Day After DnD Anyone?

 I happen to be one of the fortunate folk who have Friday off after Thanksgiving and have had some luck over the years (I'm looking at you Eric Hoffman) organizing a pick-up game of old-school DnD this day after the holiday. SO LETS DO THIS AGAIN!

Sign up in the comments section below. The game will run 11am MST/-7GMT and it will be a 4 hour session. 2nd to 4th level characters recommended, but go ahead and bring your 1st level loser if that is all you have. The adventure will be the OSR module Purging Woth Nrld Oakwyn's Muddy Hole, the Vanishing Tower's first ever OSR game module. Made the "No Regerts" list at 10 Foot Pole, so not to shabby of thing.

I'm Writing a Treasure Island Setting Guide

Thomas Denmark at Night Owl Workshop was soliciting for a writer for a campaign guide for his OSR game Freebooters, a pirate-themed retro-clone intended to be compatible with the original fantasy RPG. Night Owl appears to like formatting their OSR games in the original 0e format, fondly known as the Little Brown Books. Raiders, Guardians, Colonial Troopers, and Warriors of the Red Planet are some of the company's previous releases.

Specifically a Treasure Island campaign guide/adventure/setting book. Ridiculously long 25,000 word document for the usual pittance found in the indie ttrpg publishing world. Sign me up I said. For the love of all things degenerate the blind fools recruited me to pen a red tide of pirate intrigue and adventure on the Spanish Main!

So VTP is happy to announce are first freelance gig with a written contract and everything! Seriously, I pounced on this cold solicitation because of the subject matter. While the Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign I ran online is well in the rearview mirror of life I still have all the material I generated when the PCs hit the high seas for the New World and got involved in their own fucked up pirate action. Not so much in ship to ship combat, but got involved in the despicable slave trade on the Gold Coast and a Spanish raid on the island of Roatan before they plunged into the Central American jungle to battle evil Mayan necromancers. 

I did a stupid amount of research on late seventeenth century sailing and colonial exploitation for the game run, but it was easy to do because the subject material was fascinating and I had stumbled on some first source memoirs of sailors who experience the pirate trade up close and personal. 

On top of this Treasure Island still remains one of my all time favorite adventure yarns ever writ. Give me Billy-Bones swinging a cutlass at Black Dog's head any day over Bilbo sweating out a riddle contest against Gollum any day! It is not hard to recall the heart palpitations I suffered when Jim faced off against ruthless pirates in the rigging of the Hispaniola off the shores of Skeleton Island. The anxiety I felt while the good guys hashed out desperate strategy under musket fire in the block house. Stevenson displayed a mastery of pace in his famous book and made me wonder how much REH owes to RLS's for his adaptation of brisk pacing when he set out to write his pulp fiction. I read this book, and Howard's yarns, before I ever got ahold of Basic D&D and though as a kid I could not use the technique all that well, pace of adventure has remained an all important ingredient in the games I run.

There are some exciting and unique challenges inherent in turning a pirate adventure story into a full blown campaign setting and adventure and this is what I am really in it for. Doesn't hurt in trying to get some street cred outside of my own self published stuff too! 

New B/X Class, the Scumbag

The Scumbag

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special

1st            +0            +1   +1    +1    Garrote 1, Lurk 1, Listen 1

3rd         +2         +2 +2 +2 Garrote 2

2nd         +1         +1 +1 +1

4th         +3         +2 +2 +2

5th         +3         +3 +3 +3 Lurk 2

6th         +4         +3 +3 +3 Garrote 3

7th         +5         +3  +3 +3 Listen 2

8th         +6         +4  +4 +4

9th         +6         +4  +4 +4 Garrote 4, Lurk 3

10th         +7            +5    +5 +5

11th         +8         +5 +5 +5

12th         +9         +6 +6 +6 Garrote 5

13th         +9         +6 +6 +6 Lurk 4, Listen 3

14th         +10         +6 +6 +6

What makes Champions 3rd edition (cont.)

 By far the first reason I say this great book is the best version of the game is size. It is slim. Total content clocks in at 135 pages in a reliable perfect bound softcover. It deserves a hardcover treatment. In the forward the writers come out swinging with the games strongest pitch, create any power, any ability to build your unique superhero. And this is true. The point-buy system of Champions coupled with the “Special Effects” rule wrapping the whole powers concept championed by the authors has not been superseded by any other supers game I’ve tried. And this is no different through any of the editions of the game, from first to fifth. But I think Hero Games kind of missed the boat here. The Crystal Ship, the flashing gem which really shines through the third edition lens. Through those few pages. And treating the game like it should be: Old-School! What I am talking about and will eventually get to is the utility of the system's damage mechanic. 

