent when they attacked and then committed the remainder of my RAM to deploying Characters that would block the opposing attackers. 

Now my opponent had an aggressive Cybernetics focused deck.  He could summon strong Cybernetics Characters that would attack me for meat damage exclusively, had equipment to buff their damage, and had cards that make the Cybernetic Characters even stronger…if he took a chance with Cyberpsychosis. Cyberpsychosis is a risk/reward mechanic. If your attacking Character has a Cyberpsychosis rating, then when attacking there is a chance that your attack fails and you hit yourself instead for your Character’s damage value. To determine if your Character fails an attack and hits you instead, you would have to roll lower than the Cyberpsychosis rating on a d20.  Roll higher than your Cyberpsychosis rating and you successfully attack with your cybered up Cyberpsychosis Character.

The d20 is provided with a basic deck as a marker for Mainframe and Bioframe hit points. It is a really nice die; sharper edged than the plastic ones you normally get from a game store and delightfully denser than normal.

Back to the game. My opponent’s primary Cybernetic Character had a Cyberpsychosis rating of 10. He rolled above 10 several times, crushing the blocking Characters I threw in his way and eventually punching me in the face for 9 damage per attack, ending my existence.  It was an excellent fast match. 

In the second game, I found my footing. The game evolved similarly to the previous one, in that my opponent was building up Cybernetic Characters with Cyberpsychosis, but this time I focused equally on my Characters and Trojans. I played the Singularity Character, which destroyed all of my RAM, but allowed me to play two cards of any value from my hand per turn. I began loading up Trojans on my opponent’s Mainframe again, zapped him a couple times with a Digital Spectre and was hit once in meatspace for damage that brought me down to two Bioframe hit points.  In my opponent’s next turn, he was down to three Mainframe hit points and proceeded to attack me again. However, I revealed that I placed a Trojan that would deal three digital damage to him when he committed an attacker.  That Trojan fired before the Cyberpsycho’s attack could complete, and I won the second game.

First Impressions

Overall, playing the introductory Hackers deck designed for control, gave me a refreshing memory of playing Blue control decks early on in the Revised set for Magic: the Gathering.  More importantly, the experience of playing the game was fun. I can’t stop thinking about it a day later and I want to buy my own cards and play again.  The only thing stopping me is that … well Neuroscape is all sold out where I am, so I have to wait until next week!

In other thoughts, the artwork on the cards is gorgeous. I’ve noticed the occasional nod to foundational cyberpunk media like the Matrix, Edgerunners, and real-world penetration testing techniques.   I’ve mentioned the twenty-sided dice you get in the core sets before, but their quality bears mentioning again.  Everything I saw of Neuroscape’s presentation struck me as designed towards quality.  I’m looking forward to buying my decks. 

I was also impressed by the design of asymmetric themes. Control vs Aggressive were both on display in the introductory decks.  If I had the cards from both decks, I could incorporate both themes into my deck. Choosing the right Mainframe would just help my synergy and focus my play style.

I am also happy with the light bluffing aspect that slotting Trojans (facedown) onto a Mainframe creates. This forces the opponent to deal with a few questions. Which Trojans are you going to destroy, opponent? Are you going to devote your precious RAM to cleaning your Mainframe or use the RAM for something else more aggressive this turn?

On point for a cyberpunk themed tcg, Neuroscape has an app for iOS and Android.  They include access to a Lifepoint counter for both Mainframe and Bioframe  points, the free Rulebook pdf, Learn to Play resources like a Quick Start and Tutorial video, and social media links.

In this writeup, I may have made some mistakes with the specific terminology of Neuroscape’s rules or the mechanics, but I hope my enthusiasm for the game and its exciting designs are clear.

Outstanding Questions

Granted I’m excited, but I did only play two games of Neuroscape with introductory decks. Further questions need to be addressed. What about deck building? How does that feel? What about the mechanics of Instability when you have less RAM than you require for the Characters you have on the field?  That’s a mechanic we didn’t even get into in the example of play.  What about the Dustrunner cards that eat opponent’s RAM? How does that work?

