Character Creation: Fear of the Unknown

Happy Halloween! Boogity boogity.

The Game: Fear of the Unknown
The Publisher: Sixpence Games
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this particular game, but investigative horror is kinda my jam
Books Required: Just the one

Fear of the Unknown is a PbtA game that focuses on investigative horror. It's definitely crafted with love for the genre, and keeps the focus on a half-dozen types of horror stories that work well with the gameplay loop it's creating. It's also one of those games that make me a) want to run it and b) think "but do I really need this game, since I have Chill, the apotheosis of awesome as far as this kind of horror is concerned?"

(I am, perhaps, somewhat biased.)

I think I am gonna put this game on my "run" list, if for no other reason than its approach to clues and trauma (within the context of a horror story) would be interesting to try out. For tonight, however, as the shadows lengthen and the witches fly low on their broomsticks, I shall make a character.

Characters in Fear of the Unknown are made of tags, and character creation prompts you to make up or roll (handy charts!) a bunch of those. There's even a flowchart! For my purposes, let's assume I'm playing the game as written and we're gonna be in a small town somewhere. What exactly the mystery consists of isn't really relevant to chargen, so I'll just stick with "modern day USA" and go from there. 

Question one is "what have you trained for most in life," and seeing as how we just watched Vampires vs. the Bronx, I kinda like the idea of a character who owns the town bodega equivalent. I suppose that'd be a general store, depending on how big this small town really is. Actually, let's say my guy owns the ice cream parlor in town, akin to the Igloo place that I used to get soft serve in Toledo when I was a kid. We shall say my ice cream proprietor's name is Burt Kaspercyk; the kids in the town call him "Mr. Kaz." His first tag is owns the ice cream shop.

Now I get to make a choice: Does Mr. Kaz value wealth, knowledge, or power? Well, of the three, probably wealth, so that puts me over to question 3, which is: "You had to do something bad for cash once. What was it?"

Well, let's say Mr. Kaz nearly lost the store 10 years ago. The economy in town really slowed down, people didn't have extra money to spend on treats, and Mr. Kaz had to really cut back on his expenses. Mr. Kaz took a loan with some really shit terms to stay afloat, and while he's managed ever since he is drowning in debt. 

That puts me to question 6, which is "You've got money and you know how to spend it. What did you buy?" That seems a little at odds with my previous tag, but of course it's possible to live larger than your means. Let's say Mr. Kaz has a tricked-out ice cream truck. He drives it around to neighboring towns during the summer sometimes (when his daughter works the store; if I were playing this game I'd probably try and have one of the other players be his daughter or otherwise work at the place). 

Question 9 asks me to choose whether Kaz is a risk taker or not. I think not, actually. That bumps me to question 11, which asks me what I'm good at that other people might not guess. Let's say Kaz is a former state wrestling champ. He doesn't have the conditioning that he did in high school, of course, but muscle memory is a thing and he keeps himself in shape, more or less.

Question 12 is "has anything gone seriously wrong in your life," and in the interest of making things interesting I'll say yes. That puts me to question 13, "what's still afflicting you?" And since I don't have a good idea here, I shall use the charts. "One person has a major grudge," hmm. Let's say that Griffin Chetney, a guy that Kaz has known since high school and used to be very close to, has it out for Kaz. Why? Kaz broke up Griffin's marriage. It wasn't deliberate; Griffin was having an affair with a woman who lived in the next town over and Kaz spotted him canoodling with her one day when he was out driving the truck. He probably wouldn't have said anything about it, but he got a little soused with the guys one night and said something, it got back to Griffin's wife, everything went whack-a-ding-hoy and now Griffin blames Kaz. 

Next question: "What's a connection you particularly value?" Let's say there's an old lady who hangs out at the shop all day during the summer months. Her name is Gemma Susperski. Mrs. Susperski is in her late 80s or something, her husband is long dead, and she's got a wicked sweet tooth. She also knows everything and is a killer Scrabble player, and Kaz really enjoys her company.

Question 15: "What's your favorite thing about yourself?" Everyone in town knows that Kaspercyk's Ice Cream Shop is a safe place. Kids come in after Little League or after school, families come in after church, everyone comes in after the movies let out, and there's kind of an unspoken agreement that you don't get into mischief there. The high school Chess Club meets there, and when there was a fire at No Filter (the coffee house down the block), Mr. Kaz let the owner sell coffee out of the ice cream shop while the place got rebuilt. Everyone knows that the ice cream shop is a safe haven, and Mr. Kaz is very proud of that.

And finally, "what is something you like about yourself that others would consider a flaw?" This is a "wild" tag, and as such could be used as a positive or negative in play. I don't have an idea, so I roll and get "I don't respect authority." I kinda like the idea that Mr. Kaz has a rebellious streak to him, but I want to make it a little more specific, so let's say that he doesn't respect the police. (Hell, maybe Griffin is or was a cop.)

And that's it! I picture Kaz as in his late 40s, kind of lorge, thinning hair and maybe a combover. He favors t-shirts from the various institutions and stores in town, and keeps reading glasses in a case in his pocket. I rather suspect that Kaz isn't going to make it through this movie, but it depends on who's directing. 

Two characters behind for the month, but I should be able to make up the difference in November.

Movie #758: The Outfit

The Outfit is a period drama starring Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Johnny Flynn, and Simon Russell Beale. 

In jolly ol' Chicago, 1956, a cutter (that is, creator of bespoke suits) called Leonard (Rylance) supplies the mob with their nice clothes. They use his shop to hide money, and to pass messages, and Leonard quietly minds his business until one night, the boss' son Richie (O'Brien) and the boss' lieutenant Francis (Flynn) come into the shop in a tizzy. Richie has a bullet in his stomach, and Francis is freaking out that there is a rat in the organization.

What follows is a series of lies and manipulations as Leonard tries to keep himself, and later his receptionist (and Richie's girlfriend!) Mable alive. The boss, Roy (Beale) shows up and complicates everything further, because by that point Richie is dead and stuffed in a trunk, Rope style. Leonard manages to stay one step ahead of the worst of it, and all the while we hear in voice-over about Leonard's method of cutting, as well as learning his history.

The Outfit isn't based on a play, though I initially thought it was. It feels like a play, with its unity of place and focus on dialog, and that means that performance and delivery have to carry it. And they absolutely do - Mark Rylance is amazing at portraying someone who seems harmless, but his Leonard is absolutely capable of holding his own among the violent men of organized crime. Deutch's Mabel, likewise, seems perhaps breezy, but doesn't hide her inner anger very long. The other standout for me is Johnny Flynn as Francis, clearly struggling with loyalty to Roy but not at all sad that he had to shoot Richie.

If I have a complaint, it's that the last 30 minutes of the movie have too many reveals - Mabel's the rat! Leonard is also the rat! The Outfit doesn't know a thing about the Boyle family! LaFontaine is a woman! Leonard used to be a gangster himself! It makes one start to feel, as Dr. Tenderman in Futurama once said, overgasped. But with that said, the gentle pace of the story and tension of the dialog juxtaposed with Leonard's continued focus on doing his work and keeping everyone polite is really well done. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Renfield

Character Creation: Raccoon Sky Pirates

Beware the masked sky-bandits!

The Game: Raccoon Sky Pirates
The Publisher: Hectic Electron
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Raccoon Sky Pirates is a little GM-less game in which you play the titular raccoons (though you can also play another trash-loving animal like a possum, pigeon, or cockroach) as they ride an airship from their junkyard home to a suburban house to rob it and then fly back. 

Now, that premise is amazing enough on its own, but I like the mechanics, too (or at least, in theory). You don't decide what you're doing and then roll to see if it works, you pick an approach, then roll to see what you do, and if the result you rolled matches the approach you used, what you did was helpful. If not, it's unhelpful, and it makes everything more chaotic. For example, one of the characters has Deft, Cunning, and Stylish as his approaches. If he rolls a 9, the result is "Invent a new machine out of Trash," and it's Cunning. But if the player chose Stylish when acting, then that new machine isn't going to be helpful.

I can already see that an experienced group would have trouble with the conceptual shifts necessary, but I think the game is well-designed enough that it wouldn't matter, and of course the premise is enticing on its own. 

Character creation is pretty minimalist - the characters already have names and approaches chosen, so it's mostly about making a few quick decisions and jumping into it. But I like the game too much not to include it in the project, so here we go.

So first we choose a character. I'll pick one of the raccoons, I think. Ooh, yeah, let's grab Rabies Eddie. 

Rabies Eddie's approaches are Strong, Aggressive, and YOLO. For his Look, I'll take Thousand (Junk)yard Stare. For Personal Goal, I gotta go with Find a reason to go berserk. 

Relationships would require more raccoons, and it's just me, so I'll skip that. The other thing is to say what I want to steal on this trip and how it would improve life at the junkyard. Hmm. 

I think Rabies Eddie wants to steal a bottle of glass cleaner and a sponge. There are lots of windshields and windows in the junkyard, and they're so dirty. If all those windows sparkled, think how much nicer it'd be! You could see right through them! 

