Go to Part 1

LOCATION: TEMPLE OF THE GARGOYLE

The Temple of the Gargoyle is a gothic-like structure, its sheer walls of dark gray stone towering three stories above the street, with four towers – one at each of its corners – climbing to twice that height. Every inch of its surface has been ornately and intricately carved, and much of it altered two or three times since the temple was originally constructed. Many of the oldest, weatherworn figures are oddly disturbing if viewed in close detail, and rumors whisper of other things: Of stone faces which writhe in agony when the moon is right and the stars are aligned; of stone figures which can be seen on certain nights, but not on others; of cryptic and indecipherable runes which flow across the surface of the stone and then vanish without trace.

The first – and often most lasting impression – that many have of the Temple, however, are its gargoyles: One stands atop each of the four towers, and two others stand on pedestals to either side of the temple’s twin doors of iron-bound oak.

Those twin doors open onto the temple’s great hall. Unseen by those outside, two other gargoyles – on pedestals mirroring those which stand outside – stand to either side of the altar at the far end of the hall. Directly before the altar a pit gapes in the temple floor, and flames from below – fueled by some unknown source – perpetually light the hall. Archways, beneath a balcony which runs down either side of the hall’s length, lead to other rooms of the temple, which are generally extravagant.

CHARACTER: ARGHRASMAK, THE LIVING GOD

Arghrasmak is the living god of the Temple of the Gargoyle, worshipped by a high priest, seven disciples, twenty adepts, and thirty-eight acolytes (described below). It is said that when the god sleeps, those near him will lose all memory. Three sacrifices upon the altar are necessary to rouse the god, whereupon the tithe is thrown into the pit.

In truth, Arghrasmak is not a god – he is a gargoyle fiend who feeds upon the misery and pain his witless followers inflict for him. He lairs in his pit, and covets the gold and treasure which is given in tribute to him. Upon his right hand he wears a ring of forgetfulness (see sidebar) which he has modified to operate continuously over the area of the Temple upon his command. (The story that the mind-numbing effect is triggered by his sleep is a false lure that fuels the need for new sacrifices.) Occasionally, this effect has been known to slip outside the boundaries of the Temple and effect those nearby. (These reports are frequently dismissed as lingering effects from the Mindwarp.)

Upon his left hand he wears a ring of command (see sidebar), which he uses to control the eight gargoyles of the Temple. Although they appear to be nothing more masterpieces of monstrous sculpture, in truth they are creatures which serve upon his whim.

ARGHRASMAK, THE LIVING GOD (CR 14) – CE Gargantuan Magical Beast (Earth)
DETECTION – darkvision 60 ft., Listen +14, Spot +14; Init +0; Languages Common, Abyssal, Terran[special]
DEFENSES –  AC 19 (+13 natural, -4 size), touch 6, flat-footed 19; hp 280 (16d10+192); DR 15/adamantine; Resist cold 20, fire 20; SR 24
ACTIONS – Spd 45 ft., fly 75 ft. (average); Melee 2 claws +25 (2d6+12) and bite +23 (2d8+12) and gore +23 (2d8+12); Ranged +12; Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.; Base Atk +16; Grapple +40; Atk Options smite good; Combat Feats Cleave, Great Cleave, Power Attack
SQ darkvision 60 ft., freeze
STR 35, DEX 10, CON 34, INT 18, WIS 11, CHA 7
FORT +24, REF +12, WILL +7;
FEATS: Cleave, Great Cleave, Multiattack, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (claw, bite, gore)
SKILLS: Hide +8, Listen +14, Perform +4, Spellcraft +4, Spot +14

Smite Good (Su): Once per day, Aghrasmak can make a normal attack to deal additional damage equal to his HD total (+16) against a good foe.

Freeze (Ex): Arghrasmak can hold himself so still that he appears to be a statue. An observer must succeed at a Spot check (DC 20) to notice that he is really alive.

New Magic Item: Ring of Command

The wearer of this ring may, at any time, designate a creature within sight. The creature must make a Will save (DC 18) or fall under the control of the ring’s wearer (as per a dominate person spell). This control lasts until either the ring’s wearer chooses to release the creature, the ring is removed by the wearer, the ring is destroyed, or the ring and creature come to exist on separate planes.

The wearer of the ring may control no more than eight subjects at any given time with the ring.

Caster Level: 16^th
Prerequisites: Forge Ring, dominate person
Market Price: 256,000 gp

New Magic Item: Ring of Forgetfulness

All enemies within 20 feet of the wearer of this ring are affected as per the spell mind fog. Affected creatures must make a Will save (DC 20) or suffer a –10 penalty to all Wisdom checks and Will saves. Affected creatures suffer the penalty as long as they remain within 20 feet of the ring and for 2d6 rounds thereafter.

