The Inside Scoop on Gaming

A couple of years ago, CJ Carella author of a number of rpg supplements for GURPS and Palladium struck off on his own to design his own game system.

Published by Myrmidon Press, his "unisystem" became the foundations for two interrelated games, WitchCraft and Armegeddon. (Note: There is also an Armegeddon SF RPG by Phil MacGregor that has no connection to the latter game.)

WitchCraft can be described as something of a Mage: The Ascention Lite game, most player characters s are magicians of some sort in the modern day world with all signs pointing to something big and nasty about to happen. (Armegeddon is set AFTER the hammer has fallen.)

The unisystem seems to be a fusion between GURPS and Storyteller rules. Characters have Attributes, Qualites, Drawbacks and skills and purchased with points which are divided among various pools.

(Most characters have 80 points. 'Lesser Gifted' have only 75 points, but this was due to playtests where Lesser Gifted 80 point characters proved too powerful.)

Skills are added together, modifiers (if applicable) are used and a d10 rolled, with a total of 9 counting as 1 success and every 2 points the roll is made by adding another success. Direct tests with Attributes use the attribute twice in place of attribute + skill. A die roll of 1 fails or may fail spectacularly. It's actually a fairly reasonable game mechanic, though a certainty that at least 10% of all efforts will fail may be annoying.

However, WitchCraft was released at a time when it was NOT favorable for small press game publishing and no further materials for either game would be coming out of Myrmidon.

The games had a small but loyal following and in due course made their way to a new publisher, Eden Studios. The first supplement for WitchCraft, "The Mystery Codex" was finished and waiting to be published before Armegeddon was released, (indeed, the Myrmiddon WitchCraft edition has an ad for the Mystery Codex in the back suggesting a December 97 release date) and Eden had little trouble getting it printed and shipped.

Eden used a different sized page layout 7 1/4 x 9 1/4 instead of the more standard 8 1/2 x 11 format and the MC text really was designed for the standard sized pages. Nothing terribly amiss but it loses some aesthetic appeal.

The Mystery Codex has been updated in the interval, a couple of rule changes based on customer questions and complaints were made, the 'dismissal' of evocational magic has all but been removed, except for some very extreme situations dismissal effort is now presumed to be automatic. After numerous complaints that the Essence Control Table in the first book made spells that cost more than 20 Essence points all but impossible to cast, the Table was dropped from the game.

Anyone familiar with the Mystery Codex ad mentioned above might have noticed it mentioned that the new book would cover The Knights Templar, among other things. The Templars were dropped from the book it would seem.

It does cover four new associations (or covenants): The Fellowship of Judas, a largely undead group working to repent of their mispent lives, The House of Thanatos, a vampiric (or vampyric to use WitchCraft spelling) group for the most part trying to achieve true immortality, Pariahs living and undead who are accursed, and the Storm Dragons, master of Chi training, who tend to look upon the Shaolin as wannabes founded by men and women who couldn't cut it in the Dragons.

Two monsters from Witchcraft are now available as player characters, Vampyres and Relentless Dead.

It COULD have covered more. Among new monsters are 'ferals' WitchCravian for Were critters. While such characters fit in well and their abilities are described, no point costs were given for these abilities, denying them as basic player character types.

Overall a nice book. If you have WitchCraft you will want this supplement.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Mystery Codex
Author: CJ Carella Category: game Company/Publisher: Eden Studios Line: Witchcraft Cost: $23.00 Page count: 224 ISBN: 1-891153-41-4 Capsule Review by SD Anderson on 04/19/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Conspiracy Gothic	A couple of years ago, CJ Carella author of a number of rpg supplements for GURPS and Palladium struck off on his own to design his own game system. Published by Myrmidon Press, his "unisystem" became the foundations for two interrelated games, WitchCraft and Armegeddon. (Note: There is also an Armegeddon SF RPG by Phil MacGregor that has no connection to the latter game.) WitchCraft can be described as something of a Mage: The Ascention Lite game, most player characters s are magicians of some sort in the modern day world with all signs pointing to something big and nasty about to happen. (Armegeddon is set AFTER the hammer has fallen.) The unisystem seems to be a fusion between GURPS and Storyteller rules. Characters have Attributes, Qualites, Drawbacks and skills and purchased with points which are divided among various pools. (Most characters have 80 points. 'Lesser Gifted' have only 75 points, but this was due to playtests where Lesser Gifted 80 point characters proved too powerful.) Skills are added together, modifiers (if applicable) are used and a d10 rolled, with a total of 9 counting as 1 success and every 2 points the roll is made by adding another success. Direct tests with Attributes use the attribute twice in place of attribute + skill. A die roll of 1 fails or may fail spectacularly. It's actually a fairly reasonable game mechanic, though a certainty that at least 10% of all efforts will fail may be annoying. However, WitchCraft was released at a time when it was NOT favorable for small press game publishing and no further materials for either game would be coming out of Myrmidon. The games had a small but loyal following and in due course made their way to a new publisher, Eden Studios. The first supplement for WitchCraft, "The Mystery Codex" was finished and waiting to be published before Armegeddon was released, (indeed, the Myrmiddon WitchCraft edition has an ad for the Mystery Codex in the back suggesting a December 97 release date) and Eden had little trouble getting it printed and shipped. Eden used a different sized page layout 7 1/4 x 9 1/4 instead of the more standard 8 1/2 x 11 format and the MC text really was designed for the standard sized pages. Nothing terribly amiss but it loses some aesthetic appeal. The Mystery Codex has been updated in the interval, a couple of rule changes based on customer questions and complaints were made, the 'dismissal' of evocational magic has all but been removed, except for some very extreme situations dismissal effort is now presumed to be automatic. After numerous complaints that the Essence Control Table in the first book made spells that cost more than 20 Essence points all but impossible to cast, the Table was dropped from the game. Anyone familiar with the Mystery Codex ad mentioned above might have noticed it mentioned that the new book would cover The Knights Templar, among other things. The Templars were dropped from the book it would seem. It does cover four new associations (or covenants): The Fellowship of Judas, a largely undead group working to repent of their mispent lives, The House of Thanatos, a vampiric (or vampyric to use WitchCraft spelling) group for the most part trying to achieve true immortality, Pariahs living and undead who are accursed, and the Storm Dragons, master of Chi training, who tend to look upon the Shaolin as wannabes founded by men and women who couldn't cut it in the Dragons. Two monsters from Witchcraft are now available as player characters, Vampyres and Relentless Dead. It COULD have covered more. Among new monsters are 'ferals' WitchCravian for Were critters. While such characters fit in well and their abilities are described, no point costs were given for these abilities, denying them as basic player character types. Overall a nice book. If you have WitchCraft you will want this supplement. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)