Of Chicken Legged Horrors & The Haunting of Mystara - Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum & Baba Yaga’s Miraculous Transformation By James Mishler and Jodi Moran-Mishler.

 So let's pick up with an excellent Eastern Slavic Mythological random encounter that fits right into the Chaotic lands that we were speaking about yesterday for Castles & Crusades from B10 on the blog here. And then in the middle of the wilderness the PC's run across a chicken legged hut & it's highly dangerous hag queen owner! All around the chicken legged cabin trolls feed on human and humanoid bones. What is this place out in the middle of the wilderness!? 

What the PC's have stumbled upon is witch crone's home straight out of the tradition of Baba Yaga. And this might well be one of her evil followers, cultists, or even a vacation spot for the evil queen herself. James Mishler Games provides us with  Baba Yaga’s Miraculous Transformation

By James Mishler and Jodi Moran-Mishler. 

And this is perfect to add into the Slavic lands of your own home campaign. The Mishlers state you get the following to add into your game:
Baba Yaga’s Miraculous Transformation
Stage I Miraculous Hut: Dangerous Chicken
Stage II Miraculous Hut: Vicious Chicken
Stage III Miraculous Hut: Tiny Hut
Stage IV Miraculous Hut: Grand Hut
Extra-Dimensional Rooms, Connections, & Hallways
Stage V+ Miraculous Hut: Palatial Hut
The Heart of the Hut
Embedding Magical Features Through Spells
Magnificent Manor Variant
Stone Tower Variant

Baba Yaga’s Miraculous Transformation is not designed for PC's! So a PC wanting to construct one is straight up an evil act! And the author even states it;" The creation and improvement of a Miraculous Hut is a Chaotic and Evil Act! Not suitable for most player characters!" And encountering one of these along with it's evil owner is a major mid boss point for an adventure. And this ties directly in with Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum & Mystara where hags are a major four alarm issue for adventurers. 

Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum has several major PC  classes  that tie directly into slaying the makers of one of these chicken legged manors. 
These are often used by hags as lairs and since they are mobile they can range across a land allowing the hag to slaugher and murder where and when she or it wants too. 
These chicken legged manors are often the focus for cults and other foul evil cult's lairs where the hag holds court in a region. 
The appearance of a single hut is cause for great concern in the wilderness of Mystara. The settling of a new one may signal the appearance of a hag headed cult within an area. 
The appearance of one of these might be the signal of a new cult starting to settle into an area marked by new disappearances of children and adults, the sightings of hags and other monsters, and other odd occurances signaling the use of foul magicks in an area. 

Review & Commentary On Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler From James Mishler Games For Labyrinth Lord & Many Old School or Retroclone Systems

 "This source booklet for Labyrinth Lord provides the method for magic-users to create a Miraculous Hut, in the same vein as the infamous crone-witch, Baba Yaga:

This source booklet provides the following details:

Baba Yaga’s Miraculous Transformation
Stage I Miraculous Hut: Dangerous Chicken
Stage II Miraculous Hut: Vicious Chicken
Stage III Miraculous Hut: Tiny Hut
Stage IV Miraculous Hut: Grand Hut
Extra-Dimensional Rooms, Connections, & Hallways
Stage V+ Miraculous Hut: Palatial Hut
The Heart of the Hut
Embedding Magical Features Through Spells
Magnificent Manor Variant
Stone Tower Variant

Note: The creation and improvement of a Miraculous Hut is a Chaotic and Evil Act! Not suitable for most player characters!"

A couple of days ago James Mishler,  & Jodi Moran-Mishler sent us a copy of Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation. This is one of those titles that clocks in at a whopping twenty four pages of Labyrinth Lord witchy goodness. This is not a book that's intended for PC's at all instead this is a book that's clearly intended for NPC of the Baba Yaga's witch tradition. This is an evil book without any doubt about it. Not in the Lamentations of the Flame Princess sense but it could clearly be used for that retrclone system. Let's clear up something right away, Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation isn't a copy of S5 The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga (2e). This is the book that creates the hut folks. That's right! 

Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation dives into the spells, rites, dark powers, & Hellish magick going on's behind the creation of a chicken legged house. And its rather nasty folks. The writing & lay out in Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation are well done. The intent is clear & crisp for the creation of a lair & the powers behind it for an NPC villain that can grow & change with the PC's as they level up or new heroes come along. Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation is well done & very dangerous as all Hell! This really is perfect for a Slavic mythological themed game or even a Ravenloft style game with little issue. 
You've got your spells, the evil bargains, the human sacrifice, & all of the styles that this style of horror comes in. So from Bovia throughout the realms of horror the player's PC's could be encountering variations of the Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation huts, mansions, stone towers,etc. 

But the view behind the screen that fuels this is rather nasty & this is also where Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation  giving options at the table top level for all kinds of bases & operations that these places of dark magic could be used. And its this fact that I can see using this book as an add on to a complete Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum campaign setting possibly mixed with Ravenloft. That's how flexible Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation  is in my opinion. 

We can even see using this book with Tim Brannan's Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games to give a really nasty spin on a high level B/X witch NPC with little issue. And this could be spun into an on going NPC villain  for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

 
There is a ton to unpack & lots of unrealized gaming potential within Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation. This for me is a five outta of five because the Mishler's hit it out of the park with this one. Well done & very useful to the DM whose got a yen for this style of gaming. Baba Yaga's Miraculous Transformation fills that itch for me and its a very well done supplement.