[Review] Chartreuse Shadows (CDS) Pt. I; The Wonderful Worlds of Venger Satanis

[Adventure Anthology]
Chartreuse Shadows (2022)
Venger As’Nas Satanis (Korthalis Publishing)
Lvl haaah!

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Venger was thoughtful enough to send me a review copy of the concluding (?) part of his Cha’alt Magnum opus for review. I of course did the natural thing of refusing immediately, blocking him on Instagram and denying him access to markets, the sensible course when one encounters persons with political beliefs that do not align perfectly with the establishment, but then he contacted me via a dream and mentioned the night in Venice, the pictures and the residual poison that he’d been slipping into my habitual dinner of a trough of french fries, wodka, catnip and fertilizer for months, and so I had no choice but to obey. Thus this review. If you are not, by now, intimately familiar with the original Cha’alt, here is a review, which he himself has blessed as being his favorite.

I recall that in the early days of the Artpunk Venger Satanis was pointedly excluded because of factors that I am sure had something to do with artistic merit because Artpunk is a very serious art movement with very coherent founding principles but with CS I think he might actually be making a serious bid for the role. Therefore my suggestion that he apply for the position of Artpunk immediately to whoemever is considered the mayor of Artpunk in this current year, preferably via some sort of shaped thermobaric explosive device in the form of a fuchsia tentacle. This is no joke (well, some of it might be). Chartreuse Shadows is simultaneously the least OSR but the most platonically Venger Satanis I have seen him in years. Whether that is good for you depends on what you are looking for in a game. The division between different playstyles is immediately apparent and that’s why the fight for the soul of the label OSR persists.

CS is a compilation of earlier works (Saving Cha’alt & Cha’alt after Dark), with an added megadungeon and the latest iteration of the often alluded to Crimson Dragon Slayer system, a rules light system that actually works remarkably well with the 2-hour online sprint sessions he has been known to host from time to time and which I can truthfully say I have enjoyed being a part of on occasions. Various grizzled space bounty hunters and even Adam Kobol’s escaped robot were among my featured characters. I know his style intimately, and it is definitely fun, but at the same time it is far removed from the grinding ballet of encumbrance calculation, formation fighting, orc murdering, panicked improvisation and accounting that is my drink of choice when I play D&D.

The book opens well enough, with an impassionate plea for running short demo-sessions of 60-90 minutes that I suspect goes fairly well with the short, dare I say, vignette/adventures that populate this section of the 361 page behemoth. The way he describes this short demo session; setting the scene, a quick orientation to some interesting situation, and then gradually add new options or drop hints of further adventures as the PCs stumble further into the gonzo, eldritch, science fantasy postapocalyptic world that Venger notes are the 4 pillars of Cha’alt.

We get the obligatory random tables, nice thick d100s and d20 for the most part, the earlier lessons have been learned. Various off-world backgrounds to supplement your already existing coterie of wacky locals are provided, along with a ‘What do I find in his pocket table.’ I was yawning and leisurely stretching as I went over this until my interest was piqued at the d100 heresies table for various villages around Cha’alt.

It strikes me that as far as imagination might be concerned, Venger might be at the top of his game this late into Cha’alt. You get dozens and dozens of these little details and it all exists to strike an imaginative chord. Apropos of nothing, and 33 pages in, we get into it properly and the adventures begin.

As previously mentioned, the adventures take the form of semi-linear vignettes, where the characters occasionally face branching choices. Combat and danger are present, but tactics are minimal and maps are often absent. It feels more like a choose your own adventure book, propelling you along, although dangerous combat is present and, given the arbitrary nature of the setting, possibly very brutal. Every adventure could probably be played in a handful of hours and should be likened to a dream, bong hit or a drought of ayuashca, existing to transport the characters to the amalgamated world of Cha’alt, whose substance is composed of every pop culture artifact between the 60s and the late 80s. There are no level recommendations, no party sizes. We are going full on trad, and the rules are here to facilitate us having an immersive, dream-like experience. Vignettes with dice, only not railroady.

Six Hours to Save Cha’alt.
As asteroid threatens to collide with and destroy Cha’alt. Your guys are tasked by a local village with solving the problem by retrieving a piece of tech from the belly of an Old One, like the last party, which never made it back. There is a ticking clock element here and basic procedures for atribtration, but let’s be honest this is 90s territory and we are here for pure escapism.

Before long you are sticking your hand in a strange orifice, being initiated into the paprika-hued priesthood of Zithr’aak and travelling via teleportation into the stomach of a Great Old One. And then you see the map.

Alt + 129314

Disgusting. Has Dyson Logos forbidden you access to markets as well? What happened to the glory days of Liberation of the Demon Slayer? Even if you aren’t going to do the OSR resource management thing, it is still worthwhile to make areas with branching passages so you at least experience the sensation of exploration. This linear stuff is very predictable and as a result, makes the adventure more boring, which is a shame because the encounters are good. Weird, as in, intended to amaze and delight.

