Author: John Wick (fiction), John Wick & Hal Mangold (adventure)
Category: game
Company/Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Line: Deadlands
Cost: $4.95
Page count: 64
ISBN: 1-889546-37-2
Playtest Review by Matt "Muttley" Penn on 04/20/99.
Genre tags: Science_fiction Horror Old_West

This is my first Deadlands Dime Novel, and I must confess if they're all like these then I'll have to purchase more. If this book's anything to judge the others by, you get a good story and a good adventure to run your hapless posse through.

The basic story is the lovable Fungi from Yuggoth have found their way to the Wierd West. Truly, there is fungus among us, and it wants to put your brain into a jar. Anywho, the posse finds themselves in a town they can't leave and soon uncover the machinations of the mi-go (whoops, wrong book). Without giving too much away, the Fungi aren't up to any good and it's up to the players to stop them. They'll have lots of incentive to try, trust me.

Now, for the adventure. My posse is a fairly... aggressive bunch. This isn't to say they're the types to blow away anything that moves, but they certainly believe in being well-armed, and they're also moderately experienced. They managed to come through it alive, but barely. It's not a session to run for starting characters unless your group is in double digits. Mi-go are tough, but I'm sure any good CoC fan could tell you that.

Best of all, it gives the Marshal a chance to play up a more horror-type aspect rather than Deadland's normal tounge-in-cheek type attitude (which isn't a bad thing, I don't think). Play up some of the descriptions and you can have your posse giving each other nervous looks and jumping at shadows in no time.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)