Death Comes Once More to the Grim North

As in everyone. Total party kill. Sounds dramatic but with only two player characters and one NPC fighter it was always on the table. 

Black Crow on a Tombstone, a cracking Satyricon track

Rufus Rose F3 and Tulip Roth T2 were in company with Lott the Humble when exploring a Ventari Reliquary to discover a chest full of cursed demon gold. For some reason throughout the session I found “reliquary” to be extremely hard to pronounce. In this instance it’s an architectural reliquary, so a dungeon.

They spoke to the half petrified four armed wolf demon but could not propose a way to lift the curse that was turning it slowly to stone; despite its offer of a boon in return if they could.

A secret door was discovered and beyond they encountered four red lesser demons with spiky dreads. After negotiations seem to have failed to get the demons to had over their chest of cursed gold, an attempt was made to kill them and take their stuff. It did not go well. 

Rufus was blinded by magic and Tulip hit with a critical in the first round. Many criticals and fumbles then ensued, and as is typical with these things a few more lucky rolls would’ve won the day for the PCs. Alas they were rendered unconscious and then eaten by demons. An ignominious end for a brave band. 

Although I forgot to mention it in game, I had rolled on the Grim Omens table at the start of the session and got “woman seen washing bloody clothing” which generally presages a violent death…

However, like good old school-ists everywhere we immediately got to rolling new characters and by the next session we will have switched from Swords&Wizardry to Crypts&Things Remastered, now with a Sorcerer and a Thief. 

Under new rules, the Grim North awaits. 

Unplanned Grim North

With one of our players having to miss the session last night we decided that the campaign was at a point where potentially crucial decisions might need to be made. Not good if you’re absent. 

So we decided to play some Grim North to pass the time, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not just because one of the PCs fell to her death. 

The advantage of running the GN at short notice is it’s a simple OSR game powered by random tables. It also allows for a certain amount of whimsy on my part that a more serious game of Dragin Warriors does not.

So we happened to pick up where we left off with Rufus Rose (a fighter) and Pansy (a thief) found themselves trapped on the wrong side of a sprung steel door, deep in the Undercity. They had originally headed down there to obtain the liver of a Ghost Snake for a wizard, which is a as good a reason as any. They fought some mole men, declined to investigate an underground ziggurat, Pansy fell to her death while trying to escape a cavern, Rufus teamed up with newcomer Tulip (also a thief) and they found a slew a Ghost Snake. They also recovered a fill-in-the-blanks death warrant, signed by the Autarch. 

I remain unhappy with the current process for generating Grim North characters. It needs something along the lines of WFRP’s careers alongside its basic class and level structure. These would help tie the characters to the setting, add a little bit of flavour and provide quick starting equipment. I’ll get round to it eventually but I’ve never really been one for making my own classes or mechanics or whatever. Hmm.

The fragility of 1st level Swords&Wizardry characters remains constant. Perhaps if Pansy/Tulip’s player chose a class that had more than 1d4 hit points it would help. 

However: 

Pandora Set (thief) killed in a tavern brawl after being hit over the head by a plank with a nail through it.

Calypso Seth (monk) killed in single combat with the champion of the Amphibious Gods despite having imbibed several “toad brews” and receiving associated mutations.

Pansy (thief) fell to her death while climbing down a chimney style passage in order to assist Rufus Rose in climbing up. 27 feet was her downfall. 

In this week’s Grim North…

No one at home but us creepy, murderous weirdos

As the players continue to explore the formerly abandoned Von Eirik mansion and evict the squatters they encountered…

A cultist from the Cult of the Supreme and Baleful Eye and his new acolytes performing a ritual in the master bedroom. They paused to burn the lead cultist and his armband of preserved human flesh in the abandoned out buildings.

A very clean but lost party goer in the laundry room who hd through a mix of laundry steam and powerful hallucinogenics got lost in a small space. He renounced his life of drugs and gave his remaining stash to the PCs. He warned them of a huge caterpillar “that sucks you dry, man”

In the kitchen were a number of chrysalises and a very old jar of pickles. Once they realised what the chrysalises were, they destroyed them. 

