If you like games with a dark tone set in a arabian theme world then this is for you. The adventure takes place in a single city. This city could easily be used in any other fantasy game. The city map is clear and easy to use and includes several useful locations. The book gives you enough information to use the city beyond the adventure. The artwork stands out from a lot of typical fantasy games.
The adventure is a standard the pcs are falsely accussed of committing a crime and must clear their names. What makes this adventure stand out is the city and and how the arabian setting makes it feel so different from most other fantasy games. It would be worth buying this just for the artwork and the city.

This is a great book and the only reasons I'm not giving it five stars are: (i) the fact that it could have used more maps; and (ii) the fact that it ignores the Naacal people, their enslavement of the Lemurians, and them being the ancestors of the Stygians: For those of you guys that aren't really into the setting, the Naacal were a people inhabiting the east of the Thurian continente during and after the last cataclysm. After the destruction of Lemuria its survivors were enslaved by the Naacal, and then they migrated east. Hyrkanians are the descendants of the Lemurians. Now, the Naacal also migrated, and after intermigling with some (human or inhuman) Stygian race they became the current Stygians. Other sourcebooks deal with this history.
Wanderer not only states that part of the Lemurians became the Stygians, but fails to identify the Naacal as those who enslaved the Lemurians. Instead the book states the Lemurians were enslaved by an "inhuman culture" (check p. 37 for both references). This contradiction reveals an unfortunate lack of consistency.

This is an extremely useful and well bookmarked source book for not only the world of Conan, but also for any frontier fantasy game. About half the book is more Conan specific (Even giving his stats during the time he spend wandering the Frontier kingdoms) but a good deal of it can be used in any game as it includes a host of useful random tables for generating entire borderland kingdoms and plot hooks to go with them. The information specific to the game includes information on the Frontier Kingdoms and the prominent NPCs that inhabit them complete with a special section on the Picts. As Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories were my first introduction to his writings, the Picts always had a special place in my heart so I was especially excitied to see them included in such detail.

Supernatural crews in a European world of darkness - a Mephisto review

Besides the world, as most people know it, there is a hidden world. In this world, magic and monsters exist. While vampires, ghosts, and fairy creatures are part of the hidden world, there are also the Liminals, who sit on the border between both worlds. They do not belong to the hidden world, but they are also not completely human or know too much. They are magicians, werewolves without packs, dhampirs, changelings, or simply people who have come into contact with the hidden world and now know the truth. And as liminals, they stand between the worlds.

In the roleplaying game Liminal, the players take on the role of the same name at the border between the normal world and its mystical side. Liminal assumes that the players form a so-called crew, which solves cases in the world of the supernatural. Because of their position at the interface between the two worlds, Liminals can act as mediators. Beyond that, the liminals are a very mixed bunch. There are, for example, the academic magicians of the Council of Merlin, who form a very exclusive circle and who distinguish themselves from the "alley magicians." Then again, there are changelings who grew up as fairy creatures in the world of humans or as humans in the world of fairies. Dhampirs are vampires who have not yet completely lost control and have been able to preserve their human side. Werewolves without a pack join the Liminals. Even ordinary people belong to them—investigators or scholars who have learned about the hidden world. There are people who are in the service of one of the organizations of the hidden world or who, like the Order of St. Bede or the policemen of the P Division, face its dangers. The character concepts can be very varied, but the central idea is that these individual persons can only exist as a team, as a crew, on the edge of the hidden world, and so cooperation is possible and necessary.

The rules of Liminal is very simple: you roll two d6s and add the skill value and possible bonuses to this result. This way, you have to beat a minimum difficulty. If you exceed it by more than five points, you have achieved a critical success. If the roll fails, it is possible that the test simply failed or leads to unpleasant "side effects": the character takes damage or simply takes much longer. Players choose a drive and a focus for their characters, which indicates where their specialty lies. Skills and traits also define the characters. The traits are a mixture of supernatural powers and other benefits. For supernatural beings, there may also be limitations, which give them the chance to acquire additional traits. Apart from a good range of skills, the differentiation lies in the traits. These also serve to determine whether a character might be a werewolf or a mage. Because traits (and limitations) can be chosen individually, not every werewolf or mage is the same and can be adjusted regarding their supernatural characteristics. In addition, there are traits that simply make a character better in certain areas, so that he/she has an artifact or is very well-read, for example. Magic is divided into different schools, which have to be learned separately and teach magic skills in a certain area. In addition, traits acquired in addition to these magic schools can expand the possibilities here.

