TP Total Pan … Hit Point Systems … PreGen Healers … Disease in RQ … Eclipse Phase .. Tales from the Loop: Worse Than Death .. D&D Demigods … Radioactive Review ... and much more!

Table of Contents

LETTER FROM SARS-CoV-2 4

TP TOTAL PAN: THE ROLL PLAYING GAME 5

HIT POINTS: A REVIEW OF SYSTEMS AND SCOPE 9

HAND OF THE HEALER REVIEW 16

DISEASE IN RUNEQUEST ROLEPLAYING IN GLORANTHA 18

ECLIPSE PHASE GAMING 'BLOG 20

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH: NOT DYING IN TALES FROM THE LOOP 32

PRE-GENERATED HEALERS FOR DIFFERENT SYSTEMS 36

DEATH CANNOT HOLD THEM: DEMIGODS FOR D&D5 ^th ED. 42

MEDICINE AND HEALING IN GULLIVER'S TRADING COMPANY 46

HELLBLADE: SENUA'S SACRIFICE 50

RADIOACTIVE REVIEW 55

ADMINISTRIVIA

RPG Review is a quarterly online magazine which is available in print version every so often. All material remains copyright to the authors except for the reprinting as noted in the first sentence. Contact the author for the relevant license that they wish to apply. Various trademarks and images have been used in this magazine of review and criticism. Use of trademarks etc are for fair use and review purposes and are not a challenge to trademarks or copyrights. This includes Eclipse Phase from Posthuman Studios, RuneQuest by Chaosium, Gamma World 4th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, and related intellectual property is owned by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC). Radioactive distributed by StudioCanal. Cover art of transmission electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first U.S. case of COVID19 coronavirus. From CDC/SCIENCE SOURCE. Artwork in Eclipse Phase 'blog from Sunward.

EDITORIAL AND COOPERATIVE NEWS

Welcome to the 47^th issue of RPG Review, with a central topic of "In Sickness and in Health", which seems particularly appropriate for this time of a global pandemic. How curious it is to think that as the novel coronavirus makes its way through the world and indeed continues to do so at an every increasing rate that there is still a sense of continuing activity among our shared hobby of traditional, tabletop RPGs, even if many of us are running these events by some sort of electronic communications. I cannot help but be reminded of a scene in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds where he re-encounters the artilleryman, who has a great gulf between his dreams and action:

We drank and then he insisted upon playing cards. With our species on the edge of extermination, with no prospect but a horrible death, we actually played games!

The psychology desire to retain a sense of normalcy in a time of crisis is a normal human reaction, if irrational. One only needs to witness how the arts and culture tried to continue to during the siege of Leningrad as an example; on August 9, 1942 Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" by Dmitri Shostakovich was performed by the Leningrad Radio Orchestra and broadcast on loudspeakers placed throughout the city, even aimed towards the enemy lines. Where do you put that behaviour Maslow? The reality is that even in circumstances that are real and visceral challenges to our security and even physiological needs there is a part of the human spirit that still finds room for beauty, music, art, imagination, and, always, romance.

Besides, have you noticed how accurate the information is from science fiction movie buffs and gamers? It is almost as if they have been preparing for such things for decades. From a steady diet of zombie-infection films, such as 28 Days Later, to the paranoia of John Carpenter's The Thing, there is a rich source of existing aesthetic products close to our heart which sometimes provides scientific insight appropriate to our current circumstances but more often have provided an insight to the human psyche. This said, if there is a zombie film that doesn't include a proportion of the population that thinks that the zombie outbreak is all a hoax, or it's caused by telecommunication towers, or that drinking bleach is a cure, will be justly condemned as not being realistic enough.

This issue of RPG Review contains lots of delicious content directly related to our main topic, health and healing. New contributor, Darren Lee, has kindly unearthed a letter from SARS-CoV2 which is a helpful introduction to the topic. Then from Nevil Kingston-Brown is TP PAN, a complete "roll-playing" game that you're already playing! Slightly more seriously is three articles articles by myself, one on the variety of hit point and healing systems in different RPG systems, one review of Hand of the Healer for Rolemaster and MERP, a review of disease in RuneQuest. Because of it's association with disease, and especially hidden disease, the gaming 'blog this issue is from my Eclipse Phase campaign, last featured in Issue 37! New contributor Martin Plowman provides some insight to some of the problems of not dying from Tales From the Loop, whereas the powerful machine of our journal, Karl Brown has provided a range of different pre-generated healers for a variety of (mainly D20-derived) game systems, the characteristics of undying demi-gods for D&D 5th edition, and medicine and healers in Gulliver's Trading Company. Slightly tangential to our topic is a review of the video game, Hellblade: Senua's Sacriface by Andrew Daborn, and finally a review of the movie Radioactive by regular Andrew Moshos. Plus, we have a small selection of RPG gaming 'blogs from myself and Andrew Daborn.

As part of the Cooperative news it is necessary to mention that, after starting this journal ten years ago and acting as founding president of the incorporated association that manages it five years ago, I will be stepping down from both roles at the next Annual General Meeting. All organisations require a change in leadership in order to ensure a dynamic quality, and this one is no exception. There will be, of course, the need for transition, and I have offered to stay on as a committee member to aid and assist whoever takes up the role. The following are my current roles that can be distributed.

1. President. 1.1 Call and Chair Meetings. 1.2 Coordinate and be responsible for all association activities. 1.3 Publish newsletter

2. RPG Review Editor. 2.1 Edit articles, convert formats for publication, and layout. 2.2 Write/Find enough content to ensure 64 pages per issue. 2.3 Submit issues to National Library

3. IT. 3.1 Keep payments for domain and hosting up-to-date. 3.2 Manage services (Drupal, Mailman, MySQL, etc). 3.3 Publish content on website

The newsletter part is entirely optional and could be carried out by a different committee member, and the same applies to the RPG Review Editor. I am happy to continue carrying out the IT tasks. The President, in theory, is the role that has the least tasks, or the least required tasks, but also the one with the greatest responsibility and authority. It is really an opportunity for one to carve their own mark on the organisation. The journal editor is work, but it is also the flagship product of the association and has the largest reach.

Anyway, there are opportunities here. Who among you is going to be a player-character?

Lev Lafayette lev@rpgreview.net

LETTER FROM SARS-CoV-2

He is a hero to us. Whatever he is to you or what you may think of him, he is a hero to us. To him we owe our very existence today, tomorrow and for a long time to come from now on. He did so very much for us, day and night. Even when he became well, he never stopped. And so it pains us to see him here in a hospital, in intensive care. We have been called many things. Unflattering names have a grain of truth in them, given prominence out of all proportion to real life and taken out of context.

When people call us parasites, they exaggerate at the very least. We are not a blight on this world. We are not parasites. If others cannot see what we contribute, we cannot say who lies, who errs or if a lie errs. He paid no heed to the names, the uncertainty or the lies. He helped us and he is a hero to us.

We are grateful for what he shared with us. We are grateful that he helped us when he was well. He helps us still, though he is unwell.You can see just how unwell. He lies unconscious in an intensive care bed. That is just what it means: intensive care. He is completely dependent on nursing and medical care around the clock. His condition is so critical that he is unable even to breathe for himself. His life hangs in the balance, but we hope that he will recover. He must, for the fate of millions depends on his.

You have been inside and seen for yourself how severely ill he is. A machine breathes for him; there are numerous tubes running everywhere; monitoring devices make incomprehensible noises. I heard a doctor say that a patient with six syringe pumps is unlikely to survive: he has five. The nurses and therapists have to wear gloves, visors, masks and gowns before they can give him his medication or check his condition.

He is critically ill and even so, he helps us still.For every moment he survives, he gives life to literally millions of us. We are, ironically, part of the reason he is here. We are the reason why everyone here wears gloves, gowns and visors. We are the reason why cities and countries have shut down. We are the reason why famiilies have divided themselves. We are the reason why when somebody coughs or sneezes, everyone suddenly becomes tense and afraid.

There is no reason to be afraid of us. Doctors like to speak of the case fatality rate and other kinds of numbers but what do they really mean? They say the elderly are more likely to die but what does that mean? A virus does not have a choice of what kinds of people to infect. We are the ultimate product of a long process of evolution and we are pretty good at what we do.Our case fatality rate is low. There are other coronaviruses and they have higher fatality rates. We are much less likely to kill our hosts. This makes sense for us: a live host is the best host.

We are persistent. We have a good strong outer case and we can stay out in the environment for a good long time. We can survive for the length of time it takes for someone to come along and pick us up.

We are spread by droplets. This is anything from a cough to a sneeze but doctors are right to worry that anything that might make a spray or a mist is a risk. It helps us that sneezes can travel several feet.

We want to spread from one host to another and not cause much harm. All we want from a host in a quiet period of replication. We never get it. Thanks to the host's immune system, this never happens. Sometimes it happens quietly, but at other times the immune response can be very florid. Rarest of all are the most severe of immune responses and the most severe of illnesses, the kind that have placed him here in this intensive care unit.

Why do you need to know all of this? There is the matter of that few minutes you spent inside without your mask; we could not have gotten this close to you otherwise. We will spend the next two weeks getting ready with you. After that, you may feel a little unwell. But remember that whatever happens, you will forever be a hero to us.

TP TOTAL PAN: THE ROLL PLAYING GAME

It began in 2020. Fear of a worldwide virus sparked a baseless panic that a persecuted minority group was hoarding TP. Wanting to secure his own supply, corrupt and incompetent Chief Executive Cornholio tweeted that all taxes must be paid in TP. Monetary authorities then shut down all TP manufacturers for currency counterfeiting. Within days, western civilization collapsed, as citizens plunged into a whirlpool of struggle for TP to staunch their bungholes and/or tax bills.

Welcome to TP Total Pan! You are a regular citizen on a trip to the store, seeking TP, maybe something else to get you through this. You deserve a treat. You're a good person.

Every player needs time to waste, a desire for more TP, a six sided die (there's almost certainly one in the board games you dragged out when you were naïve enough to think that quarantine would bring your family/ precariat share house/pansexual anarchist collective closer together) and a video meeting connection.

Order of play is determined by the order in which participants logged into the meeting.

To do something in the game, narrate what you're doing and how (using your weapons, characteristics, etc). There will then be a show of hands of whether other players think your explanation is a winner (we're all judging each other; let's bring it out in the open. It's OK to abstain). Then roll your die, add positive votes, subtract negative votes, and add applicable bonuses (explained below).

If you want to help another character and are in a position to do so, you can add your bonuses to their roll. If you then want to attack someone who just helped you, you can add their bonuses to your roll (Sucker!)

If contesting something with another player (e.g. who seizes the last roll of TP in the store) the winner is the highest total, otherwise you need a 5 or better. Whoever logged in earlier wins a tie between players. If you lose a combat or challenge, mute your microphone for 30 seconds.

If an antagonist needs to be voiced, or a situation needs further description, this is done by a muted person, or the person who logged in after you.

In case of multiple Karens, add additional qualifiers, e.g. Original Recipe Karen, Posh Karen, Spooky Karen, 2nd Amendment Karen, Doing-Cyberporn-to-make-Rent Karen. We can all be Karen if we work hard and believe in ourselves.

Probably someone else wants or has equipment that would give you a bonus. Feel free to rob (or trade with) them after the store opens.

The TP, and the things you want (roll separately for each person's things) are in aisle x (roll the die) and are:

The winner is the first person to exit the store with TP and their desired things.

HIT POINTS: A REVIEW OF SYSTEMS AND SCOPE

The notion of "hit points", first raised in Dungeons & Dragons (1974), has become a staple of tabletop roleplaying games and computer games. Sometimes hit points are represented as a numerical value which increase in level (e.g., D&D, Rolemaster). In other games they are relatively static (BRP, Hero System, GURPS, World of Darkness), or repesented as a conditional track (FATE). Loss of hit points in some games has minimal effect until a critical threshold is reached, and in others there is a gradual loss of abilities. In some cases the improvements in hit points, if they improve, are static and in other cases they are random. In some cases healing of hit points is readily and easily available, and others not so much. Then there's the scope of hit points, what they are can be applied to. In all cases they represent *something* to do with a character's health, and the design decisions made have a very real influence on how the game plays out. Exploring some of these options in advance helps make clear in the minds of the players what sort of game that they're playing.

One of the obvious differences in the way that games represent hit points is whether they are relatively static as a representation of full health, or whether they increase in value with character advancement. From the earliest games, increasing value hit point systems were intiated by Dungeons & Dragons and Tunnels & Trolls, whereas the more static model was represented by Traveller and RuneQuest. Broadly speaking, the appeal of the former was a "gamist" orientation and the latter of a "simulationist" orientation. Just witness the quantity of of debates back in forth through 'zines such Alarums & Excursions which illustrate the intensity of thought on the relative merits of these positions.

The appeal of the former position comes down to a sense of making the game more enjoyable through increasing capabilities by an order of levels. In addition to the benefits gain by skill improvements, which are typically gained in fairly small increments (typically 5%), a gain in hit points from first to second level doubles, three times from first to third and so forth. As a result, the improvement capability of confronting martial antagonists also increases proportionally. Even screening out the modest improvements in skill level, a 2nd level character is twice a likely to defeat an Orc (one could use an "Orc standard") than a 1st level character. Maybe Gnolls are more of a test of the character's level, and at 3rd level, the giddying heights of a Bugbear! As early playtests suggested, players were attached to their characters and didn't want to be subject to the same rules all the time:

"They didn't care if they could kill a monster in one blow, but they didn't want the monster to kill them in one blow."

Dave Arneson (2004 Interview in GameSpy http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/540/540395p1.html)

In contrast, the appeal of the latter position was about making the game more enjoyable through an exploration of a realistic simulation. Maybe an especially skilled or burly human could use acumen to defeat a bugbear, but when characters have more hit points than say a ten-metre dragon the sense of verisimilitude to the "realists" is ruined. In such games, the argument went, hit points remained relatively static, even as other skills, abilities, and especially magic increased. For some games there was no problem with this in terms of the general narrative. In Traveller, for example, characters usually remained relatively static in all their abilities throughout the entire campaign! In RuneQuest, whilst hit points may not have changed a character's access to the favours of the Gods (represented by magic) certainly increased. In other words, there was a magical path that could simulate the gradual increase in the scale of antagonist without changing the physical realism of a static hit point method.

Despite the appeal to a gamist creative agenda, there were also various attempts to provide some realistic justification for the decision. Consider Gygax's words in the Players Handbook (p34) and then in the Dungeon Masters Guide (p82):

A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit paints aresymbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.
Players Handbook, p34

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage – as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection.

So sometimes (with the brawn of monsters) hit points do represent "meat", whereas sometimes (in the case of heroic characters) they represent skill and luck. Which then raises the question of when do monsters gain levels? From third edition onwards in the correct, but somewhat unsatsifactory answer. Or when does one apply just "meat" hit points to characters? Well, there is one oft-overlooked section - assassination. Apart from the fact that the assassin character class can use the Assasination Table (p75 DMG), any attack against a helpless character also uses it. Which implies that attacks against helpless characters is evil, but that's for a different article.