Caster Level: 10^th
Prerequisites: Forge Ring, mind fog
Market Price: 100,000 gp

TEMPLE GARGOYLES

GARGOYLE (CR 4) – CE Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Earth)
DETECTION – darkvision 60 ft., Listen +4, Spot +4; Init +2
DEFENSES – AC 16 (+2 Dex, +4 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 14; hp 37 (4d8+19); DR 10/magic
ACTIONS – Spd 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (average); Melee 2 claws +6 (1d4+2) and bite +4 (1d6+1) and gore +4 (1d6+1); Ranged +6; Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk +4; Grapple +6
SQ darkvision 60 ft., freeze
STR 15, DEX 14, CON 18, INT 6, WIS 11, CHA 7
FORT +5, REF +6, WILL +4
FEATS: Multiattack, Toughness
SKILLS: Hide +7*, Listen +4, Spot +4

Freeze (Ex): Observer must succeed on Spot check (DC 20) to notice gargoyle is not a statue.

*Skills: +2 racial bonus on Hide, Listen, and Spot checks. +8 racial bonus on Hide checks when gargoyle concealed as statue.

CHARACTER: LAGHAR

Laghar is the High Priest of the Temple of the Gargoyle. In word and deed he serves his living god with abject faithfulness, collecting the sacrifices necessary to rouse the god – and thus not only grant his priesthood a few hours of clear thought, but also save the world from the slow spread of the god’s “poison of the mind”.

In truth, however, Laghar knows the falseness of his god. By sheer chance one of the sacrificial victims gathered by the acolytes of the temple wore upon his hand a ring of greater mind shielding (see sidebar). Before flinging it into the pit as tithe, Laghar slipped the ring onto his own finger… and gained a rare clarity of thought. Unwittingly, he had become immune to Ahgrasmak’s magical enchantment.

In the time since then, he has slowly and carefully pieced together much of the true story behind his “god”. At the same time, even as he continues his foul rituals, his piety has been replaced with greed and power lust. Laghar has concocted a scheme by which he hopes to wrest control of the Temple from Ahgrasmak and, more importantly, gain the riches contained in the Pit below: He has contacted Athelbrus the sorcerer (The House of Sorcerers, H5) and contracted him to construct seven more rings like his own. These he hopes to give to the Seven Disciples, freeing them as he has been freed. Together, he feels that they should be able to destroy Ahgrasmak.

He is probably right, but, unbeknownst to him, Athelbrus intends to betray him. In fact, the creation of a new ring of greater mind shielding is quite beyond his abilities – and even if he could make them, their cost would be far beyond the value of the treasure to be found in the Pits. Instead, he intends to contract a group of adventurers to sneak into the Temple and loot the Pit of the riches Laghar has told him of – splitting the treasure with them. The open question, however, is whether or not Athelbrus realizes the true strength of the Living God and his minions.

New Magic Item: Ring of Greater Mind Shielding

The wearer of a ring of greater mind shielding is perpetually protected as if they had been the subject of a mind blank spell – rendering them immune from all devices and spells that detect, influence, or read emotions or thoughts. It also protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects. The ring even foils limited wish, miracle, and wish when they are used in such a way as to affect the wearer’s mind or gain information about him.

Caster Level: 16^th
Prerequisites: Forge Ring, mind blank
Market Price: 256,000

THE SEVEN DISCIPLES AND THE PRIESTHOOD

Like Laghar, Ahgrasmak’s Disciples and Priests are, in fact, sorcerers who have been duped into believing that their powers are an unholy gift of their “god”. The Seven Disciples, along with Laghar, are responsible for the leadership of the Temple and performing the Sacrifices of Ahgrasmak. The other priests perform a variety of minor rituals, but spend much of their time inscribing the Prophecies of the Gargoyle.

These prophecies are granted to the priests in continuous visions from their sleeping god. The prophecies seen in these visions are in a language unknown to the priests – who must copy the alien script from their minds with precision. It is believed that one day the god will reveal the language in which the Prophecies are written, and their great mysteries will reveal a path of glory and power. It is also believed that the Prophecies are imperfect and overlapping – and great study is given to those indecipherable passages which, nonetheless, correspond in some degree between the visions of different priests. It is hoped that such study will allow the construction of a perfect version of the Prophecies.

THE ACOLYTES

The Acolytes spend much of their time confined to their small meditation chambers on the third floor. They emerge in pairs to serve as guads, and en masse in times of dire need. More importantly, they are charged with gathering the sacrificial victims for the Temple’s altar.

LOCATION: THE PITS BENEATH THE TEMPLE

Ahgrasmak: Here the living god crouches upon a block of blood-stained ivory.

The Pyre of the Dead: This powerful, unholy relic (see below) burns up through the floor of the Temple’s great hall.

