by leroy43

This is third zine in the A Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City series. You can see my related reviews here:
[Roger's Reviews] Welcome to the Rainy City
[Roger's Reviews] An enhancement for the Rainy City

Flott's Miscellany Volume 2 more or less picks up where Volume 1 left off. Our faithful though not necessarily reliable narrator, Thaddeus Flott, once again gives us some behind the scenes glimpses into various aspects of the Rainy City.

The Rainy City source book clocks in at 62 pages, Volume 1 at 48, and this one is lighter at 36. Lighter too is the level of detail. Although the table of contents is broken up by district as usual, the content for each district is more, well, miscellaneous. It's right there in the name after all.

The information is all useful however. There's an article on gargoyles, which festoon most buildings. There are multiple tables you can roll on for random events or effects, some more random than others as befits the whimsical nature of the entire enterprise.

The most useful article in the book might well be the various kinds of oozes that darken the alleys and sewers of the city. If you've played D&D, in particular The Fantasy Trip, and of course many other fantasy genres, oozes and slimes are clever nuisances (that can and will kill you if you're too blasé about them), and here they're laid out in detail. More oozes than you can shake a stick at!

Then there are many random tables suited to each district. More local notables. And then at the end, a potential plot hook, or merely something the GM can give their players as flavour, an article about THE WILLOUGHBY ARK AUCTION AND ALEFEST.

If you've chosen The Rainy City as a place to base your adventures, then the first volume of miscellany is a nigh essential add-on. This one is very good, but while it does provide some tasty filler, I don't reach for it nearly as often as the previous two. While the quality is consistent with the previous volumes, it does feel somewhat like what was left on the cutting room floor of those predecessors and then put together for release.

Recommended if you're setting a campaign in the Rainy City. Merely amusing and whimsical content if not.

by sdonohue

Tischler's Tome of Treasures is a 2023 release from Philip Reed Games and is designed for use with OSR games. There are a number of artists and the art is either licensed or taken from the public domain.

Presentation
This product is available in pdf and softcover. The softcover is digest-sized and 48 pages long. The covers are heavy stock and the interior is color on glossy pages. The book is staple-bound, but is sturdy enough to use.

Content
This book is primarily a list of unusual magic items. It is laid out as a table with a number in one column and the magic item name and description in the other. The items have a description of their appearance and effects and some have bit of history or some information on how to use them. The items range from things like the Rope of Shadows, which creates a line of darkness up to 30' long to the Bracelet of Archery which gives a +2 bonus to all attack rolls. The items truly are unusual: Rahaan's Severed Finger is an item which doubles spell damage if eaten; the Door Knocker of Unwelcoming stuns those who use it; and the Shirt of Scholars which is both fashionable and useful by grating bonuses to knowledge checks.

This section is followed up with a similarly formatted section of 100 rumors. These are considerably shorter than the item entries, but no less unique. The veracity of any rumor is up to the GM as is preparing any encounters or items needed if a player believes the rumors. These include things like Whistling will make you heard by a goddess, Swords thrust into a dying dragon gain powers, or a child selling magic beans is actually a gnome. There are 100 of these and they vary widely. Some are probably one offs which the players hear and ignore, while others could mark the start of a grand adventure.

Evaluation
There is a lot of creativity here, with unusual items having unusual origins and strange powers. For those into gonzo or slightly weird items this is definitely a good book. There are also relatively normal items. What you won't find is a magic items with a list of conventional powers. There are no +1 swords or things like that. Everything has a unique twist in either its powers, origins or use. If you want to change up magic in your fantasy game, this is a great buy.

by sdonohue

Sylvestry Family Reunion is a 2024 supplement for Champions (Hero System 6) from Hero Games. It was written by Dean Shomshak who also provided some of the art. The other art is public domain or licensed from iStockphoto.com.

Presentation
This is a standard 110 page softcover book. The covers are heavy stock and in full color while the interior of the book is black and white on matte pages. The binding seems sturdy.

Content
This is effectively a book of foes with a focus on a single family. The book opens with some notes about the family and its origins. We learn that they are bad people and the leader of their clan has lived 300 years through the annual sacrifice of one of his descendants. Apart from the usual information, this section includes a warning that the acts and crimes of the family are horrible (they do worship a devil) and may offend some readers (they are absolutely correct). A lengthy section explains how and why someone would sell their soul and what happens when they do.

From there, there's some typical information on the family and then an explanation of the "Reunion". For centuries members of the clan who died have gone to hell. There are now plans to bring many of them back and thus make the family stronger. There are three main branches to the family and each branch has their own idea of how to bring them back: one wants them in metallic bodies, one things they should be ghosts or wraiths, and a third one wants them placed in bodies created by alchemy. This is typical of the group, which isn't really unified and sometimes gets in its own way.

From there we move on to members of the group. There are two sections here, one for descendants of the patriarch, Count Giacomo Sylestri, and one for heirs of Erichtho McFarlane. These sections are fairly similar and detail about 8 members of the family. Each member gets a fairly lengthy explanation. It includes sections on their history, personality & motivations, common tactics, campaign use, and some facts about the characters which investigation might reveal. There's also an illustration and a character sheet. In an unusual variation, these sheets detail the character, but don't show the point value of each power or complications.

The next section is Minions and Masters. It provides details on creatures which might be summoned or associated with members of the family. Most of these sections are shorter as they detail a type of creature. Included are Avarice demons, lust demons, and watch fiends. Each of these has a shorter entry and a character sheet (again with no details on build costs). The masters follow and are given longer sections similar to those of the family members. These include Mulciber and Nebiros. The section ends with some typical powers a devil might accomplish with his magic.

Evaluation
First, the strangest thing: on the cover and the copyright page, it's spelled Sylvestry; in the content it's Sylvestri. This is a confusing error, but it doesn't detract from the book (much).

The book is dark and it talks about things most of us are not comfortable with like unusual relationship, sexual and other crimes, and just generally icky things. If those things bother you, this book is one you should skip. Because if focuses primarily on mystic elements, you won't miss it if those things aren't a feature of your game.

If you can get past the ick factor, this is a pretty good supplement, especially if you enjoy the mystic elements of superheroes. It has a lot of interesting characters and ideas and it expands on some things only hinted at in earlier books. The lack of point values on the character sheets is unusual, but it does reduce a lot of clutter from the character sheets; on the other hand, many Champions players and GMs use those points to gauge how tough a character is, something you can't easily do here.

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