Now I can swallow fourth edition, it is the last iteration of the Hero System as Supers-centric game system, and fifth is a travesty. Most of the additional pages in the fourth are sourcebook stuff which gives the Game Master some useful features to use again and again, like stats for regular folk. But the lower page count in the third does not water down the game system at all and is the perfect set of rules for the GM who needs no assistance in how to play superhero rpg’s.

Fifth edition is an endless swirling mess around all the basic mechanical features which make Champions a genius of a supers game. Here is my case: The game has for a basic resolution mechanic of 11 or less on 3d6 for success. It is like Classic Traveller in this regard. It uses 2d6 with an 8+ needed for success at anything you are trying. The 3d6 bell curve is sweet though. You get a little more granularity with a bigger spread and I have come to appreciate the difference between a 9 or less chance and a 7 or less chance with three die. But what I find intriguing most is the damage system. There isn’t anyone reading this who doesn’t know how damage is calculated in a Champions game, total on the die is total stun damage while the number on a dice determines whether it should be counted as 2 Body, 1 Body or Zero Body. I think this mechanic is sold short if only used to adjudicate damage. I try to sell it at the table as a means to resolve contested actions. Take the arm-wrestling example. Hero A has a Strength or 20, Villain B has a Strength of 20, who wins? I have the contestants roll their Strength “damage” and count the Body damage. Highest total wins. With both participants at a Strength of 20

There is a universality across the game system which needs to be taken advantage of for optimum play. And this is in how, no matter the power, effect, or type of attack the values and scale never change. This means a GM can make a “ruling not rules” decision on the fly and if using a “damage” result from the rolled ability a GM knows it is always to scale. Not only is it to scale (in other words, fair) it has built in variability. Using our arm-wrestling example above, either one of the contestants can roll a value from 0-8. Variability creates tension. This is good. It begs for a player to figure out how to stack the deck in a fair fight, how to get their roll to be less swingy. I’m the GM so I don’t have to worry about how that would be possible, only to rule on it😊

Works for characters of wildly different power scales in any particular contest. Sure the 60 STR brick should win against the 18 STR martial artists in an arm-wrestling contest, but it isn’t guaranteed. And the correct and fair chances of a surprise upset is built into the system. The uncertain future of any supers action is baked into the damage calc pie. If you want to add an additional variable you can count the Stun damage as well. No matter how you interpret the results you can’t come up with a bad interpretation, but you can have surprising results! This look reveals the transparency inherent in the system as well. I can match Ego vs. Dex, Energy Blast versus Presence, any crazy-ass thing. And it will still be at a correct scale that results will always be an exciting roll while at the same time no one participant getting nerfed.

Let me take this to my logical extreme, where regular Champions players cringe in horror. Initiative! The rules for initiative for action tracked on the Speed Chart are fairly standard. You will find this set up in many a ttrpg. That is, when opponents square off and they both get to take action the character with the higher DEX goes first. All-the-time. Chaosium’s BRP rules have a similar approach to initiative and is even less dynamic. At least in Champions you have the 12 segment Speed Chart which makes for unpredictable, yet trackable results and situations. My distaste here is the predictability of such an accounting in what should be the most unpredictable moment in an action-adventure game. Here is the set up to illustrate my point; Hero A and Villain B are going for the doomsday switch in the same segment. They both are equidistant and have the same SPD but the Hero has a DEX of 30 and the Villain has a 20 DEX. Per the rules as written the Hero is going to win that contest every time. Every-single-time. Yawn. A smart, clever and good-looking GM will call for a damage roll based on DEX. Most BODY damage gets to the doomsday switch first! Hero has a better chance of winning out then the Villain, but it isn’t 100%. Yes, exciting! I don’t consider this an approach to be used all the time. Only for really cinematic, pulse-pounding moments in the story. This makes for the elasticity of the system to really shine. Unfortunately, you will never get players to accept it. They will run to FRED faster than my Derby pick for the back of the pack. And that book is proof-positive you can take a great supers game and fuck it up three ways to Sunday. 

What are the Slaves Doing? Roll 1d8

1. Three Slaves and a Prostitute are beating a merchant behind a wagon.

2. Six Slaves are carrying the funeral litter of their former master. They have actually replace the corpse with valuable silver from the late master’s house. They plan on digging it up later.

3. Twelve Slaves are digging a hole. They know not what their master expected to find, but if the city guard sees what they are doing...