I picture Eddie as very friendly and amiable, big puffy fur and a goofy grin much of the time. He drools a lot (hence the name; he's not really rabid...right?) and has a habit of saying "huh? huh? whadja say?" He never lets anything go, so if you say something and he doesn't hear it YOU BETTER NOT TELL HIM "NOTHING" BECAUSE IT WASN'T "NOTHING" WHEN YOU SAID IT A MINUTE AGO, PRISCILLA. Ahem. 

That's it! 

Movie #757: Oculus

Oculus is a horror movie directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Karen Gillan, Brandon Thwaites, Rory Cochrane, Katee Sackhoff, Annalise Basso, and Garrett Ryan.

Tim Russell (Thwaites) is released from a mental institution, where he's lived since he shot his father as a child. His sister Kaylie (Gillan) is waiting for him on the outside, and is happy to help him adjust, but for one little task first. 

See, as children (played by Basso and Ryan), their father Alan (Cochrane) bought an ornate antique mirror for his office and it slowly drove everyone in the house mad, culminating with Alan chaining their mother Marie (Sackhoff) to a wall and sitting for hours at a time staring into the mirror. Their parents attacked them and Alan shot Marie, and then Tim shot him in self-defense. Tim, over the years, has come to "accept" what he did, to see his father as a sick man, but Kaylie (who grew up in the foster system) has never lost sight of the truth: the "Lasser Glass", as its called, is hungry and evil. 

So Kaylie arranges to have the Lasser Glass shipped to the house they grew up in (which she now owns), and sets up an elaborate system of alarms, cameras, and failsafes. She doesn't just want to destroy the Lasser Glass, she wants to prove its influence so that she can clear her father's name. 

What follows is one of the smoothest and most genuinely disturbing pieces of horror fiction I've seen. The mirror is unquestionably malevolent and powerful, but it never interacts directly with the characters. There's never a named demon or ghost or whatever that comes out and chases anyone around. Instead, the mirror fucks with perception, so you never quite know if you're watching the truth, a hallucination, or a flashback. The story of what happened to the family is told pretty much simultaneously with what's happening "now", and in the third act both stories start to merge. 

The effects are practical and really pretty minimal. Sure, people have scary glows to their eyes when the mirror is affecting them, or when the spirits of the dead (or are they more hallucinations?) show up, but the real horror comes from moments like Kaylie and Tim watching themselves have a conversation on camera while they rearrange the room, even though we (as the audience) just saw that conversation from their perspective and they didn't touch the furniture.

Horror stories involving inanimate objects can be hard sells - if the source of the danger is stationary, then why not just walk away. Kaylie has a strong motivation for not just leaving and letting her failsafe kick in (she has an anchor rigged to smash the mirror if she's not around to reset a timer), but in the end she falls victim to her own precautions and to the mirror's ability to change people's perceptions around. This is not a horror story with a happy ending, not even really any closure. It's a story about two people who go up against something evil and losing (not dissimilar to David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, though that was perhaps more of a stalemate). 

Oculus is an intense movie. The performances are great across the board, though special mention goes to Basso for her portrayal of young Kaylie, and to Sackhoff for the amazing physicality she brings to Marie as the evil from the mirror takes hold. Oculus is very much a Chill movie, and it's up there with The Babadook, Ouija: Origin of Evil and the aforementioned It Follows for its depiction of normal people trying to cope with supernatural forces. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: The Outfit

Movie #756: Mister Roberts

Mister Roberts is a 1955 comedy based on a hit play (side note: can you imagine that there was a time in America where "based on a hit play" was any kind of selling point? Not musical, play) starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, William Powell, Philip Carey, and Ken Curtis.

The titular Mister Roberts (Fonda) is the cargo chief aboard the Reluctant (perhaps a little on the nose), a cargo ship in the Pacific during the last days of WWII. Roberts is good at his job and all of the men love him, but he's got two major problems. First, he's utterly dissatisfied with his work and wants to see combat, and second, the captain (Cagney) is a raging egomaniac and runs the ship like it's own personal fiefdom. Plus he's an idiot. 

(And I have to say, the captain's style of "leadership" rings really true, because I've seen too many people who are living examples of the Peter Principle and respond to their inability to do their job by consolidating and reaffirming the fact that they are in charge. But anyway.)

Roberts tries for transfers but the captain never approves them, and eventually the captain puts him in a difficult position: toe the line or else no one in the crew gets shore leave, ever. Realizing that the men's morale is already rock bottom, Roberts agrees, the men go ashore and act like drunken idiots (but like, in a cute way!), and immediately thereafter word spreads that Roberts is being a dick because he's bucking for a promotion even though that's completely out of character for him. 

(Side note: one thing I found a little suspension-of-disbelief-breaking was that no one in the crew had the wherewithal to say "hey, Mr. Roberts was totally on our side before our shore leave, and then the captain tried to cancel it at the last minute, Roberts went into his office, and then 10 minutes later we had shore leave but Roberts was being a dick. WHA HAPPUN". But anyway.)

Eventually, Roberts breaks and confronts the captain, the truth is revealed, the men help him get transferred, he gets sent to a battleship near Okinawa, and is promptly killed in action because that's what happens in war, so it was all for nothing, he could have stayed on the ship doing important work for his country but noooooo, he had to "see combat." Sensibilities may have shifted a bit since this movie came out. 

I'm being flip, but the movie is actually really funny. I haven't mentioned Jack Lemmon at all, but he plays the laundry and morale officer on the ship and has elevated avoiding the captain to an art form...but then winds up getting saddled with Roberts' old job when he leaves. The movie is really his arc as a character (well, Roberts to a degree, but in his case it's really more the plot happening to him rather than changing him), as he learns that playing it safe isn't going to make him happy and kinda makes him a coward. The funniest moments in the movie belong to him as he pursues, um, female companionship with a fervor that one can only admire, but watching Fonda's interplay with Cagney is also a lot of fun.

It's a fairly light movie and manages to make even Roberts' death feel sweet and noble rather than depressing and futile, which is impressive. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Oculus

Character Creation: P10

Supposedly there's a form-fillable sheet on DriveThru, but when I downloaded it, the forms weren't fillable, so 0/10. 

The Game: Power of 10
The Publisher: Flight of the Valkyries
Degree of Familiarity: None, but there ain't much to it
Books Required: Just the one

Power of 10, or P10 for short, is built on the premise that knowing the probability of success when you're rolling dice in an RPG is a good thing. Specifically, that percentile systems give you a good gauge, but a game where you're meant to roll a 7 or better on 2d8, that math is hard to do at the table. And I agree, I'm all for keeping in-game math as simple as possible - that's why the only math you ever have to do in Chill 3rd is to divide a number in half. 

But P10 doesn't use percentile dice, it uses a single d10 with static modifiers, and the target of any given roll is 10, and then however much you beat (or miss) 10 by is the degree of success (or failure). The system is perfectly simple at its base and then has a whole bunch of permutations and different kinds of actions and so forth bolted onto it, and it looks like it'd work just fine...but who gives a shit?

The game isn't about anything, it's a bog-standard generic setting-agnostic number crunch, and the only thing that's close to a gimmick is that it's easy to figure out the percentage chance that you'll succeed (because you've got a 10% chance to roll a 10 on a d10, and every +1 is another +10%). But, on the other hand, it gives a nice long example of play, so at least that was fun to read. 

So, making a character requires a setting. Are there examples? Not in this book, really. Well, the example of play is basically a D&D setting, so fine, let's do another fantasy "adventurer." 

First off, we pick a Species or Culture. You know what, let's just be human. I've been playing a lot of Baldur's Gate III lately, so a human do-gooder sort of character is kind of appealing. Let's say my character was a palace guard in the stronghold of an evil tyrant, and when the day came that the forces of Good charged in to take down the Army of Evil (and the Navy of Moral Dubiousness), he had a "wait, are we the baddies?" kind of moment and split. Now he's kind of wandering around looking for something to get into, but apart from some basic swordplay and the ability to take a punch he really doesn't have much else going on...at least not yet.

Fine, that's more backstory than I probably need. As a human, my basic four stats (Body, Reflexes, Mind, Spirit) all start at 3, HP starts at 10, Move starts at 8. I can add one to any stat, or increase a Skill, or add an extra Benefit. I'm gonna keep that bonus in my back pocket for right now. 

Now I customize stats a bit. I need to increase one stat by 2 or two by 1, and then subtract one from another one. I'll bump Mind down to 2 (he's not a genius, bless him) but bump up Spirit and Body. 

Skills! I get 5 levels to throw around and I can't go over 2 in any one Skill. I'll take

Athletics 1
Bladed Weapons 1
Brawl 1
Intimidate 1
Riding 1

(Not Perception, even though he was a guard? Well, look, he wasn't good at it.)

Benefits & Flaws! I can take one, or two, of each. Let's start with Flaws. Sure, I'll take Slow Draw (takes me a while to switch or draw weapons) and Uneducated. And now, Benefits. I'll take Devil's Luck (he got out of the tyrant's lair without getting stabbed, after all) and Shieldsman (I can step in front of an attack meant for an ally). 