While the rule system is simple, and the traits allow you to create very individual characters, much of the book's focus is on the background. Liminal offers a world with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mages, fairy creatures, and much more. Even though this range reminds of the World of Darkness, Liminal conveys the game world with a completely different flair. The number of supernatural beings is much more limited, and their power, although substantial, does not result in global conspiracies. The game, which presents England as the default setting, therefore feels less directly "American" and more subtly "European." Even if there is some kind of inquisition with the Order of St. Bede, it does not have the power of a 2nd Inquisition in Vampire. The vampires also operate as local nests rather than as global sects. The rulebook also provides two example cases, and several cases are available as extensions. The unique thing is that these cases are described very efficiently so that the average adventure has only ten pages.

From my point of view, Liminal is a fascinating done roleplaying game. The background of the hidden world may remind superficially of the World of Darkness, but offers its own flair and is much more subtle. Due to the freer character creation system, the player characters can be designed individually, so that even the abilities of a werewolf in the player's group can differ fundamentally from those of other werewolves. The background offers many chances to integrate the characters into the game, because even if the organizations are less powerful and comprehensive, the Council of Merlin or the werewolves of the Jaeger family, for example, offer clear points of contact with their ideas. The system of rules is simple and reminds a bit of Powered by the Apocalypse. The concept of short and compact adventures is, in my opinion, an excellent approach, which offers gamemasters a quick start and possibilities for individual modifications. It should not remain unmentioned that Liminal was illustrated very atmospherically and that the photos, often transformed into drawings, leave a very fitting impression. Liminal successfully combines a simple and fast game with a wide range of possible characters and a coherent and atmospheric - and very European - background to a recommendable roleplaying game.

(Björn Lippold)

Fighting the Great Old Ones in a secret war - a Mephisto review

The horror of the Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu mythos is timeless, and various roleplaying games have covered the fight against this horror from the Stone Age to the distant future. Achtung! Cthulhu takes the plot from the primary setting of the '20s and '30s further into World War II.

Achtung! Cthulhu focuses on the secret war, in which the horrors of the mythos play a role on the battlefields. The world is not only threatened by the horrors of war. The player characters are recruited by the mysterious secret Section M, which fights for the Allies against cthulhoid dangers and occult secret societies like the Black Sun. As a result, the characters usually have a military background (although civilians are also playable) and are sent on dangerous missions by Section M.

The setting is much more action-oriented, and, in contrast to the classic Cthulhu, investigative work has less importance. While the rules initially focus on "smaller" creatures of the mythos, the player characters are allowed to save the world at times in the published campaigns.

Achtung! Cthulhu follows the classic tradition and is divided into two books: The Investigator's Guide is aimed at players and describes character creation. Apart from a clear chronological outline, the setting is presented from a military point of view, but also from the perspective of "normal" life.

In the new edition, the rules are adapted to Cthulhu in the 7th edition. All background texts and other information are unchanged from the previous version. The rules to play the setting with Savage Worlds rules are removed, so the books focus on one rules system. Accordingly, redundant information from the Cthulhu core rulebooks like the regular spells or books of the mythos is now missing. Therefore new material like spells or enemies - including experiments of the Nazis with mythos powers - is now provided.

Achtung! Cthulhu is a significantly different setting from the classic Cthulhu because here, the action is more important than library research. Fights are more frequent. Because of the background with Section M, this setting offers a clear structure for campaigns. With the military context, the players get much more robust and better-equipped characters. Personally, for me, the approach of combining the real horrors of war with the fictional horrors of mythos does not always feel right, and, e.g., the Black Sun as a mixture of Nazis and cultists seems a bit one-dimensional. Whether you need game statistics for tanks to use them against the horrors of the mythos is also questionable, in my opinion. On the other hand, the approach that the characters are in the service of a secret organization and have to pass dangerous missions as agents provides a lot of potentials. World War II is a background where major mythos outbreaks are possible, which are overlooked in the turmoil of war. In the end, the background is a matter of personal taste or what you make of it. Based on the ideas and the extensive material, Achtung! Cthulhu definitely offers a challenging and exciting setting for the fight against the Great Old Ones.

(Björn Lippold)

Mythos secrets to use against Section M agents - a Mephisto review

The horror of the Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu mythos is timeless, and various roleplaying games have covered the fight against this horror from the Stone Age to the distant future. Achtung! Cthulhu takes the plot from the primary setting of the '20s and '30s further into World War II.

Achtung! Cthulhu focuses on the secret war, in which the horrors of the mythos play a role on the battlefields. The world is not only threatened by the horrors of war. The player characters are recruited by the mysterious secret Section M, which fights for the Allies against cthulhoid dangers and occult secret societies like the Black Sun. As a result, the characters usually have a military background (although civilians are also playable) and are sent on dangerous missions by Section M.