Raskog the mystical urchin found a Ventari spell that will allow him to summon a suit of demonic armour.

A musician attempting to bring back his entirely desiccated friends by playing a symphony originating with the death magicians of accursed Xidia, on a slightly out of tune piano. 

They recovered a tiny amount of silver, some candlesticks, a blowgun, some drugs, a cult style dagger, an ancient jar of pickles and some sheet music with runic titles. 

Good job the twelve year old heiress of the place is paying them to clear it out. 

How the (Grim) North Was Run

I have alluded in my previous posts about Carcosa and sort of thinking about Runequest, that I do not prep very much to run games. This is true. I’m not anti prep, I think having something ready to go for each session is valuable, no matter how good you are at improvising your sessions on the fly. The danger of too improvisational an approach being that you come to rely on the same twists and tricks to keep things moving. This can lead to games getting a bit samey from session to session. Yet the ability to improvise is essential. As Dave Morris commented to me on his blog ”no scenario should survive contact with the players.” So I prep but I expect to improvise.

When I prep stuff it’s either a short list of notes or some sort of tool. A table is a good example, or a quick map. Brief notes about an NPC or location, or how the various factions within the setting have progressed their plans. 

So in my Grim North game, how did this manifest? I’m glad I pretended that you asked...

The Grim North ran as a mostly weekly game over google hangouts with a rotating cast of players. It was designed to be a drop in when you can sort of game and I always stated I would run it if two or more players were available. Sometimes it ran twice a week if I thought there were too many people for one session but this maybe happened once or twice over the course of a year.

The central conceit of the game was that the PCs were based out of the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire in the gigantic fantasy city-state of Nox Aeterna. The proprietor of the House would offer a range of jobs to the PCs based on what paid work was available. Also there were weekly rumours to pursue and massive fantasy city (and wilderness beyond that) to  explore if they so chose. The idea was this would present a sandbox in which short, episodic adventures could take place and if a player missed a session, it wouldn’t matter too much. There was no overarching metaplot (gods forbid.)

This was my campaign pitch,  

The Grim North awaits. It is the Age of Samhain: The countless black spires of Nox Aeterna, City of Eternal Night, rest upon the ruins of a thousand forgotten civilisations. Insane patricians, bizarre cults and shadowy, eldritch forces all vie for power. Outside the walls, barbaric tribes war constantly with each other and the unforgiving winter. In dark, cobwebbed forests and haunted ruins, stalk malign beasts who want you dead and hordes of weird goblins steeped in slaughter and madness. This is old school D&D, where great dangers yield great rewards and a glorious death; or a ignominious demise, penniless, bleeding out on the snow.

I’m not sure I’m as happy with it now as I was at the time. Certainly there are no goblins in the Grim North these days but that is one of those things that in games grow through play.

So from the GMs side, at first, I leaned heavily on Vornheim to run the city but as I slowly added more of my own tables and quirks to the place it began to take on a life of its own. The influences I was trying to draw on were Lankhmar, Megacity One, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the film Dark City but generally it often felt as though I was channeling Ankh Morpork (unsurprisingly I 
suppose, it does parody many of the same influences.) In naming some of the districts I strived to give each a distinct flavour, done with the hackneyed device of assigning regional quirks to them. Although there was no Thieves Guild, rival crews owned turf in various districts and were randomly generated off a table I devised to name them. They’re more like the gangs from the Warriors than anything else.

The ruling class of Patricians were supposedly all insane through inbreeding and being descended from ancient families whose origins pre date the modern city. As a result the table of Patricians included a list of random “insanities” although many of these simply resulted in weird or eccentric behaviour. I added tables for omens, weather (it’s snowing... moderately) and weird occurrences. There are random NPC Mercenaries from the House to act as hirelings and a table to generate cults (just their names really but it worked fine.) There is also a ridiculously over arcane table to generate Rekkar barbarian names and a better one to generate some tribe names for them to belong to.

