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Theseus is Dead: Report & Review

Once a year, a dozen Athenian youths are herded into the labyrinth of King Minos to sate the bestial appetite of the Minotaur. So great is the power of the Cretan monarch that none dare resist, until the demigod Theseus joined the most recent batch of victims in order to infiltrate the labyrinth, slay the Minotaur, and liberate Athens from its oppression.

Except, well, Theseus wasn't up to the task. Shit. 

Mari

Last night I joined in a playtest of laumry's one-page Shadowdark funnel 'Theseus is Dead'. The premise is simple: Theseus has failed in his quest to kill the Minotaur and your gang of unfortunates now need to make your escape. Or die horribly. A pitying guard has provided you with two torches and a flint & steel. Other than that, all you have are your clothes and your wits.

This post will be divided between a summary of how the session played out, and my thoughts on the adventure - laumry has kindly provided me with a copy.

Session Summary

The Players and Characters

laumry: Referee.

Myself: Soltar, an extremely agile Scholar.

Sully: Barnabus the Wise, a Sailor, followed by Herodotus the not so Wise (a Cultist), and finally Hector not of Troy (also a Cultist).

wil: Simon, a very strong Sailor.

--- 

Events

The session ran for 3 hours. 

The sounds of battle and a bestial roar of triumph echoed from the north. We stood in a room with four exits. Theseus' cord stretched from a bronze statue of King Minos in the centre of the room, out through the northern archway, which bore a bull's head inscription. The eastern archway bore a carving of a bull and child, the western archway a skull. The south was barred by a great metal door flanked by clay statues, where we had entered. We went east and came to a crossroads - hearing noises from the north, we went south.

We entered a long, narrow chamber with a sandy floor and sporting scenes daubed on the walls. Before us was a line spanning with width of the room - beyond lay a pair of swords & shields, beyond those were two clay figures in set poses. The darkness continued past them. Soltar and Simon made ready and sprinted across the line - the figures immediately raced towards them. Soltar was quick and grabbed a sword and shield, charging one figure back into a pit which lay at the edge of the torchlight. Simon grabbed the other set but was beset by the second figure. Barnabus and his gang charged in and tangled with the statue before Simon pushed it into the pit as well. One clay figure was completely smashed, leaking ichor, the other staggered around. On the other side of the pit was a javelin and discus, and two more figures. Barnabus took a running jump across the pit, but didn't make it. The still-animate statue staggered over to his crumpled body and bludgeoned it with its fists. Herodotus (no relation) took charge of Barnabus' mob and we left the way we came.

Back at the crossroads, we checked the eastern passage and found a tightrope over a pit. Heading north we found another eastern passage with an identical pit. We found that we could lower ourselves into the pit safely from the edge - Soltar cut the rope, lowered himself in and climbed up the other side. There he found a long wooden pole, and sack holding a flask of oil, a torch, and a note which read: "Hope in the condemned is like salt on meat." Soltar threw the pole and torch back and gathered up the rope - following the corridor further led back to the first pit, and he repeated the manoeuvre to rejoin the party.

We heard noises from the north, saw lantern light illuminate a stretch of Theseus' red thread and a looming, monstrous shape, and heard a woman's voice pleading. We ran west, back to the entrance chamber, then headed north, following Theseus' thread and encountered the beast coming the opposite direction. We ran back to the entrance room and headed west, through the skull archway, then south, arriving in a shrine to Hades. Herodotus pocketed a dagger and downed a jug of wine from the altar, incurring a curse from Hades. Simon took a block of incense, Soltar carved a sliver off and burned it as an offering to the god. Hades' voice boomed out, chastising us as thieves but demanding that we bury any Athenian bodies we find, righting an affront to the gods.

Leaving the shrine, we heard roars of rage and metallic booms coming from the entrance chamber while a woman pleaded with 'Asterion' to calm down and cease his attempts to leave - he was too shameful for the outside world. While this went on, we also discovered a pit trap in an adjoining corridor and hatched a plan. Gathering up on the far side, we called out and taunted the Minotaur. It heard us, and charged - it resembled a monstrous half man-half bull divided down the middle, covered in grievous wounds. The Minotaur easily cleared the pit trap and pulverised Herodotus in a single blow, stopping to gorge on the remains. 

We fled in the direction of the entrance, encountering a woman bearing a lantern on the way who called out to the Minotaur, addressing it as 'Asterion' again and pleading for it to come away from the trapped areas. Soltar grabbed the woman and held his blade at her throat, demanding she keep silent. The Minotaur saw this and howled with rage, but was kept back by Soltar holding the woman forth as a human shield. The woman was Pasiphae, wife of King Minos and mother of Asterion - the Minotaur. Soltar demanded to know how she had entered the labyrinth - she had a secret entrance in the north. She didn't know the way back though, they had followed Theseus' thread here. She demanded to be released, stating that our actions were an affront to the gods - Soltar replied, 'No'.

So began a slow chase, with Asterion pursuing us while we traced Theseus' thread back until eventually we found the site of their battle. Theseus' ruined body lay atop his sword, which Hector claimed and found it possessed magical properties. Asterion reared up to charge but was calmed by his mother. Simon took Pasiphae's lantern, while Soltar and Hector bound her hands with rope and tied them to Soltar's wrist, and we continued north, following her directions.

We reached as far as the passage would take us and found a lantern on the floor. Pasiphae refused to let us out, as if she did so then Asterion could also exit. Soltar appealed to the queen, saying that this sick farce was the true affront to the gods and that innocent people and her son should not be used for such sport. The queen agreed and told Asterion he had to leave, that his shame could not be exposed to the outside world - the Minotaur tensed, protesting. Simon and Hector readied themselves for the end. Soltar spoke to him: "Peace, Asterion. To feel the shame of a parent is no great crime, it is something which unites all men."

With a cry, Asterion reared up and gradually crumpled into the form of a beautiful, strong man who lay weeping on the flagstones calling for his mother. Soltar cut the queen's bonds and she ran to him, leaving her ring with directions to a point in a nearby wall with a secret mechanism. A door opened to the outside world and in poured fresh air and sunlight. We gathered up Theseus' body on a shield and bore him to a nearby beach, where Ariadne waited with a trireme, and buried him there.

