A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Warlock’s Journal #31

Warlock’s Journal #31 is a free role playing game supplement published by Tiny Gork. This is one in a series of competitions that are hosted by different blogs, with this being the February 2017 contest hosted by Tiny Gork. The supplement is generic in nature

This is a twenty four page PDF which is available for free from RPGNow. One page is the front cover, one page is the front matter, one page has the standard Warlock’s Journal fluff and one page is about this particular contest, where each entry is based around three random words: Lexicon, Dragonscale and Freebooter and there are two pages of what are essentially ads.

The supplement then goes on to the different entries.

The Dragonscale Shield of the Everlost is an artefact belonging to the now-disintegrated Knights of the Everlost that was taken by barbarians and whose location is now not known for certain.

The Legendary Spell of Zhezinaram’s Golden Hoard is a spell created by a dragon that can guide the caster to gold, believed to be inscribed on dragonscales.

The Dragonborn Freebooter and the Dragonscale Lexicon is about an item believed to be in a ruined castle possibly occupied by a demon lord.

Woordenboek Vrijbuiter in Drakenschub , or Freebooter’s Lexicon in Dragonscale, is a Lovecraftian grimoire rumoured to be bound in dragonscale and written mostly in Old Dutch.

All the Words is a science fiction piece of prose about a planetary attack that appears to be based on a lack of vocabulary.

The Dragonscale Lexicon has more details on the item from the entry Dragonborn Freebooter and the Dragonscale Lexicon, actually describing the book itself.

On the Manufacture of Dragonscale Armour is about making armour from dragonhide, and how owning such can be a source of problems.

Village of Warlock is an unusual village whose appearance alters due to it being a manifestation of its only true inhabitant’s mind.

Treasure Trifecta are three magical items that work together.

Bartholomew ‘Lucky’ LaMarque is the final entry and the winning one. He is an NPC with a, fake, reputation as a dragonslayer who tends to hire parties to help him kill dragons. The parties do the fighting and dying and he collects the rewards.

Finally, A Winning Word discusses the winner and gives a list of the prizes.

The PDF lacks bookmarks and such would have been useful. It also lacks a table of contents. Navigation is, as a result, pretty poor. The text maintains a single column format and a few minor errors were noted. It also lacks illustrations.

The various entries vary in usefulness. Some are potential adventure seeds although, as this is a system-neutral supplement, stats will need creating for any items and people. Most of them are fantasy in nature, but one is science fiction and another would be useful for Lovecraftian games such as Call of Cthulhu – the last would probably be the easiest to use. The winning entry is interesting – the NPC is a rather non-typical questgiver and being employed by him could be fatal.

Warlock’s Journal #31 is an interesting collection of ideas and can be downloaded for free by clicking here.