That’s sort of it really. Come up with a couple of rumours and jobs (attach these to various locations within the city,)  make a few random rolls before the session and set the PCs loose to do what they want. 

Oh and improvise wildly. That’s important.

Why I Will Probably Never Play Runequest, and some rambling

I’ve come to two conclusions recently:

I like rules light and I’m low prep. Super low prep. Mostly none. 

I think I’m too lazy for crunchy games (caveat, for a given value of crunch, some GURPs players might think my bar for such things is set pretty low) Or maybe I don’t have enough time. However the same pattern tends to emerge. I get the bug for Runequest (largely from listening to the Grognard Files podcast, which is excellent) or WHFRP, I read about it, begin to fear the sheer weight of rules and flee back to the comforting arms of Swords & Wizardry or Dragon Warriors. Not that I don’t feel these systems have their problems, I can however run either without any reference to the books in terms of rules. Now, I accept that these are the games that I am most familiar with and if I were to bite the bullet and actually run some Stormbringer 1st edition (like I secretly want to) then I might get to a point where it is as easy for me to handle as my beloved S&W: White Box. If.

The weight of the new is a terrible thing however. Runequest comes complete with the behemoth Glorantha attached. A huge draw to the game, not many fantasy settings are as widely realised nor carry such depth. That being a double edged sword however. I know next to nothing about it. I don’t even know if I know enough to know how much I don’t know. Before I descend into Casanova Frankenstein territory, that is a bit of a stumbling block that I’m sure is not only relevant to me. So when you add unfamiliar rules and an unfamiliar setting we get to the demon of DMing: Prep.

If I have to do more to prep for a session than stare out of the window for five minutes, that is too much. I’m busy. I have an irregular schedule. Work strange hours. I juggle lots of things socially. So does everyone else. I’m not whinging about these things. They are just facts. My gaming time, no matter how much I enjoy it, is limited (currently non existent.) So Glorantha or Tekumel or Talislanta , as much as I would love to learn about them, are beyond my means in terms of time. I need a setting that just sits perfectly in my imagination space, I believe other people call this their brain. So Legend, the Dragon Warriors setting, is a good example of this for me. It draws heavily on the same influences that I had as a child. I loved Robin of Sherwood on ITV and so did Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, the creators of the game. Also as I first picked it up as a snot nosed minor and it has lived in my imagination for a long time. I mean, I used to be able to look out of my bedroom window in North Yorkshire and see bleak moors and dark, cobwebbed forests. It’s not a great mental leap to fill those forests with mystery or be scared of what might be lurking in the mists on those moors..

The Grim North (see practically every other post on this blog) is a similar situation for me. As a setting, it is grown out of influences and decisions I made specifically to run a D&D campaign. My dislike for clerics and demi humans as playable races are heavily evident (Although originally I had planned to include such things to provide a familiar environment for players, I binned them. It hasn’t proved to be a problem.) As a result it draws in all the things I think are good influences for some old school D&D. Particularly a game played over google hangouts with a semi rotating cast of players. It’s a sword and sorcery setting, it has a particular aesthetic that I find easy to call up and work with. Another blogger, I forget who but would be happy to be reminded, stated that posts of random setting notes or influences act like magic spells a GM can read to instantly invoke the required mindset to run that game. That’s important I think. When my head is in the right place for a game is when it tends to sing. Players doing standard player things, like going off in unforeseen directions and deciding on courses of action that there is no prepared material for, are easier to cope with. Indeed this is where the fun of running a game is, even if it can seem daunting at times.

So no Runequest for me, at least until I enter retirement and my projected gaming renaissance. It looks really cool though...

Children are Like People but Smaller: White Box hangouts 10

Mole men. Dem claws.

