One less lovely feature of the city is the number of almost empty shopping centres, which seem to be replaced by new developments every few years. In the world of Liminal, that has to mean something supernatural. So for me, it made sense to make these shopping centres the abodes of ghosts. And with ghosts I invented a necromancer who studied them, someone officially in the good graces of the Council of Merlin, a group of rich academic magicians, but who could be up to something more suspect. Designed for Liminal, but could be used for any modern supernatural game in Britain featuring vampires, the fae, ghosts, werewolves, rogue magicians, and more.

Don't be fooled by the adventures' small size; even though they are straightforward, you cannot play them without preparation. It is imperative that the players understand the genre; modern fantasy does not equal horror. Devote some time preparing for the Liminals' potential courses of action near the end of Goblin Market, lest you find yourself winging its final act wholesale. If the Liminals see themselves as vampire hunters in The Book of Blood, you might be staring into a TPK. I personally wanted more substantial advice on how to run these adventures with more trappings and complications, as well as outros and suggestions on what could potentially follow next. As they stand, and unless you can embellish them yourself, they risk being entertaining but ultimately unmemorable. It is hard to know if they are meant just as monsters for the GM (which feels a waste as there are NPC for them and I know some of my players would love the chance to play them maybe) or normal (-ish) things in the world that PC might start to play as or even be cursed/blessed to become?It’s a very simple system, with very few numbers to crunch, but lots of flexibility. In fact, you could fit a Liminal character sheet onto a post card. Or perhaps half a side of A4 if you included descriptions of their Traits. And the flexibility offered by Traits and Limitations makes building supernatural characters rather more interesting. You can make your dhampir (part vampire) allergic to garlic or cause your werewolf to suffer from terrible rages, but you don’t have to. There are older vaguer stories too, of Cerdic landing at Netley Abbey during the Saxon invasion. Just a typical English village and it’s so deep in history and folklore. And that’s the point – everywhere is like that, to a greater or lesser extent. And that’s gameable. Firstly, Sigil & Shadow art tends to show real-life situations, albeit darkly shaded ones, in a somewhat stylistic touch, and people who look worried. That’s less impactful than samurai warriors or the inhuman warrior beasts that once ruled humankind. Initiative also uses the Skill system. It does favour the NPCs slightly, but it’s easy to understand and follows the core mechanic.

There is a Jaeger NPC, he hunts humans for sport. Let’s hope this family doesn’t manage to achieve their ambitions! Review Summary: Modern fantasy. A mostly narrative approach. And Great Britain. If there's a game to play in a lazy, half-empty pub, with both a tea and a pint on the table, this is it. Westborg, Josefin. 2022. “Learning and Transfer through Role-playing and Edu-larp: A Cognitive Perspective.” Paper presented at Popular Culture Association, April 13. Video linked hereThen there is a section on Otherworldly Places, describing Fae Domains and Ghost Realms in more detail. Fae Domains make use of many urban fantasy tropes. Each Domain has its own weird rules, disobeying them will bring nasty consequences. You’d be well advised to research the Domain beforehand if you can.