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| Warlock! expands further with its second compendium. |
The second expansion compendium for Warlock arrived this weekend, one of three releases from Fire Ruby Designs this month (The others being Warlock! Griff's Vale and the SF take on Warlock!, Warpstar!). Expect a review of Warpstar! to follow soon as that arrived in the same parcel and Griff's Vale in a few weeks once it's delivered.
TLDR; The Warlock! Compendium 2 contains four themed sets of modular expansions which enhance the basic game and add plenty of material to support roleplaying with hooks and mechanics that encourage play. The material here will be a benefit for players and referees alike. Plus the addition of Goblin and Dwarf black powder weapons promises to be explosively entertaining.
Warlock! Compendium 2 follows a similar format to the previous Compendium. It's split into four distinct parts and is very much a modular expansion. You can choose what you want to draw upon, but it's written so that they all integrate nicely together if you need them to. The book itself is a 107-page casebound hardback very similar to the previous releases, with the same simple trade dress. It's not art-heavy, but the pieces all work well to evoke the feel of the genre that it's trying to emulate.
Full disclosure: a big chunk of the second part was written originally by me and tidied up by Greg Saunders. I hadn't seen the rest of the book before I bought it, and I have no remuneration from writing it or producing this review. It was written as something for me to use that I shared with the Warlock! community on Discord in case it was of use to them. I'm hoping to get Warlock! to the game table sometime soon.
The book opens with a detailed two-page table of contents, which works effectively as an index.
Part 1: Character Options predominantly gives you options to add more flavour to your character and add in hooks that can be drawn upon by the GM or players to drive the game. There are random tables for you to select your height, frame, hair and skin. The later isn't about colour or race - the introduction is very clear that the Kingdom is a diverse melting pot - but rather about if you have any distinguishing features. You can give yourself a 'cruel misfortune' from your past (a bit like the dark secret idea in Vaesen) and also a 'memento' that means something to you. It doesn't serve a mechanical purpose, but it's another hook to draw upon. There's a random table to select where you came from, why you want to adventure, how you met the party. You can also generate a 'dark secret' which is a somewhat nastier thing than the misfortune option. The final background tables round out with 'where you last saw your sweetheart', a table of contacts that you know and a list of names. All these tables aren't necessary, but rather serve as sources of inspiration.
The section then moves onto the first modular expansion to the rules; your character can have a unique talent. As is typical for Warlock! you roll two dice and pick the result you prefer from two d20 tables. Each of the talents gives you a mechanical advantage in a situation which can affect skill rolls, combat outcomes or give you another ability such as Witch-sight or boosted abilities. I like these as they add something unique to your characters which doesn't overpower the game.
The second modular expansion is the addition of Passions. These can be positive or negative (desire/loyalty/love/respect/devotion/uphold vs. hate/fear/vice) and can be invoked once per session to gain a +5 bonus if you go with the passion, and a -5 bonus if you go against it. Each character has a positive and negative pair to start with, and they only change if the story dictates and the GM agrees. As a mechanic, it's clearly inspired by Pendragon but provides a mechanic that reinforces the character concept. I like these as they round out the character description along with traits.
The final modular addition in this section is the addition of a simple reputation mechanic. You can have different reputations, which can be positive or negative. Mechanically, the reputation score can modify dice rolls (typically in social interactions) positively or negatively by the level of the reputation. It's a simple and effective system.
Part 2: No Rest for the Wicked opens with the section that I wrote, which relates to experience. The core rules discussed experience gains as being typically 1-3 points. I decided that I wanted to make this more systemised and to reward leaning into your character's traits and career, so I drew upon inspiration from various games I've played (Liminal, Free League's Year Zero Engine, various Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games) and split the award of experience into three areas. You gain an advance if you learned something new from your adventure (this is the one for turning up), you gain another advance if you follow your traits or passions (even if they get you into trouble) and the final advance is gained if you act in line with your career. I'd produced a list of two or three options for every career (basic and advanced, from the Compendium or Kingdom) which Greg standardised as giving two options and GM's discretion for each career. I hadn't seen the passions when I wrote this and I think the addition of those in really adds something.
The second module in this section adds rules on how to earn your crust between adventures. These draw upon the use of their career skill. Failure on a check can cost you money or saddle you with debt. As is traditional in Warlock! there's a random table which allows you to discover who you owe money too if none of your colleagues will bail you out.
The third module adds downtime actions, which reminds me a little of Blades in the Dark. You can relax and increase your pluck and renown (more on pluck below). You can seek out equipment, information, or training. It's a simple system that will help with a campaign.
Part 3: Cruel World starts with rules for Shock, Fear and Terror. This is the sanity mechanic for the game and deals with unsettling encounters, creatures and situations that cause fear, and encountering something directly terrifying like a dragon or a demon. This is dealt with using a new statistic, Pluck. The higher your starting Luck, the lower your starting Pluck. You make a pluck test by rolling a skill test and adding your pluck value as the skill. Failing can reduce your pluck value, or end up with you fainting, freezing or fleeing. There are tables for the three different stimuli. If you hit zero, you gain a permanent affliction from the event. There's a table for this, which is effectively a mental damage table. Obviously, this needs to be used with consideration of your players. You only regain pluck through long term major story element successes.
There's a really nasty expansion of the rules for sicknesses which includes infections, poisons and diseases. If you use the infection rules and don't clean a wound properly, you can end up dying from it. This takes me back to the days of the original Cthulhu Dark Ages results, where any physical damage was to be feared. It will push the lethality of the game up. There are additional rules for poisons; with three nasty examples (including tomb rot which can result in your conversion to undeath). The diseases section adds three examples of disease ranging from the disfiguring to the lethal. I'd use these modules, especially the infections section with care.
The section rounds out with rules for Black Powder weapons. You can have sophisticated weaponry sourced from the dwarfs or more explosive and crude goblin technology. In all cases, misfires are not something to be looked forward to!
Part 4: Adventure! changes gear and discuss the construction of scenarios. It draws upon by Christopher Booker in the seven core plots to stories and discusses how to apply them to story design using six key points of story structure (drawing upon work by Michael Hague). This is good, sound advice and is followed by random tables for inspiration that links back to the discussion.
The final part of the section includes a table of sinister cults and a table of factions in the Kingdom. This is followed by a method to define Non-Player Characters in a consistent way, using a career skill level as a basis. There are twelve example NPCs which you can just drop into a campaign to finish the section.
The two pages have an expanded character sheet example which includes all the new rules.
So what do I think of this? I love the modular approach that has been taken with Warlock! and the expansion compendium volumes. You can draw on material in these to enhance your game with the minimum of fuss. Some of the expansions (Passions, Reputation, Pluck) really enhance the game, to the point that I think it would make sense to roll them back into the core rules if they are ever expanded.
This is a solid expansion with loads of useful material which will enhance rather than overwhelm your game. Recommended.
My other Warlock reviews are here:
Reflections on running Warlock!
Bonus: Warlock! VTT sheets for Role
25 October 2020
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