4. Four slaves are enjoying Yellow Lotus. Never trying it before their zonkers and have hardly touched the bag.

5. Two Slaves are beseeching a Priest of Toil to take them in and free their tormented souls. Zoari may find them useful…

6. A slave is afraid to deliver the “package” his master ordered him to do. He asks the PCs to do it for him. The contact is supposed to hand over a bag of gold in exchange, but the slave fears the rogues will slay him out of hand. But adventures as hard as you surely could walk out with the gold. The package is a mummified heart. Have fun with that!

7. Slaves of a Temple Priest are spying, looking to ferret out rival operatives and informing their masters! Karathsepo, the Lady of Torment, the Desirous Succubus has one of her slaves contact the PCs. She is looking for an opportunity to poison Silla Korafasa yet keep the Church’s hands clean. Could the PCs be of service to the Church of Toil?

8. Playing dice to pass the time while chained up here in the alley. They invite the PCs to have a few throws. If any of the players jumps into the game, one of the slaves will whisper that their master is away and if they free them, he will show the PCs where the valuable silver is in the house.

The PC Party Returns to Rom'Myr

 Yes, finally. After trekking the multi-verse and getting a trans-arcana sun tan the PCs have managed to get themselves back to home base. 

Well close enough. This Dying Earth homebrew started in the city of Valla'Tair. They popped out on the windy peaks of the Yonni'Hor mountains a good sevens days east of their favorite sword & sandal city. They are eager to take care of unfinished business in Valla'Tair. Hopefully they will keep in mind "business" is a two-way transaction!

Here is the edited audio session for your nerd-geek listening pleasure on anchor.fm, and of course The Vanishing Tower Press podcast is on all your favorite podcaster.

Rom'Myr Dying Earth Episode #31 on anchor.fm

Rom'Myr #30 The Black Cyst

Is the Cleric spell Protection from Evil too powerful?

This question, one of many from Mark, regular gamer and commentator on all things Vanishing Tower (VTP), is definitely an issue I put in the undecided box. And is a spell, much like Read Magic, which I struggle with cap-stoning with a definite and unequivocal opinion. The tendency for myself and players is towards specificity. The nebulous definition of “Evil” in a variety of fantasy relevant context is rendered more apprehensible with hard walls. Hard and fast definitions. “Elves are good, Orcs are evil.” Black is back and white is just alright with me, just alriiiight, oh yeaaah. 

But my game world, my fantasy campaigns tend to begin with the question, or nature, of evil relatively unanswered. Outside of societal norms defining moral and its opposite, evil, the nature of a roleplaying game is to have these big questions answered in play. And so is why everyone wants to know the answer to these type of questions before play, or when they come up.

So my answer is the bullshit one, it depends. What is the right call at the moment? Everything in a roleplaying game is case and or context dependent. Some one has to decide what is or isn’t evil in the game world and that job ultimately ends in the DM’s lap. My best efforts have come to a couple of “best practices” I’ve adopted for myself. Have the player define what their god considers good and evil. Accept it and incorporate their ideas into the pantheon developing. And when I say accept it I don’t mean make it all true. Just be super-mindful of it and you can be prepared for when you have something they believe their spell would protect them, and it doesn’t! If they really start to push on it sucking ask them if they have considered their god may not be correct in all things? Maybe their god is fucking with them? Maybe their god lied about this subject? It makes sense to attack, or frame, the PfE spell with less specificity on the front end because it preserves the fascinating feature of emergent play.

Using 1e ADnD modules in your own game world...

I did not intentionally start the new campaign of Rom’Myr so as to stuff as many 1e AD&D modules as I have into it, but once I reviewed S4 I wanted to try. The Rom’Myr campaign is a homebrewed Dying Earth setting offering the trappings and tropes of an original Vancian city, and the colorful denizens to be found therein. I started with Jack’s own stories of his fabled dying earth. My cardinal rule of source and inspiration of a genre is to reread the original material. By and large a ttrpg setting is devoid of the magic and juice the original creator transfused into their work. Carcosa would be an exception here, but the author and setting writer are one in the same. An organic kernel of fucked-upness which birthed a nation. So, I was quite convinced when reading S4 it was utterly the most Vancian module Gygax wrote. I needed a sharp range of mountains to hem-in the sword and sandle city of Valla’Tair, the campaigns home starting point. S4 is on my shelf so I was eager to make it “work”. The nuanced harmony with Vance’s stories S4 has made hacking the module a simple process. Many, many things of the original module were left intact.