The Bone Pits: When first viewed, the bone pits appear to be nothing more than a jumbled conglomeration of random bones. Upon Ahgrasmak’s command, however, the bones shift and move. Skeletal, humanoid figures – glowing a deep and malevolent purplish blue – rise from the pits, forming a veritable legion of unholy skeletons (see sidebar) within 1d4+1 rounds.

Treasure: Over 125,000 gp in gems, jewelry, and coins are piled here. In addition there are 3d6 minor magical items, 2d4 medium magic items, and 1d4 major magic items mixed in with the other treasure.

New Magic Item: Pyre of the Dead

The pyre of the dead is, in fact, a powerful item of unholy magic – capable of transforming bodies that are fed into it into unholy skeletons (see below). For every three bodies which are cast into it, the pyre creates one unholy skeleton: Feeding upon the souls and substance of two of the bodies to fuel the unholy enchantments placed upon the third.

Control of the unholy skeletons created by the pyre rests with whatever creature is currently attuned to the pyre. (Obviously the pyre in the Temple of the Gargoyle is attuned to Ahgrasmak.) Up to 128 unholy skeletons can be controlled in this manner at any one time, and this number does not affect the normal control limits of the creature (if any). The pyre will continue creating unholy skeletons beyond this 128 limit, but unless the creature has some other way to control the skeletons, these additional skeletons will be uncontrolled.

Caster Level: 16^th Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, animate dead, control undead (x4), unholy aura Market Price: 740,000 gp

UNHOLY SKELETONS

The pits have become home to 100 unholy skeletons, created by the pyre of the dead from the sacrifices thrown down from above. There would, in fact, be more of these skeletons – but from time to time Ahgrasmak looses portions of his horde into the city above to wreak whatever terror and chaos they can accomplish.

UNHOLY SKELETONS (CR 2) – NE Large Undead
DETECTION – Listen +0, Spot +0; Init +5
DEFENSES – AC 17 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +3 natural, +4 deflection), touch 14, flat-footed 12; hp 24 (2d12); DR 5/bludgeoning; Immune cold, undead immunities (ability damage/drain, critical hits, death effects, disease, energy drain, fatigue, mind-affecting, nonlethal damage, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning, any effect requiring Fort save); Resist spell 20 (vs. good spells and spells cast by good creatures)
ACTIONS – Spd 40 ft.; Melee 2 claws +2 (1d6+2); Ranged +2; Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.; Base Atk +1; Grapple +5
SQ turn resistance +4, spell resistance 20 (vs. good spells and spells cast by good creatures)
STR 14, DEX 12, CON -, INT -, WIS 10, CHA 11
FORT +4, REF +5, WILL +8
FEATS: Improved Initiative
SKILLS: –

This material is covered under the Open Game License.

Go to Part 1

LOCATION: THE MINDWARP ALEHOUSE

The Mindwarp Alehouse is kaleidoscopically eclectic: The bar is made of a deep crimson marble. Some of the tables are heavy affairs of oak, while others are rickety assemblages of pine (and at least one is actually made of balsa wood). The walls are plain wood, but inset with apparently random niches – some of which are concealed behind panels. A rope of teeth longer than a man’s hands hangs decoratively along one wall, and animal heads are mounted on another. In the corner a small platform serves as a stage for a belly-dancer and her musical accompaniment.

Those who listen to the tales of Klevator Bur, the owner, would lead you to believe that there is a legend behind every item in the bar. Those with a firmer grasp on reality will note that Bur must have spent fabulously little on his mismatched furnishings and knick-knack decorations.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere of the Mindwarp Alehouse is nothing if not distinct. And, to many, it’s highly appealing. This is largely due to the fact that the only source of illumination in the common room is a mammoth fireplace of black marble, and this Bur keeps stocked with flammable, alchemical bricks, which cause the fireplace to burn in an exotic rainbow of colors: Blues, reds, yellows, purples, oranges, and a plethora of colors in-between regularly wash over the shadowy interior of the Mindwarp.

The Mindwarp’s other claim to fame is Bur’s ale. The brew itself is a cheap swill, but Bur mixes it with exotic drugs and herbs – lending his various ales both a unique flavor and a wide variety of debilitating (and enjoyable) effects. Combined with the lightshow created by the fireplace, the effect can be quite powerful.

CHARACTER: KLEVATOR BUR

Klevator Bur loves the role of the barkeep, a part for which it seems he was born: He is a man of girth and a grin, with expansive gestures which emphasize his every word. Those who frequent the Mindwarp will tell you that he can smoothly fill three mugs with ale at once, and have each movement punctuate whatever tale he may be telling at the time.

Indeed, Bur is infamous for his tall tales, which he tells at every opportunity (see sidebars for some examples). In fact, only one of the many tales he tells is true: The Legend of the Wishing Fountain (see sidebar).

He is endeared to his patrons, and is harsh to no man… save those who harm his person, his custom, or his beloved bar.