The setting is much more action-oriented, and, in contrast to the classic Cthulhu, investigative work has less importance. While the rules initially focus on "smaller" creatures of the mythos, the player characters are allowed to save the world at times in the published campaigns.

Achtung! Cthulhu follows the classic tradition and is divided into two books: All information about the Cthulhu mythos is contained in the Keeper's Guide for the game master. Here enemies, conspiracies, spells, monsters, and the like are included.

In the new edition, the rules are adapted to Cthulhu in the 7th edition. All background texts and other information are unchanged from the previous version. The rules to play the setting with Savage Worlds rules are removed, so the books focus on one rules system. Accordingly, redundant information from the Cthulhu core rulebooks like the regular spells or books of the mythos is now missing. Therefore new material like spells or enemies - including experiments of the Nazis with mythos powers - is now provided.

Achtung! Cthulhu is a significantly different setting from the classic Cthulhu because here, the action is more important than library research. Fights are more frequent. Because of the background with Section M, this setting offers a clear structure for campaigns. With the military context, the players get much more robust and better-equipped characters. Personally, for me, the approach of combining the real horrors of war with the fictional horrors of mythos does not always feel right, and, e.g., the Black Sun as a mixture of Nazis and cultists seems a bit one-dimensional. Whether you need game statistics for tanks to use them against the horrors of the mythos is also questionable, in my opinion. On the other hand, the approach that the characters are in the service of a secret organization and have to pass dangerous missions as agents provides a lot of potentials. World War II is a background where major mythos outbreaks are possible, which are overlooked in the turmoil of war. In the end, the background is a matter of personal taste or what you make of it. Based on the ideas and the extensive material, Achtung! Cthulhu definitely offers a challenging and exciting setting for the fight against the Great Old Ones.

(Björn Lippold)

A quick mission for Section M agents - a Mephisto review

Compatible with the new rules for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius has also released Under the Gun, a short intro adventure. The investigators are called to Dover, where a fantastic discovery has been made here while building defenses inside the chalk cliffs. It's up to the players to investigate.

Under the Gun is a very short adventure, which is especially suited to introduce new players to the setting of Achtung! Cthulhu. Players are allowed to complete a short investigation before they have to engage various enemies in combat. In this respect, the adventure is suitable to get to know the basic setting as well as typical rules - especially the combat rules. In fact, from my point of view, the background of the story would have had much more potential, so that the game master can either expand the setting or use it as a first introduction to the world of Achtung! Cthulhu. As a quick setting for the first start, Under the Gun is quite suitable, but for veterans, it might be much too short.

(Björn Lippold)

The book is very well done. The layout is very easy to understand what is covered. Stat blocks are clear, concise and fit on the page they are on making it easy to look up and use. This book is very well detailed in how to use a merc company and how they fit into the game world. Most of this info could easily be used in any other game worlds. The example merc companies are varied in style and background to fit several different play styles. Pc creation rules are concise and easy to use. Advice on how to create and operate your own merc company are included and easy to use.

This is a high class supplement not only for Infinity, but also for any game that need mercenaries from a multi world setting. This book is full of well detailed and fully fleshed out mercenary companies and NPCs usable as both groups to join and to use as adversaries. Included is a history of mercenary companies in the Infinity setting as well as all the rules you need to create and arm both mercenary PCs and NPCs, complete with tables allowing easy random generation of motivation and other character details. You will aslo find a list of the sorts of adventures to put newly minted mercenary PCs through. All in all if you plan on a game revolving around interstellar mercenary work, this is a great resource to have at your fingertips.

This book is an excellent exercise of speculation on behalf of the writers. Taking lots of loose plots and dangling threads from the shows and connecting them up in a way that makes sense, and makes sure the book isn't just a rehash of the info you got from the shows. Amazing art as always, and also advances the timeline of the overall product line into the Dominion war proper.

This is the Star Trek RPG I've been waiting year to see. So in depth, so in universe, it is absolutly fantastic. Amazing art, great "in character" commentary, and the 2d20 system fits the federation team all working together perfectly. Theres also a great Living Campaign that goes with this, on top of the mountains of published adventures.

Very happy withthese. Printed on an FDM printer (Creality CR-10) at 2mm and they came out very nicely. I was planning on just using them as scatter terrain for other game, but I might have to make a whole Vault now.

Available in print and pdf from the Modiphius website and pdf from the Drivethrurpg website. This is of course the last quadrant of the Star Trek universe and within the pages of this book are the Borg. So I may as well say it straight off, you want Borg in your Star Trek Adventures game? Buy this book.