Brian; Roc the Literate/Butcher, lvl 1 fighter

Paul; Alvis of the Blessed Horn, lvl1 mystic

A session in which there was discussion of hunting the mythical white alligator or returning to the abandoned mansion from session 1, the return of the Old Woman, her hut being located in the stilt district, reckless children had entered the sewers to hint mole men for the bounty on their ears, cheese magic was performed once more and a sense of a malevolent, pulsing force detected beneath the streets. Reinforcements were hired from the House, Asha the Greatswordswoman and Orric of the Deer Horn Knives stepped up.

Entry to the tunnels was found via a well, Orric's stories were long winded and painfully detailed. Tunnels connected to sewers connected to caverns, a one armed toy bear was rescued, Alvis explored a strange crack in the wall and came face to face with the carved stone likeness of some three eyed, shark toothed entity, a choice of three tunnels presented itself, one marked by the carving of a stone elephants head, a child was found, she had curly hair, the mole men struck from ambush and were in turn ambushed by the vicious and scarily competent children, ears were taken, Orric bored a mole man to death on a natural 20, players rolled well, the GM did not, three strange pillars from a bygone age were investigated. 

A further mole man dressed in a blue robe was discovered speaking in hushed tones with a patrician male, a further battle ensued as more mole men burst from their burrows, a demon mole mask was employed to breathe poison gas onto Alvis who was rendered unconscious but survived with a permanent loss of constitution, Roc slew many mole men and they were were defeated but the blue robed one and the patrician escaped. Alvis used his pack of playing cards depicting political figures from ten years ago to identify the patrician as bearing a family resemblance to the Von Valians. 

On the return to the surface the Old woman was nowhere to be found so all returned to the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire to divvy up the bounty on mole man ears, including the children taking their share, and receive a pouch of silver and a strange gourd each containing a bizarre liquid that smelled ever so faintly of cheese.

Enough XP was earned that both Roc and Alvis finally achieved the lofty heights of level 2 and much rejoicing took place.

The Mausoleum Break In

Played over 2 sessions

Brian, Roc level 1 Fighter

Mick, Vayne level 2 Bard (1st session only)

David, Pithe level 1 Thief

Chris, Cormac level 1 Magic User

In a break from my usual format I'm quoting from Brian Wille's posts to the G+ Grim North community  about both sessions and tacking on some GM commentary at the end. 

Mausoleums. Creepy.

Session 1

"Some good quotes from the night:

"Those dead people don't pose themselves. Quite the opposite actually!"

>PowerrrVaxx, Lesser Demon, Least of His Kind, tugging on the robe of Cormack, the Mighty Sorcerer:  ...I'm going now.

>Cormack: Good.

It was snowing heavily in the Grim North, it pretty much always is. In the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire it was dark and smoky. The place is run by Dek, an ex pit fighter and mercenary, so when we showed up looking for work he offered us a few jobs. We took:

Investigation of a mausoleum that had been broken into.

We also learned there had been an increase in trouble from the Mole Men, and there is currently a 2p/per ear bounty on them!

Informed by our patron for the job, a rich merchant from a good family named Envolio, that he'd seen the door to the mausoleum broken in. He wanted us to find out who had broken in, and why.

We traveled from the Docks District, to the White Weasel Tavern in the Merchant District. Then through the Bridge District, to the Dead City. Every trip took about 45 minutes, and we had to pay a toll to cross the bridge.

We passed a circular stone table in the cemetery with odd, ancient runes on it. Our hardcore investigation of the mausoleum revealed a secret door in the back, but we couldn't figure out how to get it open.

On the way back to report to Envolio, we passed some mangy wild dogs chewing on a corpse. We foolishly irritated them and had a big fight on our hands. Finally killing them, we found a good-quality map of the entire region, in a nice wooden box.

We only got partial payment, so we're resting and gearing up for another assault on the House of the Dead."

Pithe: "We ignore them"

Session 2

"A  Surfeit of Lampreys!

Words of Wisdom from our Thief:  "Better ridiculous than dead."