CHARACTER: DELLIRA LOVELOCKS

Dellira is the Mindwarp’s belly dancer: If you haven’t come for Klevator’s stories or the mind-numbing ale, then you’ve come to see Dellira dance.

Dellira is visually stunning: Deep blue eyes, an immaculate face, and soft, blond hair top a body of the type that men have been known to die for. No one is really sure how Bur convinced a girl like this to dance for him – which has led to a number of lewd theories – but the truth is that Bur took her in and protected her from those who were trying to take advantage of her on the streets. Dellira looks upon Bur as a savior and a father, and Bur looks on her as a daughter.

Which is not to say that Dellira has not had her share of flings with the Mindwarp’s patrons – but all of those (invariably brief) relationships have come from her initiative. Those who push in the other direction are rebuffed; and those who persist will feel Bur’s anger.

Price List: Ale

Story: Legend of the Wishing Founts

It is said that between the Upper and the Lower Catacombs of the hollow peak of Nimbus Tor, there lie the great Paragon Caverns. The dark recesses of those mammoth caves conceal many secrets, and among them are the Wishing Founts.

These miraculous, perpetual geysers spout water both cold and pure – at times, it is said, as high as a hundred feet into the nighted cavern. Powered by some unknown magic, it is said that those who sacrifice items of true worth to the giver will be granted a wish.

Story: Rivers of Fire

As Bur tells the tale, two years ago a group of wandering adventurers who had often frequented the Mindwarp stumbled through his back doors – battered and bleeding – scant moments after he had locked the front. He offered them solstice, and as they mended their wounds they told a harrowing tale of a journey to the dungeons beneath the Cryptic Citadel. They told Bur that there were passages in that dark labyrinth that led even further into the earth, and that when they followed these they left all traces of the civilized world behind.

The greater part of this story changes with every telling. There, in the depths beneath the Cryptic Citadel, Bur has weaved tales both sublime and comical: Tribes of fungoid barbarians stalk his adventurers one night, while on others they wander through great works of ancient steel and magic. In another telling it is albino halflings who play crude tricks on them. In yet another they travel through strange blue gates to the corners of the world, or wander lost in those caverns until thirst and hunger drive them to near madness.

Oddly, however, two details in Bur’s story never waver: First, every telling has the adventurers leaving the Mindwarp near dawn to scale the walls and escape the city before some unnamed wrath of the Overlord. Second, as they go the adventurers drop dark hints of some deeper evil… and of “rivers of fire” which course and churn through those stygian depths beneath the city.

Story: The Gremlins of the Tower

A number of rumors and stories have accumulated around the abandoned tower in the southwest corner of the city wall (L8), but none are quite so ingenious or varied as Bur’s tales of the Gremlins of the Tower. These mischievous creatures, who make their home in the walls of the tower, play a variety of tricks and pranks on both those who venture in and near their home. Upon occasion, as Bur’s tales would have it, they have even been known to venture far afield from its walls to wreak havoc across the City State.

Rumor: Whitecloak the Druid

A few of the local mercenaries who frequent the Mindwarp on the sojourns through the City State have heard that a mysterious druid – known only as Whitecloak – is hiring men-at-arms for a two week contract at the Red Axe Inn.

Go to Part 3: Temple of the Gargoyle

I just wrapped up my current thoughts on using cities in RPGs, so let’s take a moment and go back in time by a decade or so. In May 2002, I sent Bob Bledsaw a query letter for writing an updated version of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. He sent me a polite, but somewhat vague, rejection. The reason for the vagueness became apparent a couple of months later when Necromancer Games announced their license to do exactly that thing. So I repackaged my proposal and shipped it over to Necromancer Games. I knew that was a longshot and wasn’t surprised when I got another polite rejection from Clark Peterson because they had their own plans for how to approach the material and a team already in place. I then filed it in a digital bin.

My goal was to be very faithful to the original, very minimalist key. But I also wanted to expand the material to make it more detailed and more useful. In order to demonstrate the approach I wanted to take, I adapted the entirety of Temple Street. (I would have supplied stat blocks for all the characters.) Perhaps you’ll find it of interest.

TEMPLE STREET

The broad cobbles of Temple Street were first laid down roughly five centuries ago as part of the broad, sweeping stone plaza which was set around the newly constructed Temple of the Flesh. Founded by a sect of Atlani cult worshippers, the Temple of the Flesh had been driven from their original site near the Square of the Gods by religious persecution. At the time the future site of Temple Street was an abandoned dirt track laying between the Wall and the South Road (which was, at the time, the southernmost boundary of the City State).

Over the course of the next three hundred years the Temple of the Flesh slowly waned, and as they did they were forced to give up more and more of their lands. Finally the Temple of the Flesh died out entirely, and the remnants of their once mighty stone plaza were refurnished into the modern Temple Street.