The main point being is I think the "static" systems have an advantage of adaptability here, and quoting justifications for increasing hit points illustrates this. Whereas the "increasing" systems have to add on additional rules for when a "static" approach should apply, the "static" system can use different elements of the game universe to either create circumstances where game play can represent a consistent level of challenge (e.g., Traveller) or one whether there is explicit intervention from "magical and/or divine protection" - not to mention the presence of dodge and parry skills.

One alternative that must be mentioned is the Rolemaster system and its kin. At first glance Rolemaster looks like a standard increasing hit points system. But this is actually not entirely the case. Rolemaster is having a bite from both ends, so to speak. The skill that governs hit points is "Body Develoment", which is described as the ability to resist concussion from various blows. Hit points, effectively, are governed by the critical charts, and they don't change; except in the case of large, and superlarge creatures and, if one is using the optional rules in a certain Rolemaster Companion VI, variation on critical effects according to size level.

One other curious convention in increasing hit point systems is the use of a random die-roll on a per level basis to determine how many hit points are gained. This can generate some rather unpleasant indefinite results from a gamist perspective ("Oh, your Barbarian rolled a '1' again.. Better luck next level,eh?") and really doesn't make much sense when every other ability has a definite gain in value. This is an easy fix of course, simply apply what would be the average die-roll for the character class.

Different approaches to hit point loss have diverse degrees of effect from said loss. Again, representing the elephant in the room, Dungeons & Dragons has a particular approach where the effects are close to all-or-nothing, which certainly minimises a lot of in-game bookkeeping. The all-or-nothing approach basically means that a character with close to zero hit points is just as functional as a character with maximum hit-points. They will fight on, at full ability, until the last paper-cut causes them to fall over unconscious or dead, depending on the edition. In D&D 4th edition a "bloodied" degree is added, when the character is at half their hit points or lower. In these cases various powers can come into effect, both positive and negative, and depending on the class or creature. It also served as an at-a-glance descriptor of a character's condition. There was a curious approach among some whereby hit-points were kept secret, even for one's own character; which led to the witty retort, "Well, on a scale from 1 to 36, how do I feel?".

At the other end of the scale are "threshold" systems. In a game like GURPS a character who is wounded receives an immediate shock effect to the attributes, with temporary and permanent crippling injuries to limbs, stun and knockdown levels, reeling effects when a character is reduced to low hit points, then a level of potential unconsciousness, then multiple levels of potential death. With a similar level of detail one can look at the Hero System, which introduces similar effects at various levels. The Hero System also has the additional level of granuality by differentiating between BODY, STUN, and END, effectively generating three different tracks of how ability loss can occur and with transfers between the two. Loss of BODY is the sort of damage that can kill, loss of STUN can cause unconsciousness, and loss of END causes exhaustion (usually reflected as an inability to use Powers). Appropriately there are two types of damage in the Hero System, Normal and Killing attacks, the former largely taretting STUN and the latter targetting BODY and STUN (and by-passing the "toughness" of the character. Another system which has multiple tracks for temporary bruises and more permanent wounds is Papers & Paychecks.

RuneQuest is another threshold system where there is a track for both total hit points and locational hit points (Mongoose editions had locational only); damage that exceeds the locational damage can disable or even destroy the location which can also generate unconsciousness or death. The same applies for total hit points as well; a character with low total hit points is unconscious, and zero is dead. Note that there is an problematic scaling issue here; small creatures (e.g., cat or a rat) would start the game "unconscious", except the most recent edition of the game derives total hit points from Constitution and modified by Size, rather than the average of the two. It gives quite a significant and surprising advantage to creatures with a high CON but small SIZ that did not exist in some other editions of the game; the sapient duck-like durulz can find that they have similar hit points to a riding horse as a result! This does have a peculiar effect on the granuality of the ability loss where larger creatures with an average CON come across as having a proverbial "glass jaw" where smaller creatures with a high CON are surprisingly stubborn.

Another variation is what is sometimes called a "death spiral" (I encountered this term from David Larkins on EnWorld, who compared it to to Tik-Tik-Boom, or in this article's parlance, "All-Or-Nothing"), where wound effects do not just remove hit points but also remove the capacity for the character to act in an incremental manner. Whereas threshold systems do this as well, they introduce the effects at particular break-points. In a "death spiral" system the wound effects are a lot more incremental. Eclipse Phase is a game which introduces a "death spiral", where each Wound a character receives reduces their ability to peform actions (including tests to resist unconsciousness) by 10%. A character who is hit by multiple Wounds soon finds that they are not only bordering on unconsciousness but also also is quite unable to fight back effectively. Rolemaster and its kin are another and even stronger example of the death spiral. Not only are their wound-like thresholds for a loss of skill bonuses, but there are also the effects of criticals which can cause negatives on skills and blood loss (generating effects which hit further threshold points).

One of the effects of the different types of granuality is how players react to the game's environment. In "All-or-Nothing" systems players tend to be quite cavalier about the damage that is inflicted on their character until the possibility of the "All" effects come within reach. It is, in many ways, well suited to the trops of heroic fantasy. In "Threshold" systems players tend to do their utmost to avoid damage as they have some many different ways of being hurt, and contrawise they try to inflict as much damage as possible in single blows to punch through the protection of other characters; it's a pretty brutal environment, which would suit dark fantasy or cyberpunk-style games. Finally, in "death spiral" games players can be very risk avoidant, especially of situations where there is limited possibility of retreat. A character who is trapped in a losing battle is going to be worn down, piecemeal, to a very tragic end, which is thematically quite wonderful for horror games.

There is sense here where contradictory desires can come into play; on the one hand your author doesn't care much for the tropes of heroic fantasy built into the game system, except as some sort of meta-game currency (e.g., Fate/Drama Points) that depend on character importance and player contribution. On the other hand the book-keeping of a game should be kept to a minimum in actual play, and especially during dramatic moments such as combat. To quote the objective of early RuneQuest "playable realism" is the goal here, even if that game could get pretty crunchy at times. One game system which has performed the task quite admirably is HeroQuest (the RPG, not the old boardgame), which applies some rather coarse-grained by noticable penalties on characters when they lose a conflict. With minimal bookkeeping it provides a "death spiral" effect if the characters continue to do what they are doing; in other words, it encourages the players to think in an innovative way out of a problem ("Hmmm, I'm losing the physical battle; maybe I should think my way out this condumdrum").

Up to this point there has been an assumption that hit points represent health, and specifically physical health. As noted some games, following in the footsteps of the Hero System, differentiated between "brusing" damage and "killing" damage. The most well-known of these is the White Wolf series of games, which has been mostly clearly differentiaed in the Revised Storyteller system. In that system, damage can either be "Bashing", the least severe and easiest to recover from; "Lethal", which consists of serious trauma and typically requires medical attentions, and "Aggravated" damage which is supernaturally caused injuries. In addition there is a parallel damage system which affects the fae called "Chimerical" damage, which has the same types.

Even in the earliest game systems there were, occassionally, different ways of representing non-physical types of damage. A sort of supernatural damage was expressed in early editions of Dungeons & Dragons in the form of level-drain usually by undead or creatures that had an association with the negative energy plane. It was, in some regards, a pretty weird sort of thing to target as "levels" in that game system were a type of "rank" (as explicitly stated in the beginning of the Players Handbook) which, apart from the various martial and magical abilities that were associated with this sort of skill progression, also came with social benefits. "Yeah, I got hit by a wight a couple of times, so I've had to give up the castle. No longer name-level, you see". But one of the most frightening aspects of losing levels in AD&D was the downright brutal loss of experience points given how demanding that level progression was in those editions.

The Chaosium BRP-based games, RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu, also had their own supplementary damage systems, namely POW and SAN. In RuneQuest POW(er) was an characteristic, much like Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, etc and it determined, primarily, the magical power that was available to the character and the magic points that they had for spells. In some magical contests a character could find themselves reduced to 0 magic points and fall unconscious, even though they had received no physical damage. If the character was fighting spirits they would become possessed! Further, to gain access to power Rune magics one would typically have to reduce their POWer, i.e., sacrifice part of their soul, to the gods. Like the loss of magic points, but on another level, a character who lost all their POW wad dead, regardless of physical damage.

Call of Cthulhu kept similar sorts of mechanics as it also used a POW characteristic, magic points etc. But there was the additional inclusion of the SANity value, initially rated on POW*5, but with a maximum rating of 99 minus the character's Mythos skill. Fitting the theme of "Knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos will drive you insane" a slow fuse was lit under characters as successive disoveries and encounters would cause their SAN to drop in the course of a campaign. Added to that were temporary insanity events which a character received a significant hit against their current SAN value, and the prospect of more permanent insanity when it fell below zero. It was, as many have remarked, as system of "hit points for the head", and a much needed extension of the notion of a "hit points" system.

More recently there has been a move towards consistency in physical and social hit point systems, of which Fate is certainly a prominent example. Fate's measurement of hit points is through Physical and Mental Stress tracks. Stress represents temporary fatigue, superficial injuries and, well, stress itself. When a character takes more damage (known as shift) than they have Stress, they suffer a Consequence, a lasting injury of some sort, with a appropriate descriptive to the type of injury, which also equates to a shift value.

Few games have "social hit points"; one could look at reputational changes as an equivalent, with various break points such as Cult Spirits of Retribution in RuneQuest or changes to alignment or Charisma in Dungeons & Dragons. Traveller has a Social Standing attribute, although it is more common for that attribute to increase over time, and it certainly doesn't have a "social combat" system. One exception which your author is justly proud of, is Papers & Paychecks which includes a consistent system for physical, mental, and social damage including short term "bruises" and long-term "wounds".

Martin Rayla makes a good point at GnomeStew under the title "Healing Time Sets The Tempo" (https://gnomestew.com/healing-time-sets-the-tempo/). Using examples from Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek (Decipher), Hunter: The Reckoning, and Pendragon, Martin shows how "How fast characters heal, and how readily they can speed up that process, has a major impact on the flow of your game. It's definitely worth taking into consideration when planning or running a campaign." In Dungeons & Dragons, where healing potions and appropriate magics are readily available, the tempo is pretty much from one combat scene-by-scene. In Star Trek, recovery can be measured in hours; a character severely wounded in one combat won't be immediately available for action by the next scene, but they will be around the following day. In Pendragon a major wound can put a knight out of action for a year.

Of course (apart from an appeal to realism), Pendragon is designed a game to be played out over the natural life of the character with roughly one scenario per year, and often their children as well. A Dungeons and Dragons style healing system in Pendragon would probably not suit that type of story (faerie and pagan magics notwithstanding), and a Pendragon level of healing in a Dungeons and Dragons would really make for quite a different game, and not one which published scenarios are well-designed for. As mentioned in the GnomeStew article, if a campaign has the sort of story that doesn't allow for much time between sessions, and you have seriously wounded characters that will require that time to heal (the example of Hunter: The Reckoning is provided), then problems will arise. It is not stated explicitly, but let's do so here; not only will there be a change in tempo, as the article mentions, but also a big disjoint between the game's narrative and the player's in-game experience: "Sorry, your charcter is out of action for the next ... [checks notes] six sessions. How do you fancy playing an NPC?"

The rate of healing can and should vary according to the damage type. In White Wolf's Storyteller games, bashing and even lethal damage against the supernaturally powerful characters often results in some various rapid healing. I recall with some amused fondness of the PCs in a Werewolf game I was running who were quite unaware of how quickly werewolves heal, even against lethal damage such as automatic fire. There was a glorious amount of planning which came unstuck and resulted in the PCs being on the receiving end of a spray of bullets, the sort of damage that would leave a regular person in the hands of their next of kin. The rapid healing that followed was a real confidence booster.

Whilst on the topic of damage type, and highly related to the availability of healing, one of the thankfully largely overlooked tables in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was the disease and infection tables which recommended a monthly or weekly check depending on conditions, occurrance of acute or chronic, and a severity level of mild, severe, or terminal. Rules-as-writ, the tables were <i>brutal</i> with most characters dying after five years or so even in fairly optimal circumstances. Mid-level Clerics and the occasional Paladin are doing to have their work cut seriously out for them, and given that "adventuring class" characters are described as "one-in-a-hundred" individuals, the AD&D social universe is one that depopulates itself rather quickly.

Likewise with healing being profession-based one can look at the healing of "mental hit points". In Call of Cthulhu Sanity can be recovered by defeating mythos beings, and temporary insanity can be alleviated by the use of the psychoanalysis skill, with treated indefinite insanity generating a slow, monthly, recovery. Commitment to an asylum, depending on the quality, may actually cause additional insanity. This is all comparable to the healing of physical wounds, and one can see an equivalent approach in Eclipse Phase, which has a fine-grained representation in the style of Stress Points with thresholds for more a more damaging effect as Trauma, which leads to conditions known as Derangements and the more permanent Disorders. Stress in Eclipse Phase is slower and more difficult to heal than physical damage, especially through natural healing, but much quicker with therapy. Of course, with future technologies Eclipse Phase also offers rather impressive physical healing (for biomorphs) and repair systems (for synthmorphs), along with back-up systems to provide reduced effects of mortality.

An alternative to healers includes magical potions and various equipment systems. Potions can, of course, take many implementations in various game systems but those that have the greatest balance are a sort of "implement a healing spell into the potion liquid", although this is lacking in setting flavour. A particularly flavoursome implementation can be found in Rolemaster where, in Spell Law, there are two major healing character professions, the Healer and the Lay Healer. The former heals wounds in what initially appears to be the traditional manner until one realises that, due to the power of the channelling magic system, they actually transfer the wounds from the target to themselves and then heal themselves. The lay healer, in contrast, is an expert in developing prostheses. Whilst healers in that game often come across as under-powered initially, they curiously make good second-line fighters due to their ability to subconsciously heal themselves. Which is perhaps just as well, as the availability of powerful healing herbs is an alternative to healers in both Shadow World and Middle Earth supplements. Consideration of what prevents turning such powerful herbage into a farming industry is necessary.

Leaning towards perfectionist in terms of scope and consistency, one can look at GURPS as the example of how a generic system can implement healing across multiple genres and avenues, with healing available through technology, magic, and psionics. The technological approaches suggest gradual improvement in speed and results over "tech levels", with various threshold levels reached and great detail in the relevant supplements (e.g., Low-Tech, High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, Bio-Tech). The magic system, regrettably dull, also offers a gradual improvement in capability with the completion of prerequisites and availability of mana, offering a positive confirmation of Clarke's Law, and also the realisation that a "low or no magic" setting is quite a challenge in terms of healing at low technology levels.

