This is an Into the Oddish game (chargen houserules here). Jeb the footpad, Taki and Tabouli and Gus are now the adventuring party – Psychic Tiger Fodder.
Quotes of the night:
This hand has seen some shit.
It is a monastery. Of course I brought a goat.
Then they shouldn’t have been evil.
What more or less happened:
Jeb got the hang of his cybernetic eye and hand, fell gifts of the Wizard-God.
Gus and Taki worked out a deal with a book-eating devil.
Richter burned the first monk guards with Mage Fire, then used Quietlands Legion to raise their dead bodies and set them after the monks remaining.
I got better at not going to the dice when someone wanted to know something but asking follow-up questions, “What kind of thing are you looking for here? How are you looking? etc.” and then telling them some strange shit that would make the adventure more meaningful because these odd places are better the more strange tidbits these adventuring thieves know about them.
Here’s what I want to remember about tonight if I remember nothing else:
After a long day of work, situated in a long week, in the midst of a very hectic and chaotic month, a friend of mine was having a rough time and when we asked what we, his friends, could do he said he just wanted to game and so we gamed. Everything else is details.
Psychic Tiger Fodder dragged a Space Wizard cultist’s corpse out of the dungeon. Tabouli’s ability to talk to ghosts paid off again. Plex was killed when he tried to leave the dungeon. Jeb the Cutpurse cut the cybernetics off Plex’s corpse once they dragged him out of the dungeon into the fresh spring air. The dungeon’s entrance opened onto an impact crater that the forest had grown over.
When the Space Wizard God tried to take Plex’s soul, the group jumped into action. Richter threw the ghost his elf rope (mental note, elf rope can be grabbed by ghosts…cool) and Taki blessed the endeavor. Tabouli prayed to his dragon-god, who took Plex’s soul from the Space Wizard. Good stuff.
An elder hireling was waiting for them with 3 mules. With the fresh air, the Psychic Tiger’s effects were wearing off. And, because I know Anthony loves airships, an airship was waiting for them, Eberron-style, called the Icarian Delight.
The thief died in his sleep, and so the Icarian Delight belonged to Psychic Tiger Fodder made dock at a nearby city.
Mucus joked abounded because I spend my Thursdays gaming with my friends and my dear friends are total monsters. I told them that to the NORTH is the Weeping Ice, to the SOUTH are the Jungle Highways, to the EAST is the 1000 Dukes’ War and the WEST is the Crystal Frontier.
Jeb got his hand taken off by a trusted bone-setter in the city so that the Mummy Rot wouldn’t spread up his arm. He plans to use Plex’s cybernetics, Richter wants nothing to do with the Space Wizard’s influence that might come with the arcane tech.
Jeb’s elf-dagger got nabbed by a metal statue’s magnetic pull, sticking to the statue’s body. When Jeb tried to get the dagger back, the statue animated and knocked him unconscious and when he tried again, under cover of Roddy the Shieldbearer’s shield, it broke Roddy’s ribs. Reluctantly, Jeb left the dagger there. There was no talk at all of taking the statue on to get the dagger back. Would it have gone differently if more STRENGTH checks had been failed and more weapons were stuck to the statue? We will never know.
Now what? We have to take next week off. Before the next game I’ll toss out some more ideas. We might run with this one a bit but we’re also at a good stopping point. We’ll see.
Campaign Pitch: My goal with these posts is to have a bunch of blog posts that friends could scan when we want to play something new or when gamer friends are visiting or when someone needs ideas. I’ve got a few still baking and so when this reddit thread inspired the above, I thought it might make for a good Campaign Ideas thread with lots of little ideas.
Don’t tell the folks who have been playing lots of “gather pieces of the triforce/One Ring to defeat the Big Evil” that building might look a bit like that. I’d like to think that it will feel different, that hiring artisans and dealing with magic spirits and such will change the face of building.
What is it like building a cathedral when a deity is in direct contact with their worshippers or might even show up?
Watch out for C.I.A. colonial “nation-building” with this kind of idea. I’m not saying it can’t be a fantasy campaign, just know that it is there and what the histories behind these kinds of interactions have been.
Information and data are the treasures. Publishing said data is glory. See also my all-too-dark take on Strixhaven’s fantasy academia. I nixed every running such a game because my friends who work or have worked in or near academia are too scarred to game it.
The key to this one, for me, is that the organization is actually worth building and worth supporting. I’m picturing the org having its own character sheet, like the Crew Sheets in Blades in the Dark.
Revolution makes for fun gaming. We’ve done it. Bonus points if, in order to destroy something, you have to create something else – build allies, be diplomatic, etc.
Campaign Pitch: Players are the leadership in a mercenary company, hired to hold a city. The monarch who hired you died and you doubt that you will ever be paid. The highborn are dividing up the map and it is only a matter of time before they turn their greedy eyes to you. Also, your soldiers need pay.