Remember in high school when the DnD adventure recently purchased was going to be the adventure to be played that weekend? That is how I remember it all. The only elements of a traditional DnD campaign would be using the same character for each adventure, giving the character survived the previous one. Rather unsatisfying considering the true potential of the medium. Hence the idea was born, and gauntlet thrown down. I became determined to weave as many classic DnD adventure modules into the campaign as I could! Not in any slap-on, haphazard methods of old, but only when the module “fit”. I was betting the best use of this material was exactly how the authors said to use it; make it your own! Now this does require re-skinning the mod. Changing names, replacing monsters with your own, tossing out material that doesn’t work for you, this will need to be done to slot correctly into your game. But if you have chosen wisely then the work is brisk and intuitive.

Here are the AD&D modules (among many, many other sources) used so far:

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

T1 Village of Hommlet

X2 Castle Amber

C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess

WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

The early DnD modules, or at least the ones I have used, are masterful tools which willingly support whatever the DM is attempting to build with their players. I subscribe to the notion that other people’s ideas are intrinsic to a successful campaign world (also known as a “living world”). These different (they don’t always need to be good, I learn from bad) ideas and adventures help link my best ideas together. There wasn’t any connection by players of the classic modules they are battling through.  This is because the players were pursuing their goals, their advisories, the consequences of their actions. Enough slight-of-hand achieved so Tsojcanth is the Yonni’Hor mountains and the mysteries lying within. Tomoachan is the lower catacombs and sewers hiding the Cult of Sleep. Castle Amber and Hommlet is the home of the eccentric Ansulex family and their strange studies, werewolves in thrall to the Archbishop are stalking rebels and radicals, and the whimsical Palace of the Silver Prince is lost to the macabre house of the vampiric Knight of Gore. I don’t think I would have thought of a martial order of ghouls if it wasn’t for using B3. That dinner party was the shit!

I know Gygax and others tied their unique creations, eventually, to an official setting. Just like coming up with unique traps and challenges weekly is hard work, having all the answers to the player’s questions is unrealistic. Having some fleshed-out pantheon provided, or collection of kingdoms presented, saves time creating buildings, towns, and secret labs. There is only so much time in the day. But I’ll say you have to have your own unique campaign world to give a good game a chance. You must have horizons you are passionate to reveal. A DM is on the right track world building when prewritten adventures are easily adapted to situations at hand. One, they are good. They are good spaces to move around in, there are ample examples of what threats can be encountered there, major NPCs to make your own supervillains out of. I’ve hung the best, weirdest stuff I can on these old modules and I’ll tell you, it isn’t nothing they haven’t seen or can’t help make better.

What OSR Means to Me

I have had a hard time finding a definition which works for me and my sensibilities. I get the logic behind Old School Rules and Old School Renaissance as terms and definitions, but it feels hidebound, locked in to a Dungeons & Dragons starting point, and maybe, on a bet, someone will define OSR as the early games which developed the hobby or a certain period of time ending in like December 30th, 1979. Like the way comic books are broken up into particular ages. These definitions are too limiting. They don't capture the essentials of the art or reduce the art to entertainment only. That the form of play should emulate the gospel, RAW.

I approach my role-play gaming the same way I immerse myself in any of my art projects. You will hear me talk about ttrpg's as an art, or refer to an artist's approach, alot. Let us clear up one thing right away; I have no schooling, training, track record or anything else to point to that my artistic education and experience is valid. I'm a dilettante, whatever catches my interest I dive in, deep. Obsessively until I burn out. So I have a valid process which rests on exploration, getting lost, and scaring myself. My artist process is basically an exploration of fear. Or working through fear to find the undiscovered country on the other side. So this puts me in conflict with rules. My thought currently on ttrpg game rules is that they are for the players, not the GM. Therefore I guide my efforts by an Old School Rational. A rational is flexible, looking for only a "truth" of a thing. Another way I put it is "Fantasy is the playground of the inappropriate." This popped into my mind during the current discussion on imaginary content disproportionally insulting people of color. I consider these positions rubbish and a lack of developed artistic and honest thought. 

So what is this Old School Rational then? The GM must have the freedom to explore and depict regardless of rules and players must accept the rules as a tool to force them to "not make shit up". I mean you can make shit up, we do it media res, but rules work for a player like choosing the size of canvas works for an artist. Every choice in an artistic project is a restriction of focus. Merely by choosing what rules to run a game begins the process of choosing canvas size. So the here and now can be experienced in its truest sense (as much as possible for puny humans). That which is cut away leaves only the essence of something, or should be the goal. Put another way, for the GM the choice of canvas size cuts away all that is possible and begins a reduction to a "what am I doing?" place. What will develop. This is counter-intuitive to me, but I believe each choice leads to the next choice, and the next. The more I reduce the closer I get to an answer.