So the encounters. Weird, menacing stuff, interspersed with the nonsensical. The tendency to make all interaction either harmful or benign is avoided. Before long you are getting stabbed in the guy by a phantom reindeer, fighting an intelligent cyst to gain control of a technological device with a hook to a demon ring in some distant location, listening to philosophical boxed text about the illusory nature of Cha’alt, fighting time-travellers from the post-post apocalyptic future of Cha’alt, and otherwise fucking around in search of the device you need. There is no structure to the encounters but each is sort of thematically connected and there are hooks propelling you to further adventure. It is not irksome in the manner of a railroad, because you feel each direction can just be followed if it catches one’s fancy, in the manner of a dream.

The Green Jewel, Loc-Nar from the Heavy Metal movie, a recurring motif in Cha’alt, shows up again, this time in the guise of the alien AI Dra’am with the goal of world domination. How the PCs are meant to prevail against it is anybody’s guess but then with these kind of games unpredictability is maybe the point? If this could be combined with some oldschool principles you’d have a banger of an adventure, as is, you either dig the escapism and you will like it or you might baulk at the lack of intelligent opposition. I think you need to rescue a priest to escape the Old One? A little unclear at the end, but about on par for this collection.

Sanz Egra’as
The characters get contracted by an insulting Dr. Who reference, or might just decide to off him and take his plasma rifle (4d6 damage). You work as a sub-contractor and are running security for…the president of the Galaxy? Various other characters are on board that feel like a crossbreed between the crew of the Heart of Gold and the cast of Futurama.

This one is more like an outline as the city is detailed only in a list of bullet pointed facts and several prisoner generation tables. The ship soon gets shot down (and props to at least discussing the possibility of the PCs taking the steering wheel and landing it either outside or inside the walls), and the adventure goes from Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Reference to an Escape From New York reference, as the ship crashes either in or near the Prison City of Sanz Egra’as. Shit hits the fan proper as a commando team of Shadow Phoenix assassins follows the ship down and attempts to assassinate the president and all witnesses. You are once again provided with several possible ways the adventure can unfold, from an escape from the dangerous Anti-magic prison colony to the investigation of a disturbing beam of eldritch light scraping the heavens to have a shootout with eldritch cultists. Also you kill an alien clown at some point.

It’s better then Battle of the Purple Islands because of the more free-flowing organization but I am too deep into D&D as fantasy adventure game to get fully immersed by this type of stuff. It is colorful and the encounters are at least interactive, with primary paths (like killing a certain NPC) being anticipated in the description. Rewards seem perfunctory, there is a lack of weight to the talons one picks up or takes as reward, and they retain mostly a type of vestigial significance (although again, you can pay 1000 talons to escape the weird prison).

The Sulta’ana Mutiny
One of the better ones. You are taken aboard the gravity skiff Sulta’ana to join with a band of Skeevers, slaver sand pirates of the desert. Aboard are various colorful NPCs, each lovingly statted out (thank you Venger), from the postapocalyptic Captain Spurious and his coat of many pockets to the promiscuous (of course) beauty Vanessa. Each subsection represents a possible intrigue and the GM can use all of them or none depending on PC decision. The retention of Agency might be key in making these sorts of more story-based games very palatable.

So you can join one of the half-demon crewmembers on his vendetta against his brother who searches for a hellblade, join in the mutiny on the Sulta’ana, get in on a shady drug deal that one of the crewmembers has with some dubious off-world scientists, have Sex with Vanessa, join the Captain on a monster hunt for an eldritch creature to deliver to the Black Pyramid, meet with the Sorcerer Silantro who has found a way to cultivate artificial humans from pods so he doesn’t have to perform human sacrifices using live captives etc. etc.

Organization-wise it is a little messy but considering it’s 8 page length, you can easily absorb and run this, probably after a single readthrough. The element of mutiny that feeds into the search for the half-demon Akkalid and his attempt to wrest a triple-bladed light-saber from a coterie of sun elves, then gain control of the ship by distracting it with an attack using a mind-controlled Sandworm, is at least exciting, chaotic and surprising. One of the better ones. I don’t quite get why there is a bar at the end of each adventure but I don’t hate it either.

The Cube
Another outline for an adventure but a good one, reminiscent of a Star trek TOS episode. A massive copper cube has remained sealed off from any outside contact for centuries. Inside is a seemingly utopian society. As the PCs interact with them, they discover that the society might not be all that it is cracked up to be, and a dark secret underlies their facade of agreeableness. In a shoutout to Paranoia and 60s SF, they are a logan’s run type of society that worships the computer. There are 6 NPCs (no statts…) of both the Elect and the Dissident faction so you can have some drama/plotting, and the lovecraftian Horror that is behind the already dark reality of this seeming utopia is a fine twist upon a twist.