We got right down to business and arranged to meet the Dockside Boys in a nearby bar to hire some muscle. Some muscle for to knock down the secret door that we, with all our advanced degrees in rpgs and accumulated years of experience, could not figure out how to open.

The Grotesque Caw was a dive but you could volunteer to grapple & box for beer and bets. So I volunteered and it was fun, exciting, and cracked me the hell up! Also, I won, but it was a close thing. I think the rules were thus:

1)  Roll initiative

2)  If punching, roll to hit vs AC 12, for 1hp subdual dmg

3)   If grappling, roll UNDER your STR, but as high as possible w/out going over

4)  If successful grapple, roll again OVER your STR (a saving throw) to keep your hold. State your cool wrestling move!

5)  Grapple successfully next round, and you win! State your cool finishing move!

In practice there was a lot of back-and-forth, and your friends (and his) can throw beer to influence the fight. A lot of beer got thrown, I was soaked the rest of the night.

It turns out the City of Nox Eterna has no Thieves Guild, but it does have gangs. Kind of like in the movie "Warriors" but the outfits not so extreme. Supposedly, because we met the Dockside Boys, and they were dressed in children's versions of seaman's uniforms, like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

They looked insane but they were pro, and we soon had our wrecking crew hired. Before long we had them smashing at the secret door in the mausoleum, and lo a stairwell was revealed. The crew was irate from working hard so our Thief gave them a rest and they broke out some biscuits.

Down below was horror and writhing lampreys and dark ichor and infected living and embalmed corpses and the temple of a hideous entity. It was bad. After some investigation and experimentation by our mad-scientist Sorcerer, we decided to burn it with fire, all of it. The memories remain though.

It was enough to get us paid up in full, although the fat merchant Envolio gave us a hard time about not tracking down the cultists and burning down his family's mausoleum, with all his ancestors inside. We we did the right thing though. Oh yes we did."

My notes on both sessions:

The Secret Door

This was frustrating for the players. They found the door but couldn't find the mechanism by which it opened. There were a number of ways they could've solved this issue and they chose to hire some big, strong lads with pick axes to break through it. This would be more of an issue in a dungeon environment when it would involve trekking back to the nearest town or whatever but in the city it meant finding some local disreputable types with access to breaking gear.

The Dogs

Despite the attempt of the party's thief to walk past the four feral dogs chewing on the corpse in the alleyway, curiosity got the better of one of his companions and it turned into a scrap. Inventive use of flaming oil to try and ward off the attacking dogs left me having to make a ruling: How effective was it? I got the player to pick a die of his choice and roll, the higher the roll the better the result. Brian rolled a one on his d12. Dave's thief ended up getting bitten and also failing a saving throw, leaving everyone believing that he has contracted rabies although as yet he exhibits no symptoms. They did loot a sweet map of the area outside the city in a nice scroll case from the corpse though.

Like this but with beer throwing

The Wrestling

Wrestling and grappling rules are often a huge pain in the arse. I think this is because either no one really cares how they work so they seem unrealistic; or they care too much how they work, having some real life experience in the field, and they become too complicated. As this was a sporting contest rather than a fight to the death it seemed appropriate that the rules reflect this i.e. To win you must knock down your opponent. 

Then the mechanics.:

Punching resolved as a hit roll against AC 12 to reflect the duelling nature of the bout. Damage is 1 hit point per punch, and is sub dual rather than lethal. Reducing your opponent to zero knocks them out and wins you the bout. If you win initiate and strike your opponent before they attempt to grapple, they roll to hit at -1 that round. You may not strike once grappled.

Wrestling resolved as a hit roll again against AC 12 but then decided by contested Strength rolls in a roll high under fashion. So if you have Str 12 you need to roll on or under that, closer to 12 the better. Both wrestlers roll, if both succeed the highest roll wins. The initiator of wresting gets a one round +1 to Str for this roll. 

The winner gains an advantage in grip or whatever (which they can name with whatever ridiculous label they wish, Namibian Reverse Nelson, Peruvian Leg Tie etc.) 