Despite the fact that it was abandoned, the former temple continued to dominate Temple Street. Various businesses and religions attempted to use the site, but mishaps and strange deaths seemed to plague anyone who came into possession of the property. A legend of a curse sprang up, and the property became totally dormant.

Then, roughly fifty years ago, it became apparent that the Temple had become occupied once again. Strange noises were heard emanating from the building, and shadowy figures were seen coming and going during the dark hours of the night. It is rumored that, although many brave souls entered the Temple to investigate, none ever returned.

Three years after this began, the Temple suddenly fell silent. Then, a few weeks later, a screed appeared on the Temple doors. Those who dared approach to read the parchment discovered that the long-deserted building had finally been claimed… by the Temple of the Gargoyle.

LOCATION: THE BLOODY FOAM

The Bloody Foam lies in the shadow of both the Temple and the Wall, drawing its primary custom from the militiamen of the 5^th Company (whose barracks lie just up the street) and the heartier variety of wanderers passing through the City State – the type of wanderers who look for their drinking holes in the backwaters of whatever community they happen to be passing through. The Foam is owned and operated by Hangharid Goldenhand, a former adventurer himself.

The Foam’s dark interior is decorated in black oak, and typically lit by only a handful of murky lanterns and the bright flames which are perpetually kept stoked in the Foam’s massive fireplace. The resulting atmosphere is often foreboding to the newcomer, but welcoming to the regulars.

Upstairs, in addition to the quarters kept by Hangharid and his barkeep, are a number of rooms which are rented out (usually to one adventuring party or another). A back room is devoted to various games of chance.

CHARACTER: HANGHARID GOLDENHAND

Hangharid was once a hired fighter who travelled up and down the coast in the service of many different masters. Those days came to an end, however, when he lost his right hand (stories of how this happened, exactly, vary greatly – see sidebar text). Taking the small stash of wealth he had accumulated over the years, Hangharid bought a golden facsimile to replace his missing appendage, and spent the rest on the Bloody Foam.

The Foam’s previous owner had allowed the establishment to decay precipitously, but Hangharid performed a serious renovation, and when the Bloody Foam opened again he offered free drinks for a week to the militiamen of the 5^th Company (whose barracks are only a block away, on Old South Road). By the time that week came to an end, Hangharid had earned himself a core of loyal customers who have come back, year after year.

Since opening the Bloody Foam, Hangharid has established himself as something of a community leader, and he seems to have a wide-ranging set of connections throughout the City State and beyond. Recently, regular patrons at the Foam have noticed that Hangharid has been visited regularly by strangers wearing finely embroidered green cloaks.

CHARACTER: COCKROACH BENGURD

Bengurd is the barkeep at the Bloody Foam. Rumor has it that he was once Hangharid’s torchbearer. Years later, when Hangharid heard that he had fallen down on his luck, he tracked him down and offered him a job. Bengurd gratefully accepted. Since then, Cockroach (apparently a nickname – but the only given name anyone seems to know him by) has become a fixture of the Bloody Foam.

CHARACTER: SEYLASHAHL

Seylashahl has been working at the Bloody Foam for a little over a year, and has quickly become the favorite barmaid of all the regulars – largely on the back of the amazing, and suggestively bawdy, juggling acts she works into her daily routines. Although she has strangely beautiful and alien features, no one is sure where she comes from.

Rumor: The Golden Hand

Hangharid never speaks of how he lost his hand, and this cavernous silence has been filled by a wide variety of tales, ranging from the mundane to the exotic. Some speak of a bet with a dark god which went awry; of torture at the hands of the Purple Claw; of strange traps buried beneath the surface of the earth. A few claim that the hand was lost in a drunken brawl. At the moment, however, the most popular tale tells of an audience with the Overlord and a secret mission to the catacombs beneath the city.

Perhaps the strangest rumors of all, though, are those that suggest that the hand itself has mystical powers – or is, in fact, a sentient creature in its own right. Although none claim to have ever seen any evidence of this, there are many who cast long and questioning stares at Hangharid’s golden fingers.

Rumor: Escape!

A group of militiamen who have just come off duty claim that a sabretooth tiger which escaped from the Overlord’s Zoo may be in the area. They warn that it is treason to harm a Zoo animal, but there may be a reward for anyone who can return the creature unharmed…

LOCATION: SEITERGUD’S SWORDS

Seitergud’s Swords is a small place, pretending to an opulence it does not possess: Pine has been painted to look like oak; faux-blue marble is inlaid upon the countertops. The proportions of the entire design are those of the dwarves – and although this makes the store somewhat uncomfortable to other customers, Seitergud seems to consider this a feature of sorts.

The store has earned a reputation within the underworld of the City State: Seitergud asks few questions, and his customers fewer.