Ahhhh but if only this had been a full fledged adventure, complete with a map, statts, buildings, patrols, defences, traps etc. etc. As it is, the outline is worth stealing. The highest potential at least, but all the good detail gets abstracted to conform to a 2 hour session format. Can the proceeds for Vengercon go towards a sort of Venger Satanis Penal Colony, where he is forced into gruelling 12 hour sessions until the tendency to abstract is expunged through the healing method of critique and self-critique?

Prison Beneath the Palace
In terms of sheer imagination this is the best one, even if it is much more linear then the rest. You begin play captured, in the Dungeons of Agry’baah for some reason. Before you have a chance to meet some of your weirdo cellmates you are quickly sprung by a sexy lady, who transports you deep into the desert by giving a handjob to a bizarre shambling horror in a many-angled room (though you could theoretically escape via the sewers and leave the entire hook, the adventure gives you a table and bob’s your uncle).

Average day on Cha’alt

This one is closest to what I would consider a proper adventure, even if again, it has no map, and little to explore. After you fight off a horrific brain-devouring slug monster, you recover some survivors from the cryogenic pods it is praying on, but there is a traitor among them, and once again, an evil glowing rock that controls the mind. This situation is further complicated by the arrival of scavengers, in the form of power armored mercenaries seeking to recover the rock.

This is getting close to actual adventure territory, with intrigue, a mexican standoff, different factions with goals that can be exploited, again the possible destruction of the entire planet by the rising of a great old one. The gonzo has been dialed down a bit, and the result is almost stronger for it. Maybe switch up the ratios? Once again, no maps, but for a 2 hour session of this would probably meet my minimum criteria of amusement.

Occupation of Kra’adumek.
A more traditional dungeon format and maybe the weaker for it. Kra’adumek, once home to the Demon Worm, has since its fall been occupied by a merciless neighbour kingdom, and is under brutal martial law. The characters are hired to free its captive king from house arrest.

So as far as writing hooks or premises for adventures, I am going to give Venger an A+ because all of that sounds fantastic. However, for follow through, I will give out the mildly insulting D+, because this adventure does not have a map of the palace, or patrol schedules, or magic traps OR OTHER COOL SHIT THAT I WANTED. Getting into the city is a good obstacle, with notes on where the Uzi-armed guards are placed. After that the exploit sort of gets high-jacked by a Zedi Elf showing up and informing you that some sort of cultic ritual must be stopped, but first a key must be found. You must fight off an insulting band of low level rapscallions while you extract the key, the prohibited Zoth substance, from some smoothies. Here I would have liked an element of perhaps problem solving? More investigation. Where do we find Zoth? Is it here? What could it be? Espionage? Instead you just get pointed at the problem.

In the words of President Joseph Biden: “C’mon man”

Long story short, you must now enter yet another temple, perform a fetch-quest for three machine parts, and suffer possible death if you fuck up. Once again, a ‘temple.’ Good, really weird encounters that don’t relate to eachother or feed into eachother. Like this. And then interspersed with deadly bizarre dangers so it feels like a dream.

Encounters proper, you play texas holdem against a Gunslinger to the death, are offered strange artifacts by an attractive female android, many of which lead to death, and by far the best encounter, a wizard demands you kill one of your party in order to obtain the fragment. Some of the encounters are not even dangerous, they merely deliver cryptic, oracular mysticism that may or may not be meaningless. As far as tapping into the substratum of the Ur-Well of Myth is concerned, you nailed it, but that fucking map needs some connective tissue or I am going to have an aneurism.

Big Trouble in Dome City
Man another outline, and sort of similar to earlier themes. The PCs encounter a band of anti-matter miners who are attacked by a Za’arlaak in the desert, and can either decide to assist or perhaps merely rob the miners. The action leads to Dome City, a Dystopian Technological Society based partially on Logan’s Run and partially on Mr. Satanis’s favorite political punching bags and involves the plot by its ruler, a witch, to transport her spirit into a gigantic war robot and definitely not murder everyone in a crazy rampage.

This one is very much an outline like the prison city, and you get a full on d100 table of …sights about the city, some of which might double as encounters or hooks and a lot of which are contemporary references. The stuff is alright but it kind of feels like it drags on, and at this point I am chomping at the bit for something meatier. The adventure likely concludes with the Witch getting the anti-matter, the colossus getting animated, and subsequently rampaging across Cha’alt. Given its capabilities, stopping it with direct force seems rather unlikely, but there aren’t really any other possibilities given. Spell component rules for CDS in the appendix and we have made it through the first book.

An auspicious start. Some of these short form adventures are alright, the encounters are fun and all, but I must confess it drags on and I am waiting for the big meaty chonkers and the lack of proper adventure craftsmanship triggers constant alerts. The explanation of Cha’alt methodology gives a good insight into the type of game Venger expects you to run with it, which is helpful. Much of this material feels like foreplay. Let’s get down to bidness.

We are 117 pages of 361 in so this will have to be continued. My god.