We could spend time discussing the fantasy system (Into the Odd has been a choice I’m fond of lately but I’ve heard good things about MCDM’s Kingdoms and Warfare & Strongholds and Followers) but I’m assuming that you are going to use your favorite system that allows for some kind of strategic mass battle mechanics of some kind. Let’s get to the real star of this thing – the map of the city.
There’s the Medieval Fantasy City Generator, in which the first 2 cities I asked it to make were total winners. There’s a part of one city called Pig Chapel.
Factions within the city (guilds, landowners, religious organizations, captured highborn to ransom)
Factions outside of the city (other mercenary companies holding bridges, castles, etc., cities, towns, castles, towers along rivers and roads, knights turned bandit in the midst of war, carrion picking at the bones, merchants profiting from war)
A little bit about the history of the city’s sieges
Anyway, you get the idea – war is hell, so-called nobles are anything but noble, you are in charge of a city without any training or background to running said city – LET’S PLAY. Bonus points if your mercs have hearts because hey, this is fantasy.
Two new players joined the game and so the room they were trying to get into last game had Gus (Augustus Tiberius Primus) and Richter, both wizard’s apprentices with no spells to speak of. We wrote off not remembering their existence to Psychic Tiger psionic damage.
There was a ghost in the room and Tabouli sought to put the soul to rest. I asked for a Will roll as he used the prayer of the Dragon-God he knew and with a success, he sent the soul to the Dragon God’s soul hoard, taking it from the Star God. Tabouli suddenly felt the very real feeling that he was playing in a game far above his paygrade.
A flame in one of the lamps in the room gave Tabouli a warning, “They are coming.” They used one of their domesticated mimics to brick over the door and so the Star God worshippers who were looking for the heretics did not find the party. I narrated a goofy conversation as they continued past where they had been sure there was a door but now there was none.
One of the moments of the game was when they looted a dead body and I mentioned it seemed to have a surgical scar on its chest. Jeb the Footpad decided the corpse must have a gem heart. To the disgust of his comrades, he cut open the body and found, not a gem heart but an expensive silver heart.
Richter: Are you okay with this, Conrad?
Conrad (the concussed Thief, the only survivor from the original adventuring party): One day I will call that young man Guildmaster and I’ll be proud to do so.
Tabouli tried to take some of the warm ice from the room but breaking it released a gas that did vicious damage to his lungs. Richter tried one of his grandma’s remedies and it worked (successful Will Save) to cure the Strength Damage that the gas had done to him.
Gus stared at the tapestries of ancient starship battles and nebulas and comets that several ghosts told Tabouli (he can see and talk to the dead) would likely drive their brain past reckoning. Gus passed his save and so I rolled and he got the spell, Clone, rattling around in his brain like a living, powerful thing. Gus’ player was looking for ways to use it creatively. Can’t wait to see what they do.
We don’t have spell descriptions but I defined the spell. “If you cast it on yourself you will create a perfect replica of yourself that will slumber unless disturbed. If you die and it stays sleeping, you will awaken in the clone. If the clone is awakened, it will try to kill you and take your place.”
Jeb checked the disgusting bug pool but found nothing, passing a save to keep from being really ill.
We hit 10 o’clock, our end-time, and are within a room or two from getting out of the dungeon. The characters who have been playing the whole time are Experts (2 level advancements). I told them that they realize that they have surpassed the adventurers they came in with.
Richter’s player mentioned that the rooms didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t a fortress or a prison. I gave my take on this dungeon, that it had made sense 10,000 years ago when it was first dropped into the earth but now it was a funhouse chaotic mess.
Based on the above poll from our gaming posse’s FB group the closest bit of civilization is an ancient city, ruled built by none who are remembered, only recently repopulated, ruled by a sorcerer-king. The whole thing is ancient and wicked. I dig it.
The Pitch: You have a pile of scrolls, copied from the Teratic Tome by an unknown monk, with the rare pages that detail the powers, habits, and preferred habitats of the evil Venerable Dragons. Information in hand, you will hunt these monsters and the vile cults that serve them across the worlds.
I’d photocopy pages 25 to 42 of the Teratic Tome, hand it to the players and ask them to start making a plan.
The Venerable Dragons are ten in number. Ancient and vitriolic, they regard themselves as a weary decadarchy who bear the burden of governing the lesser beings. These ten dragons cannot be subdued, nor will they show mercy to their opponents. Found in long-forgotten places, sleeping under thick layers of dust or mud, these horrid creatures cause nothing but misery when awakened.
What I’d say to the table: Make characters who are driven to hunt these ten dragons to the ends of the known worlds and beyond. There is no right way to do this. This is going to be a campaign on hard mode, no secret betrayers, please. As long as the scrolls of the Teratic tome are safeguarded a TPK will mean we just make the new characters that end up with the scrolls.