I can only address the question about deck building now because I was able to talk with Leo who has been building decks as soon as he got the cards.  I think you can include any of the cards in the set in your deck (remember, just one Mainframe though).  However, your deck won’t be optimized unless you start building around card synergies.  The Mainframe you choose offers some synergies, but other cards offer opportunities as well.  And then some cards break the system.  Remember The Singularity that I played in my second game? If I relied on synergies with The Singularity then I would lean towards stacking my deck with high RAM cost cards, because The Singularity would allow me to deploy two cards of any RAM cost per turn.

In closing, I had a lot of fun playing Neuroscape. Frankly more fun than I have playing tcgs in years.  It is designed to be fast, brutal and have your decisions matter.  There are still some questions I have in terms of the design space of making decks, but I’ll explore that when I get my cards and start dreaming up my own combinations.

Neuroscape. It got it’s hooks into me.

Antler Valley: A Hexcrawl For the Great Plains Apocalypse RPG, Book Review

I like tabletop roleplaying hexcrawls. I think they are a neat way of telling a story though environmental descriptions, encounters, and snippets of world lore that players gather and ponder over, while maintaining players’ freedom of exploration. 

I own a few hexcrawls that I’m very happy with. The OSR juggernaut, Luke Gearing’s Wolves Upon the Coast Grand Campaign. Times that Fry Men’s Souls, the weird hexcrawl set in Colonial New York and New Jersey by Seann McAnally. Gods of the Forbidden North: Volumes 1 and 2, a fantastic frozen hexcrawl, dungeon crawl, and campaign setting. 

This begs the question however, “what is a hexcrawl?” Eric Diaz of the blog Methods & Madness describes a hexcrawl as “exploring a territory that is divided by hexes, with no clear paths.” He goes on to briefly define the sister type of map adventure called “pointcrawls” as “exploring a territory through preexisting paths and points of interest.”

This blog post will be about one type of hexcrawl that I think is a bit rare in the tabletop roleplaying space.  Specifically, the post-apocalyptic hexcrawl for the OSR genre. I am talking about the book Antler Valley: A Hexcrawl For the Great Plains Apocalypse RPG which was released on the 20th of February 2026.  Now this one has a heady injection of supernatural horror added to it, but in it’s bones it is firmly in the post-apocalyptic genre. 

Most hexcrawls, like the three I listed in the second paragraph, are fantasy based.  Post-apocalyptic hexcrawls are few and far between, but there are handful I can think of. The Mutant Year: Zero series of books by Free League Publishing have systems for developing a “squarecrawl,” which is essentially just a hexcrawl but with squares.  Kevin Crawford, rpg author of Other Dust and Ashes Without Number, provides excellent worldbuilding tools for hexcrawls with post-apocalyptic themes in those two books.  

The author of Antler Valley: A Hexcrawl For the Great Plains Apocalypse RPG specifically cites Rural Apocalypse: Antler Valley by David Woodrum (Fishwife Games) as an inspiration and collaborator for his creation.  I’ll be referring to Antler Valley: A Hexcrawl For the Great Plains Apocalypse RPG by Daymon Mills hereafter as “Antler Valley.”

Book Review and Mechanics of Antler Valley

In short, Antler Valley is a 78-page post-apocalyptic hexcrawl inhabited by cryptids, spirits, mutants and the desperate.  It features 58 entries on a 3d20 random encounter table, 27 hexes that are fully described, 5 hooks to snare players into the area, multiple stories that cover several hexes, weird weather with mechanical effects, and a cryptid bestiary: all for under $5.  

I really like Antler Valley and for the price it is a steal.

The characters and combat encounters in Antler Valley are specifically built for the Great Plains Apocalypse (GPA) RPG system.  