That's everything but details and calculation, so I'd better figure out what to do with my human bonus. Let's bump Brawl up to 2, why not. HP is 12, damage mods are 1 (melee) and 0 (ranged), that's fine. I ain't going shopping. 

So! My guy's name is Bunnel. Bunnel is beefy and has a kind of round face. He's a little clueless, but he's generally sweet - he took the guard gig because his pals said it paid OK and it wasn't hard work, but it never quite sunk in that he might have to kill or die as part of that work. Now Bunnel is out in the work with a sword that needs sharpening and a wit to match. Good luck!

Wicked Ones: The Fall of Iron Reef, or, The Bugbear's Mom

Last night was Wicked Ones, and the titular monsters managed to beef up their dungeon's power and take another step toward their sinister master plan. When will the heroes of the realm step up?! 

Anyway, last time the monsters stole (and ate) some yummy griffon eggs, though Baldruf is trying to hatch one in the dungeon's nice warm slime pits. They have a plan to increase their dungeon tier - first, they intend to blackmail the Duke of Salvage, master of Bartertown, into becoming their vassal. Then, they will assault Iron Reef, destroying what leadership there is and placing the whole region under their control. And I'm not gonna say this all went off without a hitch, but there was far less hitchin' than I was expecting. 

First, the city of Belchior. Belchior is the biggest city in the region, very much a Dark bastion, but the populace is mostly human. The city has an ethos; most of the principles of Light and empathy are turned on their head. Of course you'd lop off a body part and sell it to settle a debt, that's just obvious (very much a lawful evil sort of place). And it's here that the mother of the Duke of Salvage lives.

The Wicked Ones break into her house, tie her up and throw her in the fruit cellar. Fnort and two of his kobold guards dress up in her nightgown to pretend to be her, and sit at the table, waiting for the visit from the Duke that they know is coming. 'Ashe'irashe slithers up into the rafters to wait, and Baldruf hides in the wardrobe. Their two skeleton guards collapse into piles of bones under the table. 

When the Duke arrives, he stations his guards outside and brings in a pig carcass for his mom. He greets her but doesn't look carefully, and Fnort is able to keep the ruse going as he goes to the fire to start spitting the pig. And then Baldruf appears from the wardrobe, brandishing his crossbow. The Duke backs up, trying to protect his mom, still not noticing the deception, and demands to know what Baldruf is doing here. When he reaches his "mom", he puts a hand on her shoulder and she collapses into three kobolds!

The guards hear the Duke's yelp of surprise and head in, but 'Ashe quickly spins an illusion over the room that shows the Duke waving them off. They station themselves back outside, but leave the door open, and the Wicked Ones gesture for the Duke to take a seat.

He demands to know what's going on here - the Sepulcher of Suffering has always had a good relationship with Bartertown, so what's with this outrage? 'Ashe and Baldruf explain that they want all of Bartertown - the Duke is to become their vassal. The Duke is furious, and they see him grabbing for the medallion of Gorlag, the Blessed Emperor, that he wears around his neck. Gorlag demands that his follows never be submissive, but also that they never turn down an opportunity for power. Knowing this, 'Ashe reminds the Duke that working for/with the Sepulcher will carry with it great rewards when they take over the whole region. And, into the bargain, they'll let his mom go.

The Duke considers this, and asks that a shrine to Gorlag be erected in the Sepulcher if his city is to be annexed. He also demands that they never reveal this incident to anyone, as it would make him look weak. The Wicked Ones agree and reveal his mother's location ("sssshe issss with the pomegranatessss"), and then get the hell out before anything goes wrong. And now that they have the support/subjugation of Bartertown, it's time to hit the Iron Reef!

Fnort scouts ahead and sees that there's a lot of debris - wrecked ships, jagged metal - around the central riverboat wreck that serves as the cultural and social center of Iron Reef. There's also a huge hole in the floor of said wreck, and this provides the Wicked Ones with a good starting point. They leap out of the hole and attack! 

Fnort and his kobolds hurl Iron Reefers into the hole, while Baldruf stays more surgical and chooses his targets. 'Ashe slithers through the room and spots an older gent who's clearly a leader - grizzled, gray of beard, and obviously respected by those around him. 'Ashe casts a spell on him, hoping to force him to tell all the others to stand down. But the older pirate checked his corners as soon as Fnort popped up, spots 'Ashe, and shoots the snake-person right in the chest! 

'Ashe stumbles (what's the snake equivalent to "stumble?" "Slither awkwardly?") back, bleeding, and the battle continues! 'Ashe's skeleton warrior charges into the fray and a pirate offhandedly knocks its head off. Baldruf's skeleton grunt is a little more successful, knocking a pirate into the big hole in the floor but loses its shin in the process ("Hopping Skeleton", we decided, is a pretty good nerd rock band name). Fnort whips out his flail and lays out a couple of pirates, and Baldruf heads to the captain and engages. He jumps up on a table in front of the guy and sizes him up, and spots multiple pistols in his coat. If Baldruf could pull those triggers, that'd put a crimp in his day!

Flash back to the Sepulcher: Baldruf swiped three griffon claws on their last raid, and is practicing throwing them at a target. He discovers, with practice, that he can "bend" them mid-flight, much like the bullets in Wanted or Diego's knives in Umbrella Academy. Back in the battle, Baldruf flings a claw into the captain's coat and uses it to fire off a pistol. It wings him, but does not kill him, and the captain grins and kicks the bottom of the table, hoping to flip Baldruf backwards. Baldruf is ready, however, and smashes down through the table, landing on his feet.

'Ashe throws some other spells around, but the bullet hole in his chest is impeding him. He manages to cast an illusion to make the big hole in the floor seem to move around. The pirates back away from the "hole" that's appeared on the other side of the room, and it provides enough distraction for Baldruf to back off and slip into the shadows. 

Fnort is having a much better time of it, though. He slashes a rope and drops a chandelier (made of a ship's steering wheel) onto a group of pirates, and lands in the rafters. He runs across the rafters and jumps, landing on the captain and punches him in his stupid face. The captain, dealing with suddenly having a kobold on his head, also has to deal with Baldruf popping out of the shadows and stabbing him! He decides to cut his losses, nudges a switch and drops down a trap door. Fnort isn't ready to let this go, though, and clings to him.

They are both dumped into the river, and Fnort suddenly realizes that the captain is a much stronger swimmer than he is. The captain starts diving down, clearly hoping to drown Fnort, but Fnort is relentless and continues attacking. He manages to knock the wind out of the captain, and, victorious, swims up the hole with the captain's body and wearing his hat!

Up in the riverboat, the kobold guards continue their assault, Baldruf slits a few throats, and 'Ashe stabs at one with a ritual dagger (but misses; like I said, he's having a day). Fnort pops up with the captain's body, and the mood in the room teeters - will the pirates surrender, flee, or redouble their attacks?

Baldruf jumps up on the bar and yells to all of them to surrender and bow to their new masters! 'Ashe casts a spell to make him more impressive and fearsome, and Fnort, wearing the captain's hat, gives a victorious snarl! The pirates flee or accept their fate, and the Wicked Ones have won.

Over the new few months, they subsume the Iron Reef, meaning they have completed the third step in their Master Plan ("consolidate power in the Northern Flats"). Baldruf recruits a couple of scoundrels from Iron Reef to be his new minions, while 'Ashe continues working on a magical artifact of great power (nicknamed the "Fan-Fan"). Baldruf also reads up on the care and feeding of griffons, to work on hatching the egg. Fnort tries to get the trick wall and treasure lure working, but just cannot get it to function and loses his temper, smashing the mechanism and setting himself back.

The Wicked Ones discover they've attracted a new creature - a giant mole-like creature that takes up residence in the second level of the Sepulcher. They also put a statue of Gorlag in their entrance hall...and are disturbed/delighted to note that a small stream of blood appears from the statue and runs into the crevasse where Mr. Tentacles lives.

And elsewhere in the land, the dwarves of the Stonefell Forges prepare to handle this "Sepulcher" situation once and for all...

Character Creation: Curse of the House of Rookwood

Always nice when I read a game I'd been looking forward to and it turns out cool.

The Game: The Curse of the House of Rookwood
The Publisher: Nerdy Pup Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Horror game of Gothic family shenanigans, you see. Specifically, you play members of the titular Rookwood family, but what exactly that family is and in what era they live is flexible. The running examples of play assume British Victorian, but there are a whole bunch of other possibilities. Every story arc is meant to be one "generation" of Rookwoods, and every such cohort has a number of "skeletons" that family members either need to confront and bury or gloss over - but if you don't deal with your skeletons, the family's overall prospect suffers.

In terms of game structure, there are some similarities to Forged in the Dark, inasmuch as the family as a whole (much like the gang in Blades or the dungeon in Wicked Ones) is really the big focus. The system is pretty different, though; I think it would work at the table, but of course you never really know until you're trying to explain it to your buddy with ADHD. 

Anyway, let's make a Rookwood!

The first thing we would do if we were really playing this game (and there were a "we") would be to answer the "7 Cursed Questions" about the family. Since it's just me and the book has a helpful example, I shall go with that. The example places us in mid-19th century England, the family has history amongst druids and cults and a seat in the House of Lords. 

