January 7, 2024 hex culture adventures, afternoon espresso, amateur hour, encounters, monks, monsters, Uncategorized

food web

I have been thinking about two wildly different shows: Mrs. Davis (a stage magician hunting nun / mystic from Reno, Nevada) and Scavengers Reign (space colonists get marooned on a planet with a mysterious and infinitely complex ecology).

What they have in common is a strong sense that something strange is going on deep behind the scenes. This often manifests as a snowballing series of semirelated or ambiguously related encounters. Sister Simone in Mrs. Davis keeps on running to a number of feuding secret societies and their agents who have an intense but unknown interest in her and each other. When you have a run in with the superintelligent AI app, the weird German treasure hunters take notice, which leads to an encounter with yet another faction when they intervene in ways I don’t want to spoil.

Similarly, the survivors in Scavengers Reign stumble across a creature that’s hunting or being hunting, which then kicks off a long series of encounters as predators and prey get involved and entangle/endanger the survivors further.

I’ve modeled how this could work in games in a short encounter table. Basically, you have encounters as normal, but certain reaction roll results either guarantee a certain encounter the next turn or guarantee that the next rolled encounter will be with a certain creature. If you run into a stressed out and Unfriendly prey animal, it means there’s a predator nearby. This means you can have normal encounters, but some make you fall forward into another encounter that demonstrates the relationships between creatures. There’s a little extra bookkeeping, but you just have to make note of what happens next turn and what replaces the next encounter, which isn’t too complex.

1d4 Indigo Steppe Encounter Table

2d100 Carrot Snails
3d6 Humpbacked Oryxes
1 Langouste Leopard
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawler

Carrot Snail

Roll	Result
2	Highly stressed by a nearby predator; will vent harmless but foul-smelling oil out of their eyespots on anyone who enters melee range. Next turn is a guaranteed encounter of humpbacked oryxes in addition to rolled results. Next rolled encounter is replaced with langouste leopards, attracted by the scent of snail oil that humpbacked oryxes are often drenched in.
3-5	Being hunted. Next rolled encounter result is replaced with humpbacked oryxes that are on the snails’ trail
6-9	Photosynthesizing, unbothered.
10-11	Senescent. These snails are at the end of their lifespan and full of seed-larva. They offer themselves up to likely predators in hope they will be eaten, thus spreading their larva (which gestate as they pass harmlessly through the eater’s digestive tract).
12	Will warble and approach with adorable little hops. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyespots will erupt into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

3d6 Humpbacked Oryx

Roll	Result
2	Moving quickly because a langouste leopard is in the area. Next encounter is replaced with a langouste leopard.
3-5	Protecting their young. 2d6 oryx calves are hidden nearby; the adult oryxes will go berserk if they are approached.
6-9	Grazing. Next rolled encounter is replaced with big scarlet crawlers that want to scavenge their shit.
10-11	Hungry, scavenging. Will nose through pockets and bags looking for food and positively remember anyone who gives them something.
12	Will amble up amicably. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyes will explode into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

1 Langouste Leopard

Roll	Result
2	Starved, sick. Can’t fail morale checks.
3-5	Hunting. Will attack but retreat if faced with any real violence. Until killed or fully chased off, it will secretly accompany every subsequent encounter, waiting for a chance to ambush.
6-9	Hunting something else.
10-11	Just ate; curious. Will accept bribes and is less likely to hunt anyone who bribes it with snacks.
12	Will act like a big cute cat. It is infected with megaplasmodia; after frolicking for a little while, it will turn to leave just as its tail explodes into a giant plume of bacteria-bearing aerosol. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

2d4 Big Scarlet Crawlers

Roll	Result
2	Confused. They are infected with megaplasmodia and will detonate into a sticky spume of bacteria-bearing purple ichor as soon as they ram into an uninfected creature. Take 3d6 damage, Save vs Breath for half; Save vs Poison or get infected with megaplasmodia.
3-5	Performing a mating ritual. Will attack only if approached.
6-9	Busily sifting through piles of oryx dung.
10-11	By chance unthreatened by the PCs; if offered food, they will trail behind by them until the next time the party rests, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
12	Will trail the PCs, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.

Uses

This is probably best for relatively small encounter tables in places that PCs will be spending a lot of time in; if they’re just passing through or there are a lot of different kinds of encounters, I think it could end up as just a bunch of weird stuff happening. PCs have to linger long enough to understand how different behaviors are associated with different outcomes for the interesting part of this mechanic to really kick in.

This example uses animals to model an ecology, but you could model some fun Mrs. Davis / Crying of Lot 49 shenanigans where Neorosicrucians are always encountered on teal Vespas and when they’re Neutral it’s because they’re too busy fleeing from Retrotheosophists to try to throw fake blood on you, and everyone is getting chased around by the local SETI chapter, which is trying to whisk people away in their ice cream truck without getting nabbed by the IRS.

You could also do fun stuff like having certain creatures that aren’t on the encounter table at all and only show up as consequence to a prior encounter. This could be good for rare, especially dangerous predators or especially mysterious NPCs.

July 22, 2023 hex culture adventures, amateur hour, Uncategorized

through dark of night

Break!! is coming out soon. The draft pdf is very good and I want to run it. Put together a little setting sketch/player brief that remixes the default setting a little. I wanted to do something that made a West Marches-esque game that enables easy drop-in / drop-out but also longer arcs, so I busted the four primary zones in Break up into Spelljammer-esque planes and put a simple pathcrawl on top of them. Players can pick from a list of jobs and missions designed to be finished in 1-2 sessions.

Intro

The Cosmos is broken up into innumerable worlds, all but inaccessible to each other. However, the brave and knowledgeable may voyage between them on the interdimensional Sea of Erebus. It is a vast and jewel-black abyss with a sparse scattering of Stations that permit entry into their respective worlds.

You are the crew of an ancient celestial craft able to traverse the perilous waters of Erebus: a legendary heavenliner. It looks something like an old-fashioned passenger ship and something like an Art Deco cathedral. It is your perilous and lucrative job to ferry passengers and carry cargo from world to world.

Starlines

Starlines are currents of aether that link the Station of every world in Erebus. They are visible as golden threads, just beneath the surface of Erebus’ waters. The starline that links the four Known Worlds is called the Crescent Line. The Halfmoon Line once linked the two farthest worlds, the Blazing Garden and the Wistful Dark, and allowed access to the Worlds Beyond, but it has long since been lost.

Worlds and their Stations

There are four Known Worlds: the Blazing Garden, the Buried Kingdom, the Twilight Meridian, and the Wistful Dark (i.e. the four primary zones in Break!!). They were once one world, but some long-passed cataclysm wrenched them apart and scattered them across Erebus.

Each world has a Station on the Crescent Line. They are enormous, beautiful buildings, constructed lovingly by an unknown hand, and each contains a gateway to their respective world.