Simon and his crew opted to stay in Minos as servants of Pasiphae, while Soltar and Hector and their followers departed on the trireme for adventures in the Aegean.

Jerard S. Marantz

The Adventure

This was great fun to play - laumry clearly has a great personal passion for this myth and it really shone through in his enthusiasm and energy while running the session. Good GM chops, that one.

 

Spoilers below 

 

Overview

Theseus is Dead (TiD) is a one-page dungeon with 13 keyed locations, 10 corridor traps (2 of each type), 5 NPCs, one really big monster, and 9 regular monsters - the usual caveats of one-page dungeons apply, get your own bestiary etc.. It's written system-neutral, we ran it with Shadowdark, with an appropriately strong Bronze Age Greek aesthetic. TiD is intended for a 3-4 player funnel, with each player controlling a foreground level 0 character out of a starting group of 4 unfortunate chumps. I asked laumry about his motivations behind the dungeon and its purpose, and he told me that he wrote it 'for him' - having returned to the hobby after a long hiatus he's figuring out how he wants to engage with it through the lenses of player, designer and Referee. I think he's got a very good avenue to take down each of these options.

TiD is a chase dungeon, in the vein of The God That Crawls - eventually Asterion will find the players and begin to pursue them, and there's almost no chance of them taking him head on. Given that the vast majority of the labyrinth is unlit and the party starts with a scant two torches, players are immediately pushed into desperate exploration to try and find equipment and/or escape before shit hits the fan the Minotaur hits you.

Layout

Done in MS Word, of all things! It's a simple two-column layout and it works well. The first column provides a simple and easy to parse map, a brief setup section (one of the directions therein is "Read the myth of Theseus"), a list of the labyrinth's inhabitants, and the clock (this is important). The second contains all the keyed locations, trapped corridors, and a brief section detailing events following the PCs' escape. NPCs have their stats, special features, and needs outlined in dedicated sections, locations are presented in paragraph form.

I found the information within readily available, although the 7pt font did require a bit of squinting at times. The hand-drawn Minotaur portrait in the background sneaks up on you!

Contents

Each inhabitant of the labyrinth one might encounter is given a brief description, how they should be statted (no stats included), and a list of needs which vary from: 'stop the slaughter', to 'feathers, escape.' One character has needs which conflict with each other, mirroring their internal conflict. The NPC descriptions provide good seeds to develop into emergent behaviours for them depending on how the party interact with them and the labyrinth as a whole.

The 13 keyed locations sprawl into three general areas, following the north, east, and west corridors away from the starting vestibule:

• North: the Minotaur's domain, ironically the safest part of the dungeon (at least in the beginning). Fewer traps, some clues as to Asterion's past, and Theseus' magic sword (the one thing guaranteed to hurt Asterion). Heading north-east runs into traps but also leads to Daedalus and Icarus, who can outfit the party with some serious gear. South-east leads to...
• East: the Pentathlon Challenges. Compete against Taliskoi (animate statues) guardians in a series of events, culminating in meeting the spirit of Asterion's deceased brother, who can provide critical information on his sibling's affliction. Heading north from here through a trap gauntlet leads to Daedalus & Icarus, who seek to escape.
• West: the shrine of Hades and Mother's Ruin. A shrine to the god of the Underworld who, if beseeched, will charge the character's with a task in exchange for a boon. North from the shrine lies a contraption surrounded by murals hinting at the origins of Asterion's curse.

The paths between all of these run through a central 'hub' of corridors and the entrance vestibule.

From the off this gives players 3 branching options to choose from, with overlapping opportunities to backtrack and find new directions of travel. While the labyrinth isn't truly Jaquays-ed, there are numerous interconnections between the central hub of passageways so you don't feel limited in mobility unless you commit to entering a room at the end of a route - few rooms have multiple exits. In the 3 hours that we played, we largely hung around the southern half of the dungeon (only encountering about half of the written content there) before heading north in our final flight from Asterion. There's a good amount of stuff for players to engage here - different groups could end up with very different experiences, there are elements in the adventure notes which we didn't even consider (animating a giant bronze statue) or come close to (meeting Daedalus and Icarus in their workshop).

The contents strike a nice balance between traps (telegraphed unless you're moving quickly, which is my preferred style), interactions with hostile and non-hostile denizens of the labyrinth, tools and weapons to improve your odds, and even some treasure.

Our tldraw map of the labyrinth.

The Clock

A key element in TiD is the clock which tracks Asterion's movements, with 5 steps. Every dungeon turn there is a 2-in-6 chance that it advances one step:

1. Asterion feeds on Theseus' body. Pasiphae (his mother, the Queen of Crete) enters the labyrinth through a secret door.
2. Pasiphae finds Asterion and heals him with a potion.
3. Asterion follows Ariadne's thread (red on the map). Pasiphae follows him.
4. Asterion enters the entrance vestibule. Pasiphae attempts to prevent his escape, expressing her shame.
5. Asterion kills his mother and roams the labyrinth, crazed with guilt and rage. After this, there is a 1-in-6 chance that the PCs encounter him from the direction of his last known location.

The clock serves to provide the party with a sort of grace period before they are really hunted and, if close enough, they can overhear important information from Pasiphae. Similar to the layout, the variable 'ticking' of the clock provides different experiences for different groups - some may end up actively hunted much earlier than others and be herded into different areas of the dungeon. Given the theme, it works much better than a simple random encounter chance and really serves to drive home that the Minotaur isn't just a mindless monster.

The Minotaur & Pasiphae, and a Conclusion, of Sorts

These two characters are the central pillar of the adventure, so deserve a section of their own, and I wanted to highlight the part of the adventure I enjoyed the most. The short version of the Minotaur's creation myth is that Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, daughter of Helios, and wife of King Minos of Crete, was enchanted by Poseidon (with Aphrodite's help) to mate with a snow-white bull which Minos had failed to sacrifice appropriately to the god. Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur, Asterion, as a result. The legend goes that the child matured into a ferocious adolescent and was imprisoned in the labyrinth, later to be fed Athenian youths as a form of tribute to Crete. Pasiphae has, as is so often the case with historical and mythological women, become a cautionary tale of sin, despite her actions being the result of a divine curse. Asterion serves as a bestial footnote to the glorious myth of Theseus, existing to show the demigod's strength and heroism.

laumry delves beneath the mythological veneer and focuses on the pair of them, demigod daughter of the god of the sun and her cursed child, himself a demigod by blood, as human beings. Myths of the Minotaur's creation refer to Pasiphae breastfeeding the infant as a mother would any other child. The myths note that Asterion became violent as he grew older, but was not always so. Was the Minotaur fated to become a violent, maddened beast kept in confinement? Are monsters such because of their nature, or are they made?