But onwards with the review. The PDF has 144 pages, that includes covers and end papers. You also get two versions, the normal version and then printer friendly one with a white background. Chapter 1 starts on page 3 and the last page of the index is 135. The layout is the standard two column of text per page with some inserts from various characters. Art is strong and there are many half page pieces within the book

The book is split into five chapters, Introduction, The Delta Quandrant, Species of the Delta Quadrant, Starships of the Delta Quadrant and Encounters and Adversaries which is consistent with the other books in the series.

Chapter 1 - Introduction It opens with a quote from Captain Janeway from the first episode where says she doesn't accept 75 years to get back to the Federation. The chapter is short, a mere 5 pages, giving a quick synopsis of the following 4 chapters and also a section with advice regarding the books usage in a campaign. It is worth noting the default timeline has been advanced again to 2379, four years after the end of the Dominion War (the Gamma Quadrant book moved it forward to 2374). There is advice for running it in the different eras.

Chapter 2 - The Delta Quadrant By far the biggest chapter in the book at nearly 50 pages, again the chapter start with a briefing from Captain Janeway which frames the new timeline, ultimately with the instruction to boldly explore. We then have four sub sections which are written from the point of view of Starfleet. The first is a write up of the species in the Delta Quadrant, listed in alphabetical order with the structure of firstly a summation of encounters with them, their technology and weapons. Secondly a description of their physiology and lastly Starfleet's thoughts on them, often with a eye to future relationships with them.

We have 14 species discussed. Delta Quadrant is not the friendliest place, quite of a few of them attacked first, being quite aggressive. One example is Species 8472 who even the Borg are afraid of. In some cases, things have improved slightly and there is hope for future co-operation. Of course some are likely to be good potential allies such as the Talaxians. Note the Borg are not in this section, they get their own, Closing out this section is Stellar and Spatial Phenomena. Oh, you have the normal weird stuff - temporal distortions, quantum singularities but also get some news ones Graviton Ellipses and the frankly very scary Chaotic Space are but two. Certainly life could be very interesting in the Delta Quadrant.

The second second section in chapter 2 is Worlds of the Delta Quadrant. As it says in it's introduction, we are talking about a quarter of the known galaxy and Delta Quadrant contains thousands of planets so this section gives a snapshot of a tiny amount of that, 20 to be precise. Where relevant the worlds are linked to the species involved. They are all quite varied. Of course the gamesmaster has the scope to create any amount of worlds that they want. If their players have watched every episode, it will still be possible to have something fresh for them.

Now it time for the Borg

A chilling site whenever one of their cubes appear, the Borg are, as the book says the single greatest threat the Federation has ever encountered. Most people recognise the phrase "Resistance is futile" demonstrating they have become one of the classic Sci-Fi bogeymen. In this section we get a thorough description of the Borg, how they are many species, altered cybernetically when they are assimilated. They are one conciousness, connected together throughout space via powerful subspace transceiver arrays on their ships. This gives them vast computational power and the communication between the Collective, as this conciousness is known, is very fast. When they assimilate new technology, it is almost instantly incorporated into other Borg.

We learn there is a Borg Queen but there is much conjecture of what this entity actually is in terms of the Collective. There is discussion on how to deal with the Borg. I suspect this part of the reason the timeline has been advanced as Capt Janeway and USS Voyager have had some success against them and Starfleet have started to develop countermeasures against assimilation.

Then there is their ships. The classic assimilation cube, the tactical cube and the Borg Sphere which is their scout ship. All are frightening and the other two, in most cases are more dangerous than the assimilation cube. The Star Trek Adventures corebook has the stats for the assimilation cube, the others have their stats in Chapter 4. The report describing the battle of Wolf 359, where in 4 minutes the Starfleet vessels were reduced from 40 to 16 by one cube, demonstrates how dangerous Borg cubes are.

The section then describes the Borg assimilation process and the drones that are created by it. It is worth noting that drones can be disconnected. They will seek other drones to re-establish a connection to the collective. If disconnect for a week or two they can potentially become liberated, Seven of Nine being an obvious example if you have watched Voyager.

Rounding off this section is Borg locations which rather than a list of planets it is how the Borg interact with planets and asteroids, as well as Borg structures in space called Unicomplexes. These dwarf Borg cubes in size. They are the Borg command and control stations. They are always heavily protected by Borg ships.