CHARACTER: STEN SEITERGUD

Sten Seitergud was once a Royal Craftsman, in the service of Nordre Ironhelm, King of Thunderhold. Although a minor member of the royal guild, Seitergud labored faithfully for the better part of a century. Eighty years ago, however, he found himself on the wrong end of a political falling out within the royal court and was forced to flee for his life. He came to the City State, and quietly set up his own small business just within the city walls.

DWARVEN CRAFTSMEN

Over the years, Seitergud – still bitter over his own status as an outcast from his homeland – has served as a conduit for dwarves seeking to escape Thunderhold. Many of these political refugees only stay a few weeks before moving on, but some of those who have passed through his doors stay. At the moment four of his former kinsmen – Talen Mathalik, Yulthorn Wik, Veseb Dogin, and Baidan Suthok – serve as junior craftsmen in his shop.

Price List: Swords

Price List: Scabbards

Go to Part 2: Mindwarp Alehouse

End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse is the first in a series of RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games, each featuring a different apocalyptic scenario: Zombies, Gods, Alien Invasion, Robot Revolt.

The primary conceit of End of the World is that you’re playing as yourself. The game’s default modus operandi is that you and your friends are sitting down to play an RPG when the apocalypse starts. At that point reality kind of bifurcates: The version of you playing the game stays at the table while the version of you in the game presumably leaves the table to go deal with the apocalypse.

If you’re an experienced gamer, the odds are pretty high that this concept immediately fills you with skepticism: There have been quite a few games that have tried the “play as yourself!” thing. It mostly doesn’t work very well, with the primary problem being people either painting themselves as paragons of virtue, becoming insulted when their fellow players dispute their self-assessments, or both.

End of the World, however, has a very clever method of steering around these problems.

Characters in the game are defined around three categories: Physical, Mental, and Social. Each category has two associated characteristics (Dexterity and Vitality in the Physical category, for example), features (either positive or negative) that affect task resolution, a stress track, and associated traumas.

Character creation basically consists of two steps: First, you get a pool of 16 points that you can use to model yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 in each of the six characteristics.

Second, the rest of the group secretly votes on each of your character’s categories: They can either agree with your assessment, vote that one of the characteristics should be higher, or vote that one of the characteristics should be lower.

The combination of the point buy system (which makes it clear that you’re just modeling a version of yourself, not trying to objectively measure some sort of fundamental truth) and the secret vote (which allows for anonymous tweaking while still giving you final control over exactly which characteristic in the category is adjusted) go a long way towards mitigating the common problems of playing yourself. But the clever twist is that the outcome of the vote also impacts your character’s positive and negative features: If the group decides one of your characteristics should be higher, then you gain a negative feature in that category. If they decide one of your characteristics should be lower, then you gain a positive feature in that category. This incentivizes you to be honest in your self-assessment and also rewards you if the group passes the harsh verdict that you’ve over-estimated your abilities. (It also lets you play the system a bit by, say, deliberately ranking yourself higher than you think you deserve in a category: Either you get a nice ego boost when people agree with you or you get the positive feature you were fishing for.)

The other nice thing about this system is that you can easily use it to create a character other than yourself. So the game pushes you in an interesting direction, but is flexible enough to really let you do whatever you want to with it.

Character creation is easily the game’s best feature.

SYSTEM

Task resolution in End of the World revolves around pools of positive and negative dice. (All the dice are six-sided.) You start with one positive die and you add additional dice for positive features, equipment, assistance, and situational benefits. Then you add negative dice based on the difficulty of the task, your negative features, the traumas you’re currently suffering from, and any situational hindrances.

Then you roll the pool. Each negative die result cancels out a matching positive die result. If you have any surviving positive dice that are equal to or less than the characteristic being tested, you succeed at the task. If you have any surviving negative dice, however, they inflict stress in the matching category.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to run away from a horde of zombies. You have Dexterity 3 and the positive feature of long-distance runner. You also have a twisted ankle from when you jumped out of a hayloft yesterday (that’s a trauma). The GM rules that the number of zombies involved in the pursuit makes escape more difficult, so he adds a negative die to the test. That gives you a pool of two positive dice (one base and one for long-distance runner) and two negative dice (one for your twisted ankle and one from the situation).

Let’s say you roll 3 and 2 on your positive dice. You also roll 5 and 2 on your negative dice. The negative 2 cancels out your positive 2, but you still have a positive 3 (which is equal to your Dexterity score) so you succeed. Because the negative 5 also survived, however, you suffer a point of stress even though you succeeded.

There are a couple of wrinkles to this: If you sustain a certain amount of stress, you suffer a trauma. The more stress you’re suffering from, on the other hand, the more difficult it is to sustain additional stress (as you become hardened to your circumstances). In combat, weapons will grant you additional dice and/or modify the amount of stress you inflict on a successful attack. Suffer enough stress in any category and you are either dead, insane, or catatonic.