This contest is repeated. Two consecutive wins means you throw your opponent and win the bout. If you have the advantage but lose the second contest, you lose the advantage.

Audience participation: Your friends and supporters may legally interfere by throwing beer either on you or your opponent. They must purchase the beers before the bout begins. They roll to hit against AC 12 and a success indicates they may allow either +1 to you, -1 to your opponent (in an opposed roll this applies to you Str rather than the die roll), or a saving throw to break your opponent's grip if grappled.

Hook Worms. Nasty.

The Shrine

When the main focus of the secret shrine you discover underneath someone's family mausoleum is a statue of a man who has a long, winding hookworm instead of a head then immediately judgements are made. When you add in a huge brass bowl full of worm infested black slime, moaning catatonic people locked in a room, another side room where weird grape like objects are hung from racks then the general response was that something bad was going on. This is not to mention the rows of pews that feature the embalmed corpses of the poor, now fixed into place as a silent congregation.

Rather than make this a set piece encounter with whoever populated this place I randomised their chances of being there prior to the PCs, arriving while they were snooping around etc. The dice were rolled repeatedly, and the shrine remained deserted.

After some rather cautious investigation, it was decided that some sort of nefarious evil was taking place. The PCs concluded it was better to live to collect their fee rather than disturb something awful and die in the pursuit of phat loots. So the expensive silk wall hangings were used as fuel for the fire that gutted the shrine and the mausoleum above.

I strive to stage my games so this balance between risk and reward is an actual thing. If you spend hours turning the chaotic shrine upside down in the pursuit of silver then chances are you will find it but it won't be the only thing you find. Playing it safe might yield less treasure, and therefore less XP, but also you increase your chances of living to spend it and maybe even level up. There are other considerations too. When a slightly different group encountered Otter cultists in the sewers they attacked immediately and ultimately gained a decent haul out of it. However it cost one character death and perhaps earned the survivors the eternal enmity of the remainder of the cult.  

Grim North: Dragonmeet Edition

Beards: Cool until they want you dead

Rogues Gallery:

Pahn McDohl, lvl 1 fighter
Wister, lvl 1 fighter
Ottsa, lvl 1 mystic and former Otter cultist
Andy's lvl 1 thief who I can't remember the name of...

In which a team from the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire investigated the claims of Cilk Von Herrick. A patrician who having defeated a rival in a beard growing contest now believed his beard was sentient and trying to kill him.

A return to the butchers saw the PCs become freelance debt collectors for the Butcher's Guild. Each pinned a piece of chicken skin to their chest as a sign of office. The Fizzing Stone public house in the Patrician District was visited, where the owner keeps three pet wolves in the bar and yet it is still a high class establishment. Cilk Von Herrick turned out to be a drunk in possession of an enormous beard who would not deign to speak to the PCs directly but only via his manservant.

Ottsa used her mystic powers and detected hostile magic on the beard. Andy's thief cut a lock from the beard causing Von Herrick actual physical pain. In the stables the beard was combed for evidence, finding only a family of doormice, before being plaited for ease of transportation.

Religious instruction was sought at the Cathedral of the Aeternal Lords. A clandestine meeting with a priest in the crypts below lead to heading North across the city to the Necropolis, passing through the Merchant District and the District of Bridges on the way.

Fortunes were told. Von Herrick's movements had to be lubricated with the application of lots of wine.

In the necropolis strange, grey robed priests arranged the embalmed dead in scenes from life, such as a card game and watching a parade.

They met the wizard Oraculees, who was wizened but with giant eyes, and his stunted servant Maximillian. Some ate a turkey that had been served for a dinner party of the dead.

Wister paid the wizard's price of three cups of blood. Oraculees consulted the Book of Beards. He deemed that a demon should be summoned and a sacrifice was needed. Without hesitation Pahn offered the patrician's slaves but it turned out only a chicken was needed. One of the relieved slaves was sent off with some silver to buy a chicken.