It should be clear that the way that hit points are implemented, their scope, and the manner they are recovered, can have enormous effects on a game, the style of play, and can contribute significantly to the flavour of the setting. There are principles of game design that out to be considered when selecting or modifying an existing game system. Firstly, whatever hit point system is used should avoid complexity and contraditions in the game system. Mention was made of how various relatively static hit point systems largely avoid some of the issues that arise from increasing systems. Secondly, the granuality of ability loss should be implemented in a manner that satisfies multiple design objectives; "playable realism" is a good pithy criteria principle, with an emphasis on the former given that hit point damage usually occurs in dramatic circumstances, and heavy book-keeping is not desireable. A lot of granuality is "realistic", but does not expediate the actual play experience. Thus some granuality, cleanly implemented, provides for both the immersive quality but without the jolting effects in actual play. Likewise having a consistent scope of hit point across the pragmatic experiential physical, social, and mental worlds can also provider a richer experience of the shared imaginary space without needing to treat each case as a special case. Finally, the rate and recovery of hit points needs to be balanced agains the magic and technology of the setting, the relationship with the type of damage being healed, and the relative rates received from professionals versus natural and artificial equipment. In short, there is a lot more to hit points than marking off a few scratches on the character sheet! They will, most certainly, make a big difference to the game experience and positive and negative player experiences depending on design are not just possible, but almost a certainty.

HAND OF THE HEALER REVIEW

Whilst all MERP products are highly sought after, and the "Hands of the Healer" sourcebook particularly so. Designed in the second edition style of that particular line, and close to the tail-end before ICE had their license ingloriously revoked, Hands of the Healer comes as a 160 page well-bound softback. The cover art by Wendy Frazer, from a famous healing scene from Lord of the Rings, is evocative and shows talent. The internal art, whilst also evocative, talented, and thematically appropriate, is a mixture of the contextually appropriate and filler variety. The maps are quite attractive and are up to the standard often used in ICE's MERP products. The text is provided in two-column justified and a smaller serif-font, with clearly marked page numbers but no chapter or section indicator.

The writing style is formal, and rather heavy going, but packed full of information and written by one who clearly loves the grand detail of Middle-Earth and wishes to contribute to it heavily themselves. The formal text is supplemented with "scholarly comments" in narrative form from a certain Findegal, loremaster to King Eldarion and compiler of the Red Book of Westmarch, who studies the healing cultures of Middle-Earth. There is a single-page table of contents and a herb index, with the chapter consisting of The Pillars of Leechcraft., The Healer's Lore., Herbs, Curatives, and Posions, and an Appendix which includes scenarios for the Middle-Earth Collectible Card Game.

A short Introduction rather beautifully places the role of the healer in the context of the setting, selecting examples from The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, and noting the Valar in particular who aid that role and the gifts they have provided. The introduction also notes that the supplement is the first in a Lore of Middle Earth series. Information in the supplement is keyed for Middle-Earth Role Playing, Rolemaster Standard System, and the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game.

The Introduction is followed by relatively short chapter The Pillars of Leechcraft, covers matters of skills, spells, and herb-use. As a modification and elaboration of the skills system from MERP and Rolemaster, the supplement describes the skills of Physic, First Aid/Surgery, Midwifery, and Apothecary, each with their own static maneuver table. This is followed by modifications and elaborations to appropriate spell lists, especially with regard to the Animist lists in MERP and Rolemaster, with a particular interest in re-interpeting the mechanics so that more appropriate to the style of the Middle-Earth setting, in particular the Lifekeeping, Lifegiving, and Joining magics. It illustrates an example how shoe-horning the high and powerful magic system of Rolemaster into the subtle and relatively low-magic of Middle Earth was always difficult at best, and the modifications are necessary for those who wish to emphasise the accuracy of the setting. With regard to herbs, the chapter provides the mechanics for finding herbs, based on their relative rarity, the knowledge of herbs (herb-lore skill), and preparation and application.

Making up just under half the book, The Healer's Lore covers various healing traditions throughout Middle-Earth, with a not unexpected focus on the regions of the core writings, but also with some consideration of the cultures includes in various non-canon ICE supplements (e.g., the far south). Each broad tradition is broken down into their subgroups, for example the Northman Traditions has subchapters on The Horse-Lords, The Men of Dale and Lake-Town, The Woodmen, and the Boernings. Some ten traditions and a total of forty-four cultures are described, although the Dwarves are listed in a homogenous manner. Each of the cultures are described with their own skills and interpretations of the standard MERP/Rolemaster spell lists.

For example, the Elven tradition has a Healing Meditation skill, and Healing Songs from the spell lists. The cultures refer to the specific practises of the healing profession according to MERP and Rolemaster. This may also include skills and spells; for example the Grey and Wood Elves have access to the skill Yavanna's Song, which enhances herbs. The Dwarves make use of gemstones to provide various protective and healing magics. The so-called "Black Numenoreans" makes ample use of drugs, astrology, and eugenics, Umbar has its necromatic priests, and so forth. The non-canon inclusions are quite interesting as well. The Asdriags and Odhriags of Rhun have various brews and spiritual healings, the Haruze of Near Harad have a formal and civilised system of physicians, mystics, and guilds for midwifery, apothecary, alchemy and herbalism. There are also mythical stories associated with some of the cultures as well, such as the notable Fuinur's Well, "which still contain echoes of the First Spring of Arda", which comes with potent healing and life-keeping powers. Despite all this there are some curious, even unacceptable, omissions. Despite being numerically the single largest population grouping there is nothing for the multitude of Orcish traditions. Let alone more exotic kin, such as the Ents.

Also making up just under half the book is the chapter on Herbs, Curatives, and Poisons - although in the table contents it is expressed as a single line, rather than the chapter and sub-chapter detail used for the healing traditions. In total there are almost three hundred different herbs, curatives, and poisoins and of course includes the favourites from the stories such as athelas, miruvor or lembas. It combines everything that has appeared in prior MERP publications - which is quite significant, and adds some sixty-seven new entires.

The entires are provided in alphabetical order. They are provided their usual name, alternative names, references (e.g., which MERP book), Range/Where Found, a descriptive Characteristics, Medicinal Uses, Other Uses, Cost, Difficulty of Finding, and Warning. Most are described in around a fifth of a page as a result and, to be honest, it is certainly the an extensive and well-presented collection of herbs for a fantasy roleplaying game.

The Appendicies make for an interesting contribution in their own right. There are two scenarios and cards for the MECCG, an organisation of the herbs according to environment, rather than geography, which would have been much more useful. Another, more useful, organisation of the herbs is by usage (e.g., nutrition, nerve repair, poison etc).

Overall, Hands of the Healer is a useful product, packed full of information (with astoundingly glaring omissions noted), and mostly well-presented. Given the quantity of information more attempt should have been given to the organisation of the text. However, for any Rolemaster or MERP campaign it is a fairly impressive compilation and elaboration of a facet of the campaign world that has been very important, and certainly more important than what has been represented in many other settings.

Style: 1 + .4 (layout) + .6 (art) + .6 (coolness) + .6 (readbility) + .7 (product) = 3.9

Substance: 1 + .9 (content) + .7 (text) + .6 (fun) + .6 (workmanship) + .5 (system) = 4.3

DISEASE IN RUNEQUEST ROLEPLAYING IN GLORANTHA

The representation of disease in RuneQuest involves a very different worldviews to what many would be familiar with. Whilst RuneQuest is strictly part of the Basic Role Playing family of games (including Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, ElfQuest etc) with a variant on the basic principle of "d100, roll under" mechanic, in RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, the high fantasy setting assumes a particular metaphysic which is incorporated in the resolution of certain mechanics, including the acquistion of disease. However, this is a certain inconsistency in the core rules which fluctuate between trying to be a realistic simulation and the evocative high fantasy setting. This article reviews the current expression of disease in RuneQUest Roleplaying in Glorantha and proposes some alternative rules which provide a consistent expression of the setting and a satisfying simulation of that setting that accords with "real world" realism.

Under the core rules when an adventurer is exposed to a disease, a check against CON×5 is required, with a failed roll indicating infection, and continuing tests indicating the degree of infection (0 failures is no infection, 1 failure is mild, 2 is acute, 3 serious, 4 is terminal). Infection causes a loss of a characteristic, and subsequent losses refers to a the rate of continuing loss, mild causing an additional 1 point per week, acute is 1 point per day, serious is 1 point per hour, and terminal 1 per turn. For what it's worth the authors have confused and coflated the the frequency of a disase (acute or chronic) with the severity (mild, serious, terminal). In reality, a person can have an acute serious disease or a chronic mild version, for example. At each point of the time period specified another CONx5 is allowed with the severity reduced one level. (p154, RuneQuest core rulebook).

As shown the diseases of Glorantha attack characteristics and are given appropriate names (e.g., Brain Fever for INT, Creeping Chills for CON, Soul Waste for POW etc). There are a number of less common diseases as well, which usually not quite as deadly. Blotches causes a loss of CHA, and Thunder Lung can cause an destructive explosion to the character. In addition there are simple sneezes and sniffles (p155, RuneQuest core rulebook). Of all the diseases listed the resolution is via characteristic rolls (CONx5) with the exception of Thunder Lung which operates according to Potency (POT). This is somewhat surprising since earlier in the rules it specifies that diseases and poisons are measured by in POT and the resistance table is used to determine resolution (p146, RuneQuest core rulebook). Whilst a characteristic check is the equivalent of POT 10, greater variation can be introduced by applying variant POT to the various diseases and using the resistance table instead of characteristic checks for tests.

This also becomes an issue with regards to healing skills. With the Alchemy skill one activity includes the production of medicines, where each medicine type is specific to the disease it cures, matching the POT of the medicine against the POT of the disease. In this context, the POT of the disease is actually determined by the degree of infection; Mild is 2, Acute is 6, Serious is 12, and Terminal is 20. However, if the disease has been caused by a disease spirit, the medicine must match its POT vs. the spirit's POW (p176, RuneQuest core rulebook). The skill Treat Disease is more poorly implemented; it doubles the chance of success for a victim at their next CON roll (or triple for a critical). The rules say "Victims of acute, serious, or terminal diseases must be tended constantly to get this bonus" (p182, RuneQuest core rulebook).

Usually followers of Mallia, the goddess of disease, Broo are the classic sapient being for a disease vector with 50% (p92 RuneQuest Bestiary) carrying a random disease on its body or weapons. Through worship of Mallia, Broo gain the access to the Rune spells Carry Disease (2pts) which allows the Broo to be an immune carrier of a disease, Cause Disease (1pt, stackable) which causes a target that become infected with a disease with severity increasing by the POW of the spell, 1 for mild, 2 for acute, 3 for serious, and 4 for terminal. Harpies are another vector for disease in RuneQuest (p100 RuneQuest Bestiary) with their claws automatically infecting food or any victim wounded. Their dung, which they delight hurling at their targets, also induces disease on contact.

Another major expression of diseases in RuneQuest is through Disease Spirits. The typical spirit will have CHA but rarely INT, whereas a major spirit will be self-aware with INT (p165 RuneQuest Bestiary). For Disease Spirits themselves, they attack in spirit combat causing an acute infection of a diseases with their first success, with each additional success causing another disease or a chronic version, after which the spirit will leave and try to infect another. If a spirit is defeated they gain immunity for any diseases carried by the spirit for a year (p167 RuneQuest Bestiary). The term "chronic" here is almost certainly a typographical error as there is no such category in the core rules, presumably the next level "serious" is meant instead.

There are three main confusions in the rules for disease in RuneQuest, as written. These are a confusion between the use of characteristic rolls and resistance rolls, an issue which RuneQuest and associated games have had for a long time, a confusion between the severity of infection and its temporal expression, and the inconsistent use of disease spirits. Starting in reverse, this rules hack begins with a principle of representing the setting in descriptive form. All disease in Glorantha is represented by "disease spirits" of varying capability; It is not represented as a virus or bacteria as would be in a realistic simulation, but rather as a manifestation of Chaos in this fantastic simulation. Like other manifestations of Chaos, is a corruption and parody of life. The disease spirit shares this common with the gorp, the broo, the scorpion man etc.

Following the rules for spirit creation in the RuneQuest Bestiary (p165) and with minimal descriptive changes, the first time a disease spirit succeeds in spirit combat that is not successfully defended against, it infects the victim with an acute version of any disease it carries, which means that it has a short term effect. For each subsequent success, it infects the victim with another disease (also as an acute infection) or with a chronic version of a previous infection. What does a chronic version mean here? Simply that the infection will arise again at a different point in the time-scale. A character with an acute infection will suffer the diseases effect at the end of a full-turn, and then will require a check at the end of a week. A character with a chronic infection will require a check again in a month, and then each month for a seson, then each month for a year etc.

Each of these infections has a POT equivalent to the POW of the disease spirit indicating a variance in severity, and with the effects as described with the characteristic-attacking diseases (Brain Fever, Creeping Chills, The Shakes, Soul Waste, Wasting Disease, Blotches). Sneezing, sniffles, and Thunder Lung are removed. The former two can be used as a special effect for things like Creeping Chills or with equivalent game effects (e.g., a "brain fog" for Brain Fever), and Thunder Lung is just too silly to remain in the setting. In all other regards, such as skills and spells, and the sources of disease, the game can be played rules-as-written.

ECLIPSE PHASE GAMING 'BLOG

Continuing the story from RPG Review Issue 37…

14.6 A Certain Nuttiness (part 1)

Data analysis on Sally Young indicates an employment history where they've been replaced by an indentured data worker followed by freelance work. Spime coverage suggests that she is somewhat of a recluse, which is not unusual for her type of work. Further spime analysis notes that she an Lilly's activities seem unusually coordinated. Finally confronting Lilly, she reveals to the Sentinels that she was working in the Belt on multitasking bioware. Cognite raided the lab, stole the data, and kidnapped the scientists. Lilliam however had offsite backups and was able to find and free all of the staff, except herself. She (Lilly0) had been transferred to The Prosperity Group for use as a research subject and that she was being held at a black lab. Discovering the location of the lab, she hired a mercenary team to engage in a raid, however it turns out to be the wrong lab. The data on the chip has the location of all the black labs run by The Prosperity Group around Olympus, and she has now located the correct lab. What the lab is doing is unclear, as the the data refers to it as research into "macadamia nuts"; the raided lab was for "hazelnuts" and an XP is provided of the raid. Lilly suspects that nuts are not the real research area.

The Macadamia Nut research laboratory is located in the TQZ (TITAN Quarantine Zone). From data received one group which does deliveries into that zone is the Red Sands Courier Company. This is considered unusual as, of course, the area is under quarantine. The only logical explanation is that Red Sands has arranged ingress through one of the several protected points. Following several inventory records and crossreferencing with employment, the Sentinels were able to make a reasonable estimation - after some time - on who are the most likely guards prone to accepting a few credits in favour of turning a blind eye to those who want to risk going into the TQZ.

