Frostgrave: Perilous Dark

Perilous Dark takes the Frostgrave game into the realms of solo and co-operative adventures. A few online digital supplements had already explored this idea before being pulled into a printed format, for example Dark Alchemy in the Frostgrave Folio supplement, but this one goes into a lot more detail and is more rules heavy than previous supplements.

This full-colour book has the increased page count of 96 pages again, plus the usual card cover. It also retails at £14.99, which seems to be the new price bracket for these books.

In this supplement...

Introduction - The Introduction gives a brief overview of the author's thinking process when it comes to creating new supplements, and moves onto what ideas can be found in this particular tome

The Basics - This section explores the basics of the game as a solo event and as a co-operative venture; there are specific rules depending upon how the game is to be run as each mode of play has distinct advantages and disadvantages. It then runs through how to set objectives and the level of difficulty before summarising how to apply spells and monsters. It finishes up with a short recap

Limited Time, Unlimited Monsters - One major challenge in playing solo is how to create a challenging encounter. The author runs through some basics for this before introducing a couple of additional rules for time limitation and ruminating on treasure carrying capacity for soldiers. This section is then rounded off with three new scenarios that link into a mini-campaign. The scenario descriptions follow the usual Frostgrave scenario layout but with an additonal section that describes changes that can be made for playing co-operatively rather than solo. Each scenario has nods towards what has been learned (rules and ideas wise) in the section just completed

Traps and Obstacles - After a brief run through of how traps and obstacles work in solo gaming, three more scenarios are presented. These form a continuation of the narrative from the previous section and build on the knowledge gained in the rules part of the section

The Unknown - Frostgrave is all about exploring the unknown. This part of the book runs through ideas on how to create clue markers and room cards for those exploratory adventures where wizard versus wizard combat isn't the aim. This chapter continues the scenario narrative with two more challenges for solo wizards

Dungeon Crawls - This is mainly what draws me to solo gaming; the ubiquitous dungeon crawl. I have played Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D 1st edition) using the random dungeon generator and then played my own made up games, but want to try something slightly fresher. This section details two ways of achieving dungeon crawling in Frostgrave; room cards and random generation. The two scenarios, again linked to the previous growing campaign, utilise the latest rules mastered in this section

New Treasure - a set of alternative tables that can be rolled on to replace one or two treasure items gained in the Perilous Dark scenarios

Bestiary - This final section lists and stats all of the new monsters encountered in this supplement; Ballista II, Borock, Chronohound, Hellcrow, Magmite, Manaworm, Matriarch, Planar Lurker, Reaver Wight and Vapour Snake

I really enjoyed my run through of this supplement. I really hope that I am able to capitalise on this and play a few solo games in the very near future. I think I will create a warband or two in a few days time and see if I have some miniatures to match. However, the problem I will have gaming in the Frozen City is a severe lack of scenery items. I may start off just using random boxes and pieces of "stuff" I have laying around the house just to get a feel for the game and then begin to create ruins and so on when I can get the raw materials for them (I will most likely use the methods detailed in the Battle Games in Middle-earth magazines so my creations can be used in at least two settings).