Wistful Dark’s Station Lamentorum: An elegant neo-Gothic confection illuminated by indigo lamps and crowned by a clocktower. The worldside Station is a vine-swathed ruin in the Shadowed Lands, meaning that importing goods into and out of the Wistful Dark requires a lengthy caravan journey. A bustling caravanserai has cropped up around the worldside Station, but it faces the bandits and undead that make their home in the Shadowed Lands. Rumor has it that the Erebus-side Station contains a hidden sub-basement where the Unshaped hid some fabulous artifact.
Twilight Meridian’s Station Nubium: An immense pavilion built from fragrant wood of an unknown tree, illuminated with heatless braziers that burn rosy pink and pale purple. The worldside Station is a well-tended, albeit much smaller twin located not far outside the capital of the Seven Holy Isles, guarded (and taxed) by the Shogun’s court. Rumor has it that somewhere in the Pavilion’s mazelike chambers lies a coffin containing an ingenious shipwright imprisoned eternally for defying the gods before their banishment.
Buried Kingdom’s Station Ingenii: A Cyclopean edifice blanketed with moss and lichen, illuminated poorly with fireflies and luminescent fungus. The worldside Station is a totally unmanaged grotto, and all manner of precious goods, illicit or otherwise, spill in and out of the bazaar that has sprung up in its vicinity. Rumor has it that Station Ingenii’s depths contain some hint of the fate of the long-lost giants.
Blazing Garden’s Station Crisium: A palatial monument of red sandstone and embellishments in gold and branching red coral. Its worldside Station is part of an extensive dragonshrine complex in Taaga, which mediates between heavenliner crews and the worldside community of merchants doing brisk business. Rumor has it that the gardens that line the Erebus-side Station bloom with mythological herbs and flowers once every hundred years.

Image by NASA. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Demimondes

Some worlds are small enough to float on the surface of Erebus without a Station. They might be artificial, constructed by asura, deva, or especially powerful sorcerers, or fragments of ancient worlds eroded down to wandering islands.

The most famous demimonde is the Lantern House, constructed by Sagess Saith as a hotel for affluent travelers of Erebus. Her magic, aligned with shadow, flame, and smoke, maintained the Halfmoon Line. When the Lantern House went dark some centuries ago, the Halfmoon Line vanished with it. Bringing light back to the Lantern House could restore the Line, but voyaging into the gulf between worlds with only dead reckoning and a determined crew would require a surpassingly talented navigator. This is to say nothing of confronting whatever power extinguished the Lantern House to begin with.

Lost Worlds

Through the Halfmoon Line are the Lost Worlds, half-remembered through centuries of isolation.

Malian, the profane cosmopolis built into a fathomless borehole rumored to reach into Hell. Almost anything can be bought here, but almost nothing is ultimately worth the price.
Myrkholt, an archaic land ruled by nobles and knights. It is endlessly endangered by the beasts of the forest depths, and it is haunted by the legacy of its immortal monarch, the Once and Future King.
Carillon, a land of stargazing scholars and fanatical exorcists. At war with beings from beyond the stars, and home to technology that rivals the Old Iron Kingdom in its heyday.

Jobs

I’m incredibly disinterested in simulating arbitrage, so this is going to be a bit simplified. You get paid for worlds traveled and the type of job. You can only take one job at a time. If I accidentally jacked up the math (likely) this may get adjusted.

Standard Deliveries just mean you need to keep the cargo intact and get to the destination at some point. You will get paid unless you really fuck around.
Express Deliveries have a deadline, usually a number of days equal to how many worlds away the destination is. If you don’t reach the destination in time, you don’t get paid, and you might piss off somebody important.
Standard and Express Passengers follow the same rules as Standard and Express Deliveries, except also you need to keep the passenger alive and reasonably comfortable.
VIP Passengers follow the same rules as above except the passenger expects a higher level of accommodation and comfort and more dangerous people want them dead. If you fail an Express VIP job you are in Big Trouble.
Single-world hops generally require some additional work or trouble, like delivering a package or escorting a passenger to a location within the world, not just its Station, or fending off a specific party that wants what you are delivering. If multi-world hops require this, pay is doubled.

Worlds Away	Standard Delivery	Express Delivery	Standard Passenger	Express Passenger	Standard VIP	Express VIP
1	100 coins	200 coins	500 coins	1 gem	2 gems	5 gems
2	200 coins	500 coins	1 gem	2 gems	5 gems	10 gems
3	500 coins	1 gem	2 gems	5 gems	10 gems	20 gems
4+ Worlds	1 gem	2 gems	5 gems	10 gems	20 gems	50 gems

The Heavenliner

You and your followers are the crew. You don’t answer to anyone, but you need to pay your own way in terms of food and fuel.

Decide on a name for the heavenliner.

Right now, you can only access the helm, the main deck, and the cargo hold, but it is more than enough to fit lucrative cargo, yourself, and your possessions. You can hire and artificer to cut a key to open more decks and quarters in the heavenliner, which gives you access to more resources, room for cargo, and facilities. A key costs as much as the facility it unlocks takes to buy (check the Property section of the rulebook). The heavenliner is a demimonde unto itself, so you’ll never run out of space if you’re willing to pay for it.

You can cut keys for workshops. Otherwise you need to rent one worldside.
You need to cut a key for a kitchen and hut-equivalent quarters before you can take on passengers
You need to cut a key for kitchens and townhouse-equivalent quarters before you can take on VIP passengers.
You need to cut a key for a livestock deck (costs as much as a townhouse) before you get mounts or pack animals.
You need to cut a key for a moonpool (costs as much as a townhouse) before you can carry vehicles.
You can increase the heavenliner’s inventory by 20 slots for the cost of a hut.

Travel

Follow Journey Procedure while traveling Erebus. It takes a day to get from one Station to the next (at least on the Crescent Line).

The Heavenliner can carry 40 slots. A job requires 20 in terms of parcels, passengers, and their effects. If you eschew a job and just want to explore, you can carry more supplies.

The heavenliner drinks aether from the Sea of Erebus; you need to keep yourselves fed, watered, and hale, but fuel is not an issue.

August 22, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto adventures, amateur hour, demon, encounters, intro, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, occult

katabatic age

Shin Megami Tensei/Annihilation/Stalker citycrawling mashup modeled after Pearce’s Troll World.

// THE NEW AGE

In the depths of the environmental and resource crisis of 20XX, the discovery of a fifth esoteric phase of matter, upon which the laws of physics act weakly but the principles of perception and desire act strongly, promised a path to a better future. Wonderful machines and miraculous technologies, new cities clear of the rising water, humanity’s eyes once again turned to space, all with a price that did not reveal itself until too late. As esoteric substances filled the oceans and esoteric particles filled the atmosphere and esoteric fields tangled with the Earth’s own, all the shadows of the human mind, nightmares, rumors, figures from the old stories, took form and will and pried apart civilization. This new technology did not bring a Golden Age, or an Age of Humanity, but an age of dreaming deep without waking, an age of drowning in the collective unconscious, a Katabatic Age.

from Akira

// THE KATABATIC ZONE

The heart of the end of the world, where esoteric pollution is strongest. A mutating mirage-city build from the dreams and memories of its dead inhabitants, sometimes as clean and new as it was in its heyday, sometimes dilapidated and vine-chewed, its dimensions expanding and contracting so that circumnavigating it might take a week or a year or forever. It is occupied by dream-beings, eidola created by the city’s dead inhabitants: nightmares given flesh, heroes and monsters from the old stories, saints born from the prayers of the dying, archetypes aggregated from a billion human minds, kaleidoscopic psychic artifacts that corrode reality just with their presence. Rumor has it that in the deepest and strangest parts of the Katabatic Zone, there are eidola as intelligent and coherent as humans, who plot against each other and the humans who made them. The one certainty and constant of the Katabatic Zone is that a great deal of money can be made by conducting expeditions into its depths–information, instrument readings, and esoteric substances taken from the Zone are all extremely valuable on the black market.