First thing I need is a family role, expressed as an adjective and a noun (as I think about it, very much like in Ganakagok). I want my character to be a "full-blooded" Rookwood, rather than marrying in. Since I'm more into Americana than England...atana, let's say my Rookwood is an "insufferable traveler" - he's ventured to various places around the world, including the USA, and he comes back with a very "everything's up to date in Kansas City" thing going on. Let's say his name is Horatio Nelson Rookwood - his father was a naval man and, while he did not fight at Trafalgar, is a big fan of Admiral Nelson. My guy just goes by "Nel" to his friends. 

I now assign five dice amongst Brawn, Guile, and Weird. I can go as low as 0, so I think I'll leave Weird at 0 and go 2 Brawn, 3 Guile. Nel is a jetsetter and a socialite. 

So next we decide Nel's "loss of innocence," when the family curse manifested for him. I like the nautical leaning I have so far, so let's say that as a young man of 12, Nel was on a ship bound for Spain, but it sank (the ship, not Spain) not far off the English coast. Nel was one of a few survivors, along with a Rookwood employee porter (and if we were playing this, probably another PC or the father of a PC or whatever). Nel himself was knocked overboard and nearly drowned, and as he sank he saw. Ever since he's known that the boundless deeps want him, and he thumbs his nose at them by traveling via sea every chance he gets. 

Nel's Curse is wanderlust - give him a moment of quiet and he's miles away, staring into space or out over the ocean or the fields or wherever. He compensates for that by talking. A lot. His power, though, allows him passage and travel. When he travels, everything goes on schedule, he makes good time, and doors just never seem to stay locked around him. 

And now we choose a Desire. It might seem like Nel wants to explore or experience the world, but really what he wants to be renowned as a traveler, which is a different thing. He wants everyone to be glad to see him when he gets home, and to cry when he leaves. 

Finally, a Skeleton. This is an unresolved issue in the family stemming from Nel. I think I want to go back to the shipwreck. Let's say that Hardy, the porter, actually pushed Nel into the water. On his deathbed Hardy admitted that someone in the family paid him to do Nel in, but he wasn't able to say who before he shuffled off this mortal coil, the selfish bastard. Nel doesn't know who, but he hopes to find out and take revenge. He fears that whoever it is will try again and succeed. But of course it's possible that Nel just...goes away and never comes back, which would leave the skeleton unburied.

And that'll do it, actually! I picture Nel as in his 30s, with black hair and green eyes, but most tanned and less...sallow than a lot of Rookwoods. He's gregarious and charming and much too free with his words, until the conversation lulls and then he's staring out the window or wandering off into the gardens. 

Character Creation: Highcaster

Man, I need to step it up if I want to make seven more characters by next week. That's basically one a day.

The Game: Highcaster
The Publisher: Christopher Grey, or Sundered Hold Scriptorium, I don't know
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Highcaster is a fantasy game that, by rights, shouldn't interest me much. It's a fleshed-out enough setting, in a world (IN A WORLD) with no stars because they were gods and they've all fallen, a bunch of different races and societies and so forth. It's meant as a sandboxy kind of thing - here's the world, go play in it, make up the details as you go. The system isn't a million miles from PbtA, but it's not quite that. Either way, shouldn't elicit more than a shrug and "sure?"

But I have to admit, while I was reading the book I kept thinking that it was all really cool. I like the intersection of culture and profession, and I like that your "path" is your profession in an oblique kind of way, but really only heroes have paths. And when a hero walks into town, that shit is notable. People are in awe of the characters, and that makes them a little scary. It's not a story about rising from humble beginnings, it's a story about the real legends, and that's appealing to me.

So with all of that said, let's make a character.

First off we pick a culture. In play this would be a whole-table decision, but since it's just me obviously I will be a unilateral dictator on this choice. Bwa-ha-ha. Anyway. 

Actually, I kind of like Deirwesch. The region is riverlands and wetlands, but the city of Sundered Hold is also in this region and it's one of the oldest cities in the world. Lots of talk about how law is complex and involved, and I was thinking about making a magic-y person who inscribes runes, so that appeals. Picking a name off the handy list we're given, I shall name my character Odion Beho. Let's say what I get from my Culture.

I speak Forsentung and Highspeak, and one more language, which I'll pick later. I get a Cultural Bonus; I shall take Cultured (I get to use a Talent die when using knowledge of a society). I'll take Barrister as my profession. So my guy is a lawyer from the city of Sundered Hold. I can dig it.

Next, we pick heritage (race or species). There are some pretty cool ones. I could even be a unicorn if I wanted. "Unicorn Lawyer" sounds like an Adult Swim show. Anyway, I think I'd rather be a Fynd - basically demon-y in aspect, but not necessarily evil or even malicious. So my Fynd is tall, and his build is hard to see because he's perpetually wreathed in shadow. He can spread that shadow out around him, creating a big bubble of darkness, but he doesn't like to do that - it upsets people. 

And now on to Path, and I already know I want to be a Magister. The text tells me that magisters in Deirwesch are called "tomekin." And then I have to answer some questions:

Odion's magic is mostly rune-focused. He's a skilled calligrapher, though not much of an artist (anatomy confuses him). He's very skilled at working magical runes into other symbols and letters, so that a sentence might have magic bound into it without anyone noticing. His father taught him the law and saw and encouraged his talent as a writer, but it was his mother who saw the spark of magic in him and nudged him toward becoming tomekin. Training wasn't smooth, though - Odion missed legal text, and it took a year for him to start seeing magic as "law" for the world. One of his instructors, Tomekin Issa, stayed up late and helped him rewrite and rephrase spells so that they made sense to him.

Odion has always had difficulty perceiving magic - other magisters might describe a glow or a sound or a particular odor, but Odion feels magic emotionally. Beneficent magic is comforting, like coming home after a long day. Baleful magic is the feeling when someone is watching you or something is out of place, and so on. Odion used to clash with another student of magic, a giantkin woman named Malika. She loved yelling out power words to cast spells with her deep, booming voice, and it always struck Odion as unnecessary and ostentatious. She didn't finish her training, and Odion has always felt a little glad, as though it proved him right somehow.

More questions!

 

Odion's runes are usually written in ink, carefully, but he keeps chalk and charcoal around for quick casting, too. He has a set of cards that he made with runes, useful for reference or the occasional divination. His tome is non-sequential - anyone who picks it up and tries to read it realizes that one page doesn't follow another, a sentence might break at the bottom of one page and continued 20 pages later. Sometimes words are written in a big spiral, sometimes one word is in one continual, noodle-like mess of a line. It makes sense to Odion.

Odion carries a magical quill that he can dip into anything - the air, a shadow, a moonbeam, the ocean, a living thing - and write in a color and style matching that thing. He usually just dips it into the darkness surrounding him to write in black ink, but it's very useful for writing coded messages; people with some knowledge of the "ink" can usually read messages in it, even if they aren't normally literate.

Odion is from Sundered Home. He grew up in the city, surrounded by people of all heritage, and he grew up in a particularly chatty neighborhood. It's not the same as a small town where everyone knows everyone, because people only really know their own people, but everyone is friendly, and there's a kind of agreed-upon cordiality that Odion misses when he's out adventuring. Odion's parents still live there - he's their only child and they don't have other family - and he knows that they wish he'd stay in Sundered Hold and practiced law and magic there. But Odion felt that his calling lay out in the world, because if magic really is the law of the world, then he needs to see more of that world to truly master its laws.

Relationships would require other PCs, so I'ma skip that. Disciplines, I think I get a d4, a d6, and a d8 to split up, even though it doesn't freaking say that under chargen (grr). I'll obviously put the d8 in Myster (Discipline of Runes), the d4 in Words, and the d6 in Tomes.

And then I do the same thing with the Humors (Virtue, Courage, and Prestige). Well, I think d8 in Prestige, d6 in Virtue and d4 in Courage makes the most sense. Odion isn't really a combatant.

Oh, that's cute, the sheet has Will, Force, and Charisma instead of Virtue, Courage, and Prestige. Maybe I have an old sheet? Oh, yeah, I do. Well, I've already filled stuff in, so I'm not switching now, but the correct ones do exist.

And now I get a Feat! These are just general advantages. I shall take Affluent; I can introduce a "truth" without spending Favor. Sounds cool.

And that's actually about it! It'd be interesting to play Odion and see him confront situations where there is no law, but find the laws within the chaos. Everyone has their own laws, there are agreements in duos, in small groups, in gangs, in packs of wolves, and so forth. Fractal lawyering. 

And that'll do it!

Chill: Jaworsky & The Blackbird Man

After a couple of one-session cases, we're back at a full table!

It's June 4, 2021, and Beth Anne Stallard gets a phone call from one Carl Comey. Carl is a clinical psychologist who worked with Beth Anne when she was institutionalized years ago, but reaches out now because of his sister. Rather...well, it's complicated.