Some questions to inspire ideas:
Why do you hunt these dragons?
Did one of them take something from you or destroy someone or something you hold dear?
Are you a hunter who wants to pursue the ultimate prize?
Is there something of great power that you could make from their bones or flesh?
I’d like the group to have a way to travel. Maybe that is the main choice as we begin the game, is how do you chase these draconic monsters?
Your crew has…
…a Well of Worlds, beneath a tower on the tallest mountain. The world below was decimated when these ten dragons decided its end was nigh. Some say the monk who copied the scrolls you hold dear was born here and this world’s apocalypse was the price it paid.
…a skyship, originally made to hunt Forest Whales that fly above the Ocean Forest’s treetops, it was refitted to traverse the portals that lead from world to world (Inspired by the Serpent Gates books 1 and 2 by A.K. Larkwood).
…a Worlds Map, made by the Nomad Seers who walked across all of creation, drawing the most beautiful and detailed map of the worlds and the spheres’ movements across time (inspired by the Wanderers of Ashann from A Naturalist’s Guide to Talislanta).
Here’s how I would run this as straight-up Into the Odd. In the marginalia of the scrolls the monk writes a screed about how the Bastion’s leaders and elders refused to listen to his warnings, that the Underground isn’t ruins from a previous city but a complicated machine meant to hide Bastion and this world from the Venerable Dragon’s sight. But it is now broken beyond repair and the dragons will surely attack when they next wake. Decades ago the monk headed out into the Deep Country, hoping they might be lucky and perish before the attack occurs. “My hope is that these scrolls end up in the hands of someone with more bravery than I can muster.” I’d stat up each of the 10 dragons as a 16 HP Dragon.
If you use the idea I’d LOVE to hear about how it goes.
The Pitch: Today is your Leaveseeking Ceremony, where you will venture into the outside world for as long as you need and decide if there is something out there that rhymes with your truename. Or did your ancestors have the right of it, that the wonder in the world is eclipsed by its cruelty, better to find safety with your own people in this isolated mountain village.
You aren’t born evil because you were born of a certain race. You don’t, as a member of another race, have some manifest destiny to conquer and rule. And while there are certainly heroes and villains worthy of those titles, they are heroes or villains because of the choices they make.
I remember liking the Arcana Evolved hardcover and its weird fantasy Diamond Throne setting. When we started discussing it in an indie RPG slack I frequent, I realized I had put the books from the shelves to my desk, thinking that I might use them for a Tuesday Campaign Ideas post. I’ve got one other Campaign Ideas post about done and another outlined. I’m hoping to start a tradition. Anyway, back to Arcana Evolved…
The classes are just so cool: Akashic, Champion, Greenbond, Mage Blade, Magister, Oathsworn, Runethane, Totem Warrior (rename!), Unfettered, Warmain and Witch.
No priests, you see. Where were the gods when the Dramojh’s cruelty was raging?
Part of my is tempted to just grab the magic book and bestiary and play it in its original 3.5 ruleset. But with those rules, isn’t it silly to go with the human village rummspringa idea above? Isn’t part of the fun of 3.5 to choose race and class (ugh, RACE)?
Hence the human-centered starting point above, starting with a ceremony, a cornerstone of the setting. Delve into the weird with human eyes at first. As the characters enter into ceremonies with other folk and heritages across the setting, those folk become potential character types. Maybe you set your human villager aside while they train and pick up a verrick or litorian or giant. Perhaps you start playing one of these options because your human goes back to the village to settle down, having had enough of this world.
I like this set-up because the characters will learn about the setting with the players, no homework necessary. Of course I’m thinking about hacking at Into the Odd. Levels 1-3 and then you choose your class, gaining 4 HP per level, topping off at 12 HP, maximum for a person – dragons are 16 HP, of course. The training for the classes is vague in my mind, as is the magic system, but I bet we could do a Whitehack-like magic thing for the fluid and flexible magic from the later Grimoire supplements.
The first part of the Leaveseeking Ceremony is being able to walk through the village, going wherever you want and asking the elders about their Leaveseeking. What were their ambitions? What were their regrets? We’d flesh out the characters’ families and the world in one go, right at the first session and give the players enough information to make a decision about where they wanted to go.
Do you want to go up the mountain and see the Dramojh Fortress with your own eyes? Do you want to see the cruelty your ancestors survived that led them to founding this village and this ceremony?
Or do you want to venture out and find that lost cousin who graduated as a Magister and now serves a Giant Steward in the capital city? Your grandma has that sword above the fireplace and no one will talk about it but today is your Leaveseeking; she’ll talk about it today and tell you everything about her time leading an element of the Nightwalkers.
Or is it something farther and stranger? Is it the Floating Forest or the Harrowdeep or the God-King of the verrick that calls to you?
There is a big, strange world out there with lots of history and secrets. Let’s go.