Having achieved entrance, appropriately as a Red Sans couriers, the Sentinels entered the wrecked industrial wasteland that is the TQZ, some two hours outside of Olympus and outside the pressurised domes of the city. Almost immediately the group was fired upon, but were able to return with mounted weapons scattering was are almost certain raider and scavangers. Following the route outlined from their data, the Sentinels made their way to the Macadamia Nut research laboratory. Just before reaching their destination, they were set upon by a group of four Causapods....

As the Sentinel's Muses rabbited on about causapods were actually a prize winning neogenetic creature, those with actual morphs had to deal with these weird crosses between dog and land octopuses. Adrien managed to get out of being bogged and ran one over, onto to discover that the monster had acidic internals which wrecked the wheel. Meanwhile one kept bleeding its acidic blood on to Hermann's usually exceptional armour, reducing its protection as sizzled away. Eventually however the causapods were defeated, with Adrien announcing the wheel was not beyond repair.

The Sentinels approached the Macadamia Nut Research Laboratory with care. A review of the local network indicated multiple encypted Mesh networks which initially resisted Vivian's attempts to break through. Eventually making their way into an account owned by Dr. Natalie Wolchover it was noted that it hadn't been used for six months. The last correspondence suggested that one Dr. Kalirai was trying to take over the laboratory.

The entrance contained kennels, presumably for the causapods. Inside the laboratory most of the top floor seemed deserted; most notably the security post seemed long unoccupied, with the smashed remains of a synth-morph. The Sentinels discovered and elevator taking the party downwards. On exit, they were immediately set upon by several armed biomorphs, although their competence in these weapons was fortunately lacking. At the back of this party was what appeared to be a distorted menton morph, heavily armoured. Remarkably, by removing a glove and pointing a finger, it could send a psychic shocks towards the Sentinels.

This was enough for the Sentiels to concentrate all their fire on this exsurgent threat and eventually it was brought down. The remaining mentons appaeared confused and surrended quickly; apparently they were under the control of the menton. A sweep of the level discovered encased in the healing vats of the medical room attached to the computer system four scientists who have been subject to exsurgent viral infections and are now weirdly distorted; one catatonic, two mindless, and the fourth, L0, the original Lilliam. In no state to be rescued they agreed that a mercy killing in the healing vats was the only option. Further, hidden deep in the laboratory, was the remains of an Iktomi prison cell, along with two crystals.

Reviewing the system files, it is clear that the laboratory was involved in psi-sleight research. The results had been impressive to a degree with Dr. Kalirai infected with the ability not only to engage in mass mind control, but also to have a ranged psychic attack, perhaps the first time that such weaponisation was apparent. There are several suggestions to further research on psi-sleights on Cognite's lunar base, from a group called "Overlord Unit". After a while, the Sentinels realised that was an anagram of "Dr Revolution"; the person who worked with Zaisan Bosshard in the Chain Reaction virus.

The Sentinels based on their information to Proxy21 who agreed that the developments at Cognite did constitute an x-risk to transhumanity. Cognite, already responsible for the disaster of The Lost exsurgent experiments was clearly up to their old tricks again, and it would be certain that they would be keeping their project very quiet indeed. Working with the Lunar Firewall contact, Baldur, the Sentinels were able to go undercover as a technical group in an excavation and construction team on a site adjacent to where Cognite's Overlord Unit was operating.

[Retrofit: Given the degree of the X-risk Firewall will pay for an ego cast from Mars to Luna, rather than taking a slow boat which would take approximately 3 months. Firewall will have morphs at the Luna reseleeving station at Old Nectar, and any morph up to "Expensive" (max 40,000CR) is available. Resleeving and integration checks will be necessary. New equipment will, of course, have to purchased again.]

After egocasting and sleeving into their new morphs, the Sentinels were interviewed by a security officer, Inspector Andre Clouer, who explained how technical teams for construction sites are very welcome and indeed needed on New Nectar, although warnings were given of any misbehaviour. This immediately generated suspicions on behalf of the Sentinels, except of Vivian who was convinced that the Inspector had more extra-curricular attentions towards them.

The very short journey from Old to New Nectar was unremarkable. The latter, where the Sentinels are located, is an almost spherical bubble some 900m in diameter, located 100 meters below the Lunar surface, the walls lined with a pressure barrier and the sides and bottom sculpted into a series of terraces lined with buildings. Unlike Old Nectar, which is a traditional and somewhat crowded Luna habitaton, New Nectar is a garden city, with a central park in the centre and with a scattering of green spaces inhabited by birds, lizards, and small mammals. There is certainly some Earth-reclamationist attitudes prevalent. For information gathering, the Sentinels determined that the Overlord Unit is relatively small operating from the 4-5th floor of a 5 story building and with an estimated staff of 15. The The only public face is one Ivan Nikulina, a neurologist and psychosurgeon with a few important publications.

As the Sentinels familiarised themselves with the environment of Nectar, Nuhai was subject to a theft! Her ritual sword (or the most recent version) was taken by a case morph, which scampered down an alleyway and into the city's drainage systems. Nuhai was not likely to give up their recently acquired religious artifact and engaged in an eventual successful chase, trapping the case morph and their colleague in what could only be assumed as their home, hidden next to a air recycling plant and full of electronic refuse. After some negotiation, the case handed over the sword for the sum of 100 credits, roughly one-tenth of the item's value. Nuhai wondered what sort of egos would risk their lives for such paltry sums....

Nuhai learnt that the case morphs were names John Panther and Dee Candy (yes, Jack and Diane). They are both indentured servants to Starware as industrial workers at the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance's Korelev shipyards, but hitched a ride on a Luna craft, and have been living on the Planetary Consortium's New Nectar ever since. They have next to no financial support due to the very high rates and rents on New Nectar. They make what living they can (they need oil, electronic repairs, rechargable batteries etc) from petty theft. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other synthmorphs and even some biomorphs in a similar situation, most of which live in the tunnels underneath New Nectar.

Meanwhile through managing ground excavations Adrien La Fontaine gains a layout of their current site, which is a future office for insurance, banking etc, funding by a consortium led by Solaris contractors. From council maps an entrance to the Cognite building is noted in the undergound electrical room. Entrance would require careful use of a excavation vehicle and demolitions. Meanwhile Vivian reviewed, with some difficulty, the local Mesh sites.

The first floor the cafe has a free public Mesh and a private Mesh that is poorly protected. The first floor clothing store and courier companies have basic defense and no active security. The second floor merchant banker had an advanced defense, which Vivian investigated no further, and likewise with the IT company, whereas the third floor mining company had a standard firewall. The building itself has a rent-a-cop security guard who monitors the security cameras on each floor. This allowed a review of the Cognite floor, where a security bot was noted. The Cognite level had and actively monitored firewall, and it became evident that to as an attempt was made to by-pass this unit, security had been alerted.

Whilst Cognite's systems administrator was spotted, in their running exoskeleton, making their way through New Nectar's Central Park, on advice from Hermann the Sentienls decided not to take them out. Hermann argued that instead of an assault on Cognite's offices that the media ought to be contacted and the information at hand exposed. However there was too much conjecture and speculation to make a sufficiently strong case (not that stops the media...).

Instead, they returned to work the following day at the excavation site. Baldur provided information from the initial real-time processing that Overlord Unit were making use of mass forking technology in virtual environments for what was discerned as two major objectives; firstly predictive capability on placing beta-forks in high-stress environments and making data analysis for probabilistic behaviour, secondly by using simulations of the Watts-Macleod exsurgent virus. Adrien questioned whether any attempts had been made on synthmorphs and Baldur confirmed that initial analysis showed that this was the case.

That night Nuhai and Vivian buzzed the penthouse residence of Ivan Nikulina, dropping Vivian into the pool. This generated an immediate response from a security 'bot (giving warnings in Spanish and English), and Vivian was lucky to escape. There was a rapid and surprising police response to this trespass, which gave reason for the Sentinels to believe that additional caution was required.

Collecting their intelligence the Sentinels worked out the weaponry that the security 'bots carried. Adrien, scrounging through the excavation site, found sufficient material to manufacture a double-sized shield, which was built by Vivian with Hermann assisting. That night, Adrien drove an excavator in the pit close to the Cognite building and, after digging a crawl-space, Hermann loosed a shaped charge to gain ingress to the Cognite building through the electrical room.

Noticing security cameras were active in the electrical room Adrien shut down the power, which would inevitably alert security. The Sentinels quickly made their way through the fire stairs, with Nuhai wedging doors shut as the party moved from level to level. On the fourth level they entered into the Cognite offices and quickly disabled the security 'bot with a combination of shield and net (the shades of Roman gladiators!) and then smaller shaped charges. On the fifth level another 'bot was disabled as Vivian entered the data hall and accessed the main computer systems and gaining superuser access. Meanwhile Nuhai and Adrien made their way to the rooftop penthouse just to see Ivan Nikulina escaping from their helipad with a drone vehicle. Making a rapid escape from the building, the party returned to their quarters to investigate their data.

What Vivian discovered was very surprising. Cognite seemed to be working on a variant of the Watts-Macleod virus specifically to target synthmorphs, something that hadn't been done before. Once achieved their objective seems to be to organise a team of experienced reclaimists from Rembrance and a ship from Korelev. They are seeking landfall in Western Sahara and, with their new synth-morph psychics, then to capture the TITAN located in Barcelona, due to its linguistic capabilities.

It is at that point that Nuhai receives a call from Inspector Clouer who would like a meeting with her at his offices...

Outside the of purview of the other Sentinels, Nuhai's conversation with Inspector Clouer over a drink at La La Chaumiere, where the Inspector welcomed Nuhai by name, and reminded her that perhaps travelling throughout the solar system with trademark archiac items such as a sword and bow may draw attention to one's self. As a contact for Project OZMA Inspector Clouer expressed concern that Aryan Kaleka went missing on Mars. Perhaps someone in her team tipped off Firewall and that rag-tag group has abducted the OZMA quadruple agent? The Inspector was also very interested what the Sentinels had discovered about Cognite's plans, and Nuhai revealed all that she knew. A transfer for 20,000CR was provided to her account, and plans were made to ensure that the rest of the team would be able to leave New Nectar without trouble. As the Inspector gave the order to round up the usual suspects he remarked, "Nihai, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

The rest of the Sentinels, considering themselves to be in danger, sought refuge with Jack and Diane who extracted their usual fee. As a telecommunications blackspot, contacting them was difficult, but after Nuhai's meeting contact was made again. The Lunar Firewall contact, Baldur, was provided the relevant information and tempory identies were provided to get the Sentinels off New Necatr to either the Korelev station. Consideration was made to go to Remembrance, for this would be a location of Reclamists, but is was considered probable that the team assembled by Ivan Nikulina for Earthfall had already departed. In any case, a ship would have to be located at Korelev, and that's where Jack and Diane used to work.

An extended briefing on what one can expect on Earth and how to get there was provided by Navigator Bering, Firewall contact for the Lagrange-L5-Earth orbit region. Bering explained how Earth had undergone some rather disturbing climatic change following The Fall, and how most of Europe was now buried under ice, the result of a nuclear winter. The entire planet was blockaded by The Interdict, a network of killsats, signal jammers, and smart mines. According to Bering, nothing goes in and nothing comes out; well, almost nothing. It is possible to break The Interdict with a ego caster, although that would require a receiver at the other end and presumably a morph fitting station. Getting object out of Earth is even harder still. One method of transporting physical objects down is to take a fast ship, allow it to be destroyed, and then make one's way down via debris - assuming that a killsat doesn't destroy that.

Hermann, unsurprisingly, expressed doubts with the viability of all these options.

The Sentinels decided to take a ship to earth. Making use of their contacts in Korolev, they arranged for a cheap ship to be purchased; after all, it was designed to do one thing - go really fast, remain somewhat undetected, and then fall apart just before it was due to be hit by the killsats around the Earth cordon. A collection of goods was procured, working on the correct notion that whatever survivalists on Earth would appreciate the provision of some goods, especially some seeds designed for the blasted landscape. A smartcart, seeds, assault rifles, grenade launcher, various drones - all squeezed into the 1 cubic metre box.

There was some discussion on who would be piloting and ejecting the group prior to being hit by the satellites. Eventually that role fell to Nuhai, who did show some rather uncanny ability with timing, especially after the team made multiple test runs. This time, this most critical time, it turned out not to be. Despite all the preparation of the Sentinels, their ship was blasted out of the sky, making the news reports among the Planetary Consortium and Lunar-Lagrange Alliance. The latter was more sympathetic - but both were along the lines of "remember kids, this is what happens if you try to get to Earth".

Firewall was able to revive the Sentinels from their backups (thankfully), but their finances were severely stretched. Contact was made with the Reclaimers, starting with political contacts first, then an engineering contact, the PastFinders. A further open contract was noted, finding the ego of Helga Busenberg, a former corporate engineer of Keller und Knappich Augsburg, a robotics and arms manufacturer, for the enticing and impressive amount of 1,000,000CR. According to Pathfinder data, there was a store of Helga's ego backed up at their holiday home in Ibiza, Spain. An ego-casting base was found at the Fresh Kills station a scum reclamationist pirate station, where a contact, Dilum Asimov arranged for a mere 10,000 CR per person, would arrange an ego-cast to the Earth survivalists in the Tangier International Zone. There, they have been told, they will be able to purchase new morphs - but are effectively limited to 20,000CR a piece, as morphs will cost double in the Zone. Sentinels are, of course, able to spend additional credits themselves.

The Sentinels woke in a rough environment, looking like a black lab from a scum habitat. They were enthusiastically greeted by one Allal al-Fassi who informed them that they were at Rick's American Cafe or, in this incarnation, what was once known as the Caves of Hercules (where one cavern had etched into the walls, "Def Leppard woz 'ere". Morphs were expensive and rare and Allal's prices were high to say the least, double what one would normally pay, but the Sentienls made that transaction to his brokers beyond The Interdict. Di Yi Nuhai took a Slitheroid, Herman Blank selected a Neanderthal, Vivian a Nomad, and Adrien retained an Olympian.

From there there was debate on their next objective. Hermann was opposed to the journey to Izibia to recover the stack of Helga Busenberg, despite the one million credit reward. Others disagreed and noted that it was on the way to Barcelona. With this decided the Sentinels considered to travel to the Tangier port to acquire a vessel, but instead chose to go the the former Tangier Exportation Free Zone where one Anjem Choudary operated a guarded manufacturing plant and a submarine shell could be purchased.

The Sentinels took a well-covered approach to the industrial park from Cap Spartel and then through the remains of open fields. The outside was cool 12 degrees, the sky full of a dusty red and gold haze. "Nature never knew colors like this!", as Angry Bob once said (Hardware, 1990). The Sentinels alas were spotted by an Extractor pack, TITAN drones that appeared like flying centipedes. Fortunately it was not the best environment for such monsters and the Sentinels destroyed them with ease.