In 1979, Carl and four other children - his little sister Kim, Mike Delisle, Brian Harvey, and Chris Blessing - were kidnapped over the course of a few days in late May. The man who took them, one Shannon Fisher, locked the boys up in one room and Kim in another. But then on May 30, 1979, Fisher died of a brain aneurysm and Kim managed to get free and let the boys go. They called the cops, all was well, and they got together every year on May 30 to eat burgers and say "thanks" to Kim.

This past January, though, Kim died of cancer. They got together on May 30, but Brian Harvey died later that night when his grilled exploded. Three days later, Chris Blessing rode his motorcycle off the road and broke his neck following Harvey's funeral. And that leaves only Carl and Mike as the survivors of the so-called Burley Five.

(Oh, all this took place in Burley, ID, about two hours southeast of Boise.)

But none of this explains Beth Anne's involvement! It turns out that Kim wrote her brother Carl a letter before she died, to be opened upon her death. The letter detailed the circumstances of Kim's escape, and it was much stranger than anyone knew. It seems that Kim saw a movie at a drive-in with her parents and Carl, and the movie scared her, especially a scene where birds peck a woman's eyes out. That night, a creature under Kim's bed talked to her, and in the months following, that creature and Kim left the house at night and had adventures. When Kim and the other kids were kidnapped, the creature told Kim that it could help her, but it would need to become something she feared, and she told it about the Blackbird Man, a kind of boogeyman that Kim had cobbled together from what she remembered of that movie. The Blackbird Man killed Fisher (though Kim didn't see that part) and freed her, and apparently even created a bunch of cheeseburgers for the kids before disappearing. 

Back to the present: Carl, upon reading this letter, remembered that he'd heard of a little girl going on nighttime adventures with the monster under her bed: Beth Anne Stallard had told him a very similar story as his patient. Not knowing quite what's happening, he calls her and asks her to come and see him.

Beth Anne has been staying away from SAVE since the envoys drove away the "copycat." She knows that Jaworsky (the creature under her bed) has taken an interest in fellow envoy Vicki Parsons, but isn't sure why. She looks into the kidnappings from 1979, and tries to find more about Jaworsky or his ilk. She isn't able to find much that she doesn't already know; SAVE's archives note that creatures that attach themselves to children are usually ghosts (like guardian spirits or poltergeists), and no creature of the Unknown remains protective indefinitely. She looks into SAVE's archives about the strange affair of Jimmy Boots - three classmates of hers kidnapped in 2003, but rescued successfully by a team of envoys, and she was apparently there with the missing girls...but she herself was never reported missing.

Jaworsky, of course, chats her up during this time, reminding her that he's happy to help her. She refuses, and heads out to go see Carl. He welcomes her and they talk, and Beth Anne reveals that Jaworsky is very probably the same being that Kim called the "Blackbird Man" in her letter. Carl doesn't believe in "creatures," of course, and Beth Anne's descriptions of SAVE don't do much to convince him. He does, however, recognize that two of his best friends dying in freak accidents in less than a week is really unlikely, and he just generally has a bad feeling. Beth Anne convinces him to go get Mike Delisle and come out to the ranch, and Beth Anne heads out ahead of him. Shall I tell them you're coming, Bethy? says Jaworsky, and Beth Anne tells him to go ahead - she figures he'll probably do it anyway, and she can't trust that any message she sends won't be altered (since Jaworsky has been known to do that kind of thing). 

Meanwhile, at the ranch, Vicki Parsons is hanging out while he dad is away at a conference. Hector Elizalde is working out in the ranch's gym. Zoe Canavar is chatting with whoever will listen - she just got back from the Den in Maine and is excited to talk about it. Jennifer Joyce has come out to Boise while her apartment building is having some work done, and is trying to make her deadlines. And Willa Lane is recovering from being mauled by a wolf some months back.

Vicki, Willa, and Zoe are in the living room watching The Bachelorette, when one of the bachelors turns to the camera and says "Hey, SAVE." This perks them all up; they aren't sure what's happening until the "bachelor" mentions Beth Anne, and then Vicki figures out quickly this must be Jaworsky. He tells them that "Bethy" is on her way and she's got a case for them, and it's not about him. And then he vanishes. 

Vicki rounds up the others and tells them what's happening, and Beth Anne arrives shortly thereafter. She lays out as much as she knows, and the envoys kick some theories and questions around. If Jaworsky is only interested in young girls, why is he still hanging around Beth Anne? Why the interest in Vicki, now? She's the youngest of the envoys, yes, but she's still an adult. If Jaworsky was responsible for the children being kidnapped in 1979, why the boys, when he's generally only interested in girls? 

The envoys decide to try and convince Carl and Mike to stay at the ranch, since they aren't sure what exactly is happening. The two men show up a couple of hours later, and the envoys explain SAVE and the Unknown as best they can. Carl is interested and asks them how they all got involved, how SAVE recruits, and so forth. Mike is much more blunt: He thinks SAVE is a cult, and he's not interested. They do talk a little about the kidnapping, but don't learn much that they didn't already know.

The envoys float the idea of staying here just to be safe, but Mike refuses; he's going home to his wife tonight, thanks anyway. Vicki asks to give them a tour and show them the missile silo, and the envoys (except for Willa and Jennifer) head out to look at the grounds. Willa, knowing that Chris Blessing only died yesterday, decides to get some direct information. She activates Voice of the Dead and calls up Chris' spirit.

Chris, unlike a lot of spirits, seems to know he's dead. He remembers flying off the road and thinking "this is going to hurt", but then it didn't, everything just went dark. He also remembers that a huge black crow swooped down and collided with his helmet, and that was what drove him off the road. Willa asks if he wants anything passed along to Mike and Carl, but Chris says they've been through enough lately; better just to let him go. 

Meanwhile, Vicki shows Carl and Mike the silo, but when the conversation turns to werewolves and ghosts, Mike tells Carl he'll wait in the car. Vicki manages to convince him to go see the horses ("they're not culty at all!") and Mike grudgingly agrees. They walk up to the corral and they talk a bit about Chris and Brian and how they died, but then Mike sees something in the corral and is apparently compelled to follow it. Vicki, knowing Unknown influence when she sees it, sends a telepathic message to Willa and starts to follow him.

Willa and Jennifer get almost to the corral, when Willa spots a huge crow sitting on a fence stile near a horse...and near where Mike is approach. The crow takes flight and lets out an unearthly shriek. Jennifer drops to the ground, hugging her knees, but Willa fights through the fear and keeps going. Unfortunately, the horse responds, too. 

It rears up and bucks, kicking Mike squarely in the head. He falls to the ground, motionless. Vicki grabs the horse, and Willa hurls a pocketknife (imbue with Astral Attack) at the bird, but misses. She chases after it and sees it swoop down towards a man in a black coat. It merges with the man, who lifts a finger to his lips and shushes Willa, and then vanishes. Willa has time to think that the man looked familiar...

Back in the corral, Vicki texts Darnell for help. Darnell rushes up the hill and tries to revive Mike, but realizes quickly that they'll need an ambulance. The others, having heard the shriek, arrive, and Carl rushes to his stricken friend. He sits on the ground and holds Mike's hand, not speaking.

The envoys huddle up and Willa explains what she saw - the Blackbird Man. Obviously this thing killed Chris and probably Brian, too, and now it's followed Mike and Carl here. Darnell comes over to them and asks if any of them know any Restorative disciplines - Mike isn't going to live long enough for the ambulance to get here. His skull is fractured and his brain tissue is swelling.

Jennifer shakes the fear off and touches Mike, activating her Heal discipline. As the envoys (and Carl) watch, Mike's wound heals itself and his skull reconfigures. He wakes up and asks for painkillers - he's got a terrible headache. He looks at Carl and asks "what the hell are you crying for?"

They help Mike inside and Darnell gives him something strong enough to knock him out. Carl asks for a stiff drink, and listens to the envoys a bit more carefully now. He agrees to do whatever they think is going to help, and they help Mike down to the silo. Carl also calls Tonya, Mike's wife, and tells her about the accident with the horse; she says she'll come out in the morning.

The envoys talk this over. They theorize that the Blackbird Man was summoned, or created, or whatever, to help Kim, but now that she's dead it's attacking her friends - maybe it blames them? This doesn't seem like Jaworsky's MO, though, so maybe this is just the same kind of creature as Jaworsky and he's jealous or competitive. Zoe looks into such creatures in SAVE's archives, but discovers the same sorts of things Beth Anne did - ghosts and the strange beings called the "invited" are the kinds of creatures who would bond with a child, but the envoys need more information to draw a conclusion. She decides to go to bed and try and dream some more information. 

Willa looks into the kidnappings and Shannon Fisher in particular, but doesn't find much. She does find a picture of Fisher, though, and confirms it's not him that she saw. Vicki, something of an expert in pop culture, fixates on what movie Kim might have seen in summer 1978 that might have spawned her fears of the Blackbird Man, and does some research. She figures it out: Damien: Omen II. Ravens are a motif in the movie, and it does indeed feature a scene where a woman gets attacked by a raven and driven into the street, whereupon she's hit by a truck. And there's a man in a black coat - Damien's uncle Richard, played by William Holden. Willa confirmed that the man she saw looked an awful like him. 

The envoys get some rest, taking shifts outside the silo. They suspect they have some difficult days ahead.