But that’s basically it. Ultimately, this system is vapor-thin. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly robust and it doesn’t really have anything unique to say. (It does have a weak focus on the concept of stress and trauma, but it’s less of a spotlight and more of a 20-watt bulb.)

The couple of places where it does occasionally try to offer more than the most basic support are, unfortunately, kind of laughable. For example, there’s a table of “common gear” which consists of thirteen items featuring descriptions like, “Water Bottle: Storing and transporting water.” Thank god they included that table; I never could have figured out what a water bottle might be used for without it.

(I’m not cherry-picking there, either. They’re all like that. “Flashlight: Spotting things in the dark.”)

The system will get the job done, but it’s not really a selling point for the game. Which means, at the end of the day, that End of the World is going to live or die on its scenarios.

SCENARIOS

Unfortunately, the scenarios are the biggest disappointment in the game.

End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse includes five different versions of the zombie apocalypse: In one version the zombies are the result of a meteor. In another they’re the result of disease. In another they’re purely supernatural. And so forth. The game covers the gamut of possibilities.

Elsewhere in the book, the designers recognize (although not in quite so many words) that any apocalyptic tale basically breaks down into five parts:

• Discovery that the world is coming to an end.
• Acquiring weapons and the means to defend yourself from immediate threats.
• Gather food and medicine and the other supplies necessary for mid-term survival.
• Establish a safe house to provide stability and defense for long-term survival.
• Find long-term safety by figuring out what permanent survival looks like in the new world order.

Where the game truly flirts with genius is in realizing that the specific manifestation of this five act structure depends heavily on the circumstances the players find themselves in and the decisions that they choose to make. So rather than trying to pre-bake a particular package of events, the scenarios in End of the World feature flexible, generic locations.

For example, the first scenario includes a Farm. It describes some of the useful features of the Farm and how those features are likely to be tied into the five part structure of apocalyptic survival (although once again, unfortunately, not in so many words or with so clear an understanding). It lists a half dozen or so events and encounters that could occur on the Farm.

What makes this potentially brilliant is that the GM can take this richly developed generic material and instantly contextualize it in response to the players. If one of the players says, “We need to get out of the city! My Aunt Patty has a farm north of the cities.” Then the GM can flip to the Farm and immediately figure out what happens there. If the players are later driving cross-country when their car breaks down and the GM says, “You can see a little farmhouse off on the horizon.” Alternatively, if the players decided to go to the Mall to gather supplies, then the GM can readily reach for a different location while contextualizing it to whatever local mall the players are familiar with.

I say this is potentially brilliant, however, because End of the World face-plants pretty hard on the actual execution.

The first problem is that it’s not clear that the designers fully understand the potential of the structure they’ve adopted. This leads to a lot of the material shying away from strong choices and instead coming across as mushy and less useful than it could be.

The bigger problem, however, is that there simply isn’t enough material. The first scenario, for example, contains just six locations (and one of them isn’t actually a location): Farm, Horde of Ghoul Rats, House, Mall, Hospital, and Sewers.

What End of the World needed was for each scenario to be fully developed so that, no matter where your players decide to head in your local community or surrounding countryside, you’d be able to flip open the book and find material for it. Instead, the material presented is so thin on the ground that I’m not really sure what the point of it is.

Where the approach becomes particularly ridiculous are the post-apocalyptic scenarios. End of the World also features five scenarios describing what the world is like after the apocalypse (with each of these being paired to one of the apocalypses). But these post-apocalypse scenarios only include three of the generic locations.

You can kinda get away with pointlessly describing six locations in the modern world because, well, it’s the modern world: We presumably already know our own communities. But these post-apocalyptic settings completely transform reality as we know it and then the designers pretend that giving you three unconnected locations qualifies as meaningful guidance for running a scenario there.

CONCLUSION

End of the World features a character creation system with a couple of clever ideas. It features a rule system that gets the job done.

But where it falls apart are the scenarios: In the decision to cover five apocalypses and five post-apocalypses (or possibly in the decision to limit the book to 144 pages), it’s really clear that End of the World has simply spread itself too thin to do any of its scenarios justice.

What makes this bitterly disappointing is that if any one of these scenarios had gotten the attention and the depth of support that it deserved, it would have almost certainly pushed End of the World into being a brilliant game.

Instead, it’s just kind of pointless.

Because the scenarios aren’t developed, they all boil down to, “There are zombies and they wreck shit.” If you’ve ever watched a single zombie movie, you’re not going to gain a single piece of useful information from this book. Meanwhile, the rule system is so simplistic that it, too, isn’t really adding anything to the experience.

What you have, basically, is a book that doesn’t actually do anything. There’s no value being added. Once you’ve read the title, you basically have everything the game is going to offer you.

Skip it.