// CUATROS SANTOS

A small city living in the corpse of a big one. Bright paint on old plaster, new plaster on old cinder block, new cinderblock on tired foundations. Neighborhoods sprung up beneath orphaned overpasses, jury-rigged locomotives coughing diesel smoke as they follow routes that once belonged to electric monorails, pickup trucks and motorcycles blast down cracked highways that once carried thousands. And looming above it all, from the corners of the city, the four colossal namesakes of Cuatros Santos, skyscraping eikons forming an esoteric mechanism that just barely keeps the city from collapsing beneath the weight of so many human minds.

from Dorohedoro

// CHARACTERS

Step 1: Roll or choose your background and make note of your favored attribute and starting skills.

job	preferred attribute	starting skill
employee	appeal	bullshit, linguistics
gearhead	intellect	engineering, computers
PI	physique	athletics, streetwise
delinquent	speed	driving, larceny
esper	psyche	mantia, science
merc	combat	firearms, first aid

Step 2: Roll 2d6+6 for your favored attribute. For everything else, roll 3d6 in order. Attributes are Appeal, Intellect, Physique, Speed, Psyche, and Combat.

Step 3: Max HP = 6. Make a Psyche/Mantia check. If you succeed, you have 1 Nous Die.

Step 4: Determine starting gear. You start with five items a competent shoplifter could get out of a Walmart and a random weapon. Italicized weapons can be hidden, bolded weapons require two hands. You can find armor and more gear on your misadventures. Guns are available, but illegal and hard to find.

roll	weapon
1	machete [d6/d6]
2	sword [d8/d6]
3	baseball bat [d4/d8]
4	switchblade [d4/d8]
5	hairpin [d4/d6]
6	chef knife [d6/d6]
7	mall sword [d4/d6]
8	crowbar [d6/d6]
9	signpost [d8/d6]
10	bicycle chain [d6/d6]

from Michiko and Hatchin

// SHADOW SCIENCE
Mantia is the shadow-science manipulating esoteric phenomena and entities. If you have a Nous Die, you can roll to start with one random Mantic trick. Mantia is extremely illegal in Cuatros Santos, but you can learn Mantic tricks from samizdat manuals and cooperative eidola. If you don’t have any Nous, imbibing (and surviving) esoteric substances, surviving eidolon attacks, spending time in esoteric fields all might give you some.

from Toujin Kit of Genius Party anthology

1. Summon
Instantiates an eidolon of [dice] levels or fewer you have made a contract with. You can dismiss it at will unless it has failed a Morale check since you last summoned it.

2. Apotropaic Tone
Sing a low note note bearing a repulsive polarity, requiring eidola to make an Aptitude check to get within [dice] yards of you. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

3. Beckoning Tone
Sing a low note that bears a compelling polarity, requiring eidola within [dice] yards of you make an Aptitude check or reveal themselves and approach you in their true form. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

4. Esoteric Lens
Form a simple loupe in the form of a translucent stone in your clenched fist. If gazed through, reveals eidola and esoteric fields within [dice] yards. Lasts for [dice] turns.

// NEGOTIATION
Roll Disposition Die + Faction Die on below table to determine encountered NPC’s reaction. Disposition Die is how the NPC views the party/leader/interlocutor personally, so stuff like high Appeal or cool clothes help. Faction Die is the party’s credibility with the encountered NPC’s organization or alignment. Both start at d6 and raise or lower based on various factors.

roll	reaction
2	hostile – attack
3-5	unfriendly – attack in 1 round without a good reason
6-8	uninterested – ignore the party without a good reason
9-11	talkative – will help the party for a good reason
12	amused – will help in the party for a decent reason

Human hirelings and contracted eidola are a key component in surviving in the Katabatic Zone. PCs can’t have more allies (whether they are humans or contracted eidola) than 1/3 their Appeal score, rounded down. If an ally is endangered, compromised, or insulted, their employer may be required to make an Appeal check to not lose their loyalty.

from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

// DAMAGE AND WOUNDS
Notice how each weapon in the list had two dice? The first is the Damage Die. If an attack lands, roll it and subtract the value from the target’s HP like normal. Easy. Being reduced to 0 HP means you have to make a Physique check or die, and are incapacitated still on a success.

The second is the Location Die which determines where the attack lands. Some weapons are more deadly/lends themselves well to clonking people on the head, and so have a better Location Die.

A location that’s been hit has a minor wound. Until it’s patched up with a turn of effort, any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage.
A location that has an untreated minor wound that gets hit again has a major wound, which means it any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage until you spend time laid up to heal.
Further injury to a location with an unhealed major wound renders it useless. If it’s your head or torso, you’ll also need to make a Physique check to see if you die, and are still incapacitated on a success. If you’re alive when the smoke clears, you may have permanent consequences.

roll	location
1-2	legs
3	Torso
4-5	Arms
6+	Head

Armor is per hit location and reduces all incoming damage by its Armor Score. An attacked reduced to 0 damage does not injure its hit location. A turn’s rest in a safe place restores 1d6 HP, as does resting in a dangerous place and eating a snack.

// MISADVENTURES

Shady Dr. Sepulveda has a standing offer for esoteric substances and artifacts extracted from the Katabatic Zone. The Administration that runs Cuatro Santos certainly frowns/prosecutes such exercises, but she pays pretty well.
Sepulveda’s bitter rival Dr. Jimenez wants eikonometry readings from the Seventh Heaven, a particularly rarefied region of the Katabatic Zone ruled by eidola born from a desire for order. He’s willing to pay quite a bit for your trouble.
Word on the street is that a commando expedition armed with exoskeletal Frames never came back from their mission into the Katabatic Zone. Whatever got them is probably still lurking, but it sure would be sweet to have a mech or two.
Somebody’s been constructing eidolon familiars from dream-stuff and selling them to gangs inside Cuatro Santos as obedient heavy muscle. Old Man Ramiro will pay good money to anyone who can shut down his rival’s suppliers, especially since the Bureau of Affairs has started sniffing around.
The Bureau of Affairs is keeping something really tasty in one of their labs not far from the edge of the city. Nobody knows what it is, but everyone knows it’s valuable. Up for a heist?

April 27, 2017 jacinto adventures, afternoon espresso, flowerland, monsters, npcs

The Bode

Very quickly wrote a brief adventure for Flowerland/Horror Florida using a Monsterparts-y hack that I will run this weekend, or at least offer as a hook. There’s not a clean way to resolve the situation besides “rolling a huge boulder in front of the dungeon”, but that’s okay I guess.

There is a hill north of town where the pine trees grow and nothing else. It’s dark there, and too quiet, and too cold, even in the thick of summer.