I don’t own the GPA core book, but it is my understanding that it is a rules light system based on OSR bones that has 3 stats: scientist, scoundrel, and soldier.  Skill checks are resolved by rolling 2d6, adding the stat that is most relevant to the challenge, and comparing the result to an 8 or higher if the action is difficult. 

Functionally characters and combat encounters in Antler Valley are described with hit points, equipment and possibly a talent or two. This makes it very easy to adapt the encounters from the GPA framework to any other system you desire. 

For example, on page 23 some Thugs are described as having 4 HP, 9mm pistols (1d6+1 damage, have a -1 penalty for far range), and combat knives (1d6 damage).  This stat block is easily convertible to any OSR modern system or even something like GURPS or Delta Green’s 1d100 system.

Setting and Plot

Speaking of Thugs, the setting of the hexcrawl is very “Fallout-like” with gangs, mutants, survivors, cryptids and a variety of supernatural creatures. This also influences the treasure found in caches and abandoned buildings in the valley. No magic items here; treasure is mostly supplies, fuel, food (including animals/plants) and weapons. For example, the players may be overjoyed to find heirloom apples (including Arkansas Black, Geneva Crab and Virginia Beauty) in an Old Apple Orchard. It will keep them going for at least one more day. 

Another focus of the treasure pool is vehicles or important parts for vehicles. Part of the plot of Antler Valley is trying to find the equipment and fuel sufficient to leave the valley.  The driving reasons for this is that there are two existential threats hanging over the hexcrawl.  The first is that two monstrous kaiju fought and killed each other in the woods, leaving strange mutating phenomena that is slowing spreading to the enclaves of survivors in the valley.  The other is a growing supernatural threat that sort of serves as a “countdown to doomsday” tracker for the game as a whole.  I’ll leave that undescribed, however. 

Speaking of the hexcrawl’s plot, there are two major story threads that are woven into multiple hexes in the valley. Imagine Jason from Friday the Thirteenth but with a shotgun, a two-handed butcher blade named Hog Splitter, and three enormous mutant hounds.  This is the Butcher, a once-man now-cannibal malevolent presence that predates on the locals, be they human or animal.  A good number of hexes have evidence of that disturbing bushwhacker, and he can be considered one of the major bosses of the scenario. 

The Butcher’s story intersects with that of Cole and Lauren, two survivors whose narrative is doled out in letters and caches of supplies scattered over the land.  Unless the GM decides otherwise, Cole and Lauren are unmeetable presences that describe part of the valley’s history.   This type of storytelling is similar to the story of the Survivalist illuminated in letters found in the Fallout New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts.  This plot thread is very flexible and can be as poignant or melancholic as the GM decides. 

In addition to the main plots of the hexcrawl, there are 58 entries on a random encounter table. These random encounters are suggested for spicing up some of the non-keyed hexes in the valley.  The encounters range from cryptids such as the smelly sheepsquatch (evidently a creature in Virginia’s folklore) to a junked-out car that is home to a stray mother cat and her kittens.  The entries can be used for flavorful post-apocalyptic stories, and there are elements that point to the main plots of the Butcher, and Cole and Lauren’s activities in the valley.  My personal favorite entry is Dale. He’s just an elderly man in a rocking chair out in the post-apocalypse with a hidden hunting rifle that he will immediately greet you with if you approach. 

Layer onto these encounters, seasonal tables for weird weather with 7 unique entries.  You do need the Great Plains Apocalypse core book for some of these weather entries.  However, the three weird weathers described for Antler Valley (drifting pollen, prismatic mite winds, static blizzard) are all interesting, mechanically distinct, and described in the book.  They certainly add a layer of complication to encounters found in the valley either in keyed hexes or randomly generated. 