Style: 4
Substance: 2

Author: Andrew Fischer
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Cost: $39.95
Page Count: 144
ISBN: 978-1-63344-055-5

Tagline: The best character sheets done for any game, ever. Period.

WHAT IS THIS?

This is a review of three associated products for Guardians of Order’s Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game (which I’ve reviewed elsewhere): The Knight Character Diary, the Dark Warrior Character Diary, and Sailor Scout Character Diary.

Essentially these are character sheets from a company that dreams really big (each 56 page pamphlet is for use with a single character). Each diary contains a 14-page character sheet, forty diary pages, a title page which you can personalize, and a dozen or so pictures (appropriate for each type of character) which you can use for your character portrait.

HOW GOOD IS IT?

Very, very good – surprisingly enough.

Personally, I don’t buy character sheets. The last time I bought a packet of character sheets was back in 6th grade, when I was an avid AD&D player and those of us in the group who could afford to splurge on store-bought character sheets (instead of writing it out on notebook paper) became possessed of a certain prestige.

In point of fact, I didn’t buy these – they came in the form of reviewer comp copies from GoO. But if I was playing in a Sailor Moon campaign I’d be sorely tempted to break my habit now that I’ve seen these.

For starters, the 14-page character sheet is absolutely wonderful. Often when you see extended character sheets like this all that’s really contained on them are lots of lines which are supposedly dedicated to “character history”. There are certain elements of that here (a page dedicated to it, but laid out rather nicely in segmented portions of your history – “Silver Millenium” and “Earth Childhood” in the Sailor Scout diary, for example), but by-and-large the extended sheet consists largely of closely targeted questions meant not only to spur your creativity, but also to facilitate ease of reference.

What this reminds me most of is another memory from my avid AD&D days (it’s nostalgia time). Back then I participated heavily on the FidoNet AD&D echo (like a Usenet newsgroup, but propagated at a much slower speed between individual BBS message boards). While there I happened to pick up something called the “Personal Code”, which was designed by a wonderful young woman named Alesia Chamness. It was a replacement for AD&D’s alignment system which encouraged the individual player to develop his character through a series of targeted questions. It was useful for defining your character in writing, for spurring creativity, and for developing your existing ideas. Really great stuff, and highly reminiscent of what you’re getting in this diaries.

The diary itself is done really nicely. The left-hand pages are plain white with a border which is evocative of the character type in question (a rose is in each corner of the border in the Knight Character Diary, for example). The facing pages, on the right side, takes advantage of the rich wealth of artwork which is available to GoO for this game line (in the form of animation stills) – the entire page is taken up by a grey-muted image (again, appropriate to the character type). Because they’re muted images you can easily write over these, and they end up providing a fantastic feel to the entire product. You’re not just buying a book of blank pages, you’re buying something that really ends up enhancing the recording of your character’s life and exploits.

Finally, the stock pictures at the end (which are designed to be xeroxed, cut out, colored, and pasted onto the title page which leads the book) are useful for the artistically-disinclined.

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?

Not much. I’d probably drop the price down to $4.95, rather than $5.95. Crossing the $5 barrier to $6 makes these books seem just a little too pricey to me. On the other hand, I’m sure that GoO has priced these where they have because that’s where they can make a profit.

As for the actual content of the pieces, the only I’d change – or rather, expand – are the stock photos. I feel rather limited by the fact that the only picture they have are of the characters from the animated series itself. It’s really bad in the Knight Character Diary, because all you’re basically getting are a variety of pictures of Tuxedo Mask. Again, though, I don’t see any way for GoO to have done anything differently – they’re constrained by the artwork which is available to them.

IS IT WORTH IT?

If you’re the type who buys character sheets as a matter of course, then I would say definitely yes. The price may seem a little steep at first – but, trust me, you’re getting your money’s worth.

If you don’t typically buy character sheets, then there’s a goodly chance you aren’t going to break the habit with these. On the other hand, I’d suggest taking a peek at them next time you’re in the store. They just might surprise you.

Style: 5
Substance: 4

Author: Karen McLarney
Company/Publisher: Guardians of Order
Cost: $5.95
Page Count: 56
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 2000/03/12

What I said about not buying character sheets was nothing but truth: When I first started roleplaying, I photocopied the sample sheet off the back of the BECMI basic manual (which produced the double-sided 8.5 x 11 character sheet 2-up on a single sheet) and got so used to using it that when I bought a pack of the official sheets they seemed weird to me. I don’t think I’ve ever actually paid for an official character sheet ever again.

Of course, in the digital era that doesn’t mean as much as it used to: Although I don’t buy them, I have used a variety of official sheets over the years. And a really great character sheet — like the Sailor Moon Character Diaries — really can transform a game. Most recently, the character sheets for Numenera and The Strange are like that: The former through sheer beauty and utility; the latter through the excessively clever method it uses for handling characters shifting between alternate realities.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.