TiD takes the latter answer. This Asterion, despite his awful physical affliction, was once a sweet-natured boy, as attested to by the artisan Daedalus and the shade of Androgeus, Asterion's deceased brother, who wishes to see his sibling freed from his enforced existence as their father's executioner. Pasiphae is torn between her love for her son, wanting to heal his wounds and protect him, and the overwhelming shame she feels at the nature of his conception and, on some level, his very existence. Such shame, and presumably ill-treatment at the hands of King Minos, led to Asterion being locked away in an unlit prison with only owls and visits from his mother for company. Traces of his former life - a doll, paintings on the walls of his den, his relationship with his mother and brother - point towards a frightened child trapped in the body of a monster, twisted by shame.

The adventure serves as an example of the numerous prisons of our own making which all of us inhabit, and the very real trauma that parents can inflict upon their children. It is entirely possible to kill Asterion, with enough careful planning, the right equipment, and a healthy dose of luck, but it is also possible, through repeated and/or strong enough appeals to his humanity, to break the curse and render him fully human. In our session this clicked for me right at the end and, through a garbled speech which was half-intended to appeal to Asterion and half as a badass set of last words, I was able to accomplish this.

There was a point during our session, I can't recall exactly when, where we began to refer to the Minotaur as 'he' rather than 'it', and using his name. My character, Soltar, took Pasiphae hostage - initially I saw her as a haughty noble who wanted nothing more than to see us fed to her monstrous son, but her repeated attempts to calm her son, who she seemed to fear and love in equal measure, as we fled revealed an inner torment which caused harm to both herself and the child that she loved. I referenced The God that Crawls as a similar style of dungeon, but the similarity ends with a roaming central threat haunting the players in a maze. I don't remember anything in there regarding St. Ambrose's motivations beyond blob-monster-who-responds-to-Christianity, and the village cult cannot be reasoned with in any way. I think TiD does far more with its single page than Raggi does with ~50.

This was easily the strongest part of TiD for me. I think it's fair to lay a reasonable proportion of this at laumry's feet, given his knowledge of and passion for the myth, but reading through the module gives the Referee everything they need to play out this messy, raw, and very human interaction. Throughout the entire session I was suffering horribly from hayfever, but at the end there were some genuine tears mixed in and I think that's maybe the highest possible praise I can give to something like this. That feeling certainly doesn't come around often. 

laumry is intending on submitting his adventure to this year's One Page Dungeon contest, which is very appropriately on the theme of strings. I highly encourage you to grab a copy when it's available, and run it.

---

 

If I had sold the gifts of Kypris,
given my body in secret to some man,
you would have every right to condemn me
as a whore. But this was no act of the will;
I am suffering from some madness brought on
by a god.
It’s not plausible!
What could I have seen in a bull
to assault my heart with this shameful passion?
Did he look too handsome in his robe?
Did a sea of fire smoulder in his eyes?
Was it the red tint of his hair, his dark beard?

Session Report - OSE Open Table #12

Party Members

Robin Redwood (Magic-User 2)

Maleneth (Thief 2)

 

Accompanied by: Gorato the Ox (Fighter 1), Losandro (Thief 1)

 

Events

Setting out under an overcast sky, Maleneth (burdened with two extra wheels of cheese) and Robin ventured forth into the Whiterock Caverns in search of the winged apes and Kadmacho's domain. Heading north through previously covered territory, they nervously skirted past the mosaic door into the arena and passed through an archway at the end of the corridor. The room beyond was coated in a thick layer of dust, little had passed through, and a singed door led out of the far corner. Investigating the frame revealed a set of holes bored into the lintel of the door, angled out in a fan-like coverage of the area beyond. The duo plugged the holes with bandages and a torn up sack, then pulled the door open from a distance with a rope - smoke fumed from several of the plugged holes and a few of the fabric bungs shot out like fiery dart as a couple of gouts of flaming oil splashed harmlessly into the dust.

Beyond lay a finely decorated room bearing frescoes of a hooded figure before vaguely apocalyptic scenes, always gathering and/or preserving sources of knowledge. A large marble statue of the same figure stood in the middle of the room, beneath them a lectern bearing the outline of a book. Maleneth and Robin recognised this as Rhilea, the Letter and the Word, one of the Six Divines. They approached a door on the far side of the chamber, but were warned by a voice speaking directly into their skulls that none may pass without adding to the Great Lady's archive of knowledge.

Mike Nash

Backtracking, for no other route lay before them, the party heard the sound of guttural voices - akin to the speech of the Black Talons - echoing down the corridors, but nothing appeared before them. Passing the door to the arena and heading back towards the entrance, they suddenly heard the agonised breathing of the Minotaur, seemingly just around the next corner, and froze. The creature's blindness kept their torch from alerting it and Losandro crept forth to ascertain its position. The Thief scuffed against the stone wall as he peeked around the corner and cam face to face with the creature, but he was able to sprint out of its reach. The party raced away, chased by the maddened bellowing of the creature, and entered through the arena's secret door. They hurled a torch further along the corridor and closed the door as far as they were able - the ruse worked and the creature continued in search of the noise they had made.

Taking a breather, the party explored the great arena where they had previously fought the Minotaur - bloodstains and dragged trails marked the sand among the beast's ever-pacing footprints. They followed the trails, passing a tunnel heading north, and eventually reached a crude hollow dug from the wall at the far end of the arena. The hollow was carpeted with smashed pottery fragments and old bones, torchlight reflected from coins scattered liberally around the place, and the mutilated, decomposing bodies of Brando, Helene, and Georgios were strewn around like ragdolls. Maleneth claimed Brando's moneypouch, holding 160sp, while Robin took Helene's spellbook. Gorato stood watch and Losandro began to gather coins, noting that they were a mix of ancient and new ones. Robin found a peculiar cracked horn, bound with engraved golden rings, and Maleneth hefted a strange axe with its head covered by a leather bag which sloshed as if full of seawater.