Character Creation: Cryptomancer

Got a lovely cup of Earl Grey, let's do this.

The Game: Cryptomancer
The Publisher: Land of NOP LLC
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I don't know how to feel about this one. I think it might be a fantasy heartbreaker, actually. It's a very D&D-ish kind of setting (they keep saying "Tolkeinesque" but I think it's more "bland fantasy that's shaped by Tolkein", if that makes sense), but the central point of the game is cryptomancy - kind of magic communication that's designed for security. The game goes into a lot of detail about the different kinds of communication, and really twists itself into knots to make instant, secure-but-hackable communication work in a fantasy setting. 

And actually, that part of the game I found really cool. I don't love the writing; it's very chatty and not terribly interesting. The system looks...erh. You roll d10s equal to your Attribute, and then add d6s until you've got 5 dice (so you're always rolling 5 dice). Target number goes up the harder the task, except 1s cancel successes (boo), only 6s on the d6s count as successes (Booo) and 1s and 2s on the d6s cancel successes (BOOOO). I know from long experience with OWoD games that when 1s hurt you, more dice = more chances to fuck up. I'm not well-versed enough in probability to figure out the percentages involved here, so I'm just gonna make a character and be done with it.

There are a couple more steps, but a) they involve equipment and b) if you can't be fucked to arrange your layout so that all of the bullet-pointed steps of chargen are on one page, I don't know what to tell ya.

OK, so, I need to start off with the namesy stuff. Let's play a human, why not. Betcha they're "adaptable."

Called it!

Anyway, humans live in city-states, and they come off as, well, humans. Anyway, assuming I'm making an "adventurer" or whatever, let's say my character is in his 20s. Don't know how names work in this setting, probably just generic fantasy. Let's call him Raimond. He needs a "true" name, too. In-setting, a true name is a perfectly unique name that all sentient beings get at birth (ssh, it's magic). Let's say his true name is "Ferrowd", I don't know. 

Moving on, appearance traits! There's a helpful big ol' list of these. I wish it were a random table, but whatever, let's just be impulsive. 

Build: Sinewy
Eyes: Bulging
Hair: Messy
Skin: Burned

And then on to personality traits.

Desires: Power
Fears: Burning
Tends to: Overthink (common problem in PCs anyway)
Used to: Be a baker (new episode of GBBO today)

And now some mechanical stuff. Ugh, they don't have all the chargen stuff in one plaaaaaaaace, whyyyyyy. Ahem.

OK, so I've got four core stats, and they get ranked trivial, challenging, or tough. They all start challenging, and if I want one to be tough I have to downgrade another to trivial. Do I wish to do so? Nah, I'll leave them all challenging. That means they all get 6 points that I can then split betwixt the two associated traits. 

Power: I'll put 2 in Strength and 4 in Endurance. Speed: 2 in Agility and 4 in Dexterity. Wits: 3 Knowledge, 3 Cunning. Resolve: 3 Presence, 3 Willpower.

No choosing Skills, everyone has all of them. I get Endurance + 5 HP (9), and Willpower + 5 Mana (8). 

Talents! I get 10 points to spend. I think these are basically advantages/merits/whatevers. I'll spend three and take Bottled Magic, so my guy can make potions. Fuck me, that means I need to figure out how magic works. Oh, this isn't hard; I spend 1 Talent to buy Cantrips, 2 to buy Basic Spells, 3 for Greater Spells. So I'm pretty limited in what I can buy at chargen. I've got 7 points left. Although, only a few spells are actually available to bottle, so that narrows things. I'll buy Astral Eyes, Shadow Cache (it's not a spell I can bottle, it's just fuckin' dope), and Glamour. That's 8 of my 10 Talent points. For the last 2, I shall buy...ooh, Pusher, so I can make drugs (that's 1 point) and Smuggler (I can hide a small object from any search). 

Last couple of things would be trademark outfit and weapon, but eh. I need to go pick up my son and I think I'm about done with this.

Raimond was a baker, and he wasn't bad at it, but he's learned to apply the science of baking to mixing up more...interesting substances. His sister Meria is a skilled magus, much better than he'll ever be, but she taught him a few spells and he's learned to mix them into potions or bake them into bread. Raimond isn't sure of his path to power, but he knows that's what he wants - something that doesn't require him to sweat in a damn oven all the time. Someplace that lets him sit on smooth, cool marble and sleep between light, slinky silk. 

That'll do it!

Wicked Ones: Delicious Eggs

After entirely too long of a hiatus born of scheduling blahs, illness blahs, and computer blahs, we are back in the fanciful world of the Sepulcher of Suffering. (Here's last time.)

The Wicked Ones go out a raid that is uncharacteristically subtle for them - they're heading to Highvale Eyrie to steal a griffon egg (or several). They travel out there in a wagon, planning to pass as folks delivering supplies to the griffon tenders that live there. On the way, they don clever disguises: Baldruf wraps himself up in leathers so he looks like a very large human rather than a fairly small orc, Fnort puts on a pair of gnome goggles to try and pass himself off as an extremely homely gnome, and 'Ashe'irashe casts an illusion spell to resemble one of the noble dragon-born rather than a snake person (the spell works, but does not cover the sinister, glowing Gem of Arak on his forehead). 

The monsters arrive and pull their wagon into the camp, and a tender approaches and talks to 'Ashe. She asks what the wagon is doing here, and 'Ashe claims it's delivering "delicious supplies". The tender is, um, concerned, and starts backing off, but 'Ashe casts a spell to make her trusting and compliant and pushes Fnort out of the way to give her a seat. She gets on the wagon...whereupon Baldruf pops out of the back, stabs her in the neck, and yanks her out of sight. 

Fnort slips off into the trees, trying to be sneaky and take a two-pronged approach, but Fnort is not the sneakiest of creatures. He's creeping around in the underbrush and a Griffon Knight spots him and starts talking at him in Light Tongue. Fnort spits out the only word in Light Tongue he can think of "MORE" in a heavy Gnomish accent, and the knight grabs him by the scruff of the neck and pulls him out of the woods...right into the path of the wagon.

'Ashe tries to convince the knight that Fnort is an extremely ugly gnome just looking for the bathroom, but the knight, unfortunately, was at one point training to be a paladin and recognizes the Gem of Arak! He opens his mouth to yell a warning, but 'Ashe, thinking fast, puts a bubble of silence around him. Baldruf leaps on the opportunity and puts a crossbow bolt in his neck, and Fnort throws his body into the trees. Fnort then accepts his shortcomings and gets back on the cart, while Baldruf vanishes into the foliage (which is really how they should have approached this to begin with). 

They head forward towards the egg creche, and see that it's guarded by a majestic-looking griffon and there are a half-dozen Griffon Knights walking about. 'Ashe plucks the Gem from his forehead and casts a mighty illusion. The paladin-knight they just kill seems to run in to the clearing, yelling that the miscreants from the Sepulcher of Suffering are attacking the tenders! Come quick! Meanwhile Baldruf makes some noises and throws his voice to sell the battle.

It works; the griffon and all of the knights in the area rush off, leaving the Wicked Ones alone with the eggs for a few precious moments. Fnort and his kobolds had made a few false eggs, and they swap those out for the real ones...and then just take the rest of the eggs anyway. Baldruf, meanwhile, goes looking for loot and finds a fine leather saddle. He hoists it up into a tree...just as a bear comes lumbering into the camp.

Baldruf hides and watches the bear as it sniffs the air and then turns into a druid. It calls to a griffon knight (they knights have found the body of the dude Baldruf shot earlier, so things are going a little crazy) and they talk in Light Tongue. Baldruf tries to listen, but doesn't understand and nearly drops the saddle on them. He sneaks out while they sneaking is good and rejoins the others, and they all head home. 

The griffons are circling the area, though - one of them spots the wagon and starts swooping in, but 'Ashe flummoxes it with a spell and it flies off. By the time they get home 'Ashe has already eaten two of the eggs and Fnort is snacking on a third. He discovers that the albumen of the egg, when left to congeal, can be thickened into a paste that repels blades when rubbed on one's fur. Likewise, Baldruf finds three griffon claws in the bag of the saddle he stole. Good haul, all around!

The Wicked Ones continue their improvement of the dungeon; Baldruf finishes moving the staircase to the second level, 'Ashe completes a summoning ritual so that now some slime sirens (slirens) blurp up from the slime pits. Fnort works on a trick false treasure, but doesn't quite finish it. Baldruf saves one griffon egg (they got seven, but one of them got put in the Reliquary and 'Ashe and Fnort ate the rest) and tucks it into the nice warm slime pit to try and hatch it. 

'Ashe stretches out in the nave and makes the imps and the monsters stroke him and help him molt. Fnort tries to get him to move, but only winds up trying to shove him into Mr. Tentacles' pit and not really getting anywhere. Baldruf, staying out of this fight, sees a majestic griffon made of shadows appear and walk into the dungeon - this, apparently, is the result of the griffon egg in the Reliquary.