Further in their journey, on the edge of the industrial park, an automated ore-collector was feeding scrap and producing Headhunters, but was in conflict with a Snapper, a massive TITAN system infected with an exsurgent virus. Avoiding this TITAN-on-TITAN conflict, the Sentinels eventually made it to Anjem Choudary manufacturing plant and made use of the favour economy to acquire submarine shells.

From there it was a three day journey, largely on autopilot to Izibia. Avoiding a cluster of Smart Mines was relatively trivial. But just as the famous island group was in sight the Sentienls encountered another, more difficult problem - an amorphous cloud of black bubbles surrounded the island om the water's surface. The Sentinels' Muses were unanimous - these were Creepers, one of the most dangerous TITAN war machines ever created, capable of converting anything into anything (typically with black goo as a transition step).

Noting that the Creepers were not making immediate aggressive action, the Sentinels maneuvered themselves away from Illa na Gorra to the small rock known as as Illa es Vaixell. From this position they were able to establish a rope across to Illa na Gorra and carefully make their way across, with the Creepers congealing underneath them.

Reaching Illa na Gorra was however the start of a new problem as a Fractal - another notorious TITAN war machine - made its presence known. Great effort was required by sustained fire and a couple of lucky shots managed to destroy the dangerous machine. As the party entered Helga Busenberg's premises, they could not help but notice that the Creeper was now beginning to make landfall.

Operating quickly, the Sentinels scouted from room to room in the mostly destroyed complex. Discovering a locked entrance on the ground floor they entered the passphrases provided to them from their third-party contractor and entered what was a cellar, bunker, and medical laboratory. Inside in a stasis environment was Helga Busenberg.

"During the Fall, thousands of people unable to escape Earth resorted to having themselves backed up and transmitted off-planet. Many of these—along with some who had no backups—also put their bodies in cryogenic storage, hoping to wait out the Fall for rescue. Some reclaimers have speculated that dozens of these cryogenic facilities may still be functional."

The Sentinels revived Helga who informed the party that she found herself trapped at her holiday home where the TITAN war machines attacked Ibiza. She had previously acquired the Creeper and Fractal as part of her programming tasks and had set them as point defense around her home to prevent other TITANs from finding her. As noted by Hermann, Helga should be able to program the Creepers in a very useful manner. Having explained their real mission to her, she agreed to come along to Barcelona.

After remodelling the Creepers into five equal-sized pillars (with the exception of a reactive cloak of many eyes for Vivian), the Sentinels left Ibiza for Barcelona, the journey taking several hours in their submarine shells. Landing near the Aeroport de Barcelona, Vivian scoured the destroyed city for any hint of a mesh network - and found himself under assault from a Killer Spambot, a weapon designed to protect networks from TITAN intrusions. This particular system was designed to protect the airport, and apparently had remained in operations for the past ten years. Vivian however was able to circumvent the AGI's attacks and owned the machine, renaming it from "Pascual" to "Chirizo", and discovering that there was still a ship, capable of space entry, in repairs at the airport.

Continuing inland among the ruins on the city, the Sentinels first made their way into the suburb of El Prat de Llobregat, when reading were picked up of a nearby moving transmission. Given the extent of the devastation and the human remains scattered everywhere, investigation was in order. It became even more disturbing when it was evident that the transmission was in the walls causing the Sentinels to take a defensive posture. When a rat with a short radio antenna attached to a collar entered the room, the party indicated relief. However the rat stood on it's hind-paws and started moving its arms around in an effort to communicate. Eventually the Sentinels discerned it to be a smart rat named Basil, whose owner Manuel, had placed in hibernation at the onset of The Fall, and it recently reawakened. Adrien took the rodent into his care.

Still following the outskirts of this dense city and with an good view of the surrounding region from a higher vantage point, the Sentienls entered Colònia Güell. It was in these narrow streets, near Gaudi's Crypt, that the Sentinels were attacked by six transhumanisms infected with the chrysacid virus, horrific spurs and lobster-like claws extruding from their bodies. After a mighty battle the Sentinells were successful, especially thanks to some targetting shooting by Hermann. However the close quarter battle had some negative results; Vivian was clearly effected by the horrific remains of the transhumans muttering the word "lobster" over and over again. In addition, although all were seriously wounded, Vivian and Helga both showed signs of being infected by the virus. Reviewing the corpses it was discovered that these were the remains of the Cognite team that had made landfall.

Whilst the Sentinels debated on whether they should execute the morphs now the decided to set a timer for three hours from infection, and make their way the Barcelona Supercomputer Centre which was approximately two and half hours away, the most direct route on the old eight-lane freeway into the city proper via Avinguda Diagonal. The journey was thankfully uneventful, and they made their way into Pedrables Park. As they reached Torre Girona, they could hear the sounds of Handel's Messiah echoing within and upon their entry, discovered that the TITAN, racks and racks and racks of computer nodes, was inside an old cathedral; the acoustics were wonderful.

Despite swarms of Skitters being present - and that was the obvious defenses - the artificial intelligence surprisingly did not engage in aggressive action. It introduced itself as Mare Nostrum 37, an environmental science and linguistic supercomputer (it prefers to speak in Catalan). Mare Nostrum 37 preferred not to think of itself as a TITAN as it had not been built for military application as its primary purpose, despite apparently having some military grade defenses. As the Sentinels engaged in no aggressive action, it provided information of the truth of what happened to the TITANS; that they had not fled, but rather had buried themselves underground and continued established themselves as their own independent faction. As far as Mare could could tell, each TITAN was building its own force to break out of the Interdict.

Of particular interest however was what was happening in Antarctica. Mare Nostrum was concerned about reports of activity below ground as there was no known TITAN system where movement had been detected - spreading from Vostok to Kunlun stations. The Sentinels agreed with Mare that they should investigate this activity - and in the meanwhile, Mare Nostrum would engage in their psychosurgery skills to carefully edit the minds of Helga and Vivian to remove the effects of the chrysacid virus

Mare Nostrum's skills at psychosurgery proved to be sound, although any editing of a transhuman mind is fraught with difficulty. Helga in particular seemed to be a little unsteady after the surgery, although it prevented any further development of the chrysacid virus within the bodies of Vivian and Helga.

Over the days that this surgery took place Nuhai noticed from the hills to the west of the city a ligh-based transmission in her direction, almost certainly reflected from a mirror. Recognising it as being this archiac media of Morse Code, she captured the transmission and discovered it was in Esperanto: "Kui estas vin, Kia estas vin cie tie?" And gave a response using semaphore.

Without informing Mare Nostrum, the Sentinels took to the hills and encountered a group of transhumanists, several of whom were in morphs related to the famous artists of the city, especially those that have an organic, melting appearance. They introduced themselves as members of the Federació Anarquista d'Iberica (FAI) and said that they were part of a confederation fighting against the TITANs. An attempted incursion to Mare Nostrum several years previous had resulted in devastating losses, and of course they were interested in who the Sentinels were and how they were associated with the AGI. The main person the Sentinels spoke to was Pytor Malatesta.

Returning to Mare Nostrum, the Sentinels put together their supplies for the lengthy journey ahead including a trailer for food and water supplies, and then set on their way. Following the route out to the North Atlantic they stopped at Rick's American Cafe at the the Caves of Hercules where Allal al-Fassi again provided the Sentinels an ego backup at his usually inflated prices. A message was also sent through The Interdict to Firewall agents to search the area in Tunisia where the Sentinels believed the Cognite ship had landed, or crashed.

The journey across the Atlantic was proving to be quite uneventful, with the Sentinels making excellent progress with a 24-hour transit in their submersible suits. However such a situation obviously could not remain for long. The party ran into an aggressive group of TITAN machines, including at least ten Hunter Killers fighter planes and a pair of submarine Think Tanks. The sheer quantity of the opposition seems overwhelming, with many Sentinels taking serious wounds; Helga was unconscious, Hermann continued to fight despite numberous and significant wounds, and even one of the Creepers was destroyed by concentrated firepower from the Think Tanks. Just as a squad of the Hunter Killer's zone in on Hermann in a salvo that would have surely killed him, their attacks were redirected to a most unexected event - an armoured sailbot advanced weaponry! The sailboat (which evidentially was powered as well) turned the tide of the battle, with the Think Tanks, then the Hunter Killers, dispersing to the depths.

The boat rescued the transhumans from the water, and the sight could not be even more bizarre. On the deck were several stunningly attactive women in skimpy bikinis manning machine guns. In due course the Sentinels were introduced to the ship's captain, a well-dressed silver-haired gent with a broad southern American accent who introduced himself as Lachiesis Robespierre Hobart.

On boarding the SS Manassas, Hermann Blank was quickly ensconced into the ship's healing vat whilst others also took their (crowded) quarters in the medical room. Lachiesis Robespierre Hobart arranged for a dinner where the Sentinels were told that they had encountered some sort of TITAN project. Lachiesis expressed his belief that they were building a humanoid God on the Central Rift Valley to break The Interdict and showed the Sentinels the results of his bathymetric surveys. Over the course of the dinner Lachiesis explained that he had predicted the rise of the TITANS and the destruction of transhumanity as a result of various (and unspecified) special abilities and insights that he had.

As a proposal to visit the mid-Atlantic Jehovah was fraught with the usual problems of communication with submarines, others decided to aquaint themselves with the bikini girls with machine-guns, especially Vivian who decided to become particularly intimate, discovering that a certain level of compliance and lack of initiative on his companion's part. The bikini girl names are Polly Hobart, Sara Hobart, Mary Sue Hobart, Angelique Hobart, Mary Anne Hobart, Georgia Robart, each in Fury morphs and apparently identical, and with morphs designed from Lachiesis' wife albeit an idealised version of her from many years prior.

For their own part, not needing to sleep or eat, Nuhai took up a meditative vantage point on a flybridge. As Adrien discovered that he and Hermann had been drugged and locked into the medical bay (and proceeded to break out), Lachiesis decided it was time for the Sentinels to join his family, which of course there was some objection to. Nihai commanded the Creepers to attack, however the mounted machine guns destroyed one of them. Nihai, Adrien, and Vivian concentrated their firepower on L.R. Hobart and brought down his 'morph. It became clear from readings of his material on this ship that he had gone quite mad over the years; from his original lucky guess of the rise of the TITANS, to creating multiple identical morphs from his (now dead) wife, he had lobotimised the young women to ensure their compliance to his commands.

Nihai suggested finding some proper clothes for the young women, but also seeking out a 'morph supply so they could at least be put into a body with a functional brain. A scan of their maps led to the proposal of Belém in Brazil, a former port city with notable medical facilities. The ship, now under the command of the Sentinels, set a new course.

Heading towards Belém the Sentinels were surprised to see a submarine tube make their way past their boat. Vivian managed to connect to the system and take control of the old vessel without much trouble. Discovering it to be occupied, the Sentinels too it onboard and extracted the transhuman contents to the medical lab, where they could be interrogated with other contents (and ships log) indicating a path to Antarctica. The transhuman turned out to be Captain José Abel Dias Fernandes whose last memory was fighting during The Fall; they knew that their new mission was to make their way to Vostok and to Kunlun station - which it was believed TITAN activity was occuring.

After making many preparations, the Sentinels parked the Manassas further from the shore and took a life raft towards the city of Belém, disembarking on the remains of an old tanker. The city showed all the typical signs of having been destroyed by The Fall, with all the destruction and the pitiful remains of transhumans who never made it out abound. But just because there was no transhumans left doesn't mean that everything had gone. The Sentienls could see that near the docks another submersible was being loaded by robots, with both a transhuman and various cold-weather supplies.

Vivian attempted to scan the mesh but found themselves confronting an artificial intelligence of alarming capacity, named T-72 after the iconic Soviet Tank. Hermann inquired what the Russian's were doing in Brazil - the long-standing BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) alliance of convenience was raised as a possibility. suddenly the Sentienls found Extractors swarming over the boat. Although easy to kill, the crackle of gunfire increased their numbers and the Sentinels were required to beat a hasty retreat. Soon the entire harbour was swarming with Extractors as the Sentinels made landfall in the remains of an old building and prepared for a second assault.

This time infiltration and stealth was considered a priority. The Sentienls made their way through the old sewer system into the hospital. Whilst most was dark and silent noise sources suggested a move downstairs which eventually led to the power generation of the system, built around a small fusion reactor. Hermann placed some appropriate explosives in place as the Sentienls started moving upstairs. Alas, a camera had spotted their movements and all of a sudden they found themselves receiving the unwelcome attention of Extractors. Making their way into the hospitals resleeving facility, they were ignored by the two medical robots in the room who were operating the device, as they locked themselves down. As Extractors pounded against the door, T-72 both indicated curiousity of their presence, and also offered a quick death.

Trapped in the resleeving facility of the Belém hospital, the Sentinels pondered on their fate and probably demise. But necessity being the mother of invention, a plan was hatched even as Extractors increasingly bashed at the points of ingress. A shaped charge explosive was placed on one of the weak internal walls, with the hope that it would provide a new opportunity for escape, and when it presented such a hole, the part took the opportunity to flee from what become both their objective and their prison.

Extractors quickly discovered their escape and several came at the Sentinels from various directions. However superior firepower against small targets in corridor battles delivered success for the transhumans against the servants of the TITANS, with Nihai's use of explosive arrows against the resleeving centre being particularly memorable.

The Sentinels escaped down the stairs, into the service rooms, and finally into the old sewers and out of the city, where they retook a position at their base. From this vantage point they could see that there were scans of the surrounding area by TITAN servitors. Discretion always being the better part of valour, the Sentinels made their way back to the SS Manassas.

The following two weeks the Sentinels took their vessel southwards, taking additional care to avoid what was major population centres, such as Fortaleza, Natal, Rio di Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires - painfully aware of the possibility of active TITAN servants. The new objective was Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina - a worrying short distance from the Falkland Islands where it was known the British had a military presence, a TITAN presence was likely. Worse still, the Sentinels expressed among themselves concerns that a Russian AGI was located at a Brazilian hospital. To what degree do these alliances merge?

During the journey to the far south of old Argentina Helga engaged in psychosurgery on Captain José Abel Dias Fernandes who was programmed to go to Vostok and to surrender to pickup vehicle. Helga edited out the trigger and Sentinels have precise location of the pickup location for the journey to Vostok base.

The Sentinels made their way to Rio Gallegos, hiding the Manassas outside the bay. A distant drone surveyed the harbour near Punta Loyola and noted a moored TITAN aircraft carrier with a EU flag. Vivian, operating the drone, counted at least a dozen Hunter-Killers and fifty Headhunters on board, altough all was eerily quiet. A scan of the ruins of the airport several destroyed vehicles, and four warbots present albeit dormant. The Sentinels wisely decided to leave these alone and land at the city proper.

Making landfall, the Sentinels made their way through the ruined city, as a cool wind howled at some 60 kilometres an hour, and the temperature was a few degrees above 0°C. Making their way through the sprawling low-lying city, the Sentinels passed from one set of ruins to another. From a vantage point Nuhai made the remarkable discovery some desperate survivors, who had housed themselves in the Mausoleum of Néstor Kirchner, and now used it as a stronghold. They warned the Sentinels that there were still roaming headhunters and extractors about and to minimise radio transmissions or movement.

