The Gaming Outpost

Somebody get a mop.

Recently while attending M.A.G.E.Con North in Sioux Falls, SD, I picked up a Deadlands book written by one of the convention’s guests of honor–one Mr. John “the walking bloodbath” Goff (the reason for the epithet is known to those on the Deadlands listserv). The book is titled Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: the Book of Curses. For those of you who don’t know, the original “RVC”–as it has come to be known by many fans–was a book containing fan-submitted abominations.

The original contained a few pages of Posse Territory (material for everyone to read), while the rest was divided more or less evenly between No Man’s Land (to be read with permission of the Marshal) and the Marshal’s Handbook (Marshal-only info). Well, with this you can kiss your posse goodbye, because with the exception of 23 No Man’s Land pages of this 128-page sourcebook, this is purely a plaything for the Marshal, and the one who wears the star is guaranteed to get a pretty good amount of mileage out of this supplement.

Now might be a good time for all the player-types to stop reading. Marshal, you just keep moving right along.

In this book, you’ll find rules for lycanthropic and vampiric PCs. However, be warned (and the book itself says this as well) that these character types can be a bit unbalancing (particularly the werewolves), so you may not wish to allow your players to run such characters. In fact, they state right at the beginning of Chapter 4 that the whole chapter is strictly optional. However, there are balancing mechanics built in, such as the vampiric allergy to sunlight and the werewolf’s inability to tolerate silver. Even more limiting, though, is the accumulation of Corruption points. If the players accumulates too many of these (which is quite easy for vampires) the character becomes an NPC under the Marshal’s (that’s you, or at least at this point it better be, pardner) control.

Anyway, now on the the real meat of RVC2–the abominations.

In this book you’ll find descriptions of several things introduced in earlier material, mainly Dime Novels, that wasn’t seen by many players as the Dime Novels didn’t usually sell that well. Examples include the Skinwalker as well as the Automatons and Clockwork Tarantulas of Dr. Darius Hellstromme. It also tackles some monsters from legend, such as trolls, and the monsters that children believe lurk in their closets and under their beds.

Vampires are also given the Deadlands treatment in this book, with 5 distinctly different types of vampire to throw at your posse, including the Nosferatu from the Night Train Dime Novel (a.k.a. PC Death Train, penned by the above John Goff) and a floating head known as the Penanggalen, which was taken from the legends of Southeast Asia. Detailed in the Legendary Horrors section (Chapter 3, saved for the big baddies of legend as opposed to your average Thing Under the Bed) is a particular fellow you may be already familiar with. Ghosts, too, get a fair shake in this book, with 6 types of spooks to, well, spook your posse. There’s actually 7 if you count the Living House. Yeah, you read that right– Living House. If you want the skinny, you’ll have to get your hands on the book.

Also, for you Marshals who like to use Walkin’ Dead, there are 5 new types to choose from, including Orphaned Heads, which I’m going to throw at my posse the first chance I get. There are 4 other types of undead listed, including skeletons, two forms of mummies and guidelines for undead animals.

Chapter 3, as mentioned, contains some heavy hitters of horror, including Dracula himself, as well as Frankenstein and his monster. However, tying in most closely to Deadlands is the individual attention to five of a Marshals best friends, the Hangin’ Judges. This popular abomination has sort of become Pinnacle’s unofficial mascot, and they decided to detail the five Judges individually and give them each their own flavor powers, and look on top of giving the history behind the creation of these posse killers. The Hangin’ Judge was a rather simple (though quite powerful) abomination in the masic Marshal’s handbook, but now they’ve become more fleshed out and even more formidable adversaries than they were before. RVC2 really does give these devils their due by making them out to be much more than just mindless machines of death, but rather intelligent, thinking machines of death.

In all, Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: the Book of Curses is a book that no self-respecting Marshal should do without. It contains scads of new horrors to throw at your poor posse, with quite a few real doozies, such as the orphaned heads–which could really throw players who’ve seen Sleepy Hollow for a loop–and the Living House. It also details denizens of the darkness that players have been crying out for, such as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. For the Marshal who can’t come up with something to throw at the players or for the Marshal who wants to throw a true challenge at them, RVC2 is absolutely indispensable–a real Reckonersend. I don’t know how I’ve done without it all this time. If you don’t have it yet, then mount up and head on over to your local game store and pick yourself up a copy. If they don’t have it, order it. If they can’t order it, head on over the the Pinnacle online store (or an e-tailer like titangames.com or crazymage.com) and order it there.

Have fun, compadre–I know I will.