Review: Carcosa, by Geoffrey McKinney

Carcosa is my favourite RPG book that I actually don't like at all. I am obsessed with it, but really I am obsessed with the idea of it. I love the premise, the overall aesthetic of the thing. I love the uneasy mixture of genuine horror and pulp nonsense, of grotesque violence and gonzo comedy. I love that it's basically a Kingdom Hearts/Super Robot Wars-style crossover of every Lovecraft-adjacent author ever. I love the sense of intense potentiality in the setting, the feeling that over the course of a few sessions your players could very easily seize godlike power, or trigger an eldritch apocalypse, or just die of sepsis in a ditch.

What I don't love is anything that's actually in the book.

Once you start reading the details, all you find is one limitation after the other. McKinney created a wonderful playground for the imagination, but it seems like he didn't actually want to play there. Consider this quote from the section on "Artifacts of the Great Race":

Humans, however, find it almost impossible to use these outré objects. Only humans with an intelligence of at least 17 can even possibly do so. After each month of continuous study, such a human has a 5% (non-cumulative) chance of understanding the item well enough to make some use of it.

In other words - here's a bunch of cool stuff, but it's statistically improbable that any of your characters will ever be able to use it.

Or the section on sorcerous rituals, most of which require expensive treasures, human sacrifices, or quests to extremely dangerous locations. Even if all the requirements are met, the cosmic entity still gets a saving throw, and:

The Referee must make the being’s saving throw in secret. If a ritual does not work, the Sorcerer does not know why:
The ritual might be defective and thus will never work.  
The Sorcerer might have performed the ritual incorrectly. 
The entity might have made its saving throw.

How is this conducive to any kind of entertainment at the gaming table? If the PCs are trying to complete a ritual, it's just an exercise in frustration. If the PCs are trying to prevent an evil sorceror's ritual, it opens the door to a sad anticlimax: "You failed to stop him in time... but luckily Cthulhu made its saving throw so nothing happens."

Once you get past the long and pointless list of rituals (most of which don't do anything useful even if you go to the trouble of completing them) you reach what should be the real meat of the book: the hex descriptions. But here, too, McKinney seems to have little interest in the possibilities of his own material. So many hex entries are literally just a monster name and a number, as if rolled right off a wandering monster table. But the really baffling ones are things like this: "Tens of thousands of ancient stone burial vaults dot these barren plains. Every one of them has been broken open and emptied." Or: "A shadowy figure lurks at the edge of the forest, watching intently. Though it may be a Black Man or a Purple Man, it is impossible to tell for sure, and he disappears deeper into the trees if pursued. No amount of searching or pursuit will result in finding him."

In other words: "Something here appears to be interesting, but on further investigation, it isn't. At all." 

I know some people praise this kind of brief hex description because "it can serve as a starting point for the DM's imagination". But most of Carcosa's hexes are so brief that they give you nothing at all to work with, or worse, actively stifle imagination by negating possibilities.


The monster descriptions are similarly low-effort. Most of them boil down to generic blobs or crazed mutants that attack on sight. Many Lovecraft deities are listed, and although there's a certain goofy charm in learning that Azathoth, "the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space", has 19 armour class and 60 hit dice, ultimately the descriptions of them are so brief as to make each one indistinguishable. McKinney's attitude seems to be: "You've read the original stories, so I don't need to put in any effort here."

Yet even that is too kind because McKinney has managed to make a lot of the Lovecraft monsters less interesting than in their source material. For example, Carcosa claims that creatures as diverse as shoggoths, mi-go and Deep Ones are all numbered among the "six main spawn of Shub-Niggurath". This attempt to systematise the unruly hodgepodge of the Lovecraft cosmos is reminiscent of the misguided efforts of August Derleth, who notoriously tried to fit Lovecraft's pantheon into neat boxes based on the classical elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. But cosmic horror really only works when the uncanny defies logical classification. The fact that Lovecraft's meta-universe is crowded with beasties and barely held together is part of its allure.

A review of Carcosa, especially a critical one, can't be complete without talking about the rape content. Because it created such controversy at the time of release, I'm always surprised to find how little there actually is in the book: I think it's just two or three rituals and one monster description. I absolutely think it should not be included in the book. Any reasonable DM won't use it anyway, and it makes it much harder to talk about the setting when you have to preface any discussion with "but I'm not into the rape stuff".