If you are playing close attention, you might notice that all traces of the most recent wildfire stops short at the base of the hill, where the pine forest begins. If you have spent a lot of time in the woods, you might expect there to be palmetto scrub under these pine trees, not just the dead needles heaped there now.

At the top of the hill, where it is darkest and coldest, where the trees grow so dense your shoulders always brush their trunks no matter how you turn yourself, stands a temple built from roughly hewn basalt, furred with moss and crusted with lichen. There is no light inside, and the faint draft blowing from its low entrance smells foul and mineral, as if the earth started to rot like flesh. Water dews continuously on the interior walls, making the steps down to the inner chamber slick.

At the bottom you’ll find a circular room, maybe twenty feet in diameter, spiderweb cracks radiating from the jagged-edged pool of water punched into the slab floor at the center. Arranged in a circle around it are twelve deformed animal skulls: too many eye sockets, two or three mandibles fanning out from a twisted jaw, melted-wax contours and clusters of horns. These skulls are cursed, they are a curse, they are best left untouched, they are called The Bode.

IN THE TOWN OF VER
Pretty much everybody in town is talking about a bunch of messed up stuff happening in the wilderness to the north of Ver, known locally as the Old Church Wood. It’s always had an unsavory reputation, but there’s has been a spate of disappearances and bad omens associated with it.

Shrinekeeper Trinidad, the town’s cleric.

Despite his warnings and the Woods’ ominous reputation, a pair of hunters–Trinidad’s friends–pursued a deer into the pines to the north. They haven’t returned, and that was a week ago. That was the start of the trouble.
Every sunset, Trinidad lights the ritual lanterns along the perimeter of Ver. The northernmost ones have been blowing themselves out by midnight, when they should last until sunrise.

Rudriq, hunter.

Rudriq stopped hunting around the Old Church Hills when he found animal skulls wedged between tree branches there.

Pilar, witch.

Distrusted by people of Ver, considered possibly to blame.
She claims she saw an oddly proportioned creature–something on all fours, like a deer or a coyote, it had a pale face and an awkward gait–the night after the hunters should have come back.

Odesa, the town’s mayor.

She had mediated a fight between the two hunters over the game they caught a month ago, and believes they got into some sort of fight out in the woods, or else it’s bandits. She’s dealt with a lot of bandits over the years.
Odessa thinks everyone is seized by superstition and is ready to led her band into the Old Church Wood to solve this once and for all–but has been so far dissuaded by Trinidad’s pleadings.

Katarina, general store propietor

Her caravan hasn’t come back since this whole mess started. See if her idiot employees got eaten by a ghost or not.

Luis, farmer

missing from his farm since yesterday. He had been complaining that something had been going after his livestock, but not like most predators–they were killing for sport.
His farm is to the north, a few minute’s walk past Trinidad’s torches. If the players investigate, they will find his house unlocked, but his barn locked from the inside. His goats are cut apart–like they unraveled off of their own bones–and all of their skulls are missing.

THE OLD CHURCH WOOD
Dense pine trees on a steep hill. It’s dark and chill.

Encounters.
1-2: Mutilated… 1-deer 2-coyote 3-bobcat 4-black bear
3. Abandoned caravan, horses beheaded and cut to pieces, goods untouched. This is the only treasure in the whole adventure, now that I think about it.
4. Tree laden with animal skulls wedges between branches
5. Body of Luis or caravaners
6. Brood of Bode

Brood of Bode

HD: d8
10 EP
Defense 14
Naked, wiry man, running on all fours far faster than a person should be able, wears a filthy deer skull over his face
Spells: Can cast one spell per encounter from its list:

Fog Cloud
Phantasmal Force (a dark presence like a passing cloud, moving through the trees like the first cold blast of wind from an approaching thunderstorm)
Snuff (extinguish all torches, lamps, etc within earshot of its scream)
Inflict Light Wounds (what it’s been using to cut its victims apart),

THE OLD CHURCH
Brood of Bode will not enter, at least at first. One of the hunters is in this chamber, his head and torso submerged in the central pool. If approached, he will slide all the way in.

The Bode can speak in this chamber. Their voice is subaudible, like something half-imagined. They will offer their power to the strongest fighter in the party in return for a sacrificed comrade, and they are not lying: the sacrificer will become another Brood of Bode.
The skulls of The Bode are cursed. Anyone who breaks their skulls will never be able to recover from their wounds. The skulls come back when nobody is looking, anyway.
The Bode can see anything in the pines of Old Church Wood.
The Brood is the other hunter, who sacrificed his friend. His mind is lost to The Bode. The Bode will tell a PC what the hunter did if the PC keeps them talking.
The pool is cursed. Anyone who tries to swim in it will sink to the bottom and drown, and all attempts to haul them out have disadvantage. The body can be retrieved by any other method.
Anyone left alone in the Old Church must make a save or vanish. This increases the Brood of Bode’s HD by one step
The Bode want more Brood, they want more skulls in the pines to see out of, they want the wards on Ver destroyed so they can claim its inhabitants.

August 7, 2016 jacinto adventures, encounters, flowerland, lordy lordy, new barbary, san serafín

New Barbary Session 1, Delivery in La Habana

I ran New Barbary/La Habana yesterday, and it went very well.

The perpetrators:

An amnesiac Castilian deserter with a talent for fighting and a real gift for lying. He still remembers that the fort he was assigned to (Castillo de San Marcos in La Florida) is threatened by a mysterious curse or god.
Sol, A mysterious maskmaker practiced in botany and superior pact-making skills. She had a hard time lying and a nearly supernatural ability to get people to tell her the truth. She was contracted by a devil to repair its mask, which was destroyed by the same entity that threatens the Castillo de San Marcos–or so the devil says.

by Christophe Meneboeuf, distributed under CC-BY-SA license

They owed their cantankerous one-legged landlady 100 pesetas by the end of the week or she was going to sell off all their stuff, evict them, and alert the constabulary. They decided on approaching the Red Hibiscus Society for work, and were led to the bathtub-bound towering ex-bandit who led the Society: Uncle Yusuf. He told them to pick up a package from the House of Honey and Salt and deliver it to a dead drop location at the Old Royal Park.

On the way, they evaded a pack of coyotes gnawing on a body in the abandoned urban areas around the Souk, and tripped over the body of a (extremely stabbed) courier. The letter clutched in his hand was addressed to Frederico Buendía, the owner of the biggest distillery in Cuba, warning him that the infamous pirate Sayyida al Hurra had stolen a major molasses shipment, which would cost him an enormous sum of money and drive up the price of rum catastrophically.

Bearing this in mind, they pick up the package from the Saints. It’s pretty disturbing–they are told not to open the package, get it wet, breath heavily around it, or spend much time touching it. Sol asks for an extra blanket to wrap around it, and pretends she’s carrying a child. On the way out, she notices it’s a bit warmer than body temperature and might even be moving subtly.

On the way to Old Royal Park, they notice a man with a hat pulled low over his face following them. They set up an ambush and successfully capture him, forcing him to reveal he works for a rival gang (the Ivory Palm Guild). The Deserter knocks him out, and they steal his machete, a flask filled with a floral-smelling liquid, and a brick wrapped in paper–possibly a decoy for the package they are trying to deliver.

