Friday, July 27, 2018

Reliquary Issue 2 Review

Sunday morning I ordered Reliquary Issue 2 from Scourge Books and I was happy to find it in my mail box yesterday. After reading it, I'm definitely glad I picked up it.

The small tome contains two dark fantasy adventures and a short article that expands one of them. The book is OSR through and through, though it's technically systemless. Speaking with the author I know that he uses it with Lamentations of the Flame Princess and that game seems like the perfect fit to me.

The first adventure is called From The Dark Past. The party come upon a village that's recently suffered a massacre at the hands of a tribe of primordial men. They find out the sheriff's wife has been kidnapped and it's a rush to save her before she becomes the cannibal tribesmen's next meal. There are some good roleplaying opportunities early on in this one and I like the sense of urgency. While it's definitely more gruesome (based on body count alone), it really reminds me of one of my favorite westerns, Bone Tomahawk.

The adventure is followed by a three page write up about magical mushrooms called Liberation Caps. These psychedelic and mystic shrooms will show the players things and once ingested, a person is never the same.

The book ends with the second adventure/site, The Hungry End. The small village of Luctus is a friendly and welcoming community, with a passionate priest that teaches community and faith, and a secret that is all consuming. I don't want to spoil anything, but this is an interesting one and would love to see how parties will react to the revelation.

If you like your fantasy on the darker side, you need to start reading Reliquary. I'm sad I missed out on the first issue in print, but I will definitely snag it when it's reprinted. For an indeterminate amount of time, you can download both issues here for free.

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