The same trio could make it for our Thursday night game (a huge, for zoom, group that is usually made up of 6 + me). We continued with Psychic Tiger Fodder, hirelings stuck in the depths of a (mega)dungeon after the adventuring party that hired them were mauled by a psychic tiger. Jeb the Footpad, Taki and Tabouli along with Roddy the Shieldbearer and Gill the Wizard’s Apprentice. This time I remembered that Jeb has a domesticated mimic, a pet that he keeps as an extra enticing coin pouch on his belt. LINK: Previous session’s write up.
They went up a level this game and immediately levelled up without having to slow down the game (add d6 to hit points and roll d20 for each stat, +1 if you roll over). Easy-peasy. T asked if he’d eventually get Cleric powers from leveling, as his character was an Acolyte. I reckon we’ll get to level 3 (where Into the Odd tops out) and then figure out houserules for specialized training and the powers that might come with them.
They mugged the bandits on level 5 but let them keep their daggers and half their gold. All things considered (they had hit Taki with their Wand of Paralyzation and demanded everyone’s treasure be turned over before the tide of the encounter turned on them), that was pretty reasonable. When the bandits went down a level (the Psychic Tiger Fodder are trying to go UP and outta here) they heard blood-curdling screams from the stairwell down and ignored it – moving on.
They found a pile of detached thumbs with gold rings on them in a pile of bloody rags. The thumbs were fed to the domesticated mimic. Wait. WAIT! What is the pet mimic’s name? I must know. When they read off their list of treasures the gold rings are recited as, “The gold and wand we took from the bandits. And the gold rings we got off of those thumbs – probably cursed.”
NOTE: Sven is the pet mimic’s name.I messaged J, who plays Jeb the Footpad.
Jeb’s elf-dagger got nabbed by a metal statue’s magnetic pull, sticking to the statue’s body. When Jeb tried to get the dagger back, the statue animated and knocked him unconscious and when he tried again, under cover of Roddy the Shieldbearer’s shield, it broke Roddy’s ribs. Reluctantly, Jeb left the dagger there. There was no talk at all of taking the statue on to get the dagger back. Would it have gone differently if more STRENGTH checks had been failed and more weapons were stuck to the statue? We will never know.
Tabouli can see and talk to ghosts and so the dead gnome with a will-o-the-wisp eating its eye talked to him but didn’t take an immediately liking to him (failed WILL save). But when Tabouli asked if there was anything they could bring to the gnome ghost, Klambikurt (thank you, Fantasy Name Generator – Gnome Names), took a bit of a liking to him and told them that they weren’t 10 levels down but 3 levels down. Now they know how far they have to go.
We ended with Psychic Tiger Fodder bloodied but still standing after Jeb took a while to pick a lock with an arrow and skeletons with sharpened fingers but no thumbs wandered in and were dispatched. We know, from Tabouli talking to a half-elf ghost that there is some kind of art in the room to the north that drove him mad. We’ll start, there, in Room 3F, next time.
There is a kind of whimsy to it. It isn’t goofy but the situations and the things they run across bring a humor to it all, despite the fact that they are taking the premise seriously. I am going to have to think a bit about world building and what they are going to find if/when they get out of this dungeon.
Playing a game system that is dead simple with a dungeon zine that is SO EASY to read is a real pleasure. I’m really enjoying running this thing.
World of Dungeons by John Harper is a tiny pdf, 3 double-spread pages, a third of which is the stained character sheet printed twice. In that space you get enough rules to get started with the idea that as you go, you and your friends will be creating new moves as needed.
Northlands, Imperium, Regency, Xanathar & Islands, Uru & the Great Desert, Akhyra & Cythonis, with a list of evocative names under each. That right there is a setting. That is all anyone needs to get started. Daydream on that, write some names on a map, scrawl out a few rivers, some mountains, jot some symbol that means, “demon-haunted hole filled with treasure,” a few times and you are good to go.
Dangitall, there is even cosmology about True Names in there that I didn’t even remember until I pasted the page into my blog.
I think what I’ve learned in the process of writing this is I like my settings with more questions than answers.
What is the Regency? Is there a child-king ruled by a council of oligarchs? Will the oligarchs hand over power when the child comes of age?
The border where the Northlands meets the Imperium – is it open war? Feuding? Have the Northlands Jarls sworn oaths to the Empire?
Xanathar and Islands – why is the Imperium navy having trouble keeping its hold on the forts here?
Uru and the Great Desert – what remnants of a once worlds spanning government has its ancient ruins buried in these sands? What are the people like who call the Uru home and why has the Imperium kept its armies clear of them?
Ankhyra and Cythonis – what is the cultural link between these lands and the Imperium? What relationship did they have with the ancient people of Uru? What political conflict is causing civil war there now?
And I want those questions answered through play – if they are answered at all.
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