Hearing a noise from further back, the party grabbed what else they could - 4 pouches of incense worth 50sp each and 230sp from the scattered coinage - and Robin conjured a Floating Disc. The party loaded their fallen comrades aboard and headed back across the arena. As they approached the northern door, it burst open and several figures tumbled through in a chaotic melee - the Minotaur appeared to be engaged in combat with a maille-clad warrior and 4 spiders the size of ponies. Extinguishing their torch, the party groped their way forwards only to realise that they could cover almost no ground. Re-igniting the torch showed 2 of the spiders smashed to a pulp. Robin blew the horn he had recovered, intending to distract the Minotaur, but instead found that it dulled all sound from him and his companions nearby as long as he blew into it. Taking a deep breath, the Magic-User blew as long as possible while the party raced past the melee. They were joined by the warrior, a Black Talon, as they passed and they were able to make it back to the secret door out before the Minotaur finished with the spiders.

The Black Talon accompanied them as they backtracked. The warrior had no name, referring to himself as 'Soldier' in Ancient Minoic, but confirmed he was part of Ent Sha Nur's band and had been on a scouting mission in the area until his patrol was ambushed by the Minotaur. The Black Talons had fortified an area of the Caverns against the Swine, and the warrior offered advice regarding the creatures: they are very strong and fierce, will readily use fire, and their weapons are crude but effective, but they are poorly disciplined and greedy, and fear the mushroom folk on the second level. Reaching the room with the strange obelisk, the Talon gave directions from that room to the staircase down to the second level and stepped through the rusted portcullis to the east, effortlessly opening and closing the metal grate. Robin restored his arcane talents at the obelisk and the party continued to the entrance, depositing the bodies of their former comrades outside.

Re-entering, the group headed west from the entrance chamber and Maleneth picked a lock on a door to the south, finding a dead Black Talon lying in a room with a broken word daubed on the floor. Continuing west, the party entered the remains of some sort of tavern or feast hall which was littered with broken wooden furniture and smelt of stale wine. Tracks through the debris and loose feathers showed that the winged apes had passed through here, but while discussing a plan the party were interrupted by three large lizards bursting through another door, each about 5' long with vivid blue and orange skin. The reptiles skittered curiously around the door frame with sticky feet and the party cautiously withdrew to the far side of the room - the lizards, content that they posed no threat, withdrew from whence they came.

Familiar whining voices echoed through the portcullis to the west, and the party came eye to eye with a group of Curselings, sent by Geros to search for treasure, who had become trapped by the portcullis. Maleneth and Robin were unable to budge the grate, but applied oil to the rusted mechanism and tried again, successfully. The Curselings bounced off with a jingling sack and the party found a secret passage leading back to the tavern room, concealed by a plaster facade.

The next room held an old armoury full of rusted weapons and articles of war. Remembering the apes' warning, Maleneth triggered the poison dart trap on the next door from a safe distance. A set of long stairs led down, and near the bottom the party heard a sound like drizzle or steam from the next door, along with a sweet, floral smell. The next chamber was tiled and slick, misted from above by jets of cool, sweet-smelling mist which coated a series of stone couches and tables. The door at the far side was locked, and Maleneth was unable to pick it. Gorato hefted his great-axe and started hacking away, stopping when he heard grating stone speech from beyond. Waiting until the speech faded, he recommenced work and breached a small hole in the wood - in the next corridor stood several winged apes behind a slender brass figure with a porcelain mask. It politely asked that the party cease causing their master a disturbance and regretfully informed them that it would be forced to respond violently if they continued.

Not wanting to push their luck, the party decamped the Caverns intent on holding funerals for their fallen companions and planning their next moves.

Funeral March, John Coulthart

Referee Thoughts

The players misread their own map at first and headed in totally the wrong direction, which was quite funny. It literally had a big arrow and 'THIS WAY TO KADMACHO' on it.

Random encounter distance rolls really worked out for them - the Minotaur was 50' away which was just around a corner, and given it's blind that gave them a chance to avoid it.

The three-way brawl provoked some weird indecision among the players for reasons I couldn't fully understand. They were debating distraction techniques etc. until I mentioned that they could just move past the melee. Perhaps it was down to my depiction of the distances involved - it was getting late in the session and I wasn't feeling my best that day. It did lead to them blowing the noise-cancelling horn though, which was cool.

Similarly, they didn't seem that fussed about grabbing everything not nailed down in the Minotaur's lair, despite me describing all of the things scattered around. The got the most interesting bits but there's still like 1,500sp left in there...

However, their note-taking has been on point - they're remembering warnings and small snippets of information that slip my mind! 

I've really been enjoying describing traps out in the open and seeing what solutions they come up with. It keeps play moving at a good pace and stops us getting bogged down in the details.

Both players said they had fun, which is what I'm aiming for, and they were super engaged the whole session - good feelings all round.  

 

 

Anicet District

A post-apocalyptic mini-crawl. For use with Violence., by Luke Gearing. Work in progress.

Weather

Roll 1d6 at the commencement of play. Roll 1d6 each day thereafter, subtract 2 if the previous day's result was 2 or less, add 2 if it was 5 or more:

#        Result
-1       Violent sandstorm.
0        Light rain.
1        Overcast
2        Warm.
3        Warm.
4        Hot.
5        Hot.
6        Very hot.
7        Very hot.
8        Extremely hot. 

Random Encounters

Each day, roll 1d20 and consult the table below. Consider terrain, mode of travel, and intention when determining encounter distance. If in doubt, roll 1d20 for each party - a result of 11+ indicates that they are not surprised.

1d20    Result
1-6       No encounter.
7          (If within 2 hexes of 03.01) 6-man scout team from the depot.
8-11     3d10 feral dogs.
12-16   Caravan of 1d4 traders and 2d12 guards.
17-19   1d6 Parched.
20         (After dark) A Nightcrawler.