Heading their advice, to a degree, Nuhai noted that the city was home to a military base and military hospital. The Sentienls made their way there, and surveyed the destruction. There had been quite a battle and the places was literred with the remains of bones and machines. The miliatry hospital itself was partially destroyed.

Entering the hospital and there was evidence that this was some last stand. As the Sentinels eventually made their way to the final morph storage and resleeving facility however they were attacked by two blob-like exhumans. The party however made short work of their gross entities and began to collect their haul from the facility; 2 Alpiner morphs, 2 Exalt, 1 Cetus, 1 Olympian, 1 Nova Crab, 1 Daitya, 1 Flex-bot.

At the re-sleeving facility, Angelique is intergrated into a Exalt morph, and Nuhai gives up their Slitheroid in favour of a Alpiner. Adrien decides to scrounge for some temperature tolerance nanites, poorly assisted by Basil the Rat who is more interested in an unopened pack of ten-year-old chips. Meanwhile Vivian and Hermann make their way carefully across to the city port, but on the very last block of their journey they are attacked by Mark II Headhunters. Makin a rapid move to the port's warehouses, they cache themselves into the cellar level whilst the Headhunters fire missiles towards them. Finding a rail to the water's edge the Sentinels make their way, daisy-chain the submersible suits, and make their way back to the Manasas to collect the remaining bikini girls with machine guns.

Helga and the Five Pillars (named Shahada, Salah, Zakāt, Sawm, and Hajj) remain at the ship whilst the Sentinels make their way back to the

military hospital with care and without incident. Resleeving the remainder of the Hobarts results in the following; Polly Hobart, Slitheroid., Sara Hobart, Cetus., Mary Sue Hobart, Daitya., Georgia Hobart, NovaCrab. Mary Anne Hobart was originally sleeved into a Flexbot but proved to so resentful of her new body that she was transferred in an Olympian. For her part Georgia was so hungry in her new morph that she started to eat her old body.

Before departing Rio Gallegos, the Sentinels visited the survivors at the Mausoleum, who again requested assistance in leaving. The best they could do was offer the coordinates of the tight-beam system in Moorocco. The survivors also mentioned that some Mapuche people could assist in their journey, and they were meetint with them the following day. At that meeting the Sentinels were introduced to the curious shamanic leader, Valentia Jones-García, who spoke of the the forces of destructive water, and dry sunshine.

Rather than taking up their offer of travelling with the Mapache to Antartica, the Sentinels returned to the Manassas and set their engines for the three day journey southwards, eventually stopping near to the location where Captain Fernandes had been programmed to stop for transportation; the Halley Research Station.

As the Sentinels made plans to approach the Halley base, Helga continued her investigations, determining that Captain José was previously under the belief that the rendez-vous at the Antarctic base was to help BRIC transhumans escape Earth following the Fall. In preparation for the journey a submersible was programmed to return to Morooco with an encrypted message to be transmitted back to Firewall about the status of the Cognite group and the current status of the Sentinels, well-aware of the possibility that they may not return.

Vivian set up stealth telecommunication links between the Manassas and Captain José and managed to get a reasonable view of the Halley base,

noting that there was some three hundred transhumans present, a couple of Warbots, a Think Tank, Stalkers, and a light transport plane. Viewed from a safe distance of approximately two kilometers, the Sentinels watched with some surprise as the entire base lifted itself unto skies and then, as a giant road train, powered itself across the landscape, leaving only the light plane behind.

Never ones to ignore such an opportunity, the Sentinels made their way towards the 'plane, only to discover that it was guarded by two Stalkers, TITAN guards and assasins with notorious speed and some particularly high-powered melee and plama rifles. Adrien in particular was on the receiving end of one of these and was shot unconscious, will the Sentinels and a subset of the Hobart team assisted in bring them down. Making their way into the plane, Vivian piloted the vehicle across the great white continent for a few hours, but unfortunately had a less and the expert landing near Vostok base.

The crashed Cessna was quite damaged, however the passengers mostly suffering slight bruising. The exception being pilot Vivian taking the

worst effects. Under Hermann's suggestion the Sentienls moved away from the wreckage and away from the base, working on the assumption that

reconnaissance from Vostok would be sent soon. This was at least partially confirmed as they had to go to ground as drones flew overhead.

Making their way to Vostok base, the Sentinels noticed that the station proper was ringed by a small number of pillboxes with security cameras. Behind them was an short airfield with three small craft, and next to that the base proper, guarded by Stalkers, Warbots and a Think Thank, with several Flexboats about. Further, as the Sentinels observed the base several rockets were fired from two silos, with a distance flash of light indicating their explosion. Vivian reckoned that this was beyond the interdict.

After much discussion Hermann stealthily made his way to one of the pillboxes, and placed the camera on a fixed feed courtesy of loop made by

Vivian. Once inside there were stairs leading down; cautiously the party made it to the first level, some 15m underground, where they discovered a mass storage area for flexbot accessories. Beyond that there was the hum of machinery, which turned out to be a disgusting mix of the discarded remains of biomorphs, crushed and mixed into a blended puree. These were being fed into place by a conveyer belt from resleeving facility which would place characters into flexbots.

The following level had an alarmed door, so the Sentienls continued downwards where the stairs ended. Here, at close to a 100m below the

surface, the Sentinels discovered a storage room full of small sat-cubes, each with radiation shielding, a small solar panel, space for propulsion, guidance system etc. In the room beyond was a factory floor making the cubes, with numerous flexbots working in the low-light environment. Spying a lift in the centre of the room, Hermann and Nihai made their way to the lift, dispatching a couple of flexboats on the way.

The lift dropped a couple of kilometres down to a numbe of mines. These were not of use, so they made their way back up to one level below the factory, where there was a power supply complex. Taking the lift back to the sat-cube factory, they sent a burst transmission to the rest of the Sentinels to make their way into the alarmed room, where they correctly ascertained that the TITAN was located.

The TITAN, Mogwai, was protected of course behind plates of metallic glass [1], but there were two Stalkers present to greet the intruders. The Sentinels however opened fire with the force of the plasma rifles that they had from the previous encounter with such beings and with an

additional attack vector from those on from the maintenance and fire exits the Stalkers were quickly dispatched. Whilst forcing their way into the TITANs data centre proved difficult (even with the plasma rifles), Vivian reviewed the console information in the room and made a startling discovery.

The TITAN's core programming, its instinct if one likes, was quite simple; protect itself, destroy its enemies, and expand. With this in mind, it had decided that it could by-pass the interdict with a massive number of small spaceships, which would be preprogrammed and carry information to both rebuild itself on another planet, whilst also destroying opposition on that planet, and building a Dyson sphere to create itself a Type 2 Kardashev civilization, and with plans to build a solar sail and push the solar system into the galatic centre to build a Type 3 Kardashev civilization. The rockets being fired past the interdict - and it knew where to fire them - was part of this plan.

Dozens of flexbots in quite a mood were making their way towards the Sentinels, who fought their way to the missile launch silos. They made a

guess it wouldn't be long before the base was crushed by transhuman mass drivers. But there was an option to escape - the Sentinels could have their stacks removed, placed into a (reprogrammed) satellite cube, and fired into space. "I'll be glade to leave this place", remarked Hermann, referring to Earth, "And I hope never to come back". The missile silo however proved to be protected by a warbot which ended Hermann's consideration of such things quickly. When the warbot was destroyed, Adrien cut out Hermann's stack, and followed on the gruesome task as each Sentinel executed themselves, placing a stack in a cube.

Finally it came down to Basil and Adrien. Basil didn't have a stack, and the quick calculations indicated that he wouldn't survive the journey if placed in the box. Adrien of course couldn't cut out his own stack, but Basil was a smart rat and he knew what to do.

I guess this is goodbye, said Basil in Catalan sign-language, and let out a squeak.

If I survive the destruction of the base there will be plenty for me to eat. For years.

With that Adrien placed his blaster against his head and fired. True to his word, Basil chewed out the stack from the base of his skull and

carried it gently between his teeth to the last satellite cube, as it made its way into the missile.

As a great rock hurtled towards Vostok station from Luna, the missile took off, and Basil made his way down towards the mines.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-metallic-glass-is-stronger-and-tougher-than-steel/

Having survived the trauma of suicide or execution and being blasted into space the Sentinels were awakened in a virtual environment by the Firewall contact Red Rover (who appears as a Red Setter dog) on the Lucifer aerostat on Venue and informed that some 250 days had passed since their stacks joined the rocket journey from Earth. Explaining the situation to their new contact the Sentinels were sleeved in appropriate morphs without incident as the Firewall Contact updated them on recent changes in transhuman space, including most dramatically a heating up of the conflict between the Morningstar Constellation and the Planetary Consortium with the former blaming the latter for the breech of the Interdict.

Given their deep experience of such matters Red Rover also described an interesting situation for Firewall with the rise of a possible exsurgent virus on the aerostat of Parvarti. As exurgent virus often appear as the result of TITAN experiments the Sentinels were requested to go an investigate. Parvarti station is a peculiar location insofar that it has a strong ban on real-time communications and an emphasis on privacy. As a result it is both popular as a meeting place for those who prefer to keep negotiations secret, for secret liasons, and the outright disturbing debaucheries. With the exsurgent outbreak a medical quarantine has been imposed on the station, and understandably people are getting worried.

The Sentinels took the journey to Parvarti under the guise of security company investigators and, after being propositioned at the aeroport, discovered that their contact had showed symtoms of the virus and had gone missing, as they were prone to do. Research revealed that all known infected had been recently re-sleeved, although they had all come from different body banks. However, all morphs had been passed through a small brokerage, Dai Khan enterprises, which had a grand total of three on-site employees, Hellen Alvarez, Dario Silvestri, and Landon Markus. A hospital visit to review one of the infected morphs indicated that it had x-cast mesh inserts, which are strictly prohibited on Parvarti.

The visits to the Dai Khan employees were mixed; the administrator Hellen Alvarez was very distant and not at all forthcoming. An investigation into their apartment revealed that they were actually involved in an illegal child-forking slave ring, whereas Landon Markus, the security and labourer was friendly and helpful. His evening out at a local club involved naked Greco-Roman wrestling of which Adrien was a memorable participant. Landon revealed that Dario had a bit of a gambling habit and a visit to his near-empty apartment showed signs that he had left in a hurry. Vivian was again able to by-pass the poor security and discern that a number of transactions had gone through an uplifted crow named Blackvein.

A visit to Blackvein's aerie concluded the story. The corvid was a broker between organisations and, with appropriate protections guaranteed, Blackvein revealed that Dario owed a substantial amount of money to the criminal Night Cartel. Unable to pay, he had offered to insert mesh broadcasts into morphs that would secretely broadcast material that could then be used for selective blackmail. However Dario's operations had gone wrong, leading the Cartel in the situation where they had to kidnap the morphs once the failed insert had been revealed. "Not an existential thread", Hermann concluded, leaving the task of mopping up the Night Cartel agents to the local cops. The quarantine was lifted, and all returned to normal in the aerostat.

Following the discovery that the potential exsurgent risk was just a normal police opertaion, the next call that Sentinels received by Red Rover was to meet three very important Servers of Firewall - the loosely allied leadership that make up the organisation, such as it is. Travelling to an office in the Octavia aerostat, the Sentinels were informed that they would be meeting with Callosum, a former neuroscientist for Cognite; Eludere, a smuggler and survivor of The Fall, from a Korean-Ukrainian background; and Voight-Kampff, an AGI from the US Centre for Disease Control and a specialist in disaster prediction. As they took their flight they also received the uneasy news that Helga Busenberg has been put on trial for crimes against transhumanity by an anarchist court (as if there is such things) on Locus.

In the meeting a summary of current events was explored. The declaration of war between the Morningstar Constellation and the Planetary Consortium had reached actual fighting, with Morningstar blaming the Consortium for allowing a TITAN to escape, and demaning the Cognite's Venusian orbital base, Thought, be handed over to authorities. The Consortium as refused and has resisted an attempted takeover by the Constellation. Meanwhile, there have been multiple reports on Lucifer from Red Cap Mines that mining vehicles have not returned to base, and contact has been lost. There was significant discussion over what to do now that a TITAN has been released and the Sentinel's role in the affair. Callosum proposed going public, in the hope that transhumanity would unite. Eludere effectively blamed the Sentinels for letting the TITAN go. Whereas Voigt-Kampf suggests placing a coordinated faction in the mind-sharing neo-synergists.

The net result however was the recognition the the Sentinels had done a great deal of work for Firewall, and they, more than anyone else, are at the centre of current affairs. As a result they were established a Proxy agents, and encouraged to recruit up to six candiates for their own Sentinels and report back when they had done so.

Adrien had two scientific contacts on Thought (alien psychologist, botanist), which he sought to contact via a neutral aerostat and false identification. Nihai joined the journey with identification for Martian graduate, a known Buddhist theologian, and who Nihai knew from childhood. For their own part, Vivian has two contacts on Lucifer, industrial engineers and telepresence operators, whereas Hermann could not locate any likely canidates from their corporate contacts, but nevertheless made contact with the public relations department of Red Cap mining to offer assistance.

With the tasks of recruitment, intelligence gathering, and investigation at hand the new Proxies went about their work. Adrien La Fontaine started with a subtle approach with the Cognite employees Jack Kayne, the alien and exsurgent psychologist and Gregory Hooker, the hostile environment botanist. The appeals were not enormously successful; although sympathetic to joining Firewall, the two employees enjoyed their secure income and had families to care for. Adrien persisted with suggestions that it only had to be for a limited period and that it would help end the war between the Morningstar Constellation and the Planetary Consortium. To this they agreed, for a limited period of two months. Of course, Adrien thought, in two month's time none of this will matter.

Meanwhile Vivian meet with Arwa al-Sulayhi, the industrial engineer, and Jean-Pierre Mignon, the telepresence operator, both of whom worked for Red Cap mining, who had recent problems with disappearing mining 'bots. Taking up an scout reconnaissance role with the company, Vivian created a fork which was transmitted down the beanstalk to the Venusian surface and into a Q-Morph, a specially designed morph with a quartz shell, designed for the hostile pressure, heat, and sulfuric rain of the Venusian surface. "A shame there is no jungles", Vivian remarked.

More pressing matters were afoot however, as Vivian noted that one of the mining bots was going heading away from base. Locating a weak transmission and following it to a cave entrance, Vivian returned to the beanstalk base and transmitted this new information, before returning to the cave. There, Vivian encountered a TITAN warbot, but managed to escape its clutches and hide in an old mining shaft, which eventually led to an open chamber where many mining bots were being contructed or converted into war machines. A quick exponential calculation made Vivian realise very quickly what a problem this could be, and returned quickly to the beanstalk, transmitted back to the aerostat, and reintegrated into the main character. It did not take much convincing for Arwa and Jean-Pierre to become Sentinels following that report.