Encouraged by their success, the Wicked Ones decide to expand again. First, they'll assimilate Bartertown by blackmailing the Duke of Salvage into becoming their loyal serf. Then they'll assault Iron Reef, beating the inhabitants into submission and taking over the whole North Flats. 

Next time, we'll see how well that goes.

Atlantis: Ghosts Everywhere!

Seems to be a theme. On we go!

Our heroes, having helped the crew of the Julana harvest a heaping helping of horrible...hspider hsilk, continue on to the First City. The ship sails into the interior of Kanawalla on a river, and after a while see the remains of the City. It's largely covered by the sand, but they can see chunks of buildings jutting out of the ground in places...and every now and then, they see ghosts flicker in and out of visibility. 

They arrive at river's end in the middle of the day, and Akala, a native of this unforgiving continent, does some quick assessment. Going ashore during the day is unwise; the heat is too intense. They have water on the ship, but drinking river water without purification is unwise, so they'd best not overstay their supplies (Eithne can create more water if they really need it, but relying on magic in the middle of a severely haunted area isn't necessarily the first choice). That evening, when the weather is cooler, the heroes disembark and start walking through the First City.

Eithne calls up a ward to surround them to keep ghosts away, and that works pretty well. The ghosts aren't very powerful - mostly just echoes - but there are a lot of them. Akala takes off and scouts the city from the air, while the others decide that the best option here is to see if the ghosts know anything. That involves dropping the ward, yes, but Eithne can put it up quickly.

She drops the ward and engages a ghost directly, and asks about the Skartorius, the ghost ship they're head to find. The ghost rasps "Skartorius...below...sea...crevice" and waves in a general motion further into the city. Imani notes that when the ghosts flicker "on", there are suddenly more of them, a throng of them, and they're all paying very close attention to Eithne. 

Eithne thanks the specter and raises the ward again, and Akala, armed with the information, looks for a "crevice". She finds a place where two buildings seem to have collapsed into each other, maybe with some kind of sinkhole, and the heroes head in that direction. While climbing up an embankment, Imani's grabs the wrong rock chunk and goes falling to the ground. She's unhurt, but she's uncovered a nest of julana!

(Recall: a "julana" is a gigantic desert scorpion.)

Jengo gets stung in the heel, but the poison doesn't take and he smooshes one with his club. Akala hurls a javelin and spears one, but Eithne decides to take a wider approach. She lifts up debris and rock and just drops it onto all of them (cronch). Imani sadly puts away her mong.

The heroes move on to the crevice, and if they listen very carefully, they hear waves. Akala tells them that there were legends about the "Undersea," a vast ocean beneath the sands of Kanawalla, where gigantic creatures swim - apparently it's also the resting place of the Skartorius. With some searching, they find a gap they can clear off and peer down into the depths. They lower a lantern on a rope, but it's just an ocean - vast, dark, deep, unknowable.

And then Jengo, perhaps still channeling the heart of Thanos, leaps in. 

He treads water a bit, and can't really see anything, but then above him Akala sees something very large swim past him. They lower the rope to him ("Jengo, grab the rope." "Why?" "We'll tell you when you're back up here"). As they raise him up, he looks down and sees a shark, longer than the ship they came here on, swim by. ("OK, so maybe we can summon the Skartorius from here?")

Imani spent some time on a ship, and remembering that the Skartorius initially made port in Massawa, gives a loud hailing call common to the ships of southern Gondwana. And the Skartorius answers! The spectral ship rises out of the depths and comes to rest in the sands, and the captain halloos them. 

They ask after "Faraji," the beloved of the ghostly Jinn who commands the other ghost ship, but the captain has no idea who that is. They tell him to check the hold (Faraji was kidnapped as a slave), and he says he has such a person, would they like to buy the cargo? The heroes try, but the captain doesn't recognize the coin, and they get the feeling that separating one soul from this ghost ship might be beyond their power. Better to get it out to sea and let the Messenger take care of it.

Akala boards the Skartorius and, remembering that it sank en route to Vedda (a port on the southern end of Jambu), asks where they're going and then points out they're going the wrong way. The captain thanks her, and allows her aboard as the new navigator! The Skartorius takes off down the river, and the heroes scramble after it, but of course they can't keep up. They get back to the Julana and follow, but by the time they reach the ocean, the Skartorius has already been found.

The Messenger, with the Jinn Sauda at the prow and a typhoon behind, bears down on the Skartorius. Akala tries to fly free - over the last couple of days sailing on the ghost ship, she's seen her flesh become translucent and she's had to consciously stop herself from speaking their dialect rather than hers - but the winds catch her and spin her back. The Messenger and the Skartorius do battle, but the Jinn is far too powerful. Both ships sink, and Sauda and Faraji embrace, floating over the ocean, and then vanish.

On board the Julana, one shimmering owl feather falls at Imani's feet. Akala is...somewhere, and the heroes will need to act quickly to get her back.

Cairn: Burning Lighthouses and Mole Funeral

Back to Cairn, here's last time.

The Traveling Knights awaken on a beach some miles from Cairn, having traveled out here to learn the truth about what happened to Giggs Bogglesworth, the uncle of their friend Mimsy Underroot. They have, you'll recall, discovered something horrible - Giggs was dragged from his home and presumably devoured by some terrible aquatic creature. The Knights have heard it described as a "fish" or a "sea monster," but their investigations have led to a perhaps worse conclusion: it might be Brock Westerwart, a bullfrog wizard that they tangled with once before. 

Ratatosk Longberry wakes first and forages up some breakfast for the others. He also provides a shot of enervating draught to Rumdiggle Sunsong; the possum has been up for far too long and being diurnal again isn't looking fun. Snootabur Shadowbough and Russelet Leatherwind likewise rouse themselves, eat a quick bite, and then they all get on the boat to head back to Cairn.

On the way, they discuss the situation and decide they'd better drop in on Moriarty Sprit, the diabolical criminal mongoose that they've imprisoned on the lighthouse island in the bay south of Cairn. That lighthouse was the place Brock was using as a lair the last time they saw him, and while Moriarty might or might not aid him, it's still a good place to check out. Russ sends up a signal arrow as they approach, and they see two guards, Numen Strongtail (a rat) and Blessat Wavekiss (an otter), in separate boats, watching the island. They all three head to shore; the Knights inform the guards they need to search the island.

The instant they step on land, all of their hearts sink. Disharmony takes hold, and each of them feel the guilt, sorrow, and hunger of the land. Ratatosk, in particular, remembers the last time they fought Brock - he nearly killed him with an accidental overdose of a sleeping potion, but now he reflects that if he had, Giggs would still be alive. 

Snootabur whispers "how about a song?" to Rummy, and Rummy grabs her lute and strums out something everyone can enjoy. Spirits thus bolstered, they head into the lighthouse. Moriarty descends the stairs, a little less put together than last they saw him, and they realize that there's no way this level of Disharmony is just from him (though he's not helping it). He asks to be released; they refuse, of course, but tell him he's to be moved to the mainland. Russelet goes out to the beach to fly back to Cairn and have the constable get the cell ready, but before he takes off, Ratatosk starts casting a spell to help quell the Disharmony here.

He barely gets the spell going, though, when the floor of the lighthouse's bottom level explodes upwards in geyser of filth! Russelet, acting quickly, shoots it with a fire arrow and it catches fire, but continues lashing out. Snoot leaps up to the staircase to help Moriarty get down, and Rummy, not having enough room to go full bear, makes herself tougher and stronger ("armor of the ripper, speed of the stripefang!") and blocks the filth from getting out. Numen and Blessat fire arrows at it, as does Russ, but the fire spreads to the staircase.

Snoot leaps down, and realizes she's lost track of Moriarty. Russ finishes the filth-creature off with a couple of well-placed arrows, and Rummy smashes out the door, initially hoping to put out the fire. To that end, Ratatosk summons rain, but it's too little, too late - the lighthouse is going to burn.

Ratatosk does notice one of the boats inching toward the water, and focusing in a bit, spots Moriarty trying to escape. He shoots a pellet of sneezing powder at the rogue's face, and that distracts him long enough for Rummy to close in and Russelet to tie them together with a rope arrow. With Moriarty recaptured, the Knights have Blessat and Numan stay here to make sure nothing crawls out of the wreckage. Russ flies back to the mainland to get manacles and so on ready for Moriarty, and Rummy and Ratatosk row with him on the boat. Snoot decides to swim back - she's athletic enough to handle it.

Midway, though, something yanks her under. She pulls herself free and yells for help, but no one is in earshot. All she can do is keep swimming - she can't outpace whatever it is, but if she can keep her head above water maybe she can get to shore or near enough.

Russ lands and has Juffin Longbottom, the constable, get shackles for Moriarty. The boat lands and Rummy takes Moriarty away. "You know this place can't hold me," he hisses. "Just let me go. I'm not staying in Cairn."

"But you'll do crimes wherever you are," retorts Rummy. She does offer to bring him a pie, though. Despite himself, Moriarty says "cricket." 

Back in the water, the unseen assailant pulls Snoot under several more times. Gasping for air, she finally gets near to the shore and yells for help. Russelet, fortunately, is still there and hears her with his keen bat-ears, and alerts the others. A bunch of otters leap into the water and swim out to save Snoot, and Russ spots them from above. Before they reach Snootabur, he also sees a shadow under the water - a big bulbous body, long muscular legs - looks like a bullfrog!