My Old School Rational is rules don't matter, the intent of everyone at the table matters. My OSR is most of everything in the game is undescribed, does not exist yet and the participants need to start slicing away at everything to get to something. Not so much to describe surroundings to play in, but bring new things into being in which to own. The sum total of our experience My OSR is players challenged to expand their ideas on a rapidly shrinking iceberg to find a means to not drown. The GM is challenged to be drowned in the endless possibilities of "what if, what about" at the moment and land on the right response. Or make that response "right", and then pull something new out of that, again and again in response to the player's challenge of thinking in new ways to overcome abstract problems with no obvious way to solve. To reduce, comprehend, make useful knowledge and cultivate a juicy experience of fear. First impressions, initial reactions to visual and oral art, capturing what that means to you, how it informs your interpretation and belief and make your next choice as this new being. These experiences happen in an instance, but sometimes these experiences give you something to chew on for years. 

That is my OSR. And my definition is as meandering as a willful stream and as urgent as the violent waterfall coming up. 

Just so there is no misunderstanding, this is a post of subject matter I invite discussion on and there are no rules. You are going to have to take chances around here. I don't yet know which way is the right way to discuss the art of ttrpg's, but this is my opening cut.

PS: Just came across the band Tyranny of Imagination. That is another useful term for me in the artistic language I try to use when describing ttrpg's effect on me.

Gamma World 1st Edition Episode

This is episode 7 in the Detroit Suck City Saga. Unedited. This cut will get replaced with an edited audio version in a week or less. Seems to be my turnaround time. This session is worth a listen because it includes Dalaks and a satchel full of grenades!

Champions United 3 Clouds over Capitol City

The home-brewed supers action crackled across the internet the other night and I finally managed to get captured. Like a clear shot of Spidey over Manhattan, it has been hard to come by actual footage of this new Champions campaign. Pilot error was kept to a minimum and the two hour session has been edited down to 52 minutes. If you enjoy listening to game sessions this edited audio (a format I try to get all my sessions into) shortens listening time and weeds out all the ramblings of middle-aged men and keeps the recording focused on the actual game action. If you do not enjoy listening to recorded game sessions then please, do not click on the following video.

If you are a fan of OSR supers game (Villains & Vigilantes, Superworld, Champions, etc.) then this campaign may be up your alley.

Live Stream Death Frost Doom

Vanishing Tower Press has got live streaming back for its Rom'Myr Dying Earth OSR campaign. It will be launching through the YouTube channel this morning at 7:00am.

Good time to start watching. The PCs are in the shrine room of Death Frost Doom and it is time to plunge deep into the evil witch dwells there!

1E/2E Gamma World Game Session: Detroit Suck City

I turned to the MeWe gaming crowd I've managed to keep together after the demise of G+ for players to fill my friends new 1e Gamma World game. The three other open seats filled fast with five people so it looks like the game may get some legs with a stocked roster of PCs. The bidding war was opened for first game date (it was this past Friday) to be picked, got it scheduled and slammed out our first group adventure (jiminey got a special introductory issue one-shot prior to this) with, what the GM said "were questionable tactics." :) You now can be the judge. Here is the unedited, unexpurgated game session. I thought we had solid plans all along?

Now you get to be the judge!

DFD Hits the Table

The virtual table, all my gaming these days is virtual. Online, video hangouts. And it has worked well, extremely well over (fuck me) 8 years now. I got hooked up on line with gaming again in 2012. And one of the most talked about adventure modules at the time was Death Frost Doom by James Raggi V. I passed on buying it at the time. I thought, what's the use? Everybody and their grandmother is playing it right now. Then some time later a new edition was released in some kind of package deal. I got Monolith, NSFW, Tower of the Stargazer(?) and the much talked about Death Frost Doom. Good adventure, I thought, for what it does. Evocative as all get out, and the possibility of world-ending events being triggered... Definitely good material in here to be used. But I haven't got a place to use it right now. In my current campaign. Some point I will, but it isn't today.

And there it has sat until this morning. My dowdy band of murderhobos got themselves into a scrape with a large horde of werewolves. The mercenaries had been overrun or had fled for their lives. The forest was well on its way to being engulfed in wind-driven flames and more werewolves were closing in. Murderhobos doing what murderhobos do, they fled. Not blindly. They had passed a boarded up hunting lodge before the terrible confrontation which had just shattered their armed troop. It looked sturdy enough. If they could just make it there, urge their wild-eyed horses on one last directed gallop, before the living fears of myth overtake them all.