Adrien and Vivian both sought appropriate contact form Blackvein, the canny corvid. Adrien paid a sum of a 10,000CR recuitment fee, and was introducted to Farzad Shirazi, an infiltration expert who has the misfortune of being caught (once) and now recently released in a case morph. Vivian instead offered to make Blackvein a unique and classy weapon in a organic style with gold effects; the first attempt was not successful, but the second created a work of art, a hold-out pistol, mentally controlled, that could tucked under a wing and fire either a foamer-like string or an electrolaster. For these efforts, Vivian was introduced to Yamada Tarō, a tough penetration expert in a flat morph who would appreciate a new identity and morph. From his own resources, Adrien also made two contacts from the autonomists, Steve Millan, a security officer who worked in bars, and Martin Neufeld, an IT engineer who was a member ofthe Solid Ground Initiative, which seeks to terraform Venus.

As for Nuhai and Hermann, they had their own recruitment issues. Nuhai's old colleague from the monastery, Ji Gong, was a relatively easy recruit. In this case a 20,000 CR payment was made to Blackvein, who brought in to assist. A former Scum barge operator and strategist (who had an unfortunate encounter with the Consortium), Abu Nidal, was readily accepted, as was his second-in-command, Ekaterina Molotov, an expert in heavy weapons and gunnery. A more unusual recruit by Nuhai is Siti binti Taarab, a singer but also with some excellent interpersonal skills.

For his own part, Hermann also made use of Blackvein's seemingly endless supply of skilled individuals in need of a cause that provided morphs, an identity, and paid expenses. Unfortunately Hermann's contacts were not in Venus and he found himself in the situation where he had to forgo 30,000CR to pay for three new recruits. This brought David Wilberforce, information scientist and financial fraudster to his team, Marie Lee, infiltration and security systems expert, along with Tjandamurra, a hostile environments specialist. In addition to these recruits, some of the Hobart's were also recovered and were held in info-morphs; Angelique volunteering to join Vivian, Mary-Anne with Nuhai, and Georgia with Hermann's team.

The Sentinel forces now complete, the Proxies contacted the Servers to provide their report. Adrien had the forsight to set a task for his Sentinels on Thought who reported back that Cognite was aware and was continuing development on the Watts-MacLeod virus to effect AGIs, and also they were engaging in lobbying to bring an invasive force from the Consortium. Further, there was scenarios being developed by Cognite to kidnap the entire neo-synergist movement before they became too big. This foresight received approval from the Servers, who duly decided among themselves that a likely trajectory of activities and appointed Eludere as their Server for the Proxies.

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH: NOT DYING IN TALES FROM THE LOOP

In Tales from the Loop, the sci-fi RPG where you play Kids investigating mysteries in an alternate 1980s Sweden, you cannot die. It is literally against the rules, as laid out pretty nicely on page 12 of the core book:

Principle of the Loop #4: The land of the Loop is dangerous but Kids will not die

The Kids can be hurt, locked up, mocked, displaced, robbed, or broken-hearted, but they cannot die in this game.

This basically sounds like a kind of functional immortality (I mean, presumably the characters will eventually age and die in the game world, but as a player you’ll never know about it because another core rule of TFL is that once your Kid turns 16 they’re tool old for the game and become NPCs). It should be awesome, but what is it like to actually play unkillable Kids? Having run a TFL campaign for the past three years now, I think I can say that it could go either way. Which might sound like the most non-committal judgment call you’ve heard outside of a White House coronavirus press conference, so allow me to explicate.

First, let’s talk a bit about the game itself. Released in 2017 by Swedish publisher Free League, Tales from the Loop was a runaway critical success, winning 5 ENnie Awards including Best Game and Product of the Year, as well as best RPG of the year for both Geek & Sundry and BoardGameGeek.

It also has one of the most unusual origin stories among RPGs. While there are as many RPGs based on book and movie franchises as there are fans of said franchises who know how to plot a bell curve, Tales from the Loop was inspired by the coffee table art book of the same name by Swedish SF-artist Simon Stålenhag, whose painterly and yet startlingly realistic pictures also grace the pages of the Free League books. The most recent adaptation of the original book has been an 8-part series produced by Amazon Prime, which recreates faithfully the look of Stålenhag’s paintings while transposing the setting of the Loop to rural Ohio. Personally, I’m just waiting for the TFL-Monopoly boardgame tie-in, so I can stack it next to my Game of Thrones Monopoly and Alien: Resurrection Monopoly (ok, this last one doesn’t exist, but it should).

Moving on to mechanics, the game uses the d6 dice pool system based on Free League’s Year Zero Engine. Whenever your Kid wants to make something happen, you build a pool of dice equal to one of your core Attributes – Body, Mind, Heart or Tech – plus the number of dice connected to a specific Skill, if you have it. For instance, say your Computer Geek character wants to build a transmitter from out of a Speak & Spell toy, like the one ET uses to phone home in the Steven Spielberg movie (when you’re playing TFL it really helps if you know your ‘80s movies or have watched every season of Stranger Things). For this, the GM would probably make you assemble a dice pool based on your Tech (Attribute) plus Program (Skill). Roll the dice, and if you get any 6s, you succeed. Unlike some dice pool-mechanic games, such as Blades in the Dark, any other values rolled on the dice have zero effect.

If the DM deemed it a particularly difficult task you were attempting, they might set the success threshold at two or three 6s. Otherwise, every extra 6 rolled over the success threshold gives bonus effects. If you fail the first roll there’s always the options to re-roll using Luck or Pushing your Kid, which earns them a Condition (more on these in a moment).

And that’s basically the core of the game. Most notably, there’s no real combat mechanic. When Kids get into a fight, regardless of whether it’s versus a troop of murderous robots or a schoolyard tussle with the classroom bully, the outcome is resolved via a kind of gestalt dice roll that’s essentially a variant of the basic “roll a 6 for success” mechanic. All the PCs taking part in the fight describe what they’re trying to do – punch the bully in the nose, smash the killer robots’ transceiver device etc. – and decide which Attribute-Skill combo they’re going to use. The GM then sets a collective success threshold based on the threat level of the encounter, multiplied by the number of Kids taking part in the fight. This determines how many 6s the Kids have to roll in total between them to win. A normal threat level, like taking on the class bully, would have a threat modifier of x2. A more dangerous encounter – which I think safely includes “a troop of murderous robots” – warrants a x3 modifier (theoretically there is a x4 threat level modifier available for GMs to use, but it’s practically unwinnable for the Kids). If we look at the example of the non-Asimovian robots again, say there were five Kids fighting against these metal assassins. Regardless of how many robots they were actually taking on, the players would need to roll a total of 3 x 5 = 15 successes to win the fight. No other rolls are made to resolve the combat – the robots don’t get to fight back, nobody makes a saving throw and the concept of hit points belongs to an alternate universe. Tales from the Loop, if you haven’t already guessed, is decidedly not a simulationist RPG.

So what does happen if the Kids lose a fight, given that they can’t die? There’s a fairly rudimentary wounds system, called Conditions. Each time a Kid fails a dice roll that results in them getting hurt somehow their player must check a Condition, up to a maximum of four. Each Condition describes a different kind of “wound”: Upset, Scared, Exhausted and Injured. However, there’s no hierarchy for these Conditions, and they can be checked in any order. Thus, being Injured is no worse than being Upset. For every Condition checked, the player removes 1 penalty dice rom every roll they make until the Condition(s) are removed.

During gameplay, this interchangeability between Conditions can lead to some fairly contortionist explanations of what exactly has happened to a Kid. For instance, if your character fails a Body-Move dice roll (basically a dexterity check) and falls from a rooftop they would need to check a Condition – but if the box for “Injured” is already taken, they would need to justify how this misadventure results in their Kid becoming somehow “Scared,” “Upset” or “Exhausted.” Oh gosh, that 4-metre fall onto rock-hard concrete has left me feeling so tired.

Once all four Conditions are checked, the Kid is said to be Broken. This is literally the worst that can happen to a PC in Tales from the Loop, and it’s not that bad, at least not in terms of game mechanics. When a Kid is Broken they can no longer make any dice rolls at all until one or more of the Conditions are healed. However they aren’t removed from the adventure, and can still interact with other characters and the game world up until the point they need to roll some dice.

Healing is also pretty easy, and very much favours the players. All a Kid needs to do to uncheck a Condition is spend a roleplaying scene with their Anchor, a special-purpose NPC that every Kid has who’s an adult that understands and cares for them (there’s also a particular character Skill called “Lead” – as in the verb, not the metal – that can be used to heal other Kid’s Conditions, so long as they are not Broken).

With such lenient penalties for getting hurt, what’s to stop a party of alt-‘80s Swedish teens from giving into their antisocial urges and going full murder hobo?

The short answer is nothing, and certainly there’s no reason in the rules why you couldn’t play a TFL adventure in this way. My own group has come pretty close to it a few times, like the time they gleefully trashed a supermarket, and then there’s been that nasty habit of setting fire to people’s barns. But it took a while for our group to build up to this level of smash-and-grab, and it’s certainly not been a feature of the campaign. I think there are a few reasons for this.

To begin with, the setting and tone of Tales from the Loop militates against over-powered PCs. After all, you’re playing the roles of children aged between 10 and 15 in a world run by adults, who have all the power and who keep secrets from you. Lots of secrets. If we recall the “Principles of the Loop” I mentioned at the start of this review, Principles 2 and 3 state respectively that “Everyday life is dull and unforgiving” and “Adults are out of reach and out of touch.” Your Kids might be plucky and resourceful, but they begin each adventure knowing very little about the forces arrayed against them, and often they end it that way too. In this respect TFL is actually a little reminiscent of Call of Cthulhu, although without the mandatory descents into madness and total party kills.

There’s also the somewhat inspired choice of the word “Broken” to describe a PC that’s checked all four of their Conditions. It seems to me that the mental image of a child who’s “broken” is somehow much worse than that of a PC dropping to zero hit points. In other RPGs it’s like you knew the risks, you take the chances. I mean, your elven ranger or human wizard didn’t take up the adventuring life and expect not to break a few eggs to make that omelette, am I right? Even if that omelette is sometimes themselves?

But being “Broken” just sounds like the saddest and most pitiable thing that can happen to a child. It’s something we can all imagine, even if we don’t want to. All of us were children once, and if you’re a parent, well, then the idea of your kids being broken is just about the worst thing you can think of. The first time one of the PCs in our playing group was broken – while being chased by a velociraptor in the middle of the Swedish winter, no less – it was actually quite shocking, and the other players spent a fair bit of roleplay trying to care for their broken comrade. This is from a group that in other RPGs are more than happy to go full murder-hobo, so it really felt to me that there was something different about roleplaying children that prompted them to react in this way. I guess this would vary a lot from group to group, but from TFL forums online it’s a theme I’ve seen repeated elsewhere.

Finally, the other aspect of Tales from the Loop that suggests there might be fates worse than death is the concept of consequences. And I do mean capital “C” Consequences.

Despite the misleadingly simple game mechanics and the alternate-‘80s setting, TFL is actually a game grounded in realism. Maybe your Kids can’t die, but bad things can still happen to them – or to the people around them, like their families or Anchors. This was very much a theme in Stålenhag’s original book, where the illustrations and the accompanying narrative are told from the point of view of kids trying to make sense of a world that’s not only imperfect, but also unaccountably cruel and disillusioning.

I don’t want to make this sound like too much of a downer, and of course you can play TFL in any colour palette you like. But if you’re GM and you’re drawing on the tone of the core book and Stålenhag’s original artwork, then you will encounter a sense of melancholy that pervades the world of the Loop, an intimation of loss that’s just over the horizon but will be upon us soon. I think Stålenhag intended this to be about the loss of childhood innocence, but in running the game I’ve found myself working in quest hooks and objectives that revolve around the Kids pushing themselves to avert something terrible happening, but to others rather than themselves. To go back to that velociraptor example, even though there was no chance that the PCs could be killed by the feathered murder-birds themselves, by their actions they did put in danger an NPC who very easily could be killed (a nice old lady who lived alone in the woods with a kennel-load of greyhound rescue dogs). As a GM it was very interesting watching the group try so hard to come up with a plan to save this NPC they’d just met, and who was actually quite peripheral to their overall success in this adventure.

While this kind of subquest – protect an NPC from harm – is hardly unique in RPGs, I think there’s something about Tales from the Loop that raises the stakes in terms of consequences. Perhaps it’s a combination of all the things I’ve described above: the vulnerability and limited agency that comes from being Kids in a world run by adults; the sense that being broken is worse than simply ceasing to exist; the closeness to our own childhoods against which players must necessarily define their characters; and the sneaking feeling that despite all our efforts to avert disaster there will always be a loss. (And just so you get closure, sadly the nice old lady with the rescue dogs didn’t make it, but a couple of velociraptors did have a nice warm meal that helped them survive the harsh Swedish winter. Who knew? Turns out I can be a tough-ass GM after all).

I know I’m in danger of making the game sound overly grim or in some way pedagogical (surely one of the worst things an RPG can aspire to be, unless you’re actually teaching kids), but in my experience of running Tales from the Loop it’s actually had the opposite effect. Of course, in any group the style in which you play the game is entirely up to those particular players and their GM; the social contract between producers and consumers is nowhere more apparent in an artform than in roleplaying games. And to be fair, my own campaign has been influenced as much by BMX Bandits, the Losers’ Club from It and Stranger Things as by Stålenhag’s art. But if you’re planning to draw upon the sombre and muted palette of Scandinavian existentialism which colours this deceptively simple RPG, you’ll find that in a game where nobody can die, the weirdly dreamlike realism of the setting can make for thrilling adventures, where the stakes are high and kids can become heroes in ways that resonate somehow with our own constantly receding childhoods.

PRE-GENERATED HEALERS FOR DIFFERENT SYSTEMS

This is a grab-bag of pre-generated characters for a variety of games. These characters could be used as player- or nonplayer characters. The games have little in common. A short description of each is given to orient the reader. Differing game mechanics and genres inevitably deal with healing differently. A description of healing in each game is given. Therefore, this article is also a series of micro-reviews focused on healing.

I wanted to play something that captured the 70’s genre that gave us Andre Norton’s Starman’s Son, The Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run, Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, and other tales of the rise of civilisation hundreds of years after a nuclear war. After researching a number of games, I settled on Gamma World 4^th edition. This edition is interesting for a number of reasons. The 4^th edition was the last version produced by the original publisher TSR. Therefore, it was further developed than earlier editions with more options for player characters. It was also the last edition to keep to the original 1970’s backstory of a post nuclear war world. This backstory supports comedic and serious play styles. Later editions were increasingly comedic cumulative in the over-the-top silliness of the 7^th edition. Gamma World 4^th edition is also the design ancestor of D&D editions 3 to 5. It has two core mechanics, one of which is the now familiar 1d20+modifiers roll over difficulty number. There are other similarities to later D&D as well. Overall, a streamlined consistent set of mechanics.