The otters rescue Snootabur and pull her back on shore. One of them has a blob of slime on his paw, which Ratatosk eagerly analyzes. It's frog mucus, but it's got lingering magic to it - a wizard frog would certainly fit the bill. All evidence points to Brock...but where is he? If he was making a lair on the island, that's gone. 

For the moment, though, the Knights have other issues. Mimsy approaches them and asks Snootabur what happened. As gently as she can, Snoot tells Mimsy the truth - Giggs was pulls from his house and into the ocean by some Dire creature, probably Brock Westerwart. She weeps for him, and then asks the Knights to come to a remembrance for her uncle Giggs tonight. She informs them that at a mole remembrance, no one speaks, lest they catch the attention of the Death Mole. 

That night, the Knights attend the service (Ratatosk does his level best to keep still and quiet, but Russ has to hand him a candy to nibble). Afterwards they all go to the Root and drink some musty fermented drinks, and quietly talk about Giggs and what happened to him. The Knights know who they're looking for now, but they aren't sure where to look. They decide to get some sleep.

"One"-shot: Epyllion

I say "one" because we're actually going to take two sessions to finish the story. BUT ANYWAY.

Here we are on the fantastical continent of Dragonia! The Capital is on the eastern coast, just south of the archipelago (said archipelago also contains the Searscale Springs, a set of immense natural springs that run so hot that they can, as the name implies burn the scales of a young dragon; older dragons go there to cleanse themselves). Over on the continent, in the mid-northern region, lies the Black Forest, a vast and mysterious wilderness in which some of the strangest creatures of Dragonia live. On the eastern edge of the Forest is Woodsedge, small as dragon settlements go, but with some important history. It's reputed to be the place where the six founders of the Great Houses met to turn back the Darkness during the War of Shadow. 

And it's to Woodsedge that our pilgrimage clutch of raw-scaled drakes are headed. They are:

• Zeblek, the Trickster, of House Rothscar: Zeblek is a talented user of illusion magic, often popping up a few yards away from where dre actually is. Dre loves playing pranks on dris fellow dragons, often involving complicated Rube Goldbergs, but also loves explaining how they worked afterwards. Zeblek has beard-like whiskers, a fluid, flexible body, scars on dris snoot (not everyone appreciates dris jokes), and iridescent scales. Dre values Wit above other virtues. 
• Orobouros, aka "OB", the Crafter, of House Rothscar: OB is a worker of paints and cloth, and frequently paints dris claws and dris tan-orange scales with blue tints. Dre has curling horns and a twisty body, and a cunning prehensile tail (perfect for a paintbrush!). Dre is a lover of Tradition. 
• Toverinn, the Nature Adept, of House Tessith: Toverinn listens to the creatures of Dragonia and heeds their wisdom, and has even managed to teach Zeblek to understand the speech of the pawrott (cat-parrot creatures that swoop down in flocks and knock things off of other things). Dre has green and pink scales and feathers and striking white antlers, a club tail and long talons. Dre feels that Honor is the most important virtue.
• Stars, the Academic, of House Semscale: Stars is, like dris clutchmate Toverinn, fascinated by the creatures of the land, but in perhaps a more bookish sort of way. Dre is also feathered and antlered, but dre is mostly shades of blue and green, and dris feathers puff up when dre gets flustered. Dre is wingless but has a long, prehensile tail (perfect for turning pages!) and a long, angular snout. Dre values Honesty. 

Our clutch travels for a long few days from the Capital to Woodsedge, and finally arrive in late afternoon. They have been tasked with something simple, but very important - every so often it becomes necessary to set a fire in the Forest to allow for new growth, but before the ritual burn can happen, a clutch looks to see if any creatures or objects need to be spared or moved. (Some amount of death is inevitable, of course, but exceptions get made for rare or fragile creatures.)

OB also wants to travel to the very top of Woodsedge - an immense pillar were the Founders met. Tradition states that only during the full moon or the zenith of the noonday sun can young dragons ascend, and obviously dre means to honor that tradition. Dre has brought along a cloth depicting the emblems of all six Houses to leave there as a sign of respect. 

Stars has other ideas, however. Dre has read about a creature called a geckfly - a large insect/reptile with dangly legs - that lives in the area, and dre wants to see one. Dre notes that, according to Dewlash De Golderin's Guide to the Creatures of Dragonia, geckflies live near water, and with Toverinn's help finds a nearby pond. Sure enough, there are little gecklies zooming around. One alights on Stars' snoot, and dris feathers ruffle with glee. Toverinn talks to it, and after being assured that Stars does not intent to eat it, the geckfly preens for them.

Toverinn, meanwhile, is a little perplexed by this pond. It doesn't seem to have come from anywhere, no stream feeds it, and there's no other water around that would indicate recent rain. There's no cattails or algae, so who does it benefit? Where did it come from? Dre asks the geckfly, and the little creature replies that "the dragon that lives in the woods" came out and spat the pond. Perplexed, the drakes start to make camp and look around some more. 

As they are doing so, an older drake, dark purple and creamy in color, flaps down and lands near them. Dre introduces dremself as Cyclos, and they have a pleasant enough chat. Cyclos tells OB that it's a crescent moon tonight (there are actually five moons over Dragonia, so it occurs to me that simple moon phase probably isn't as useful, but never mind that), so if the drakes want to ascend to the plateau they'll want to do it at noon tomorrow. Dre warns OB not to get there until the sun actually reaches the zenith, and after that they have only until "their shadows lengthen" to get down, or else Elhira, the Elder Dragon who minds the plateau, might flick them off. The drakes aren't entirely sure dre isn't joking...

Toverinn asks about the "dragon the forest," and Cyclos scoffs - there are no dragons in the forest. It's far too dangerous to live there, even for older dragons. There are monsters there, not just dangerous creatures like the woose and the squeer (squeer aren't vicious but they do sometimes miss their footing and land on your head), but serpents, monsters so long and squidgy and horrible that they aren't even mentioned in Stars' book. Suitably spooked, the drakes finish making camp and venture into the woods a little ways so Toverinn can see what other creatures are nearby.

Dre finds a bunch of chiptopi, little furry multi-tentacled striped creatures that shlorp right up the tree trunks when they see the drakes coming. Toverinn talks to one, the biggest and bravest chiptopus, and its tells dre that there aren't any dragons in the woods that it has seen, but definitely serpents and other large creatures. At this point the dragons decide that romping around in the Black Forest at night is unwise, so they bed down for the night. They intend to get an early start and start climbing the pillar tomorrow so as to get to the top by noon.

In the middle of the night, though, they are awaken by a deafening noise from the Forest. It's not a dragon, and it's not any creature they've ever heard. Toverinn, with dris mastery of wild speech, can understand that there was meaning in it, but didn't wake up quite fast enough to understand what the creature was saying. Might have been a yell of distress or a mating call, dre isn't sure. The drakes head into the forest to check (Zeblek lights a torch and carries it in dris tail), and OB uses moon magic to make a lighted, dappled-moonlight trail to follow toward the sound.

They follow the sound, listening to the cries of the seaowls above("artwhoo! artwhoo!"), and then the ground slopes into a valley and the trail ends. Toverinn notices that while dre can still hear the forest sounds, what dre can't hear is any sounds right in their area, almost like something was just here and left. Dre try to call up some moon magic to get some forest sprites to warn the clutch of danger, but something grabs dris feet and yanks drem up into the air! 

Zeblek leaps into action! Dre flies up to make sure it's not a serpent trying to eat dris friend, but no, it's...rope. Toverinn stepped in a trap. Zeblek cuts the rope and Toverinn tumbles to the forest floor, and a moment later a pair of immense eyes appear out of the dark. A bearded dragon, scales black and glimmery in the faint torchlight, peers down at the drakes. 

Dre asks what the clutch is doing out here at night, and OB explains their purpose. When the older dragon hears that, dris demeanor softens a bit, and dre asks if the clutch saw what made the noise. They didn't, but with a little convincing, dre reveals that there's a very special creature here in the woods, one that hasn't been seen in many moons: the turferant. This creature has a big, round back, shorter legs with cunning claws, and, strangest of all, a long tail-like appendage on its face that it uses to feed itself and suck up water. The dragon is looking for it to make sure it doesn't get torched in the ritual burn, and the clutch pledges to help. However, they decide to do that tomorrow, when there's more light and they don't run so much risk of blundering into traps. The dragon introduces dremself before taking off - Elhira. OB tries to ask drem about the plateau, but dre is already gone.

The clutch finds its way back to camp and beds down for the night, and in the morning they pack up their stuff and start the long and arduous climb up the pillar (especially arduous for Stars, who can't fly). They're about halfway up when they notice smoke in the Forest - too centralized to be a true forest fire. 

OB doesn't want to leave the progress; dre wants to get to the top by noon. Zeblek agrees, but Toverinn and Stars really want to see what's going on. The clutch decides to split up...and we'll find out what they see next time!