Also, some of the hexcrawl encounters are dynamic.  For example, clearing the Junked Cars (#5 keyed hex) of its mysterious inhabitant allows the players access to a treasure trove of vehicle parts, tools, scrap metal and some basic supplies.  The players could use such a location as a base of operations!  However, the author notes that liberating the junkyard could make the players’ situation even more dangerous, as the local gang the Wildfire Boys (from hex #4) will investigate habitation of the junkyard and try to claim it violently.  Another example is most of the factions of the valley responding significantly more favorably to the party if the Butcher is slain. Some of them will even provide their relevant trade goods. 

The bestiary at the end of the book contains some mundane threats but mostly supernatural ones. There is not one, but two variants of sasquatches that come from Virigina folklore. My personal favorite is the “REGS” or Rainbow-Eyed Goats.  The are man-eating aggressive mutant animals that can basically paralyze you with the prismatic light flashing from their eyes.  And yes, they hunt in packs. Now the reason why the goats have rainbow eyes is related to the prismatic mutation influence from one of the kaiju who died outside the valley whose taint is infesting the area.  All these little story details are really well tied together in Antler Valley. 

Conclusion

So how is the Antler Valley Hexcrawl? I haven’t run it myself, but I find the book very inspiring for post-apocalyptic adventures that have a strong undertone of horror. It is well written, details of themes are tied up nicely together over several encounters and hexes, and for 78 pages of material it is a steal at less than $5.  Antler Valley may require some mechanical adaption to your favorite system, but I think it’s worth it.  My only quibble is that I would like to have seen more trading opportunities and goods between factions in the valley, but wanting more content only reinforces the excellent material that is there in the book. 

Four Mini Book Reviews of Table Top RPGs

 I've found a lot of sales on DriveThruRPG lately, including a couple Deals of the Day, and here is what I have been reading as a result of those tantalizing discounts. 

The Last Caravan

I've purchased and have been reading the Forged in the Dark rpg The Last Caravan. The game is, at base, an Oregon Trail-like game where survivors of an Alien invasion travel West from the East coast (in North America) to avoid increasing winter weather and alien activity to find a sanctuary on the West Coast.

I like it. I like it lots. Currently I have read more than 83 pages out of 212, which is the entirety of the main mechanics and descriptions of the character options and your vehicle rules.  I have specifically avoided the chapter on Aliens to avoid spoilers as I hope to play it eventually.

The "character classes" are called Travelers or Imprints, and while 6 of them share "normal" Blades in the Dark mechanics, two of them, the Innocent and the Good Boi (doggie), are variations upon the "normal" character mechanics theme and thus pretty interesting.   The Innocent is sort of an untested "pre-survivor" who can be the Hero of the group, but has a mechanic that indicates their growth/innocent's nature wearing off as they become a full-fledged survivor.  The Good Boi is a dog, but they have a series of limitations AND unique skills for making them part of the group. Yes, you can go fetch and get cuddles.

I do also like the vehicle rules and detailed pros and cons for making your vehicle unique ... but frankly I want more tables.  More tables for equipment, more detailed rules for combat with maybe Harm types and Armor types (like Fire or resist Fire weapons), and certainly more interesting possible mechanical failures for vehicle cons and more pros to make your vehicle more comfortable/badass/interesting.

The Game Master section (Part Three, The Atlas), has a lot of very specific information about the world and the Regions the players will be traveling through, but I have avoided the specifics of the Regions, because I intend to play the game.

Still, I have read the generic guide to what each Region (1-6) should do narratively on pages 150-151.  These pages suggest details like “Region one should be a tutorial that focuses on the characters and their initial personal problems” and “Introduce at least one Major Faction in Region two.”

The Last Caravan was originally intended to be a video game design document, so there is a great deal of detail for the “canon” Regions and the multiple paths through North America. However, I think that the game could also function well with random generation in each of the six Regions the Last Caravan must traverse.  For example, Region one could have a random table where all the character’s personal problems are delineated, and another random table with small encounters that describe the major themes in the book like introducing alien wildlife, trying to survive the increasing cold, dodgy scavengers, and subjects like that. One could roll on both tables and the Game Master could combine a highlighted personal problem with an encounter for Region one for one game session. 