They reach the Park without complication, hide the package, and successfully flee a group of Ivory Palm Guildsmen, including a limping figure clutching his head. However, while running away they stumble into two sorcerers who manage to catch up with them, helped by a dimly seen creature that blinds the Deserter. It’s a man and a woman–Rosa and Rodrigo–who Sol guesses correctly work for the Klatch. They were trying to prevent the Saint’s package from being delivered to the Red Hibiscus Society, but now that it already has been, they want Sol and the Deserter to figure out where it is being kept. They agreed, realizing the Saints and Society were probably up to no good and also recognizing that Rosa was probably going to shoot them otherwise.

They return to the Red Hibiscus Society’s headquarters and receive their reward from Uncle Yusuf, with a small bonus for fending off the Ivory Palm Guild. Then they alerted Frederico about the impending rum-market disaster. He gave them a small award and agreed to let Sol and the Deserter join his expedition to get the molasses back (the Deserter lied about his Navy experience, and since Frederico thought he possessed “the steady gaze of an honest man”, he let them join). It would leave in a few days.

The next day, the party, wanting more money so they could outfit themselves for their coming adventure, asked for more work at the R.H.S. They were told to deliver a sealed cask to the bastard Castilians, but on the way a mysterious, ragged man named Jorge asked if he could poison the cask, with the promise that it would only “cause digestive distress” and that his days as a smuggler would let him tamper with the seal without chance of discovery. They were very hesitant, but as Jorge enjoyed a cigarette they decided to let Jorge do it if he and his “many friends in lofty office” agreed to search for the R.H.S.’s hidden and guarded package. Jorge poisoned the cask, and the bastard Castilians took it without even looking Sol and the Deserter.

Flush with cash, they went the Souk and bought themselves a rusted breastplate and a suit of tattered leathers for armor. Sol purchased some sacrifices so she could form a contract with one of the Souk’s Mercenary Gods, and settled on The Beast Among The Lilies, a jaguar-spirit that could strengthen the Deserter or fight on its own.

We ended the session with Sol and the Deserter ready for the hunt for the pirate Sayyida.

Lessons Learned

Vornheim remains the most useful rpg book I own. I went into that session with my blogposts on New Barbary and the following prep. Everything else I scribbled in during breaks or generated/rolled up from Vornheim.

This WaRP hack is going very well. The Klatch sorcerer that blinded the Deserter was just “Rodrigo: spirit of darkness 3D, 10 HP” and he did everything he needed to do.
D&D has a lot of granularity and mechanics I don’t really use because of the types of games I tend to run. If I were to run San Serafin has a hard dungeon crawl, I would definitely use D&D, but WaRP seems to work quite well for what I want to run right now.
San Serafin is still a location and the players actually laughed out loud when I said they could go there to look for treasure.
The players really like the shrines of Mercenary Gods at the Souk.

August 6, 2016 jacinto adventures, classifieds, djinn, new barbary, npcs, san serafín

things to do in La Habana

It occurs to me that jinetero is a perfect term for adventurers, even if it doesn’t perfectly match the real-life contemporary definition. Anyway, here’s the lowdown on some of the player-adjacent factions in La Habana.

Red Hibiscus Society
A social club/trading consortium/gang based in La Habana. Their affinity for bypassing the Emir’s taxmen has made them natural allies of the Castilians of La Florida.

The chief of the Red Hibiscus Society is Yusuf, a colossal ex-bandit who has given up direct robbery for the relative ease and comfort of running a medium-sized crime syndicate. He always smells of violet water, and is rarely seen outside of his bath–he’s had a porcelain clawfoot tub installed in the Red Hibiscus Society Hall where he conducts most of his business so he doesn’t have to get out even as he works.

The Society regularly employs vagrants, vagabonds, and soldiers-of-fortune to carry out its interests, both legitimate and illegitimate, with at least one layer of plausible deniability.

Deliver a sealed cask to the bar next to the Castilian embassy by the Docks. Expect trouble on the way, and do not open the barrel.
Retrieve a package from the House of Honey and Salt, and deliver it at a dead drop location at the Royal Park. Wash your hands thoroughly with hot soap and water afterwards, do not breathe heavily around the package, and do not get it wet.
Yusuf’s step-daughter is attending the Emir’s birthday and he suspects some pencil-necked egghead at the College is going to ask her to attend it with him. Explain to him why this is not a viable decision, but don’t do anything worse than breaking his knees.
That bastard Admiral is holding out on Yusuf–the Castilian has, through various semilegal channgel, acquired Gran Morado, violet water made from the purest and most fragrant violets, said to restore vigor lost to age, bring good luck, grow your hair back, whiten your teeth, dispel melancholy, etc etc, but now he won’t sell it to Yusuf as promised. Help the Society seize some La Florida-bound shipments of fine liquor to help the Admiral see reason.

Saints of Honey and Salt
A religious order of sybaritic assassin-surgeons who operate out of hospital-brothel-temple-laboratories called Houses of Honey and Salt. They’re the best doctors in town, but also the best murderers-for-hire, so everybody needs them and nobody trusts them. Their influence is mostly a network of debt and favors–if you don’t owe something to the Saints, you owe something to someone who does. Everyone agrees they are Up To Something, but nobody really knows what it is.

The Saints need a jaguar for their experiments. Definitely healthy and whole, preferably alive, but with a minimum of injuries if that isn’t possible.
One of the Saints makes weekly rounds in Old Habana, giving free care to the sick. An upstart guild of sawbones have begun to threaten her and interfere with her work–guard her this upcoming Sunday.
A deliriously ill patient undergoing an experimental treatment has broken out of the House of Honey and Salt. Find them before ~~the metamorphosis completes~~ their illness gets the best of them.
There was a pirate raid out east two days ago, and the Saints are expecting an influx of patients. Secure an emergency shipment of bandages and laudanum from the Castilians–and you don’t have to be friends with them afterwards.

The Klatch
A loose society of brujas, brujos, shamans, sorcerers, exorcists, theologians, and philosophers who frequent La Habana’s coffee houses and salons and who maintain correspondence with practitioners across New Barbary. They tacitly and informally police the supernatural community (such as it is) of La Habana, ensuring that devils, the dead, and hostile gods cannot hunt unchecked by more mundane authorities.

The La Habana chapter of the Klatch believes a devil has taken up residence in the city. A reward of 50 pesetas to anyone who brings information leading to its banishment.
The Emir’s favorite dancer has been possessed by a malicious spirit, and it’s taking most of her caretakers’ efforts just to keep it under control. Take a trip out to the Hungry Grandmother’s shrine and ask her for a purgative.
An ambitious young thief has found a a djinni (again). His first wish was for a king’s fortune and his second was for 100 wives. Since you can surely imagine how well that’s going, get that brass ring off of his finger before he causes another international incident.
The New Barbary Trading Company of Castile wants to build a warehouse and offices on what the Klatch believes to be the tomb of Blood Dews Upon The Lilies, a sainted ancestor liable to wake up again if disturbed. They aren’t listening to a bunch of witches, but perhaps you can find a way to be more persuasive?

