Assault on Zuara 2

When a mysterious Luftwaffe plane lands on an airfield in North Africa and keeps disappearing and reappearing, these events may indicate activities by the Black Sun or the Nachtwölfe. Therefore, this is a mission for Section M agents to spy on the plane and either steal or sabotage it.

The third Priority Mission is summarized in four pages of text and a map. The text primarily describes the airfield and the troops stationed there. This time, fewer alternative adventure seeds or scenarios are suggested. Instead, the player characters' options to fulfill this mission are described in more detail.

Assault on Zuara 2 presents less of a mythos setting and offers more of a commando operation on an enemy airfield that requires stealth and planning, as it can hardly be solved by a frontal assault.

Even though Assault on Zuara 2 offers good material for a short mission in its compact format, I personally find this setting too focused on the military operation aspect and lacking secrets from the Cthulhu Mythos.

(Björn Lippold)

Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire

The second Priority Mission for Achtung! Cthulhu revolves around an old monastery near Cairo, from which a brooch made of Blauer Kristall originates. The player characters are sent out to investigate the site and get to the bottom of the rumors about a relic in the form of a skull made from Blauer Kristall.

The second Priority Mission basically offers two pages of text and a map as source material. The setting is briefly described, and for the antagonists references are made to the rulebook. Again, there are several adventure seeds and alternate backgrounds, which the game master can choose to include additional or alternate enemies or give the mission an entirely different atmosphere.

Even though Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire does not provide much concrete material, it presents an exciting setting and alternative backgrounds that game masters can easily use to entertain their players for one or even two game nights. I liked this Priority Mission because it offers some exciting ideas that can be used to develop larger story arcs.

(Björn Lippold)

Resurrection Men

Ghouls living in old tunnels from World War I – that is essentially the summary of the Priority Mission Resurrection Men for Achtung! Cthulhu. In just eight pages (or really three pages of text and a map), it provides an adventure hook and setting as a mini-adventure that can be played in one session. Adversaries are depicted only with references to the rulebook, and the main part of this booklet consists of the map of the tunnel system and brief descriptions of the rooms and tunnels. Alternative starting points for the scenario are included for those the standard variant of this mission does not work for.

Resurrection Men has an interesting idea, but in fact, the scenario provides little that you could not come up with on your own. Only game masters who want to save time necessary for drawing a map or need a quick basic idea will get any useful material here. As free game material, Priority Mission provides a hook for one game session, but anyone hoping for a real mission will be disappointed.

(Björn Lippold)

Operation Black Cap

Montenegro, 1941: A Black Sun plane crashed, and Section M is eager to learn more about the cargo being transported. Therefore, the agents are sent out to travel undetected from the coast to the crash site, scout out the situation, and intervene if necessary. This means that they are to either secure or destroy artifacts of value. Operation Black Cap takes place in two acts. First, the agents must arrive at the target location and avoid patrols, since the country is in a state of alert due to an imminent invasion. Then, near the crash site, the player characters discover that they are not the only ones interested in the crashed plane. The agents must avoid or face the other parties until they finally reach the plane wreckage. At that point, it becomes apparent that the cargo is potentially very dangerous. 

Ultimately, it is up to the players to decide whether the agents can secure the cargo, must destroy it, or just try to escape with their lives as cthuloid forces are unleashed.

Operation Black Cap is an entertaining short scenario with an interesting premise for one or two evenings of play. In fact, the adventure provides tie-ins for follow-up missions. However, the secondary threat that the agents have to deal with turns out to be a bit archetypical and would have had much more potential.

(Björn Lippold)

it is refreshing to see a "post apocalyptic" world that wasn't caused by disease or nuclear bombs. The intricately designed factions and the unique, life-like world make Ashland a must-play rpg!

Hands down one of the best free RPG products I have ever read. You don't get the usual 2-3h sample "adventure", but a fully fledged module with approx. 100 pages that will last you about 3 full sessions depending on your playing style.

There are still some typos in this early release and I expect the authors to fix those once they have gone through the current kickstarter of the whole game line.

Sample characters are included, but you will need the also free "Blood & Doom Primer" which includes the rulebook in a very usable work in process status.

Strongly recommend both the Blood & Doom system as well as this first playtest module.

From reading through the primer content the system appears to be in a good spot - not too crunchy but not too light either, much like World of Darkness, which I guess was an inspiration for this d10 dicepool system.

The primer on the cults is detailed and really well written from a GM standpoint, as the content seems easy to bring into play.

The most disappointing aspect was the lore of the The Ayaari - I'd much prefer evil sorceries over aliens in my sword & sorcery setting any day.