This idea is a departure from Blades in the Dark and the book specifically, but after reading the book one gets inspired to iterate and build on the framework that The Last Caravan provides.    

So, I think The Last Caravan is good and sets up a nice survival, cozy game but you may require some modification to get more details that suit your table.  The thing is, that will be no trouble since the book generates inspiration in spades.

Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 2

I bought Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 2 a couple of days ago as it was the Deal of the Day on DriveThruRPG for $10. It is normally $25 for this 532-page tome of a West Marches style sandbox location and series of dungeons in the frozen north.  I am 36 pages into it and quite frankly very impressed by the amount of detail and guide to how to run the campaign as the whole thing is designed to be run in OSR, or more specifically the “Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy tabletop role-playing game by Necrotic Gnome.”

You can adapt it easily for any D&D-like you want, but it is easiest for OSR.

So, what do you get in Volume 2? You get an initial introduction to a hidden dwarven underworld, a full hexcrawl description of said gloomy mystic underworld, one urban investigation, and five independent dungeon crawls linked to the underworld. The adventures range from level 5 through 12.  There is a Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 1 which contains the races and worldbuilding of the setting as well as initial adventures from levels 1 through 5.

This book is really fantastic and I will now happily pay $25 for Volume 1 because I am so impressed by it. Volume 2 is worth the money ($25) if you want a hexcrawl with several dungeons.

Specifically, one of the sections I have read deals with a warm home base tavern called “The Beating” with endearing characters and three fully fleshed out unique games of chance that can be played in the tavern, along with a rumor table and regular visitors all with plot hooks.

The Shrike

The Shrike is a brilliantly creative OSR point crawl in a distinctly unique fragment of Hell. The story is, there is a Nameless God impaled through their undying heart on a mountain of iron called The Shrike.  Divine blood, imbued with the ability to generate life from inanimate objects, flows down the spire to its deepest depths in the tempestuous ocean waters below.   Jailor-Devils, Sinners, and creatures animated by the divine blood called Partials, all occupy The Shrike up and down its length; and since food is scarce, weave plots to feed on each other. Yes, cannibalism is a major theme of this sliver of Hell, so content warning there.

The Shrike is a 46 location pointcrawl with 3 keyed dungeons and a procedurally generated depth-crawl.  In addition, there are plenty of interesting tables to use to populate a setting with infernal beings in this 169-page book. 

Creativity is on display in The Shrike. For example, all Devils are shapeshifters, except for the unique horned mask they wear, which serves as their identity.  These masks hold magic powers. Kill one and take it for yourself. Or trade it! For Hell is Capitalism, and the Infernal Economy is detailed with creativity.  You may find gold pieces, grave goods given to the dead by sorrowful mourners; and Umbra, which are the shadows of gold coins destroyed in life. Acquire black bladed knives called Athames which rise in value if they are used to slay a distinguished Devil, or even Black Ledgers of infernal debts and the Scarlet Scales of Mammon himself.

The languages used in Hell even reflect the cultures on The Shrike and have mechanical implications.  Mortals that even attempt to speak Old Infernal find the words blister their mouths as if their tongue has tasted hellfire. Abysmal, the native tongue of The Abyss of Hell, is a slurping, syrupy speech and carries underwater to communicate vast distances. Want to piss of a Devil? Speak in Celestial; the language of the Gods, and those animated by Divine blood. The very utterance of this speech sounds likes nails upon a chalkboard to Devils and drives them into frothing rage.  I have rarely seen a rpg book so cohesive in its tone with every written detail as The Shrike.

The Shrike also has an extensive inspiration and further reading list on page 166. Sure, everyone recognizes Dante’s The Divine Comedy and some of the references to it the author makes; but there are also Sinners that become Husks al la Dark Souls, a reference to China Mieville’s The City & The City in The Great Snubbing between the Gold and Silver Courts of Devils, and my personal favorite reference of Sinner’s Soulstones taken from Wayne Barlowe’s Barlowe's Inferno which is illustrated below.  It has been said, creativity stands on the shoulders of giants, and The Shrike not only wears its inspirations on its sleeve, it weaves them into a truly new and awesome vista of infernal fantasy. 