The Souk
Almost any merchant in the Souk will part with goods or services in return for a favor. You can buy most things there, but here are a few of the odder services you can get:

FOOD

a nice hot meal. 10 pesetas. A hot meal and a rest fully heals your HP, though you might have lingering injuries, depending.
ingredients. 5 pesetas. If you have the skills, you can cook a hot meal without paying a premium for it, and you can do it out in the jungle or bush if you bring the right equipment.
snack. If you take 10 and eat a snack, you recover 1d6 HP. You can only do this 1/day OR 1/genuine hazard faced.

TRANSPORT

emperor ghost spider. The most reliable form of transportation in New Barbary, these colossal spider spirits are bound and trained to carry passengers and cargo. Their castle-sized carapaces are hollowed out: the abdomen holds lodging and cargo storage, while their handlers work in the thorax and head, where the blood of their animal sacrifices propagates through channels carved into the spider’s chitin, and where the handler’s soothing prayers can more easily heard. The largest emperor ghost spiders can traverse across the shallower parts of the Caribbean, their legs long enough to reach the sea floor.
magot porter. New Barbary macaques are big enough to stare a draft horse in the eyes without getting off all fours. They aren’t particularly fast, but they are strong enough to carry a person and all of their gear, and can traverse dense jungle and mountainous terrain. Overall reliable, handy, and peaceable, but if you do manage to anger or spook them they can pull your arms off without trying very hard.
sedan chair. Mostly used in the city of Otra Tétuan. They have a faintly sinister reputation, since devils and the dead can use them to travel unseen, and powerful brujas will travel on sedan chairs carried by zombis. The spouses of Dead Ixe are infamous for being carried by their husband’s mummified servants. Normally, though, it’s old money, D-list royalty, and regular joes willing to pay a little extra for some swift and discrete transportation.
cars. rare, expensive, loud, smelly. They drive spirits crazy, and most cars require apotropaics from front bumper to back just to keep ambient divine rage from shutting it down. Beloved by the nouveau riche and Flowerland industrialists. They can be rented.

HELP

Competent mercenaries and guards will work for 50 pesetas a day, plus danger pay.
Hooligans, desperados, and ne’er-do-wells will work for 15 pesetas a day, and might try to squeeze danger pay out of you if they think they can get it.
Minor ghosts and spirits will work for 50 pesetas in sacrifices a day, though they are more erratic than the living and might demand further favors.
Godlings, loas, orishas, and the like don’t really have a pay rate–you have to negotiate on a case by case basis, and you usually have to find a medium in good standing with the entity to want to call on first.

January 31, 2016 jacinto adventures, classes, garden, is this gonna work, LotFP, monsters, npcs, occult, san serafín

that old time religion

“Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing, where he might be walking on water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown.”

from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood

Thinking about this post. Also thinking about Mononoke. The standard old school D&D cleric worships an impersonal, benevolent god. That’s an okay model, but I like the idea of deities as more present, dangerous, and visceral. A little more animist, I guess. Clerics can befriend gods, or form grudging alliances with them, or press them into service. Sometimes, clerics have to kill them. In this model, gods are NPCs and spells and adventures in one, and they influence clerics (shamans really, I guess) in direct ways.

Anyways, here’s a sketch of what this would look like:

She rebelled against her masters, so they tied her to a tree out in the scrub and left her there to die. When she finally became too tired to kick away the coyotes, when she had nothing but three days of hunger and three days of thirst, when her will to live exceeded anything her body could do, she swore by the blood in her mouth and then sun in her eyes that there would be a reckoning.

There is a tree in courtyard of the mayor’s house in the village of Segundo. It grows the most remarkable red flowers and draws the most remarkable red butterflies. The mayor ignores them, but every morning he pours a bottle of excellent red wine on the tree’s roots, and girdles its trunk with another red sash. He is a fine man, the nephew of the old lord, so the Segunderos ignore these eccentricities, but they wonder why he would lavish so much attention on a tree while ignoring the fruits of his labor, or why he would grow so fearful when he found out the merchant wouldn’t be bringing any shipments of wine for the second season in a row.

La Dama Roja, Goddess of Blood and Sunshine
AC 16 HD 3+1 MV 90’ (30′) ATK Spear DMG 1d8+1 ST Fighter 3 AL Chaotic
Spells, at will: Light, Command, Cure/Inflict Light Wounds

The true name of La Dama, the one that will let a shaman make a pact with her, is carved into the trunk of the tree in the mayor’s courtyard, beneath the dozens of tattered red sashes. If the shaman botches the pact-making ritual, she will do her best to brutally murder the mayor, who was the man who tied her to the tree all those years ago. If the shaman helps her kill the mayor, her Loyalty will increase by d4.

If a shaman wishes to extract a favor from a god without making a Loyalty check, they can make it an offering. La Dama accepts only blood. A small task, like casting a 1st level spell, participating in a fight tipped in the Goddess’ advantage, or translating the words of a creature that can’t communicate with humans, might require d6 HP. Major favors, like casting a 5th+ level spell, joining a fight with desperate odds, or revealing a powerful and ancient secret, might require 5d6 HP.

The Goddess of Blood and Sunshine makes a Loyalty check or requires an offering when the shaman violates one her her taboos in front of her, or when the shaman asks her to violate one of her taboos:

BEG NO PARDONS
SHOW NO MERCY
BOW TO NO ONE

December 27, 2015 jacinto adventures, encounters, LotFP, san serafín

una isla

Working on the region surrounding San Serafín. I want there to be more to do than just this one, giant dungeon. I think my players are chafing against having to dungeon crawl every session. I also want to develop a Morrowind/Tekumel-ish setting, a kind of Mozarab Latin America, or a Colombian Exchange with Al-Andalus instead of re-Christianized Spain.

Anywhere, here are six locations.

Twin creatures of mysterious nature and sumptuous dress sell strange wares beneath a red silk canopy on the side of the road.

Arre has the grinning head of a coyote, tongue lolling, eyes a dull red. She is polite, accommodating, and will not insist on anything but a price. She sells magic-user and cleric scrolls (all spells with a level of 6 or higher). She does not take money, but requires a live captive with HD double the level of the scroll’s spell.She fights as a gargoyle (AC 5 HD 4 MV 90 ATK 2 claws/1 bite/1 horn DMG 1d3/1d3/1d6/1d4 ST Fighter 8 ML 11 TT C AL C, Immune to non-magical weapons)
Erre has the head of a monkey, expression neutral, eyes a lambent red. He is profane, deceitful, and delights in insult. He sells magic items (three random magic items in stock, changes out each midnight). He accepts only ancient coinage, and each item costs 500+d1000 gp. He fights as a wraith (AC 3 HD 4 MV 120′ (FLY 240′) ATK 1 DMG 1d6+Energy Drain ST Fighter 4 ML 11 TT E AL C, Immune to non-silver and non-magical weapons)

II
A small and unpleasant village. The well has been spoiled recently and a spirit haunts the village chief, a man called Nazario.

The well was spoiled by the brother of Nazario’s dead wife, who wants to be chief and is sabotaging Nazario’s rule.
Nazario is haunted by the spirit Búho because he murdered his wife, the daughter of the last chief, five years ago. He rules the village benevolently, but will kill again to maintain his secret.
The villagers blame the haunting and the spoiled well on the nearby encampment of half-djinn. They would have driven away or killed them by now if not for the efforts of the village chief.

