Angel Sanctuary Volume 1

From my books retrieved from storage.

Title: Angel Sanctuary
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 1994
Publisher Viz Media
Writer: Kaori Yuki
Artist: Kaori Yuki

Setsuna's life is a mess, and that's before we even get into the details of his incestuous feelings for his sister. In the background of all of this there is an ongoing war between angels and demons and their various earthly reincarnations.

The artwork had some pretty spots, and there were a few moments where this story's horror elements really stood out nicely, but overall, I found it to be on the confusing side. This was a very nihilistic take on angels and demons, but it didn't leave me with much in the way of likeable characters.

The worldbuilding and the backstory are there, and there is definitely potential to get a decent story out of this, but this failed to hook me as an opening chapter.

Rating: 4/10

One-Page Dungeon: Quest for the Weird Stone

Bought at the Flywheel Zine Fest a few weeks ago in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: One-Page Dungeon: Quest for the Weird Stone
Publisher: Alec Adams Art
Writer: Alec Adams
Artist: Alec Adams

Another rpg adventure in zine form, this time, more of a micro-zine.This is a quick dungeon crawl with a couple of unique magic items and a monster/npc adversary. The descriptions are simple, but the GM can easily add the necessary details to work this with any D&D style rules set, and it's easy to adjust the challenge level as well.

This is a linear dungeon with interesting challenges, but no real plot and not much given in terms of backstory. Still, it definitely delivers value for its size/cost, and a group with get a fun side quest out of this at the least. Since the "Weird Stone" has vaguely-described healing properties, this would be a good quest to remove a curse placed on a PC or NPC. It's easily adaptable to just about any D&D setting.

Rating: 7/10

Just Another Goblin Cave

Bought at the Flywheel Zine Fest a few weeks ago in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Just Another Goblin Cave
Publisher: YCBN Games
Writer: Eon Fontes-May
Artist: Eon Fontes-May
Cover: Dan Dawson

Not a comic. This is a rpg adventure in zine form. The basic idea is that the PCs are sent on a mission to a gnomish forge only to find it completely taken over by hostile goblins. This low-level adventure is designed to be run with OSR-style systems, but it's pretty workable with any D&D type set of rules. I ran it with 5E for my middle school gaming club and it worked fine. It's nonstop action, essentially one running battle from start to finish, so the roleplaying elements are a bit limited, but there is some good backstory and potential to expand on what's here, and it's adaptable fairly easily to most fantasy settings.

This provided some good entertainment for such a small, inexpensive product.

Rating: 7.5/10