That said, I don't believe that the depictions of cruelty and torture in the ritual section are entirely gratuitous. It does add something new to the Cthulhu mythos. The traditional theme of cosmic horror has been "the universe is full of powerful beings that don't care if something horrible happens to you". Carcosa's rituals twist this a little: here, the powerful beings do care about horrible things happening to you, but they care for alien reasons beyond comprehension. But I really question whether this theme can be ably explored in a roleplaying game, much less in a game of gonzo hack-and-slash D&D.

Conclusion... look, I would be an asshole if I didn't give credit where it's due to a book that I've written a bunch of blog posts about. McKinney has definitely created a world that is fundamentally compelling on some level. But if you're reading this review to decide whether to buy it, I'd say... maybe don't bother?

Even aside from the fact that it's published by a guy who stands up for (alleged) rapists - the book doesn't give you anything you can't get yourself. Instead, I recommend you read the source material (Chambers, Smith, Lovecraft, Lindsay, and uh... Burroughs but maybe just watch the movie instead). Look at the artwork associated with Carcosa and read what other D&D bloggers have written about it. Then just imagine what's inside the book itself, and you will probably come up with something better than the disappointing reality.

Seasons of Carcosa

Bruce Pennington

Carcosa's solar year lasts for nine months, each of fifteen days' duration. The seasons are as follows:

Hot Dry (or "Dustfall") (2 months): The driest and hottest portion of the year. Crops wither and creatures seek shelter. Humans go about in full-body cloaks to avoid exposure to solar radiation. Some flora and fauna hibernate during this period. Dust storms, brushfires and solar flares are common.
Black Rain (1 month): As the temperature decreases, noxious clouds rise from Lake Hali and fall on the landscape as black rain. Creatures and plants mutate to survive the rain's toxins. Humans hoard clean water.
Sporing (3 months): Coldest and wettest season. Freshwater storms wash away the black rain and life blossoms. The fungal forests sporulate during this time. Humans wear filter masks to avoid fungal infections. Floods and thunderstorms common, but overall a time of bounty.
Hot Wet (3 months): Storms give way to humidity. Fungal forests grow. Humans retreat into caves, which offer respite from the relentless heat. Overland journeys are difficult because exhaustion sets in quickly.

There are two major moons, Yuggoth and Pnakotoi. The former rises at night and the latter during the day.
Yuggoth has a fifteen day cycle and is associated with the nine months. When it is full, it projects eldritch energy that increases the power of spells and stimulates uncanny beings. 'Werethings' transform under a full Yuggoth.
Pnakotoi has a sixty-day cycle. It normally achieves fullness at the same time as Yuggoth, creating a double full moon once every four months. Full Pnakotoi augments the effects of full Yuggoth.

Bruce Pennington

The nine months of Yuggoth:

- Dust Moon: For the heavy dust clouds that rise at the beginning of the dry season. The full moon stimulates the spawning of giant dust worms.

- Ulfire Moon: the ulfire tint reflects the heat on the planet's surface. Creatures of invisible flame walk the land on the full moon.

- Black Rain Moon: A moon often obscured by thick black clouds. When its pale light strikes the ground, horrors spawn from the mud.

- Thunder Moon: A welcome moon that heralds the end of the black rain season and the coming of fresh water. Sorcerors perform rituals of renewal under this moon.

- Spore Moon: Spore clouds rise in this month and turn the sky greenish-white. When the full moon shines, spells spontaneously cast themselves from the minds of spellcasters.

- Hunt Moon: A bright moon, beloved by predators, who use it to hunt the young prey spawned during the Sporing season. Old beasts stir under its light and warriors make sacrifices of blood.

- Yellow Moon: A sickly moon, presiding over humidity and infection. Madness flares up in this month, and at full moon Hastur walks the earth far beyond his demesne in Lake Hali.

- Fruiting Moon: In this month, the fruiting bodies of fungi grow wildly, sometimes so fast as to coat a sleeping victim overnight. Fungal forests become nigh impassable. Spellcasters sprout mushrooms from their facial cavities. At the full moon, the fungi walk and perform strange rituals, while humans and beasts are rooted to the ground.