III
An encampment of half-djinn outcasts. They have thus far maintained a measure of peace and prosperity through the power and guidance of the great djinni Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif, but he has been missing for over a month.

A band of slavers has been kidnapping djinni across the Isle. The leader of the encampment, Fátima, wants the slavers killed and her fellows freed.
Shams, the great-grandson of al-Kasif, maintains his ancestor’s house, buried beneath the encampment. It contains immense wealth, but its guardians are vigilant and powerful.
Befriending the encampment allows players to create half-djinn characters.
The half-djinn fight as elves (AC 5 HD 1+1 MV 120’ ATK 1 DMG 1d8 ST Elf 1 ML 8 TT E AL Neutral, Know a random 1st level magic-user spell)

IV
A decaying monastery occupied by a society of necromancers. A small shantytown has sprung up around the monastery’s walls, full of indentured servants paying off the necromancer’s services.

The necromancers can raise any human from the dead, as long as a corpse and their true name is provided. The dead raised this way have the mental attributes, knowledge, and abilities they had in life, but the physical characteristics of their new body. This service costs a number of gold pieces equal to the experience total of the one to be resurrected. Anyone raised this way cannot gain XP.
The indentured servants despise the necromancers for their abuse and cupidity, but each is desperate to bring someone back to life.
The necromancers know the secret of summoning Las Muertas, but will not teach it to anyone outside of their ranks. A summoner must enroll in the society or else just steal the ritual.

V
A band of hunters makes their camp here, hidden inside a thicket. Several of their children have gone missing, and in the weeks since their search started, something has begun to mutilate the horses.

The children have been stolen by the spirit Angroda, who maintains her lair in the bole of an immense black tree in the same hex as the camp.
The horse-killer is one of the hunters, cursed with lycanthropy. He killed an ancient jaguar while searching for the missing children, and it bit him as it died. He is too frightened to set off on his own and even more afraid of being killed by his friends and family, so he has been satisfying his new hunger with the band’s horses. He fights as a weretiger (AC 3 HD 5 MV 150’ ATK 2 claws/1 bite DMG 1d6/1d6/2d6 ST Fighter 5 ML 9 TT C AL N, Immune to non-magical or non-silver weapons, can summon 1d2 jaguars 1/day)

VI
An abandoned hacienda. Withered cattle, untouched by insects, lay dead in locked barns, and the silos are filled with rotted grain. In the manor, the two dozen bodies hang from the rafters.

The hanged were once the hacienda’s household. In life, they sacrificed humans to an Old God in return for bountiful crops. When the Saint-king sent an agent to investigate the disappearances, they killed themselves when discovery seemed inevitable.
The dead are restless in this house. The bodies will reanimate and attempt to kill anyone who enters the manor. They will do their best to keep anyone from entering the basement, where they kept the remains of their victims.
The basement contains the remains of the sacrificial victims, as well as the body of the Saint-king’s agent. Unbeknownst to the murderers, he tripped down the stairs and broke his neck while investigating. He is an immobile skeleton, but is quite friendly and rather voluble.
The murderers fight as wights (AC 5 HD 3 MV 90 ATK 1 DMG Energy Drain ST Fighter 3 ML 12 TT B AL C, Immune to non-silver and non-magical weapons). As long as they are still tied to a rafter and nothing living can see them or their destination, they can teleport to any other rafter in the house. If cut from the roof, they cannot teleport, but can move freely.

May 16, 2015 jacinto adventures, afternoon espresso, angels, megadungeon murder mystery, monsters, san serafín, table

XIII

This is kind of an experiment. Every session there is a 1 in 6 chance of one of these things coming up or being mentioned or whatever. It’s a conspiracy generator. Not the best format, but it was fun to write so whatever.

by Dominic Alves, distributed under CC

I
There is a god, and its name is Thirteen. It is the lord of inversion and the architect of misfortune; its clerics wear yellow and hold power over doppelgangers, oozes, and devils. The Constables hunt its worshipers like animals, but there always seems to be more.

by Jerry Kirkhart, distributed under CC

II
There is a society, and nobody knows its name or its members. Everyone who matters has gone to one of their parties–they only invite thirteen people at a time, and it’s terribly difficult to secure an invitation. Sometimes people don’t come back, but that just makes it all the more exciting, doesn’t it?

III
There is a city where nobody goes, a city of sepulchers, a city by the sea. You can’t find it on a map, and no matter how far you travel, you won’t ever reach it. Some priests say the gods cut it out of this world like a tumor, but if you take a certain route, passing through certain cursed doorways and traversing certain cursed crossroads, you will arrive on one of its thirteen grand avenues, which intersect in the center like a spider’s web or a perverse star. The dead hang by cables from the telephone wires.

IV
There is a man by the side of the road, and he is shouting at you. He speaks of an angel with thirteen wings and a hydra with thirteen heads. He says he will be dead soon, but this is a thing that you all must know.

V
You found a book about a crow with thirteen eyes, scattered across its face like any ugly constellation. It is terrible old and utterly malign: a colossal rival of dragons, a gleeful anthropophage, a bearer of curses. It steals children from their parents, raises them and loves them with all its evil heart. They don’t grow up human.

by Anne-Sophie Leens, distributed under CC

VI
There is a syndicate with thirteen captains. They traffic in drugs, slaves, and precious metals; they are undercutting just about every major player in the city. Nobody can figure out who their suppliers are, or where their shipments are coming from, but everyone wants them gone. The Weaver’s Guild has placed a colossal bounty on the heads of their leaders, but it’s only resulted in a lot of dead assassins.

VII
Somebody murdered a Saint of Honey and Salt, carving a thirteen-pointed star into their chest. The local House has promised blood, and rumor has it they’ve had to purge their ranks of spies, though the details are fuzzy on who they were working for.

VIII
This buried and desecrated temple is the home to thirteen warlocks:

Gog and Magog, the hateful witch-children, each of which draws magic from the other
Illhammer, who casts spells with a mace fashioned from a devil’s femur
The Perfect Child of Man, who wears a yellow hood. The emissary of a god-city exiled from this world
Ratbelly, the red eyed waif, bound by her own oaths to the Forbidden Hour, which once sat between midnight and 1 a.m
Catbelly: the neurasthenic malefic, carried on a silk palanquin by 5 horned skeletons and empowered by a devil of smoke and blue fire
Murderboy: he walks on ceilings and weeps black tar; he was raised by a spider the size of a school bus that still sings him to sleep
Toothgirl: a creeping obsessive, built a god of neon tubes and rat bones that tells her who to kill
Gurn: she can unhinge her jaw like a snake and spit out almost anything she wants; cursed by her mother to be killed by a weapon of her own making.
Mammon: everything he does looks awkward and wrong, like a dog walking on its hind legs or a man running on all fours. A centipede lives in his clothes that teaches him the secrets of secret-eating and memory-killing
Nadir: wild haired troglodyte who lives at the bottom of a hole, which moves around when nobody’s looking. Sold her soul to a gravity angel, so she can’t pick herself off the ground.
Maculata: jelly-fleshed voyeur with a visible skeleton; holds congress with puddings, oozes, and jellies of all sorts.
Maastricht: a wretched old man with metal teeth, his pact with Satan makes him nigh omnipotent; his secret weakness is that he can only move when you’re looking at him

IX
There’s a series of thirteen pamphlets everyone’s reading. They make you remember things you’d forgotten, give you advice that makes you feel smart and capable and stronger, they make you forget your own inadequacy and weakness and stupidity, they make you want to find the other pamphlets, but they’re so hard to find and you can’t figure out where they come from. Everyone says something wonderful happens if you read all thirteen.