 

Hex Key

01.04 

The crow-picked body of Kath (01.02) lies dried and darkened in the sun, bearing a vicious wound to the side and bite marks (human-ish dentition) on the arm. The inside pocket of the corpse's coat holds a scrawled map showing the way to the Anicet District water treatment facility (01.07) from Carches (02.03). A well-oiled revolver holds three rounds. Her canteen is empty. 

 

01.05

The dust-choked remains of a roadside village lie just off the crumbled asphalt of the old highway. Ashen sand has submerged the lower levels of many buildings, but the smashed-in storefront beneath the winking trout sign of 'Jean's Sporting Goods' yawns onto the main strip. The shop has long been stripped of firearms and ammunition, but the storeroom holds a pallet stacked with sealed sacks of pickling salt. A blocky safe in the back office, long seized up and the combination forgotten, holds 3 magazines of rifle ammunition and an infra-red scope.

 

01.07

A rusted chain link fence surrounds the four long sheds comprising the former Anicet District water treatment plant, dried up along with the irrigation canals that once criss-crossed the plain. If the weather has been still, humanoid tracks can be seen ranging around the building - all lead back to the sand-filled sedimentation and filtration pools. A lever-action rifle, machete, and flatbow, not long dropped, lie in the dust near the pools. Bones litter the interior of the buildings, and traces of old gore spatter the walls and floors. Three bodies (02.03), covered in bite marks and utterly drained of all liquid, lie slumped in the corner of one shed. They bear 6 days of rations, thirty rifle rounds, 15 arrows, two knives and a club.

7 Parched lair here, drawn by some unknowable promise of moisture. They are settled beneath the surface of the sand in the pools, awaiting nightfall or the arrival of prey to ambush.

The machinery in the sheds is long-ruined, but there remain nineteen sealed barrels of water treatment chemicals, and two car-sized membrane filtration canisters - each could supply clean drinking water for years to a town of thousands.

 

02.03

Next to a dried riverbed in a narrow valley, dense thickets of swaying willow trees ring the former Carches Agricultural College, obscuring much of the bleached brutalist structure and its satellite houses behind green fronds. The college's intact library is a font of information on agronomy and husbandry, and the facility's veterinary suite possesses a small reserve of quickheal - the existence of which is closely guarded. Each season sees more ground phytoremediated by the groves, the pollarded wood burned, used for building, or simply stacked to dry and seal away the toxins leached from the soil. Crops grow uncontaminated, but the same cannot be said of the water - the village's crude borehole pumps out as much filth as it does potable drink, and the filtration process can barely produce enough to sustain the inhabitants. All who drink the water unfiltered sicken rapidly. In addition, the ancient tractor used to till the fields has failed beyond the community's ability to repair, and they lack suitable equine alternatives.

Alvin, a bald, sun-creased elder who chairs the community's discussions, asked Kath (01.04) and several others to seek out a water line running from a treatment plant to the west (01.07) referenced in old college records. Two weeks have passed, no one has returned - he suspects Verreville (04.05) has something to do with this and will happily divulge information on the matter.

42 combatants. 10 are Blooded in violence, the rest untrained. 8 bolt-action rifles are distributed among the most experienced fighters with the others wielding shotguns, half of the remainder are armed with pistols and the other half with bows. Melee weapons are simple, like spears and clubs, or repurposed farming tools.

 

02.06

An ankheg waits at the bottom of a conical pit in the desert sand. The bodies of its previous victims have been hurled beyond the rim. The creature will wait for prey to approach the edge of the pit before hurling sand and rocks up to destablise the edge and send the unwary tumbling into its maw. Having tasted blood, there is a 2-in-6 chance it pursues an escaping victim, seeking them out via their footsteps in the sand.

Within the rocky cave at the bottom of the ankheg's trap lies an intact 4wd pickup truck, covered in dust and with one door torn off but half-fuelled and functional. A sealed case of computer components lies in the passenger footwell along with a pump-action shotgun. The passenger door is gone and the seat is a shredded mess of dried gore and fabric. A case of 28 cartridges sits in the glovebox.

 

03.01

A pocked concrete-walled depot sits atop a hill. Holes in the walls have been plugged with sandbags and rusted razor-wire, with mines set on the approaches to the gaps. Within dwell 28 souls, the remnants of a remnant that crossed the Parch years past, leaving a tattered regimental flag and a mass grave to be buried by the dust. The inhabitants are well-furnished with Old World military body armour, small arms, grenades, and ammunition from the depot's secure armoury, and a machine-gun nest in the squat blockhouse overlooking the main gate is constantly manned. 6-man patrols regularly scout the surrounding area. Maintenance of the advanced weaponry is beginning to suffer due to a lack of metalworking and gunsmithing equipment, and the depot's automated turrets are offline, requiring mechanical maintenance, electrical power, and a significant amount of computer components to restore functionality.

'Captain' Emmitt, a middle-aged woman wearing a darned and patched camouflage uniform bearing the name 'Livia', receives visitors cautiously but in good faith. She knows that the outpost is doomed without allies and fresh supplies and will use the promise of advanced equipment to secure assistance. Any sign of treachery brings a hail of lead.

28 soldiers, all Trained. Every 3rd is a Veteran.

 

03.02

19 carrion crawlers infest a dank section of old road tunnel in the hillside, coating the walls in sticky secretions. Entrapped in the slime are seven people, three of whom can be saved with prompt treatment. In two days, four more crawlers will hatch. In 5 days, three more. 1d4-1 victims will be found each week, incubation takes a week.

A rusted-out delivery truck, the cab crushed by a fallen concrete span, holds four dumpy bags of pelletised nitrogen fertiliser, and the hollowed-out remains of the crawlers' previous incubators have 3 torches, a bow with 6 arrows, a hatchet, a 50' coil of rope, a battered semi-automatic pistol with 2 full magazines, and a First Aid kit in their bags.

03.06

The ruins of an old farmhouse and its outbuildings, dilapidated even before the days of the Great Dying, sit preserved in the ashen dunes of the Parch. The remains of a campfire, a couple of days old, gathers dust in the lee of the main house and what appear to be wagon tracks heading north have been carved into the hardpan here and there. Wood creaks and wind whistles through the glass-less windows. An outlying barn bears evidence of recent activity with a crude latrine dug in one corner. The interior of the house has been scoured by the constant rasp of desert sand in the wind, surfaces smooth and worn. An enterprising soul stashed 84 tanned leather hides beneath a tarp in the former kitchen, months ago by the dust on top of the cover. A collapsed bookcase blocks a staircase to the basement - beneath the farmhouse lies the remains of an old drug lab. The narcotics within are long-past usability, but 19 sealed barrels of pharmacological precursors remain, as do 25 books of Old World fiction.