The Examination from Barlowe's Inferno by Wayne Barlowe

This is a grotesquerie tour-de-force of a very singular vision of Hell and I am glad I bought it.

The Shrike is part of the Bundle of Holding for the OSE Treasures 2 where you get SHRIKE, WYVERN SONGS, TOWER SILVERAXE, MANTICORE, and more for $17.95.  As of the time of this writing, there are only about four more days for this deal.  

The Book of Oblivion (Wraith 20^th Anniversary Edition)

Wraith: the Oblivion is a Storyteller game from the old White Wolf line in which players are one of the Restless Dead; a Wraith with unfinished business that compels them to continue to exist in the Underworld.  The Book of Oblivion is a sourcebook for Wraith, the 20th Anniversary Edition, and frankly I think they should have called this 130-page book, Wraith: the Expansion.

I am a long-term old World of Darkness player who started in the 1990s and Wraith was one of the first core books I bought. Given that, and my love for the macabre and wildly creative world painted in funeral greys and blacks of Wraith, I will do my best to explain the thematic lexicon of the Underworld to a wide audience.

The Book of Oblivion contains a hodgepodge of topics that expand on many of the core book subjects, including: four additional Dark Kingdoms (Wraith civilizations), Shadows (internal Wraith antagonists), Spectres (external Wraith antagonists), Soulforging (making useful stuff in the Deadlands), how Wraiths react to mass tragedies in the Skinlands (real world), more details about the Labyrinth (basically Wraith Hell where the Spectres and worse live) and more.  

But what if I don’t play Wraith? How is The Book of Oblivion useful?

Although The Book of Oblivion’s utility is primarily for Wraith specifically and the World of Darkness in general, the Shadows and Spectres section are great inspiration for undead antagonists or the psychological profiles of evil bad guys who are more than just cartoon characters. In Wraith, the Shadow is the self-destructive, Oblivion-focused and just plain “evil” mirror of the heroic ghost character (Wraith).  Given that, there are 10 distinct additional Shadow archetypes that describe the psychology and motivations of truly self-destructive personalities that could be useful for GMs of say a more traditional fantasy d20 game. What ideas on how competent shock troops of bad guys who serve an existential evil would function? Go to the Spectre chapter, which has nasty tricks described in detail that Spectres use as they go about their dark work.  Want new unique evil-derived magical powers? The Dark Arcanoi chapter is for you. 

The Dark Kingdoms section is more for World of Darkness players and those interested in the dark mirror of different culture’s afterlives. These chapters could also be used as inspiration for funereal otherworlds or pocket dimensions in a fantasy game too however. On display are the Wraith-coded fantasy afterlife areas for Africa, India, North America, South America and Haiti.

Soulforging is a small section describing how Wraiths make practical objects in the Underworld; the Labyrinth section introduces new ideas for how the Game Master can scare their players, even if they are playing dead people. There is a nice but small section on using body horror and unexpected settings for Wraith Hell that might be useful for other horror systems. 

The section on The Tempest (terrifying Wraith weather essentially) and how Wraiths react to mass tragedies in the mortal world are mostly of use to Wraith Game Masters who want to know how the Dead preposition themselves to interfere with the doom of a population or reap souls that will inevitably come across to the land of the dead once the mass casualty event hits.

In conclusion, The Book of Oblivion is mostly for Wraith and World of Darkness Game Masters, and occasionally useful for fantasy Dungeon Masters with a macabre streak.  Because of the vast diversity of topics, the book feels jumbled.  Compare this to The Shrike which has a very singular and cohesive view of a fragment of Hell, and thus that book feels more complete and focused.