The Manifestus Omnivorous is a zine series by Games Omnivorous, in which a designer creates an adventure module within a set of consistent restraints, delineated in ten rules. 1. The book is an adventure. 2. That is system agnostic. 3. And takes place on Earth. 4. In a single location. 5. With just ONE monster. 6. The adventure must feature saprophagy or osteophagy. 7. And a voracious eater. 8. Word count must be under 6,666. 9. The art can only be two colors (not counting the paper white). 10. Finally, the “Lost” rule: the adventures can not have good taste. Further, all of the zines feature a slightly large size and unbound covers that are kept in place by a colorful elastic band. As with all of Games Ominvorous productions, I find these deeply appealing on both an aesthetic and physical level.

The Seed (2020), by Kelvin Green, is the second in the series. I don’t really like the first one, Feast on Titanhead (sorrry!) and honestly, I am 50/50 on The Seed as well. It sure leans into the lost rule — I can do without the penis hounds that squirt corrosive fluid, honestly.

That aside, the rest of the adventure is interesting. There’s an radioactive inter-dimensional portal that spat out the titular seed, which is a horrible biological engine  spewing out a pink miasma. That fog is slowly terraforming the region to be hospitable to horrible alien life. Aiding this is a cult of rich wingnuts. Opposing this is a pair of agents from a secret society who make it their business to stop this sort of thing. The cultists wrap themselves in rags, the agents have suits like old timey diving suits. Then the players show up and hijinx ensue. Honestly, none of the opponents here are challenging on their own. They are made challenging by the effects of the miasma, that hampers exploration and is pretty much actively killing anyone out in it. I like that feature a lot, actually! I also generally enjoy green’s art and the pink and white color scheme.