Chapter 3 - Species of the Delta Quadrant This chapter has 12 new species available for character lifepaths. At the start of each entry it says what era of play they are suitable for but the general advice is from Next generation onwards. It goes without saying these new lifepaths are only usable the GM permission. Some will be instantly familiar to fans of Voyager, Liberated Borg (Seven of Nine), Ocampa (Kes) and Talaxian (Neelix) as they have been, at some point, members of the Voyager crew. Each entry has 3 attribute adjustments, a trait and a list of their talents followed examples of names. Two of them have telepathic abilities, the Mari and Ocampa, though it is dormant with the Ocampa. Rounding out the chapter is Species Both Familiar and Strange - Disconnected Borg Drones, Silverbloods, Kobali and the last lifepath the Zahl. I guess it was to do with page layout and page count, I think it would make more sense to have the Zahl entry first.

Chapter 4 - Starships of the Delta Quadrant This starts with the Borg ships. As already mentioned the Assimilation Cube is in the corebook. Listed here is the Borg Octahedron which is a command and control ship for the Borg Queen, the Borg Probe ship which I believe is the Borg Sphere scout ship, the Borg Tactical Cube, which is quite frankly lethal compared to a typical Starfleet ship and the Borg Torus which is their contruction/transportation ship. There is also a section on Borg technology, including what they do when they assimilate starships (examples from the TV shows are listed).

The other ships of the Delta Quandrant have one entry from Starfleet, the Delta Flyer that the crew of USS Voyager designed. The Talaxians have a freighter, the Kazon/Trabe have raiders and carriers (the Kazon call them Predators). These ships were originally only Trabe but after the Kazon rebelled against they captured hundreds of ships. The Hirogen have two as do the Krenim including a timeship! Much potential for craziness there. A patrol ship and warship are the entries for the Lokirrim and they are armed with Photonic Disruptors as they are at war with holographic "terrorists". This can obviously affect holodecks and EMH programs on Federation starships. Filling out the chapter are ships from Species 8472, the Vidiian and the Voth. The Species 8472 ship is unique in two ways. Firstly it is a bioship and secondly it's weapon is capable of bypassing defense systems of the Borg ships.

Chapter 5 - Encounters and Adversaries This chapter is split into 2 sections, non Borg and then Borg specific. In the first section there are 6 encounter seeds including trying to escape the clutches of the Overlookers, a very strange situation on a Demon planet, straight up kidnapping and a couple that involve the crew potentially getting caught between two species. The adversaries are 30 potential NPC's that came be encountered. They are drawn from the species prevalent in the Delta Quadrant. They are categorised as either Minor, Notable or Major NPC. Most, but not all, species have at least 2 entries and they are generic like Haakonian Scientist or Hirogen Hunter. There are 3 named characters, they are all major characters. Strange being and deadly space has 3 entries, the Maw of Bliss, Photonic Lifeforms and Isomorph which highlight the strangeness of Delta Quadrant. This section also discusses running a campaign in the Delta Quandrant.

In the Borg section there are 7 encounters. The first Crossing the Hollow is a tricky journey across a sector of space due to various anomalies, one of which is a Borg transwarp conduit. The second Evacuation is about helping a planet's population get offworld - The Borg are coming! Another couple of seeds deal with Borg technology incl the ship being infected by it. Also discussed is campaign based around the Borg, the real potential for npc crew of the players starship to be assimilated.The encounter seeds continue with relevant Borg and Federation NPC's included. The Borg Queen gets a full page to herself and there is two pages on defeating the Borg Collective. After this is the index and the end of the book with two pages of adverts and the endpapers.

Overall, a very strong book. It contains the big bad of the later eras of Star Trek and closes out the known universe. The encounter seeds are just that, seeds that will require fleshing out by the gamesmaster. The Borg is this book are upgraded from those that are in the corebook especially regarding the assimilation process. Space itself has more anomalies than in the other quadrants. The PDF is well hyperlinked and easy to navigate. the book follow the same structure as the other Quadrant book I have seen so I presume it is the standard format of them all. As I said at the start, if you want Borg buy this and realistically if you plan to venture to the Delta Quadrant you are going to want this book. from the point of view of the players the Delta Quadrant is ripe for exploration with plenty of dangers that could be encountered though i wouldn't advise going toe to toe with the Borg. Fair disclosure Modiphius provided the pdf this review is based on

It's been a while since I looked into a miniatures game because the rules always seemed cumbersome and complex. Call to Arms is the exact opposite. This 104 page rule book boils down combat, magic, races, terrain and everything else you need to know about in an easy to understand format that allows for gameplay to start soon after you get the book. Each section is clearly defined in the contents so you don't have to flip around trying to find a rule for a specific situation. If my state wasn't in lockdown, I'd go to my local gaming store today to look for minis to play it with today. But I guess that's what the internet is for!