- Moth Moon: Named for the dolm moths that swarm in this month. Men and beasts store food jealously as the last supplies are depleted before the coming of the dry season. On the full moon, the moth swarms reach their peak and humans feel restless, a desire to travel.

Bruce Pennington

Review: Bone Marshes

This is a review based on a read-through, not a playtest.

Bone Marshes is a 45-page sandbox setting for Knave. It focuses on a salt-marsh region undergoing an ecological catastrophe caused by (this isn't much of a spoiler) ancient alien technology hidden below the surface. The sun is stuck at noon twenty-four hours a day, the marshes are slowly burning hex by hex, and only the PCs can figure out what has gone wrong. The module includes a hexmap, a cave crawl inspired by Veins of the Earth, and several interlocking dungeon areas.

This is a great example of a well-written, table-ready sandbox. Each hex has something for the PCs to actually do, not just look at. The NPCs all have goals and opinions - there are at least four who could take the role of "quest-giver" depending on how the PCs interact with them. The random encounter tables are stocked with actual situations, not just names of wandering monsters.

One thing that really stands out about Bone Marshes is its focus on ecological and environmental factors as gameplay elements. Spreading wildfires and fluctuating tides create dynamic environments for players to explore. Mud is a dangerous enemy, and fresh water a valuable resource. All these things are not just set dressing, but are backed up with hard mechanics that will force the players to engage with them.

The overall tone of the module is a little scattered. Some things, like the above-mentioned mud rules, point to a grim and gritty tone, something like the Dead Marshes scenes from Lord of the Rings. But this bleak and cruel environment is populated by a cast of rather whimsical characters: a seacaptain whose boat fell through a portal in the sky; mud-people who sell mud items but only in exchange for mud coins... The contrast is reminiscent of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. I think with the right attitude from the GM, it could work very well in play.

The useability of the text is generally good. The hex descriptions are laid out in spreads, the prose is slim and functional, and the whole document is hyperlinked. There are a few places where the text could have been cut more, and a couple of others that are vague or semi-contradictory.

For some reason, the author decided to include the entirety of the Knave rules text inside the module. It's a cute idea: you can run the whole game with this book and nothing else! But it's not helpful if you want to use a different system, or your own hacked version of Knave. Plus, important setting-specific rules (for things like mud and fire-fighting) are mixed in with the generic Knave rules, making them harder to isolate.

I like every individual part of Bone Marshes, but I don't feel that urge of "I need to run this!" which will actually get it off my shelf and onto the table. Maybe my problem is that the central quest line is a bit dull. It basically boils down to the PCs collecting a bunch of batteries so that an NPC wizard can fix everything off-screen. Also, the final area (the inside of an ancient alien spaceship) is pretty generic and doesn't have the same sense of atmosphere that the above-ground sections offer.

Here are some ideas for how I might change the module if/when I get a chance to run it:

- Although the quest-giving NPC Azimech is a well-written character, I think her presence detracts from the agency of the PCs. What if she wasn't there at all?

- Instead of mapping the Marshes for Azimech, the PCs have a royal charter that gives them exclusive rights to trade in the region. The safer they can make the trade route to the King's City, the more merchants show up.

- Instead of collecting VoltCells for Azimech, the PCs have to figure out the ecological problems on their own through experimentation and/or advice from NPCs like the Swurmp Queen and the Guardian.

- I would rewrite the Vault section to be a little more Prometheus. That's just my style though.

Despite these criticisms, I really liked Bone Marshes overall and would consider it well worth the asking price. Even if you don't run it in total, elements like the hex descriptions, the mud rules or the tide system could be transplanted easily into other adventures.

10 Alternatives to "The Spell is Too High Level"

Options for locking off a powerful spell without tying it to character level:

1. It requires a lengthy ritual
2. It requires expenditure of gold or other resources
3. It requires certain ingredients that must be sought through adventure
4. It has a permanent cost for the character (e.g. stats, limbs, memories)
5. It has a permanent cost for the environment (e.g. sickness, drought, reality tears)
6. It requires special training from an NPC
7. It's dangerous - risk of backfiring
8. It draws the attention of powerful beings (wizards, demons, archons, etc. - arguably this is a variant of #4 and #5)
9. It can only be cast in a certain location
10. It can only be cast at a certain time (of day, month, year, century...)



