Mystic Pangolin Issue 2

Mystic Pangolin is an OSR fantasy aligned zine that system-wise is providing stats for Swords and Wizardry.

It has some excellent art, some pedestrian layout and a so-so mix of articles.

All the fun of the fair presents a set of four travelling players, each with a small portrait. Remarkably each is a likeable, interesting person with a backstory that rewards engagement. So much of the OSR fan material I’ve read recently presents people as either loathsome or saints. Its nice to have a set of essentially good people with relatively low key straight-forward ambitions.

As a case in point the scenario, The Haunting of Kilderkin Fen presents a request to intervene in a gruesome dispute between two brothers both of who turn out to be pretty loathsome. Maybe the point is to provide an anti-heroic chance to usurp a petty aristocratic holding but it doesn’t even feel that clever. The characters are expected to investigate and then intervene but its hard to understand why they would.

A series called Ports of Call offers an engaging description of a shelter for riding out the winter amongst frost and sea ice. Again there is a lack of heart but the description is evocative.

There is also an engaging epilogue called Owl of Arianrhod which is coupled with a delightfully nerdy discussion of the different kinds of vision the typical D&D inspired fantasy game offers.

Then there are the less engaging pieces…

Terror birds is a genuinely old-school article that represents some real world research that is then reproduced with only a thin thread of how it might be useful in a game. In this case the article is about presenting extinct giant predatory birds as monsters.

As with lots of these articles the main problem there isn’t any metaphor the birds serve unlike the traditionally successful monsters. They really are just giant, mammal-eating birds.

Textile treasures tries the trick of looking at treasure beyond the conventional precious metal coins. However it ends up feeling like a list of things made out of cloth. It would have been more interesting to talk about why things like purple dye or silk have been so valuable in the past and what other materials might occupy such a niche in a fantasy world.

Summary

There’s nothing outstanding and there’s nothing bad about this issue. There’s no reason you need this on your wish list but I feel it deserves a place on your reading list.

I’d like to see more from the editor Blackie Carbon because I think they could do something interesting if they keep writing and experimenting.