Review Summary: A weird fantasy/horror fanzine that goes a lot deeper than most fanzines do. Just because it put LotFP on the cover doesn't mean that you can't use it with pretty much everything else.

Blurb from the publisher: 'The Undercroft is a quarterly fanzine compatible to Lamentations of the Flame Princess and all good Dungeons & Dragons retro-clones. Each issue is sold in both pdf and print format.

Issue 1 contains:

- Rewriting the Cure Disease Spell; New ways of handling diseases.

- The Wager of Battle; On the City-State of Yongardy and their refined legal system.

- Barrow of the Old King; An adventure to recover the ring of an old King;

- Corpse Lions; An examination of the titular beast;

Issue 2 contains:

- Between the Cracks; An adventure to pillage a dead sorcerer's home.

- The Pit of Flesh: A Bestiary - A selection of beasts.

- The Storkman; A creature who kidnaps children.

- Piteous Potions; Tables of potions for Sirs delight.

- The Briar Witch; A creature who enjoys her silence and solitude.

- That Which Slips Between; An indifferent creature of exceeding Otherness.

- The Snailing; Once men, though now possessed by the demon of greed.

- Blood; A story.

Issue 3 contains:

- van Steen's Company; A company of soldiers with an interesting secret.

- The Cunning Men of the Fern Court; Wise men of the forest rooting about for secrets;

- The Bridge; A story.

Issue 4 contains:

- The Treason of the Guitar; The people and events surrounding a magical guitar.

- Classless Lamentations of the Flame Princess; Quite self-explanatory.

- Smother; A creature who feeds on sound.

- Dream Trolls; The Dröm Antastare, Molester of Dreams.'

What you get: This is a combo review of the first four issues of The Undercroft fanzine, published by the Melsonian Arts Council. The first three issues were published in 2014, while the fourth was published in 2015 in both physical and pdf format. The physical format of an issue manifests as a 24-page A5 black-and-white softcover booklet. The physical version plus pdf combo costs GBP 5, while the pdf alone can be purchased for only GBP 2,50.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have received the physical format of the aforementioned four issues. I am thus unable to comment on the pdf version of the fanzine. If and when I receive the pdf version, I will complement this review accordingly.

Contents: In contrast to other fanzines out there which tackle multiple subjects and only devote a couple of pages to each, The Undercroft follows the opposite route. There is a limited number of articles per issue (from three to eight, to be precise), each discussing a totally different subject. Subjects do not limit themselves to the game's rules. As an example, there is an article on how to play LotFP as a classless system; blueprints of adventures; monsters which work within the rules and premise of LotFP; short stories; legal systems based in combat; and even an alternate take on how diseases could work.

The strong points: What instantly impressed me about The Undercroft is that it is not afraid to go places. Where other fanzines only take incremental steps away from the system or setting they support, The Undercroft goes for the unexpected. 'Rewriting the Cure Disease Spell' is an obvious way to make diseases in your campaign more meaningful. It is simple, yet effective; how come nobody thought of this before? This material can be played straight as it is, if however you are into the quirkier stuff that Lamentations of the Flame Princess usually supports, 'I Want to See my Lawyer' provides just that: lawyers that function as arena fighters, and which perform in front of crowds. The more experienced a lawyer, the more likely it is that he is full of scars and fearsome. Now that's an interesting idea for a violent system of settling disputes. These two ideas are contained only in the first issue, mind you!

If you feel that both articles go too far, there are more traditional articles like a band of mercenaries, fully developed in no less than 11 pages. The write-ups aren't just about the crunch; in an OSR game this would have been laughable; on the contrary, they add enough backstory and fluff in order to bring the characters to life. The Treason of the Guitar is a nice little adventure blueprint with a demonically infused guitar at its center. The names of the characters wouldn't have been that out of place in a modern setting (James Hendrix? 'Pink' Floyd?), except that the action takes place in the middle of the 17th century, and all these characters are Jesuits, members of the church, and whatever else is appropriate. The spells of the Cunning Men are creepy, to say the least. In one of them you are unable to find your way until the next sunrise; in another, the target mumbles incoherently as long as the caster concentrates; in a third yet, the caster can link himself to another target, so that damage inflicted on one is felt by the other. Each of these spells alone easily creates a handful of ideas for an adventure with these spells at its core. No matter the article the ideas behind them are grim and twisted. They are not obvious, nor are they combat oriented. They don't even have to make sense, or answer hows and whys. The Storkmen was by far one of my favourite articles. Stork-human hybrids that steal babies and put them at other people's homes? Not only the idea is profoundly scary, it is also infinitely versatile. It can be placed anywhere, no matter the fact that is serves LotFP's weird fantasy right.

I keep on mentioning LotFP, the reality of the matter however is that most of this material is system-agnostic. It is OSR, true, it doesn't take much however to translate this into any system and any setting. The fanzine is about horror, really. Campy as Friday the 13th - The Series was, many of The Undercroft's articles gave me a strong vibe relating to some of its most memorable episodes. Sometimes the only thing you need is a strong, very bizarre idea, that makes people uncomfortable and will never be fully explained. The Undercroft delivers that in spades.

The fanzine is overall easy to read. Not all articles follow the same layout and format. Most of them are single column, and the fanzine reads like a book. Others have wide margins with additional information fitted there, while others still follow the usual RPG two-column format. The fonts are small (but not that small), while the artwork is mostly what one would expect to see in underground death metal or weird fantasy publications. Oh, wait, this is a weird fantasy publication. Never mind, then.

In addition to these four issues, another six issues have been published since. This might not be the most frequently produced fanzine in the world, it keeps however going.

The weak points: The Undercroft does not shy away from what it is. If you don't like the fanzine's aesthetics like the black and white colours printed on slightly heavier red cardstock, it is unlikely that you will pick this from a book rack. My advice is to see beyond how it looks like, and think of whether you need horrific snippets that can creep your players out.

Not all articles are equally useful. As an example, I applaud the thought behind a classless LotFP. Yet there simply isn't that much material there in order for one to try it out. As with any fanzine, The Undercroft demands a certain level of engagement from its reader. It provides good ideas and blueprints, yet mostly it does just that; you will have to work on them in order for them to shine.

Conclusion: The Undercroft might advertise as a LotFP compatible product, in reality however it has provided me with a wealth of material to use in any horror game. Even more so, it supports OSR to the hilt, and will prove even more valuable to those who consistently use any of its expressions. For a semi-professional fanzine, that is already an enormous accomplishment.

For more info on The Undercroft and the Melsonian Arts Council, visit its website at https://www.melsonia.com.

Shameless plug: for more gaming news and content (including, for example, pictures of the first four issues of The Undercroft that I am unfortunately not able to upload on RPG.net for the time being), and to better keep track of my reviews, subscribe to my Antonios S facebook and twitter page.