 
 

 

Review: Cockamania!

Cockamania! is a 30-page mini-setting based in Filipino culture and folklore. Cockfighting is the main theme of the text, but it also includes mythological backstory, a small list of wilderness encounters, village politics, and even some recipes for cooking defeated cocks. The writing is evocative and draws you into its world. The biggest flaw with the supplement is a lack of immediate usability. After reading it, I immediately wanted to run an adventure in this setting, but I felt like it would take a lot of work on my part to get something playable out of the text.

Reading Cockamania is at first a bit disorienting. Many Filipino words are dropped into the text unexplained. Things become clearer once you reach the appendices that offer translations and an explanation of the gender-neutral pronouns used for certain characters. Overall, I liked the feeling that the writer was speaking honestly from their culture rather than translating everything for a Western viewpoint. I still would have preferred to have those appendices at the front of the book.

Once you get a handle on the vocabulary, the world of Sabungan village comes alive. Small details like the recipes and gambling rules give texture to the setting. The cockfights are tied in to a mythic drama involving spirits and demi-gods, which will soon intrude decisively on the villagers' everyday lives. After the village section there are some excellent wilderness encounters, some of which could form separate adventures of their own.

"Could" is the operative word here. The book isn't really ready for use at the table. In fact there is practically no mention of PCs at all, no discussion of what they might do or how they might be involved in the situation. There is a lot of backstory, but from the players' point of view the story begins with a giant goddess showing up, demanding something nobody has heard of, and threatening to eat people if she doesn't get it. OK, that's a good hook, but what happens next? How do the PCs find out any of the backstory?

Likewise, a lot of the random encounters (in village and wilderness) give no impetus for the PCs to interact with them. "A happy gambler". "2d4 wild jungle fowl". It's up to the GM or the players to squeeze out a narrative from these, with little support from the text.

Last of my criticisms about usability is the layout. The PDF has huge amounts of white space - the text could probably have been condensed to fit in less than half as many pages. Also, having recipes and cultural details scattered throughout makes it interesting to read through, but would probably add a lot of mental overhead during gameplay.

These criticisms are not dealbreakers, though. If you are interested in Asian fantasy written by Asian people, or intertextual RPG materials, Cockamania is well worth checking out.

The Monsters' Saves in Knave are Too High! 3 Reasons Why

In Knave, the monster conversion/creation rules state:

Saves: Since OSR monsters usually don’t come with ability scores, assume that monsters have ability bonuses equal to their level, with the corresponding ability defenses.
Example: A typical 4 HD monster would have a bonus of +4 and a defense of 14 in all of its abilities by default, unless modified by the referee.

This makes the monsters' saves too high! Here are 3 reasons why:

1. It's not in line with classic D&D. The monster save tables in classic D&D (I'm look specifically at Old School Essentials here) give the monsters lower chances of saving. It's hard to compare one to one, because the old-school saves vary more and only change once every three levels. But in terms of average save value, Knave monsters are at least equal to OSE monsters, and sometimes have up to a 10% edge. (All this is assuming that the monster is saving against a static DC of 15. If the monster is making an opposed save against a PC's stat, then the variables are multiplied again - but in general the PC's stat is likely to be lower than 15.)

2. It's not in line with the way player characters progress. PCs only get to raise 3 of their 6 stats when they level up, but monsters gain +1 to all stats per level. Now, you might say that PCs who rolled well in character creation can start with higher than +1, which is true. But as you go up the level chart, most PCs will eventually be eclipsed by monsters.

3. It punishes rather than rewards creative play. This is the most important one. By the book, Knave monsters will usually have saves that are at least equal to their armour class, and sometimes even higher. Generally speaking, boring attack rolls will target AC whereas interesting stuff (spells, combat stunts, clever plans) will target the monster's saves. When the players use clever tactics they should have better chances of success, not worse.