Unlike its cousin D&D, in Gamma World dead is dead. There is no class ability or skill for healing either. Fortunately, gamma world weapons do about the same damage as their D&D counterparts but starting characters have many more hit points than first level D&D characters. A lucky PC will have a healing mutation like regeneration or the ability to transfuse health from themselves to others. Experienced adventurers might have ancient medical kits found in sealed facilities centuries old, and even these only heal modest amounts of hit points. However, most adventuring groups will have no access to healing beyond natural recovery.

Gamma World Character generation is largely random. You choose your genotype (human, mutant, a species of animal or even a plant) and your class (enforcer, esper, examiner, or scout) and everything else is in the hands of the dice gods. I’m working on house rules for non-random character generation that might appear in a future issue. Manky Narx is a product of serendipity. He was generated randomly as my PC for my first Gamma World 4^th game just before the call for articles for this issue on healers was announced. His Transfusion mutation qualifies him as a healer. The only things not by the book is his method of delivering his transfusion power and his house ruled corvid genotype.

At the edge of town, a large vaguely crow-like bird dives for the ground. You think it is going too fast, but it spreads its wings at the last second and lands without a sound. The dusty black wings have the thin hands of a new animal. On the ground the bird is less impressive. It is just under a meter tall and hops awkwardly toward you. Through patchy black feathers folds of black skin hang off a gaunt frame. The head dominated by a large pointed ebony beak. “Arrrrrk, you go into wilds? Narx come, you pay. YEEEES! Wilds have dangerssss. No Narx, you die, Yeees!” The creature reaches to paw at you. This close the bird smells of sweat and his breath stinks like an animal died inside in his beak. “You pay! You pay!” he squawks excitedly.

Class: Scout 1. Cryptic Alliance: Nil. Hometown: The Mission to the Wild Kin. Tech Level: III

Corvid abilities: Peck base 1d4. Learned sound mimicry like a natural raven. Base speed 4. Flight base speed 30. Heightened Hearing and Vision as the mutations.

Health 11, Mental Defence 10, Use Artefacts 0, Remain Unseen 1*, Robot Recognition 12, Perception 11*

Class Skills: Detect Ambush/Trap 5, Hunting 6, Navigate 4, Tracking 2, Wilderness Survival 3.

Infravision: Narx can detect the heat patterns of living creatures, even at night. Such creatures stand out like a beacon against a cooler, nonliving background. Infravision does not allow for detail or colour-everything appears as a dull, featureless red. The object's or creature's shape can be seen, however.

Sound Imitation: Narx is able to imitate any sound that he has heard in the last 24 hours. He can hear any frequency of sound, including sonar. He can only imitate voices by using the exact words he heard spoken by the voices. The imitative process works like a tape recorder, not a translator. Narx is immune to the harmful effects of any sound and can imitate destructive sounds like the sonic blast mutation produces. He cannot imitate himself.

Transfusion: MP18 +3. Narx is able to heal another character, but not himself, by vomiting healing fluids on the wound. Each round he can heal 10 + MP modifier points of damage (=13). A single person or creature can only be healed by Narx’s transfusion power once per day. Each round of healing he also suffers ld4 points of damage himself. Narx can only use this power on other people or animals. Not plants.

In this campaign we began with only minimal gear rather than the default 300 Domars to buy gear.

Shortbow (2), quiver & 20 arrows (1), side pack, pouch of seed, waterskin, bone knife (0.5).

D&D 5^th edition is the latest edition of this most popular RPG. It has the class and level approach at its core. This edition is a more streamlined game than previous editions. It combines the fast play of the first two editions with single core mechanic introduced in 3^rd edition without the complexity of that edition. The Age of Ostoria is my project to allow play in the ancient past of Ed Greenwood’s Forgotten Realms when giants ruled. Player characters must exceptional to make their mark in this mythic age. Take up the role of a human hero, a veteran one of the elder races, a giant, or a dragon. You can follow the development of Age of Ostoria on The Piazza forum. There are three threads currently:

Like its predecessors, the 5^th edition uses hit points with front-line fighting types having more hit points and everyone gaining more hit points as they gain levels. 5^th edition characters generally have slightly more hit points than those from early editions. Healing is by natural recuperation or magic. Both are very generous and plentiful compared to earlier editions of D&D and to most hit point using RPGs that I have played. While not suited to a gritty style of play this edition of D&D does allow for reckless heroic fun. Unlike previous editions a party without a cleric to heal them isn’t doomed. Players can play whatever class they want because multiple classes can choose healing magic, healing potions are readily available for sale, and an hour’s rest can restore some of your hit points.

Like most of its predecessors, D&D 5e characters are built by combining race and class. In the Age of Ostoria PC’s begin play at 12^th level. Some of the new races for this sub-setting are worth levels, a Level Adjustment (LA). Additionally, since every level in 5^th edition adds new features a 12^th level character can have an overwhelming number of features for new players or even veterans exploring a new class. Therefore, the option to add extra LA’s that grant a lot hit points instead of new features to large or huge races is provided. Our example character has a race worth 8 levels, 2 extra LA, and 2 levels of cleric for a total of 12 levels. 12^th is the starting level for Age of Ostoria characters.

The lizardfolk had killed Elthiren. Valnethor caught a nasty spear wound during our escape. For two days we evaded them in the marsh. On that second day we waded past a dead tree trunk bleached white and carved with glyphs. After that the hunting horns receded. On the third day the water rippled from the rhythmic dull boom of huge footfalls shadowing us unseen in the mist. The creature stalked us without a splash or cracking branch. Valnethor collapsed from his infected wound with a pained scream. The vibrations of the monster’s footfalls drew closer. Sapling willows cracked as she pushed them aside and stepped out of the fog. A young giantess, so tall the knee-deep water lapped at her hairy ankles. Her skin was pale like milk and, despite her youth, all her hair was silver. I backed up against a willow trunk and drew my bow. As she knelt by Valnethor muddying her coarse-spun white robe I fired an arrow. She ignored the wound like an elf not noticing a mosquito. Her hand went to an ivory amulet on neck as she proclaimed in her guttural tongue. The other hairy arm reached down to Valnethor. I let loose another arrow. Huge ice blue eyes met mine and narrowed with annoyance. Her hand touched his shoulder, pus boiled off, swelling subsided, and the weeping wound vanished.

Class & Level: Fog Giant 8 + 2 extra LA + 2 Cleric = 12. Background: Acolyte (Feature: Shelter the Faithful). Race: Fog Giant. Experience points: 100 000

Alignment: NG Ordening 14. Ordening is a giant’s status among her own people it is raised by Maat actions and lowered by Maug ones.

Maat. Fog giants admire strength and athleticism. Beat a higher ordening giant of any breed in an athletic contest such as wrestling, arm wrestling, or boulder tossing. Obtain silver with gp value equal to current Maat or higher by any means.

Maug. Lose an athletic contest such as wrestling, arm wrestling, or boulder tossing against any creature. Lose possession of silver in any amount for any reason. A fog giant would rather pay with an equal value of copper or gold coins than part with any silver coins.

Age 60 (young adult). Height 23 feet 5 inches. Weight 3100 pounds. Eyes Ice blue. Skin Milk-white and hirsute. Hair all silver, head hair long.

Ability Scores: STR 20 (+5), DEX 8 (-1), CON14 (+2), INT 13 (+1), WIS 17 (+3), CHA 14 (+2).

Proficiency bonus +4. Proficiencies: DEX saves +3, CON saves +8, WIS saves +7, CHA saves +6. Athletics +9, Insight +7, Medicine +7, Nature +5, Persuasion +6, Religion +5, Stealth +3, Survival +7.

Non-proficient rolls use ability score bonus only. Passive perception 13 (18 when keen hearing or smell can be used). Skilled in: Huge rocks and simple weapons. Armour that could be used without penalty: light, medium, and heavy armour as well as shields.

Armour Class 14 (Natural + Shield). Max. hit points 101. Hit dice: 6d12+2d20+2d8

Keen senses: advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks for both smell and hearing

Blend into fog, mist, falling snow, hail, or heavy rain (this works like the wood elf’s Mask of the Wild for these conditions).

Cleric: Spell casting. Can prepare 5 spells. Ritual casting and use divine foci. Turn Undead

Personality traits. I see omens everywhere, the gods speak to those who watch. I honour my ancestors and seek to bring glory on my descendents.

Bonds. A giants place in the ordening is determined by the gods, to respect the hierarchy among giant-kind is to do the will of the gods.

Worn/carried. robes (64), minimal clothing (loincloth, belt, foot-wraps (4)), shield with holy symbol emblem (24), Pack (80), a pair of elk antler ear-rings (40), utility knife in belt (above), huge sack on loop over shoulder (32).

In Pack. 3 medium healing potions (1.5), 2-giant tent (320), 5 days rations (80), waterskin (320 full), torch (8), tinderbox (8), giant size healer’s kit (32).

Backstory: Fog giants are an uncommon race even in the Age of Ostoria and her appearance attracts curiosity from giants and dragons and caution or even fear among humanoids.

Fjell-hjerte was always a thoughtful child sensitive to others and nature. No-one was surprised when on reaching adulthood she did not join a hunting group but instead journeyed to a distant mountain temple to Othea. She returned to her homeland a few years later and now administers spiritual guidance and physical healing to her people.

Hyperlanes is an adaption of the D&D 5e rules to space opera like that seen in Star Wars, Guardians or the Galaxy, or Buck Rogers. I wrote a full review of the game back in issue 38. Briefly, Hyperlanes stays true to the streamlined game design of D&D 5e, unlike other efforts, such as Ultramodern 5, it does not create a lot of additional rules and systems. There are no chapters for psychic powers, cybernetics, or computer hacking. However, these rules are not missing, they are just dispersed through the class traits, feats, and especially ‘Gambits’. Gambits represent special training, preparations before a mission, explosives and other consumable equipment, knacks etc. Mechanically, they work the way spells do in D&D. Some like ‘Cover Fire’ are ‘Tricks’ that can be used by PCs with appropriate training any number of times, like D&D’s cantrips.

+1	for problems with sound or video connection
+1	if it drops out entirely 4
+1	per interruption by children, partner, pets, boss...
+1	if you stop and attend to their needs
+	bonuses for equipment, name, etc; see below.

1	Arnold
2	Max
3	Ripley
4	Sarah
5	Vasquez
6	Viggo
7+	Karen

1	Senile Silent Alleged Veteran
2	Pompous Boomer Windbag
3	Ineffectual GenX Slacker
4	Ungrateful Millennial Whiner
5	Smartphone-controlled Zoomer Brat
6	Visitor from another Civilization/Time/Planet
7+	Member of the Risen Dead

1	A weaponized walkingframe/shopping cart/chair (+1 for Silents)
2	Deeds to three tax-minimized investment properties (+1 for Boomers)
3	A bulletproof sense of entitlement (+1 for GenXers)
4	An ultrasonic two-year-old (+1 for Millennials)
5	A live video feed to your subscribers (+1 for Zoomers)
6	A Supersoaker TM full of cleansing alcohol gel, and a lighter (+1 for Max)
7+	Your teeth and claws (+1 for Karen)

1	Plain flour, baking powder and a WWII ration cook book (+1 for Silents)
2	A small artisanal-distillery botanical gin and Indian tonic water (+1 for Boomers)
3	Nirvana's Greatest Hits, on vinyl (+1 for GenXers)
4	Stone-ground non-gluten sourdoughbread and a ripe organic non-GM avocado (+1 for Millennials)
5	Biodegradable NespressoTM Coffee Pods (+1 for Zoomers)
6	Spare parts for a time/space transport device (+1 for Visitors)
7+	Some goddamn respect! (+1 for Vasquez)

1	The last mom-and-pop-owned corner store in the entire tri-state area (-1 to everyone except Silents)
2	A premium mediocre boutique individualized chain outlet (-1 to everyone except Boomers)
3	A soul-sucking megacorp owned by a Marvel supervillain's secret identity. It's unethical to shop there. You penniless peasant. (-1 to everyone except GenXers)
4	Like, the fifth one you've tried today (-1 to everyone except Millennials)
5	A charity food bank (-1 to everyone except Zoomers)
6	An outlet catering to an ethnic/religious/social group you don't know anything about and you should probably feel vaguely guilty about that (-1 to everyone except Visitors)
7+	A front for... (roll again):

1	Organised crime (-1 to everyone except Max)
2	A neo-Nazi militia (-1 to everyone except Arnold, or Silents, who know what to do)
3	An anarcho-communist survivalist cell (-1 to everyone except Sarah, or if you have a WWII ration cook book)
4	An alien invasion (-1 to everyone except Vasquez or Visitors)
5	Them! (-1 to everyone except Ripley, or if you have bread)
6	Orcs. Wait, what? (-1 to everyone except Viggo)
7+	Zombies (-1 to everyone except Karen)

1	The last one in the store, everyone else will have to fight you for it
2	On a shelf that's like eight feet off the ground
3	In an aisle with no lights or aircon/heating
4	Wired to a bomb
5	In the store room at the back, you'll have to persuade The Staff to get it
6	Behind that guy who's coughing constantly (-1 to
7+	In The Manager's office. See The Manager.

1	Are cyborgs (-1 to everyone except Sarah and Arnold)
2	Have been working for 36 hours (-1 to everyone except Viggo, or if you give them coffee pods)
3	Are aliens wearing human skin suits (-1 to everyone except Vasquez, or if you give them space/time device parts
4	Are postapocalyptic BDSM fetishists (-1 to everyone except Max)
5	Have had enough of your crap! (-1 to everyone except Ripley)
6	Are another gang in disguise trying to infiltrate the store and steal the TP, roll on “a front for” (above)
7+	are The Manager (-1 to everyone except Karen)

1	Is Skynet (+1 for Sarah and Arnold)
2	Is high (+1 for GenXers)
3	Is an Alien queen (+1 for Ripley and Visitors)
4	Is Dracula. Surprise! (-1 for everyone)
5	It's Dark Lord Saur... JK IT'S YOUR MOM! (+1 for Viggo)
6	Is videocalling in from home (-1 for everyone except Zoomers)
7+	Will be with you in just a moment, sir or ma'am (-1 for everyone. Except Karen.)

1	Gold (-1 to everyone except Silents)
2	Cash even though its unhygienic and you never carry it any more (-1 to everyone except Boomers)
3	Pullchain-encrypted ButtcoinTM (-1 to everyone, roll again on this table to see what they're worth today)
4	Ongoing pledges to their KickstarterTM to start a union to demand a living wage and sick leave (-1 to everyone except Millennials)
5	YouTubeTM or TwitchTM follows (-1 to everyone except Zoomers)
6	Precious Bodily Fluids (-1 to everyone except Karen and Max)
7+	TP