The lodge is safely reached. It is not the cabin in the module. Here is a look at it;

Much bigger. 

Stocked with bear traps, hunting weapons like spears and bows. It is indeed a good spot to defend from. The rooms are quickly tossed and a trap door is found in the floor of the Great Room. There is also a thick book. It is pages on pages of names. They change over time, in fact the sweep of names covers thousands of years! The earliest names are in a language unknown. Not till the end of the book, representing the last two hundred years or so, are they comprehensible. These contemporary names continue until the last three pages where there are no signatures. Only row upon row of a bloody fingerprint. The blood now long dried these last few pages appear as some gory stamp book.

Heated discussions break out between the mercenary captain, the Marquee and Father Piedmont. The Marquee is adamant he will not quit the field until he has routed or captured the evil cultists behind rash of kidnappings. He seems in a complete state of denial over being attacked by werewolves. "Nothing but bandits in wolf skins!" I tell you, we go back there in daylight. You'll see."

Father Piedmont worriedly looks out one the Great Room's windows again and again. It is agreed the first thing to do is undue the padlock on the floor hatch and see what lies underneath. It is a 50' shaft down. Straight down into DFD! Fuck it, I'm using it. I'll figure out how to tie in the OSR cultists cum werewolves and their WolfMother petty-god later. If there is a later. 

To be fair, several players identified the location just in the first hall approaching the first door into the dungeon. But none of the players had actually played in it. Good, I'm getting to drag fresh souls through one of the most reviewed OSR modules to date.

And that is where we left it. They did get in to the first two rooms which has them in the large, evil encased chapel. And we did leave with some disagreement within the party on what the next move should be, but it is Mq. Chabentaeu's resolve to have revenge against these fiends (cultists) which seals the deal. No murderhobo is going to appear as a coward. Especially in front of an NPC!

So I'm pretty satisfied with this cold open for DFD. Plenty of detail within the book to tie the death cult's religion from the module to the leading adversaries currently running amok in the campaign world. I can work out these "pantheonic" loose ends. The Cleric and Paladin are feeling obliged to uncover the nature of the evil lurking here while the jewels and gems just found are keeping the thief and the assassin in the game. Oh, yes, we even have a 1st level character along. The player of tragic La Batard returned today with his gentleman thief and rake. An Averoigne fop who is good with his rapier. The cleric is 3rd level (damn that Bless spell would be useful to have) while the rest are 4-5 level dudes. Not fragile, but the groups magical firepower is currently found only in the paladin.

Two weeks until next session. I already have a good idea to tie this site location in with the already established big bads. Otherwise I just need to pour over the pages of this black masterpiece all over again. Weep for me not....

Perhaps a session report on the eve of a Feast of Blood

I am all pumped up for tomorrow's game so I will spend some of this nervous energy on a session report. 

The girl did pay, after all. Violet was handed over to her parents, the Marquee and Marquees de Chabentaeu, in a catatonic state, but at least in one piece. That's better than Liam Neelson did in A Walk Among The Tombstones. This netted the group 2,000 gp, a windfall they haven't seen since first session over a year ago! The Marquee, impressed with their gritty and grim bearing, offers them employment. His town is beset by kidnappings, missing persons and murder out among the farms. Merchants are leaving town. He needs to bring an end to these mysterious threats or he will lose his position of Warder of Le Frenaie. They have returned his daughter from these seemingly unknown kidnappers. Of course the Marquee has many questions for the PCs. It comes out the Marquee is a proud man, and set upon revenge against any who slight himself and his family name. They must lead him against the kidnappers. He will gather the militia. Piedmont has a mercenary troop the Golden Ray camped nearby. They shall provide the additional troops needed.  

The PCs say sure, they haven't much else in mind at this point, and arrange for rooms at The Crossed Swords. The local rat catcher is in the common room on a three-day bender. He is spending his "life" saving because the end of days is upon them. 

With the better part of the day and evening in front of them the group decides to pursue avenues of espionage. The local priest of Zotar deserves a visit. This Father Piedmont is obviously agitating for a vote of no confidence in the Warder. Perhaps they can weasel into his good graces as well. They are carrying a writ of authority they found, from the ArchBishop of Vyonnes himself! They show this purloined writ to the local Zotarian and let Piedmont know they expect his assistance if called upon. The mustering of the militia tomorrow is discussed and Piedmont decides he will join the hunt!

