reported on this release a couple of weeks ago and the publishers were kind enough to send us a copy for review. As ever, it’s taken some time for me to find the time to plough through, but I’ve finally done so which means I can detail a little about this depraved, gore-ridden, violent RPG scenario.
Former GWAR frontman and now legendary deceased person Brockie finished the majority of the work before he ed away and his complete original is included as part of the package. What he’d done has been fleshed out by Jobe Bittman who’s stuck as closely as possible to the style of Brockie’s writing and it’s genuinely difficult to spot the s. In fact, some of the more extreme ideas were actually penned by Bittman and it’s not difficult to imagine them spouting from the fertile imagination of Brockie.
Towers Two is a role playing game scenario, designed to be used with the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system, though easily adapted to others. The setting is a fairly standard fantasy land populated by warriors, magicians, thieves and sentient phalluses. Not surprisingly, the content is pretty extreme and this is definitely a game for the adult roleplayer. The text descriptions are wonderfully gruesome, bizarre and humorous and the back-story (revealed towards the end of the scenario) is a marvel of twisted imagination.
There’s plenty for the players to get their teeth into, with a handful of plotlines and interesting characters offering side-missions, several of which conflict with one another. Magic items, treasure and encounters are plentiful and I would suggest perhaps a little too plentiful. If there’s a fault with this sourcebook it’s that it’s too packed. It may be worth spreading things out a little otherwise a party is going to spend a lot of its time simply trying to battle down a corridor facing a swathe of very difficult opponents… and thus not getting to enjoy the interesting back-story.
Villains include the alien Loi-Goi, beastly pig-men, amphibian Eloi, pirates, bandits and a Golem. That’s only a tiny smattering of the opponents that players will find themselves lined up against. The magic system includes a subset of particularly vile items covered by the term “deathfuck magic” and I’ll leave that for you to research once you buy the book!
As well as the text, there are loads of pictures which are easily recognisable as Brockie’s style from his work on GWAR album sleeves (and elsewhere). Bright colours, no sense of shame and ably illustrating the horrors within, they genuinely add to the book. Additional illustrations come courtesy of Jeremy Duncan whose work is every bit as good.
For the roleplayer, this is a decent adventure. It’s hard to judge it perfectly without playing it through and I’m sure many of you will do this. I just read the text and actually found this pretty entertaining in its own right. The inclusion of Brockie’s original draft makes this a worthwhile purchase for the GWAR completist as well.
If you’re not sure, there’s a ten page preview available to for free, and if you are convinced then you can buy it online from the LotFP store.