A very mediocre supplement. It tries to cover many topics, but it does it in a very superficial way. For example, the section about different eras is quite small and provides little information on how to play in them. Arrakis itself looks rather dull and empty, where there are only two cities and endless desert, where there is almost nothing interesting. Yes, the planet was like that in Herbert’s books, but the authors of supplement did a minimum of work to fill it with life and details. (For example, we have fremen-betrayers jacurutu, a potentially very interesting theme… but this supplement only gives you a brief description and one trait as a game mechanic…). The artwork is pretty good, but half of the NPC examples don’t have images. Therefore, in my opinion, this book isn’t absolutely necessary to play «Dune». At first glance, it gives you a lot of new stuff, but upon closer inspection there is nothing enough interesting or special about it.

Great game here. It hits my taste at medium crunch, giving intereting options bithbin building your character as well as during the game. Inlove thatbit combines theater of mind with solid tactical choices in combat. While most elements of the game engine have been around for sime time, the way they are stxked together is very neat.

I've read through the primer and it looks good to me, some random comments :

• I had trouble choosing from the list of the weapons, usually a sign of good balance
• I like that even though we have classes everyone kind of works the same way, both from a level of stats + skills to do actions and with the powers activated by blood points, having the same structure for casters and non-casters helps with keeping their potential close.
• Even considering the above i mildly dislike that the specializations are so encompassing for the class, for warriors and experts i would like to see some shared traits and powers for when you don't feel like picking something exotic, like for instance the triple shot ability of the viper seems pretty generic, why wouldn't the ninja be able to do that as well ?
• I like the resource management of wounds and equipment through time coupled with clear ways to handle them
• You have a skill to research through heap of books ;) it's a thing i tend to do often and our gm is always annoyed when the skill is not included

A well thought out TTRPG with great potential in this free primer. I cannot wait until the kickstarter to see all the options and meet the rest of the world!

This looks like a well-thought out game that (being free) already includes more content than many paid games out there. It seems easy enough to get into but actually has a decent amount of crunch as well. The bundle even comes with music included, and a gorgeous map. It runs on a d10 dice pool mechanic, but does a lot of cool things with it (setbacks, weapon attributes, momentum). There's too much to cover here in short but being free it's definitely worth taking a closer look for anyone.

Also, the artwork is all top-notch and has a distinct, paintery style that's both colorful yet feels dreamlike and otherworldly at the same time, giving 'Athyr' a very unique atmosphere. The addition of two books to compliment the rulebook, one offering a wealth of setting information, the other the most expansive lore on cults I have yet seen in a tabletop RPG, makes this something I can recommend to everyone. Can't wait for the Kickstarter.

I've played a decent number of TTRPG systems in the past, each which had their upsides and downsides. Blood And Doom for me strikes a great balance between the crunch I appreciate in some systems, whilst still keeping it all very neat and organized. I also greatly enjoy the various tips and tools for GMs, something even after over half a decade of GMing I still find use in.

Still very happily surprised by how expansive yet easy to read all the cults and lore are. Normally I tend to lean towards either my own homebrew setting or the real world depending on what game system I'm using, but with Blood And Doom I'm actually thinking of giving this one a serious shot! As for the cults, I love how much detail is shown about what their goals are and how they seek to reach them. Too often do I find systems where this part is either left behind during writing, or becomes so hard to follow that I only end up using some monsters and writing the cult myself.

All in all, really looking forward to run this system myself and excited to see the full product take form!

Excellent game with one of the best settings I've ever seen! I don't usually like Level-based system, but Blood and Doom only uses them for advancement purposes, there are no explosive Hit Points and almost no fixed abilities you get - you can pick yourself what you want to learn or become better at. The game really shines in its setting, though. The regions described in the Doomsayer's Codex are evocative and I absolutely can't stress enough how many adventure ideas, cool locations, NPCs, etc. are in there. But the absolute gem is the Doomsayer's Codex: The Twelve Pillars of Doom. THIS IS WHAT FANTASY CULTS SHOULD BE LIKE in a game that includes horror elements! It's amazingly cool and so many details are included that you can build entire campaigns on just one of these cults.

Some of the texts are written in a style that goes well beyond what we've come to expect from more pedestrian-written TTRPGs. The writing is, often, impressively imaginative. It's as if Jack Vance's and Fritz Leiber's brain child had written some of this. Even if you're not going to use the D10 dicepool system (cool system, by the way), you NEED to get this, honestly. Looking forward to the Kickstarter launch!

It's a must have if you're new and overwhelmed by the idea of solo play. It's great if you don't know where to start or if you found gm emulators/oracles to not work for you. It's much more theoretical than mechanical but does have enough actioanble steps to get you playing.