Review & Commentary On Castle Brass (2008) By Lawrence Whitaker For The Mongoose Publications Hawkmoon: The Roleplaying Game or The Elric of Melnibone RPG

"  A guide to Count Brass’ domain, the Kamarg, Count Brass is an essential sourcebook for all Hawkmoon Players. An in-depth guide to the successful navigation of this potentially treacherous landscape.

Not only will you learn the secrets of the Kamarg itself, you will learn the deep dark secrets that fester in each of its little towns. You will gain an understanding of its residents, along with their own eccentric secrets, intricate enterprises and convenient friendships.

Unlock the doors of Castle Brass and familiarise yourself with its twists and turns, its hidden rooms and forgotten laboratories.

Castle Brass is an excellent source of knowledge about the Kamarg but also an essential tool for Game Masters wishing to create their own scenarios. So enter this distant marshland and search out the veritable treasures it beholds."

Castle Brass for the Mongoose Corum rpg game by Lawrence Whitaker is one of those books that in various rpg circles that seems to come back with 'weak sauce' for the Mongoose Corum rpg or a five point five star review on Rpggeek.  Castle Brass follows Count Brass's later years & his associatation with Hawkmoon. And its another adventure location that adds to the layers of mystery surrounding the rise of  post apocalyptic empire of the Dark Empire of Granbretan. Count Brass is the protector of the protector of Kamarg France  and the ruler of Castle Brass. My players  also believe he's another aspect of the eternal champion sided with the Rune Staff & the Sword of the Dawn.

 And some of Castle Brass confirms this. The layout is good & its pretty standard Mongoose Runequest style graphics & surrounding page artwork. All pretty standard stuff for the Corum rpg within its Mongoose incarnation. Where Castle Brass shines is in some of the inside information. By the time of Dorian Hawkmoon Castle Brass has been both location of historical conflict & oasis against the tide of post apocalyptic  madness  that Europe has become. Kamarg France  is a land of mutant infested swamplands that surround it but behind the reeds is a world that still has glimpses of the pre apocalyptic world. But with the coming of the Dark Empire of Granbretan the tarnish of Castle Brass is beginning. The area is rife with agents, plots, & potential double crosses as the forces of the immortal Emperor King Huon of Londra and his Beast Men are already deep within the land of Castle Brass.

Castle Brass delves deeply into the history of the castle, its locations, the lands surrounding Kamarg France. It really brings home the potential for using Castle Brass as an adventure location for adventures going back to the early history of Count Brass himself.  And its this crossover potential for the Stormbringer rpg  that really intrigues  a DM.

The in-depth overview  given in Castle Brass gives the DM plenty of fodder to bring the castle, its NPC characters, and more into focus as a campaign central location perhaps.. We already know that there have been alternative versions of Dorian Hawkmoon that have been seen within Moorcock's authorized Hawkmoon comic books. And we've seen other timelines of various eternal champion worlds. Castle Brass may have other such reflections within the 'million spheres'. And this brings the great potential of Castle Brass as a campaign starter. 

Lawrence Whitaker would later on go on to form the Design Mechanism rpg company. And create Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels which we played back in 2015 or so. One of the locations that was used in that game was Castle Brass when the Jammers tried to take over this timeline before the coming of Dorian Hawkmoon. 

The PC's had a field day with that adventure & meeting Count Brass who they found out is very learned in some matters of the timelines & multiverse. We're using this example to illustrate the adventure & campaign potential of Castle Brass as a viable campaign location for Mongoose Publications Hawkmoon The Role Playing Game   or The  Elric of Melnibone RPG  and  even  Luther Arkwright. Castle Brass provides a wealth of knowledge about one of the more under utlized locations in Moorcockian fantasy within the Tragic European setting of Count Brass opening up to both the players & the DM.. 

Review & Commentary On "Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels" Rpg From Design Mechanism By Chad Bowser, Pete Nash, Bryan Talbot, Bryan Steele, Lawrence Whitaker, & John White

 "Not one Earth, but an infinity of them, existing in parallel continua, their own paths, own histories, own futures, own mistakes. Most are unaware of the existence of a multiverse; but some parallels know that Earth is not alone, but mirrored.

ZeroZero knows. It watches the parallels, ensures their stability. ZeroZero knows that instability spreads like a disease, infecting each parallel until a critical mass is reached and cataclysm is guaranteed.

The Disruptors know. And they are intent on subverting the multiverse for their own ends, to 

destabilise countries, instigate wars, bring about destruction.

The Valhalla Project was established to stop the Disruptors; to uncover their plans, identify their agents, and eliminate them. Their best agent is Luther Arkwright, unique in the multiverse, a powerful psychic, but himself unstable. Arkwright does not work alone: there are others"

Going back the middle Eighties Luther Arkwright was a sort of post apocalpytic/steampunk underground comic book that had an adventure that appeared in an early issue of White Dwarf magazine for the Traveller rpg.  And here & there in various underground comic fanzines  the occassional add or blurb would appear.  This all changed in '90 for me especially & here' why according to the Wiki entry on Arkwright; "The first parts of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright followed as a serial in the British underground comic Near Myths in 1978, were later continued in pssst! magazine, then interrupted in 1982, less than half complete. Between 1987 and 1989 Bryan Talbot completed the story, which was published as a series of nine standard comic books by Valkyrie Press, followed, at readers' request, by a tenth issue containing articles about the history and production of the comic and some extended back story and character information. It was subsequently published in the United States by Dark Horse Comics.

"The story is adult in tone, with many mythological, historical and political references, and a little explicit sex. Its genesis owes something to the influence of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories, though Moorcock and Talbot agree that the similarities between the characters are limited. Warren Ellis calls Arkwright "probably the single most influential graphic novel to have come out of Britain to date... probably Anglophone comics' single most important experimental work.""  And the important thing to remember is the fact that he was inspired & influenced by Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories. What would happen if these two forces of the eternal champion & the  apocalyse 
were put at opposite end of the spectrum?! How?! The agents from the  time center from Moorcock's Dancers at The End of Time series that's how! 
The PC's are drawn from across the multiverse as the distruptors have gone too far this time. 

The disruptors become a major destructive force & bring the lines of the Million Spheres into an intersection where Jeremiah "Jerry" Cornelius, & Luther Arkwright encounter each other & battle this would be very bad indeed. Jeremiah "Jerry" Cornelius, physicist, assassin, politician, super-spy, rock star, messiah, and former clergyman, is an aspect of the Eternal Champion and so is Luther Arkwright. Jeremiah "Jerry" Cornelius is from the swinging Seventies series the Cornelius Chronicles. 

And this was exactly what I did using the "Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels"  From Design Mechanism and note that this is a supplement for RuneQuest and requires either the RuneQuest 6 rules or RuneQuest Essentials for full play. And what it does is not only take the player's PC's into the campaign worlds based on Bryan Talbot's acclaimed graphic novels. But it has the Arkwright multiverse and all the rules needed for adventuring in countless parallel dimensions. This book contains game rules for contemporary character creation, psionics, technology, firearms, vehicles and more. This takes the players of a game such as Stormbringer or Hawkmoon into a whole other direction or the same direction depending upon the players. 

 "Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels"  fufills the role of a solid game addition & rpg game unto its own right to get the job done of taking the Eighties Sword & Sorcery sweetness & marrying it with the Steampunk/Cyberpunk asthetic.  "Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels"  is a game that was bought last year on sale on one of the numerous Drivethrurpg and its definitely a four outta of five.