Lumin catches a street urchin for some errand duty. The poor, dirty wretch is writing some graffiti on a barn wall. It says "She's not my mommy!"

"Here boy, take this missive to the Marquee." The one-handed cleric gives the boy the note and some silver to run the message over to Mq. Chabenteau. He thinks it is a good idea to let the Mq. know Father Piedmont will be on this upcoming expedition into the local wood, known around here as the Tanglewood.  Varidell is a suspicious sort so decides to shadow the urchin and make sure the boy does as he is told. 

Toth and Lumin want to visit the local Drune Fortune Teller. She promised a free reading, she sensed the hand of the fates laying upon them. The Blue Moon Curio Shoppe is easily found and the gypsy-like crone sees them to her reading room. Toth lingers in the front room, listening to the reading while the crone pours over Lumin's outstretched hand.

But it is a ruse! Black treachery! The Drune grabs hold of Lumin's arm and holds it fast while an assassin springs out from behind the beaded curtains which concealed the room beyond. Garrote in hand the assassin quickly begins to choke out the cleric. Toth is set upon as well. Another assassin comes out from the kitchen baring a the would-be assailant is clueless on Toth's terrible martial reputation. Jyfrith, the Hammer of Justice, flicks out instantly and swings like lightning in Toth's hands. The assailant is crushed like a beetle, gout of blood pouring forth from open mouth and crushed sternum. 

Lumin continues to struggle with both the Drune crone and the cutthroat. He grabs for his Blood Knife, but not until Toth delivers a roundhouse with his hammer to the Drune's face can Lumin find the leverage to bury his eldritch knife deep into the unknown thug's eye. Before they both could say, "What the hell was that about?" Varidell's whistle can be heard outside. This is usually a sign the group's lead slinker was in dire straights.

The two holy warriors race out into the rapidly darkening evening and close in on the sound. They find Varidell rolling in the dust of an alley, three werewolves closing in for the kill. Blood pours from his savaged shoulder. Magical and silver weapons in hand, one werewolf is slain and the other two driven off.

My memory is fuzzy on this, but somehow the PCs became aware of Jankula Ansulex living in Le Frenaie. This stranger is responsible for at least Cree and Varidell finding themselves in Averoigne through unknown magics. The odd scholar provides Varidell with a potion "Guaranteed to cure the disease of lycanthropy."

Tea is brewed and the group shares secrets and information with Jankula. He is convinced gates from other worlds have been opened into Averoigne and alien beings mean to pass through and conquer all! "The ruined palace must be the source of the dimensional portals. You must return there. You must close these magical gates or the world as we know it will be destroyed," insists Jankula. 

"Leave the Negamancer's globe with me," he requests. "Perhaps I may be able to make it serve our ends. I will return it to you in the morning before you all depart."

A Present of, and a Review of Castle Xyntillian by Gabor Lux

Gabor Lux is a fantastic person. He is undeniably generous. His output under the Echoes from Fomalhaut label numbers 60 individual publications spanning more than a decade of OSR creations. This not only makes Mr. Lux prolific, but an artist who has printed content throughout the history of the OSR movement from 2003 to the present. His blog Beyond Fomalhaut should be recognizable to most OSR aficionados and needs to be added back into my blog’s recommendation list. His zine Echoes is comfortably weird and always worth a read.

So, this guy is mind-numbingly good and a great example of how gaming product should be made when offering to the consumer-at-large. I recently purchased EMDT 57 The Nocturnal Table from his line. I wanted another generator for random city encounters and this 2019 digest-sized release looked like a smart choice. Well, really, I knew it would be a smart choice because it is from Gabor and Gabor’s shit does not suck. The price was very affordable considering the book was coming from Hungry and the bouquet of DIY chewy usefulness packed between the pages. And it was an extremely fortuitous time to order as well. Seems my transaction was his 1,000 foreign commercial exchange and Gabor acknowledged this by sending me a beautiful hard-bound copy of EMDT 60 Castle Xyntillan, a 131page OSR adventure tribute to Judges Guild’s Tegal Manor. Tegal Manor is known as an original example of a “funhouse” dungeon, a module packed with interesting, unpredictable encounters with a loose or even no overall relation to another.

It is not a small book, not digest size. More like hardcover catalogue size? The cover art is original, a Peter Mullen creation. There is a liberal amount of original and public domain art and uses the wonderfully efficient presentation of two-column text on white paper for easy reading and scanning.