Lario's band (04.02) use the house as a stopover camp.

04.02

11 slavers make their camp in a hollow amidst the marram grass where the dead sea laps at the shore and rusted hulks loom on the horizon. Lario leads them, his skin covered in insect tattoos and his hatband stuffed with body-part trophies. Their clients lie to the east. In the camp are two-dozen captives lashed to a pair of wagons, taken from out in the Parch. They have been fed and watered the bare minimum, and suffered other privations at the hands of their captors.

Lario is armed with a military rifle, semi-auto pistol, and sword; 7 are armed with pump-action shotguns/lever-action rifles, revolvers, and lances;.the remainder wield bows. All are mounted and possess long knives and desert leathers (-1 armour). Lario is Hardened in violence, his men are experienced. Their weapons are adequately-maintained. They will not turn down additional bodies.

The captives are weakened from their brutal journey - treat as Untrained.

The wagons hold a stash of 12 bottles of spirits, 3 packages of Old World medications, 6 drums of preserved seedstock, and 54 containers of fixings.

 

04.04

A sun-bleached concrete water tower thrusts up from the sand, a gaping hole in its side having vomited forth its contents long ago. The interior is cool and sheltered from the elements, home only to the occasional bird nest.

 

04.05

Verreville, home to 53 souls, provides scant welcome to outsiders. Thieves (04.06) have made off with guns from the village's weapons cache and the settlement is on high alert. Maria, the village's stern and unchallenged matriarch, has ordered extra patrols to ward off further attempts, but it is not enough. Verreville sits in the open plain and the aging folk can't watch every avenue of approach, especially in the dark. Jan, a leathery man in late middle age, publicly grouses about the need for new blood and proposes a trip to Navaeiros (04.07) to work something out, but recent rumours from the south have folk unsettled.

The weapons cache still holds enough weapons to equip a company.

24 combatants, armoured with scrap armour (-2 armour), half armed with bolt-action rifles, half with sub-machine guns. All carry sidearms and hatchets/clubs, and are Blooded in violence.

 

04.06

10 secessionists from Navaeiros (04.07) pitch their tents in a narrow canyon overlooking the old highway. Federico, a young, wild-eyed man, has lead them in stealing bolt-action rifles and revolvers from Verreville (04.06) and he now plots his takeover of his home village, believing that only force can bring order against the wasteland. He will launch his attempt in a fortnight, which will see the town burn and the sands run red with blood. In the meantime, the band will happily pick off and scavenge what they can from those they think they can take, and attempt to recruit those they think they can't.

Each bandit is mounted and carries 50 rounds of rifle ammunition. A further 1,000 rounds are stashed at their camp, along with a dozen grenades. Each carries 36 revolver rounds. The camp also holds several bottles of spirits, five well-thumbed novels, and two weeks-worth of rations.

 

04.07

Navaeiros eats itself from within, its 85 residents set against their fellows. Gonza returned from the desert three months ago bearing word of the Unity. His rantings have since attracted some two-dozen followers, not enough to cement the cult in power but enough that they feel able to flex their muscles - beatings and intimidations have begun. Federico (04.06) and his band stole the village's horses and left a fortnight ago after a bloody brawl with Gonza's followers. To where, no-one knows. None have attempted to track them. 

Beatriz, formerly leader of the village council, now futilely looks for ways to avoid further bloodshed - she cannot confront the reality that returning to the past is not possible. Elise, who teaches the children out of battered old texbooks and encyclopaedias, and those aligned with her are not so concerned - arsons against cult houses will begin in the next week and be answered in kind. Federico will return the week after with stolen arms from Verreville, and blood and fire will reign.

50 combatants. All wielding poorly-maintained revolvers, bows, shotguns, and simple melee weapons. All are Blooded in violence.

 

05.04

The mounting pole of a small wind-turbine (5kw) thrusts up from the scrub-covered hills, nacelle and blades shredded from decades of caustic wind. Nearby, almost consumed by shrubs and vines, lies the remains of a small cabin. A hatch in the dirt floor leads down to a dug-out cellar. The jars of preserves within have long since expired, tops bulging and glass cracking, but the shelves hold a full set of turbine replacement parts along with charge controllers, inverters, and other necessary accessories. In addition, a scoped bolt-action rifle wrapped in oil cloth rests on a small table, under which is stashed 200 rounds of rifle ammunition.

 

06.04

Patrice and 9 other tribals make their camp in a small canyon cave, keeping well out of sight. The affable elderly trader's caravan is resting before departing to their range in the Parch having made the dangerous journey to trade in Gaptown. Their wagon is loaded with luxury foodstuffs, salt, Old World medicines, and several technical manuals, which the group are happy to trade for.

Patrice underwent initiation under his tribe's shaman, and failed. The experience left him with latent psionic awareness - to those with the same (1-in-20 chance), he offers a potent hallucinogen which will awaken their talents on a standard roll (add Advantages/Disadvantages as appropriate, trip-sitters are advised).

10 combatants, all clad in hide armour (-1 armour). Patrice is armed with a revolver and hatchet. The others all wield bows, backed up by spears, hatchets, long knives, and clubs. Patrice and two others are Experienced in violence, the remainder Blooded.

06.05

A gang of 17 Eaters squat in the remains of a visitor centre overlooking the wooded valley to the east. The creatures know the region well and stalk all who enter. The interior of the building sees little distinction between living space, larder, and latrine, with butchered corpses skewered awkwardly on rebar, and viscera piled into corners.

A crude pit dug in a former car park holds decayed corpses and several rusted firearms discarded in a fit of primal understanding: a double-barreled shotgun and lever-action rifle can be salvaged. The visitor centre storeroom holds a dozen spare textbooks and wilderness school curriculum dossiers detailing foraging, carpentry, outdoor survival, hunting, and field dressing/butchery skills. The latter appears to have been clumsily thumbed through by a filthy hand before being discarded in a corner.