I’m tired of writing now. I’ll probably write more and I want to find a d13 for this.

September 18, 2014 jacinto adventures, Pernicious Albion

Cinders of the Servant Queen Play Report

Ran Servants of the Cinder Queen and it went really well. Spoilers ahead:

Gor Krestle the warlock Vassal of Mab and Valeria the vampire fled north from Albion after preventing the rogue magician Jessica Gristle from freeing the fairy Lord of Last-Breath from his millennial prison, because they had accepted payment from the noble House Cromlech to do the opposite and didn’t want to deal with the fallout. They reached the land of the Norge and stumbled upon the miserable little town of Meervold. They stayed the night at the dilapidated inn for free, because the innkeeper, Armar, had no will to live or, evidently, to charge them for anything. So many people had gone missing and so man incinerated human skeletons had shown up in their place that he figured the town was lost. The next day (conveniently mist-shrouded and overcast, allowing the party’s vampire to walk about freely) Armar was gone, leaving behind only smudged ashes on the threshold.

The party next encounters Finni, a simple young turnip-farmer, weeping and eating his last turnip in a mud puddle. Valeria finds out from him that a suspicious wizard-type and his band of hooded acolytes passed by, taking up residence in the ruins of Kaldhammer, a monastery lost to a fire demon invasion/volcanic eruption five centuries ago, which was only halted by a calamitous flood caused by Storm God Hvitr. Berta Solsisdottir, the town’s unofficial leader, offers them a reward to defeat this wizard (since she figures he is trying to release Gildarthe, the fire goddess that erupted the volcano), sells them equipment, and lets them look for hirelings. Gor Krestle offers the townspeople half the reward as payment (to Valeria’s horror), but only Aghnildg, armed with a broken sword, takes them up on the offer. They head out, Valeria swings back to vampirize Finni, but is stymied by the number of witnesses, so she join up with the main group.

They arrive at the ruins of Kaldhammer just after nightfall and proceed to was four hours looking for food so Valeria doesn’t need to eat their only henchwoman. They fail miserably until they ask Aghnildg for help, who succeeds in finding a raccoon on her first attempt. At this point, hooded cultists crawl out of a tunnel in the ruins of Kaldhammer to attack. Valeria and Gor flail ineptly as Aghnildg dispatches them. She suffers some trauma at so much death, but Gor says they are just “dirty rotten turnips”. Aghnildg takes this to heart.

The go down the tunnel and encounter two burning skeletons. Aghnildg kills one easily as Gor and Valeria struggle with the remaining monster. It kills Valeria in an incandescent bear-hug before Gor takes it down. He calls on Mab to identify these creatures (she possesses Aghnildg and sucks half his HP out of his arm in recompense), and it turns out they are Servants of the Cinder Queen, undead that remain animate so long as they burn. Gor readies his water skins and goes deeper into the tunnels, braving skeletons on the way. After a couple dead ends, he finds a guarded chamber and just runs past the Cinder Servant Guards.

He finds sleeping quarters, but with the Servants hot on his heels, he runs down another passageway, finding a dead end with a giant pit filled with villagers. Hoping to rally them to his cause, he rushes down the rope ladder with Aghnildg, only for the Cinder Servants to pull the ladder up once he reaches the bottom. He snags the bottom rung and yanks on it, pulling the Servants into the pit. They die in the fall. Inside the pit in Gunnva, a Magic-user and Aghnildg’s sister. By means of a rousing and slightly threatening speech, she galvanizes the villagers into a determined, if malnourished and unarmed, fighting force. Aghnildg makes a habit of crushing the skulls of her enemies while calling them dirty, rotten turnips.

They go deeper into the mountain and come across a chamber with a fissure in the far wall and three stone doors. They decipher the runes on the door and acquire Jafnir, a hammer than returns to the wielder when thrown (Gunnva keeps this), Spakri, a cloak that allows the wearer to fly brief distances (Aghnildg takes this), and a magical hourglass that they promptly forget about. They then go into the fissure and enter the volcano’s caldera, only to find the wizard reading aloud from a book and waving a staff, moments away from releasing Gildarthe.

They have a pretty harrowing fight. Gor and Valeria focus on preventing the wizard from reading from the book as Aghnildg and the rock-throwing villagers take on the cultists and Cinder Servants. Aghnildg dies heroically from a fire blast to the face (courtesy of the wizard) after she single-handedly kills nearly all the cultists, and the villagers flee after taking out most of the Cinder Servants. Gor and Gunnva finish of wizard, but the last cultists takes them down and restarts the ritual. They have three turns to stop the ritual–Gildarthe’s massive face is visible pressing up against the floor of the caldera.

They are both below 0 HP, and I say if they succeed a Poison saving throw they can get back up at 1 HP, but if they fail, they take 1 damage, and die at -4. It’s pretty lenient, but whatever. Turn 1, Gunnva and Gor fail their saving throw. Gor dies. Turn 2, Gunnva fails her saving throw. The cultist is still reading from the book and chanting. Turn 3, she succeeds, calls Jafnir, throws it, and makes a critical hit, killing the last cultists stone cold dead. She loots the bodies, collects the valuables of her companions, says goodbye to her sister, and returns to Meervold.

In retrospect

If the players don’t do anything, the wizard succeeds in releasing Gildarthe and the volcano erupts, annihilating Meervold and releasing a bunch of fire monsters. I dropped clues that this was happening, but I should have just straight-up told them. I’d also suggest making some of the Grim Portents (Dungeon World’s jargon for the bad things that happen in the absence of player intervention) more obvious to players, regardless of location.
The villagers and Aghnildg rolled freakishly well the entire time, and it made me glad I roll in front of players., Hidden rolls would have made Aghnildg feel like an GMNPC when really she was a wildly lucky incompetent. My players loved her, and were really upset when she died.
The ending was super perfect. Nearly averted TPK, a Hail Mary critical hit.
I am more and more starting to think that dying should be easy, but death should be hard. The drama of trying to resuscitate downed characters is great. I think I’ll transplant 5e’s death saving throws mechanic to whatever it is I’m running from now on.
Hvitr’s Vault (the room with the hourglass, cloak, and hammer) was a little frustrating. As written, it is hard for players to figure out how to open the stone doors. Each requires a different action (one opens by striking it with your fist, the other opens by applying bodily fluid, the other opens when you blow on it), but there really isn’t any way to figure this out. I put markings on the door that gave clues, but they were pretty obvious. I’d suggest putting a book in the monastery library that explains how to open the doors.
I gave the Servants 18 HP and had them take d6 damage a turn just from being on fire. My players were at level 1, so this was still plenty dangerous, but I think giving them more HP could be good–it makes fleeing and waiting a valuable offensive strategy, something that distinguishes Servants more from other monsters.