Besides a large dungeon the book includes 5 pages of useful tables, a DM’s traditional tool which has come of age. Ordered in a sensible method these pages are there to squirt out hirelings and NPC’s with personality and information. The duplication and addition of maps, another sign of OSR haute couture, is present throughout the book, including the end cover pages. The addition of interior end cover pages with the castle’s map is something you cannot get from a Drivethru POD and gives a traditional publishing house a reason still for living; providing a print run tailored to a ttrpg adventure book. Castle Xyntillan has been designed for the Swords & Wizardry game and is suitable for 1st to 6th level characters. Castle Xyntillan has been designed to be versatile, open-ended, complex, and accessible. This module should provide ample opportunities for exploration, confrontation, and subterfuge. Whether you would like a dungeon for one-off expeditions and convention play, or repeated forays and full campaigns, this book should suit those demands.

Seeing as I have recently acquired it, I cannot divulge the value of the majority of the book, the keyed dungeon itself. But it has been extensively play-tested. You know this because the introductory pages list all the Player Characters (not players) that survived and died in their forays through the dungeon. It is a long list. Besides, it is Gabor so you know it must be good. The cherry on top of this lovely book is the location marks for each and ever Player Character which died in the dungeon. The big spreads on the end pages contain the dungeon maps and the location and name of the dead PC is placed on the map. There even is an MIA list, adventurers who’s fate remains unknown. Sweet.

Mathew Finch Interview Coming Soon

[The Completed Interview can be listened to here]

Looks like Frog God Games has been making the rounds promoting the success of their latest kickstarter and the Vanishing Tower Press has been tapped for an interview. Super excited for an opportunity to interview Mathew Finch. One, I do have some topics I would like to discuss with any OSR luminary, let alone Mr. Finch. Two, the Vanishing Tower has not conducted an industry interview ever, so it is a great moment for the press itself. And third, I give good interview. At least I have in the past. Just like gaming, I have been out of the gonzo interview business almost as long as I was lost to TTRPG's. So it should be a worth a listen for that alone. 

I would like to live stream and record at the same time, but it is to important of an opportunity to have everyone hanging on air while my horrible media tools melt down around me. So next best is a recorded interview. This provides editing opportunities, but I always found going live the most exciting. Most like a role playing game, the spontaneity and unpredictability of live takes is tonic for the manic!

Don't miss it, I will be posting it. Currently scheduled for next week, then edits, so two weeks and I will have an interview to drop? 

x

Death in Rom'Myr

The last session was a continuation of coming to grips with the denizens of the Pale Knight's Palace. They had indeed returned to the Aticorn with the 8 threads from the vampire lord’s cloak, and the creature of Faerie did release the party from the peculiar geas laid upon them. But they had left the young Violet behind in the nightmarish palace. None of the warriors could look each other in the eye if they left their potential meal-ticket lost and uncashed. So instead of pushing on to the realative safety of Le Freniae, the party turned around and marched back to the ruined structure which just last night held an alien conclave and was racked by terrible explosions. The daylight did little to relieve the gloom saturating the steep, forest hollow. Once inside they wasted little time plowing to the room of dragon eggs and the broken throne room. The 3 eggs which were left behind last night appear now to be gone. The throne room was appropriately barren, but the unbelievable events which overtook the group last in this room left behind signs of the awful reality which had transpired. 

Clues wrapped in a dropped communique hinted at deep conspiracy on now a cosmic scale. But nothing yet seen prepared them for the colossal marble snake coiled in the center of it’s room of rampage. Not a hallucinatory dream after all. Stone it was made and still it breathed and slumbered. Above the beast, as if suspended like an acrobat, the silvery beauty, the alien and powerful Aladonia floated like a billowing cloud over the rubble. Her advisory, the grotesque talking hair-skin thing, was no where in sight. An unoccupied alchemy lab provided insight on the child-snatching which they were bearing witness to. Their bowels turned to water as a closing, suffocating trap threatened a TPK and still no sign of the lovely Violet. Questions dogged their every step; what with the stealing of children? What was the significance of multiple dimensions filled with strange beings? And how was all this going to pay? 

Original Design Metal Gamer Tees I Made

I've been wanting to do this for some time. I imagine it has already been done, is being done. This is an easy phrase to stumble over when thinking what would make a good t-shirt? What this tee has that no one else does is a piece of my original scribble art found in my new OSR compatible module I recently released to loud acclaim (see review link right). 

So that is why you need to get this DIY indie shwag! These will be available for the next twenty-five days, so no dawdling.