The solution I propose is to assume that monsters have saving throw bonuses equal to half their level rounded up. This ensures that even against tough monsters with many hit dice, clever plans have a reasonable chance to succeed.

(P.S. - I didn't miss the phrase "unless modified by the referee" in the above quote. Of course you can and should modify saves where it fits the fiction. A lumbering armoured tortoise might have a crappy DEX save but a great CON save, for example. Nevertheless, I think it's important to have a suitable default that you can fall back on whenever you're not sure.)

More Slot-Based Classes for Knave

Assassin
You can fill your inventory slots with 'Prep'. This represents binding your pack, muffling your shoes, and other such preparations to improve your stealth ability.
You can have up to L slots of Prep at the start of each day.
Erase a slot of Prep for one of the following effects:
- Reroll a save made to avoid detection
- Automatically hit with an attack made from stealth
- Double your number of damage dice on an attack made from stealth

Shapeshifter
You can use totems, which are items linked to a particular animal.
Each totem allows you to transform into that animal once per day for Lx10 minutes. When transformed, you gain the appearance and abilities of the animal, and can communicate with other animals of the same type, but your ability scores and hit points are unchanged.
You can carry up to L totems at a time.
Do a favour for an animal and it will give you its skin totem.
Kill an animal yourself and you can use its organs to create a blood totem. When transformed with a blood totem, animals of the same type hate and fear you.


Warlord
You can create Bonds with your allies by carrying items that they have given you.
Any item can be associated with a Bond as long as it was given to you as a gift. You can only have one Bond per ally.
You can carry up to L Bond items at any time.
Once per Bond per day, you can grant that ally one of the following advantages:

- An extra action during a combat round
- 1d6+1 temporary hit points
- Reroll a morale check or a saving throw against mental effects

Using a Bond is a free action and can be done outside of your normal turn order.

Runecarver
You can engrave runes on your items to improve them.
You can carry up to L engraved items at a time.
Items cannot be engraved with more than one rune.
You know the following runes:

Uruz: engrave on armour for +1 AC
Thurisaz: engrave on a weapon for +1 attack and damage
Fehu: engrave on a tool to gain advantage when using the tool for its purpose
Algiz: the item will not break except under extreme circumstances
Naudiz: the item is always to hand and can be used without awkwardness
Tiwaz: the item can affect intangible objects and creatures.

Alchemist
You can carry solvents - powerful potion bases that are too dangerous for other characters to handle. You can carry up to L solvents. You can make more solvents in town for 10cp each.
You can dissolve any number of items into a solvent to create a potion.
- The first item confers its primary function upon the potion.
-  Adding more items improves the potion's efficacy. By default, the potion is about as useful as the item that was dissolved. As a rule of thumb, 100cp or 1HD of fresh monster parts is enough to improve the potion by one 'step'.
- The Alchemist can choose whether to make the potion as a tonic (effective when drunk) or a grenadoe (effective when thrown).
Mixing a potion takes 10 minutes. The duration of tonics is 10xL minutes and the splash area of grenadoes is 10'.

Example: Annie the Alchemist dissolves a 10' pole into her solvent. The DM rules that the pole's primary function is "to prod", so the potion grants the imbiber the power to stretch their fingers up to 10' long. Annie adds 100cp of treasure and the guts of a 1HD monster to get two improvements. She asks to make the "prodding" telepathic and to make it stronger so it can knock enemies down.
If Annie had made a grenadoe instead, she would have a prod-bomb that prods everyone in range of its explosion.

Priest
You can use reliquaries - holy items that contain body parts or personal effects from saints. You can carry up to L reliquaries at a time.
You can pray to your god for a miracle. A miracle has one of the following effects:

- Heal 1d6+1 hp
- Reroll any one die rolled by another character
- Terrify L+1 hit dice of undead
- Negate a spell as it is cast
- Dispel an enchantment for Lx10 minutes

After a miracle, roll d20 + the number of reliquaries you carry. On a 15 or less, your god finds you unworthy and will send no more miracles until you make a burnt offering: Lx100cp worth of food, or L hit dice of monsters.
You can acquire reliquaries from senior members of your faith. You can also create a reliquary from the corpse of a character who displayed holy virtue in life.