At any one time there are three victims held captive in an old walk-in fridge. There is a 3-in-6 chance that each has been mutilated to a point beyond saving.

17 Eaters, all wielding crude clubs and knives, if anything.

06.07

An old highway interchange gouges its way through a valley in the hills, spans and stancions still standing in defiance of time. The carcasses of vehicles litter the old blacktop in a tesselated nightmare - the initial wave of strandings shoved to the side of the road only for their followers to run out of fuel in turn. Skeletal remains line the spaces between the rusted hulks, fallen while the great masses of refugees wandered from one starving locality to another.

A small junction has been cleared of old vehicles. Following the road off into the hills reveals them to have been dragged into concentric rings of rusted protection around a small set of cabins, behind which lies the concrete entrance to a bunker. A watchtower of peeled and stacked logs overlooks the winding track leading up the hill. The 127 inhabitants of Santaral are only a few years emerged from their underground haven, having been driven up by the gradual failure of their power generator and life support systems. What little power remains is used to fabricate defences and mechanical parts to maintain critical water purifiers, but the machine operators are also able to fashion simple firearm components with relative ease. The bunker contains sufficient feedstocks for years of work.

The original corporate council quickly disintegrated under the stresses of the Long Night, and was replaced with elected representatives from the different dorms. Marcus, the current 'Head', is gathering support for an expedition to the San Balaldo boneyard to the east in search of the Old World components they need. Sara, from Dorm 3, instead argues for further exploration to the west and making contact with other settlements in the area. Without intervention, Marcus and two-dozen others will journey to San Balaldo in a fortnight. Only three will return.

60 combatants, armed with bolt-action rifles and semi-auto pistols. All are Untrained in violence.

 

Bestiary

Ankheg

−6 armour (thick chitin). Spits acid. Burrows. The size of a small car. Counts as a Veteran of violence.

Tremors.
Further.
Closer.
It hears.
Vinegar stink.
The earth yawns.
Something else swallows.

 

Carrion Crawler

Paralysing tentacles.

The dead feed them, but corpses cannot compare to the embrace of warm flesh. Limp bodies raptured
away in darkness line the nest, feeling only the gnawing of the young.

 

Eater

Strong. Excellent sense of smell. Unintelligent, but not stupid. Use crude melee and thrown weapons. Instinctively Experienced in violence.

Not all were lucky enough to perish in the fires of Armageddon. Many lived long enough for crops to fail
and livestock to perish, before turning to the only source of meat remaining.
 

Feasting so in the Great Dying had permanent physiological and psychological consequences.

Nightcrawler

Use Inhuman Violence. Skilled psion - will only attempt to cause fear and misdirect targets.

Evasion: −2 (psionic misdirection)

Shooting: N/A

Melee: 2d8

Harm: Whenever a Nightcrawler would be Injured or Downed from Shooting, instead roll 1d20 and
consult the table below. Melee attacks and explosives are resolved normally.

1d20    Result
1-10     Psionic warping deflects the bullets from its hide.
11-15   The shot disrupts its concentration for 1d6 rounds, rendering it vulnerable to gunfire.
16+      Roll normally for Injury Checks & Down.

The night holds many terrors. Light glints from eyes and claws, real and imagined. Something glides
across the surface of the mind like a knife through silk. The mental jaws bite down before the physical.

Parched

Extremely fast - additional Disadvantage to Shoot while moving. Lies perfectly still beneath sand and
gravel. Counts as Experienced in violence. Never uses weapons.

The Water of Life held a different meaning during the Great Dying. Adapting to a purely predatory
existence was exacting, even for those suffused in the background aura of mutagenic contagions.
Morality, emotions, and finally, sentience were all discarded as unnecessary accessories in a new,
haematophagous existence.

 

Open Table: 12 week retrospective

 Been a while, hasn't it?

I could regale you with tales of getting married and moving to a Scottish island and trying my hand at rearing livestock and potatoes and such, but this is an RPG blog so I will write about something far less interesting.

 

Do not allow him to distract you.

 

Open Table antics

Post-COVID lockdown I took a long hiatus from RPG-related stuff to focus on my non-imaginary life, but over the past couple of years the hooks have started to sink in and draw me back. I ran a few games: a solo Delta Green scenario with my wife, some online Mothership one-shots, and finally an online multi-session run of Wolves Upon the Coast with friends which eventually fizzled due to scheduling issues. All of them were great fun, and then the sickness was upon me once more - I started having ideas.

Enter, the Open Table.

For those unaware, an open table is a regularly scheduled session slot where players sign up in advance. A persistent group is not needed and players can join as and when they're available/feel like playing. The structure lends itself well to 'West Marches'-style play, where parties declare an objective in advance and then return to a safe haven at the end of each session, with time passing in real time between sessions.

I recruited players to a heavily house-ruled Old School Essentials game through a combination of physical posters and posts in local Facebook groups (sadly the island I live on uses Facebook as a primary form of advertising, information sharing, and general communication). The game has been running for almost 3 months and I wanted to get some of my thoughts and observations written out, as much for my own reference as for providing advice to others thinking of running such things.

TL;DR - it has been an excellent experience and I don't know why I didn't run these before. 

 

The Aims

Run a fun and welcoming game where players can attend as much or as little as they want, with a focus on introducing new players to the hobby. Present a coherent and compelling fictional world which draws the players in and encourages them to act as their characters, rather than piloting a set of numbers on a character sheet.

 

The Players

Total signed-up players: ~20, some signed-up via email and some have joined the WhatsApp group used for game discussion and session planning.

Total players who have joined sessions: 13, 10 of whom have attended multiple sessions, 7 of whom I would class as 'regulars'.

Most of the sign-ups and regular attendees are women. Most are either totally new to or have minimal experience of tabletop RPGs. Player age ranges between teenage to middle-aged, most falling in the mid 20s - mid 30s.

The players have all entered the game with a high degree of trust in me as the Referee - I have been extremely careful to preserve this, mainly by always explaining my rulings and reasonings and inviting feedback. All players have expressed an enjoyment of the game up to press - all contribute snacks and £1 per session towards the hire of the room that we use, and I cover the remainder. Several character deaths have occurred and have all been taken in good humour, I believe as a result of this trust holding.

Players have generally acted in a fiction-first way and displayed impressive creativity when interacting with the game, using items, abilities and their wits in clever ways to confront and solve problems before them (my particular favourite was a player who, when confronted with a wide crack in the floor of a room, dropped a torch into the chamber below and affixed a mirror to the end of a 10' pole as an improvised reflector to illuminate dark areas further away). A few have expressed a more mechanics-first attitude, and have queried things like monster HP and abilities in mechanical terms, and have asked to perform general search/perception actions rather than directly interacting with scenarios before them - this has generally been minor and I have encouraged the fiction-first approach embraced by most players, largely through continual requests for task & intent statements.

The group has been very interested in learning more about things in the world, performing research in downtime, asking questions of NPCs regarding the local area and history, interpreting text sources found within the game, and remembering snippets of previous rumours and information gathered to help inform their decisions going forwards.

Several players have embraced faction dynamics, leading the party in performing a (largely) bloodless coup against a previous employer and taking over their organisation, and assassinating the leader of an opposing faction with the aid of a treacherous underling who was willing to make peace with them.

Some players have occasionally gotten distracted during sessions, but the majority have been laser-focused. The distraction hasn't caused issues yet, but I'm keeping an eye on it - if players are ending up on a waitlist while an active player isn't giving the game their full attention then I'll take steps on this.

The party wildly oscillates between cautious planning & a 'fuck it we ball' mindset, and I can't tell which mood will prevail at any one time. Both have been extremely enjoyable, the former lending itself to clever plans which either work out as intended or lead to shenanigans, and the latter having about a 50/50 split between glorious victory and grim fighting withdrawals (both producing excellent war stories).

No player has expressed an interest in learning the rules of the game (OSE). I have presented it in largely a black-box style, where they have character sheets to record information but I will tell them the rolls to make in a given situation. This was not my intention, but it has thus-far worked - see the comment about the high degree of player trust - and I am keen to try it in future games. Players have been quite happy to self-police their own encumbrance limits and draw out their own maps (I break out a dry-wipe board for specific combat positioning).

 

No distractions!

The Game 

Old-School Essentials Classic with house rules ripped from OSE Advanced, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Wolves Upon the Coast, and AD&D 1E. The rules are quite simple, and as mentioned above, run in a black-box style - this was unintentional as I assumed the players would show an interest in learning the game systems, but it has been an incredibly liberating experience as it ensures the players are interacting with the game fiction as directly as possible while I handle the (simple) mechanical load. Combat is where the vast majority of rolls occur and the players have embraced their characters' fictional positioning - they know that flanking and ganging up on enemies is a good way to win, but don't seem to care about the specific +2 modifier for each melee combatant outnumbering the other.

I'm running a megadungeon sandbox and the players have only just entered the dungeon itself - I added a ruined town with some small starter factions and points of interest and they absolutely ate this up, with the first two months being almost completely occupied by exploring different ruins and engaging with the faction dynamics. I'm hoping this bodes well for exploring the dungeon.

I've been gradually introducing elements of the game as we go. Hirelings have become a key element of the game since their introduction, which I didn't expect. The players have been happy to trade treasure and XP for increased survivability in fights. This has also let me be more explicit with telegraphing - nothing gets their attention like exploding a hireling into red mist. Several party members are starting to dabble in magic-item creation, which will be interesting to see going forwards.

There have been a few 'dud' sessions where the party has either not gained any treasure (they spent their time interacting with a strange machine, partially powered up an ancient golem and spent ages asking it questions), suffered near TPKs (don't run into a goblin den and let them encircle you), or combined the two (exploring the dungeon and heading through a secret door into a Minotaur arena, and having to make a fighting retreat with casualties). These have been embraced as part of the game, either because they're happy to spend time digging into the mysteries of the game (questioning the robot), they realise they made a mistake (charging in without a plan), or because they recognise that sometimes you just have bad luck (the Minotaur). In the latter cases they know that I've acted as impartially and fairly as possible, so their response has been to take stock of the situation and prepare for the next round. We also use rules covering Feats of Exploration, and giving fallen PCs a funeral allows you to divide up their XP, which helps to reward exploration and takes the sting out of coming back to town with empty pockets.

The out-of-game WhatsApp group has worked well for organising sessions, but I'd prefer something with threading abilities to delineate things like downtime activities, planning discussions etc.. I play in several Discord servers but I find the platform horrible for useful discussion and information organisation. I currently use a Google Site for recording session reports, player character rosters, discovered lore etc. I'll need to look into this further, but may just have to stick with the current setup as it's where people currently are.

Prep is incredibly easy - I used the Two Week Megadungeon method to knock out several levels of the dungeon, and with a quick message from the party telling me what they're aiming to do in their next delve I can make sure that everything is set up and ready. The dungeon basically runs itself, faction aims drive their expansion and contraction in different areas based on their interactions with the party, and re-stocking zones is a matter of rolling on a few tables. Combined with a simple ruleset this means that my mental load is massively reduced, and running weekly sessions floating between Thursday-Saturday has felt like almost no effort at all.

 

The Minotaur, before things went really wrong.

General Thoughts

I've loved every second of running this, and hope to continue it for as long as possible. I think I've met the initial objective of creating a fun and welcoming game to introduce newbies, with a focus on the fiction of the game.

I genuinely think my Referee-ing skills have improved. I still need to work on making NPCs more distinctive, but running a game seems to be second nature at this point. Having the mental processes mapped out to make and record rulings for spot situations has helped massively. 

I was surprised at how many of the players were brand new to the hobby, but having thought on it I imagine most folk who play RPGs will have found a group that they game with regularly. The new players have been some of the most creative and fun of the lot, and I hope I'm setting them up in good stead to play in other games in the future.

Recruitment has hit a bit of a wall recently - I'm hoping to broaden the pool of players a bit more, or at least get some of the sign-ups who haven't attended a session to come along to one.

Having a discrete objective for each session helps keep things focused - I'm looking forward to opening up play into a hexcrawl as the characters progress.

Running the game as a black-box, despite it being unintentional, has been a real eye-opener, in a good way. The game has ended up almost being a not-quite Kriegspiel, and I'm definitely keen to try running something more explicitly that way. Death to the system, long live the game.