And there we finished as time was drawing on.

White Box Hangouts 5: The Blue Otter Cult

In the terrace district Ram, the thief, picked the pocket of a victorious scorpion trainer in the Bell and Scorpion tavern (recovering 30 silver pennies and some minced hedgehog.)

Was the drunk old ex sewer watchman really telling the truth about the white alligators in the sewers? A white alligator skin could be worth a few silver pennies to the right patrician and a live specimen would fetch a decent price on the bizarre pets market.

So, willing to try their hand at anything that pays the PCs became sceptical alligator hunters and headed into the sewers.

They encountered the Sewer Watch. They battled cannibal mole men. The party's fighter, Pahn, coming so close to death that seasoning was applied to his unconscious body. Fortunately Vayne the bard stepped in with one of his many natural twenties. Decapitation and the hundred cut method proving the end for two of his adversaries.

No XP was awarded for puns.

Finding the secret idol of the Otter God, He Who is Both Furry and Yet Ferocious, they immediately attacked his cultists. Outnumbered, things were going ok until Ram took a sacrificial dagger to the chest on another Nat 20 and died. The cultists exclaimed this as a sacrifice to their God but her dying words were "I am not a virgin...."

Furious further natural twentying from Vayne and consistent spear work from Pahn left the remaining three cultists with no option but to surrender.

The cult leader unmasked and proclaimed herself an ex-cultist. She now wished to side with obviously superior mercenaries, and conveniently turned out to be a mystic and also Ram's player's new character. As a token of good faith she lead her new compatriots to the cult's hoard of otter themed silver jewellery.

They returned to the house of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire to fence the silver and divvy up the spoils and XP.

White Box Hangouts 4: The Hallowed Eve

I wrote a summary of Wednesday night's game but Paul C who plays Alvis the Mystic posted this to G+ in the style I used for previous write ups and it was better than mine so I stole it...

Not the Lord of Sorrows but suitable.

Paul wrote:

"Just played in another awesome session of the Grim North with monkiest2 as GM. Truly amazing adventure with cheese magic, choking mist, "teachers" looking for children,gloomy monolinths, a bard who is always right, a thief who can read lips, creepy children, dimensionally unstable demons, true love, a terrifying chase through the streets, a haunting spectre of a horseman and reaching HQ in the nick of time. All around class session of thrills and chills aplenty."

Some notes about the session:

Cheese magic. Tyromancy had been bandied about on G+ earlier in the day as useful piece of obsolete vocabulary, being a method of divination by reading signs in the coagulation of cheese. I liked it and immediately stole this as the means by which the Old Woman could introduce some lore about the various supernatural threats of the Feast of Hallowed Eve. Not least The Lord of Sorrows, who would arrive at midnight on his blood red horse to claim those still on the streets of the city, deemed to be given over to the realm of despair.

The Rolling of 3. During the Hallowed Eve the number three is sacred to The Lord of Sorrows. Anytime a three was rolled by any of the players on any die, he was drawn closer to the material realm. With most of the rolls in White Box being d20 and d6 there were quite a lot of natural threes rolled, eight in total. This resulted in the premature summoning of The Lord of Sorrows himself and the characters having to run for their very souls.

The tapping on the walls of reality. On the Hallowed Eve the walls of reality grow thin and horrors from the Outer Dark try to force their way into the world. This manifested as the sound on metal tapping on glass "Tap, tap, tap" which the PCs could hear every time things went quiet. Answering the tapping in kind, on a black marble monolith as it happened, resulted in a whispered voice saying "Let me in."

The Girl with No Eyes. Encountering a child with her eyes gouged out is just creepy, especially when she keeps disappearing. Her rag doll that the PCs were in possession of for a bit also had no eyes.

The battle. When Vayne the Bard invited the eldritch hordes of the Outer Dark to "Come on in" I rolled on the d6 random least demons table I had prepared for the game. They faced six floating ammonites with glowing green tentacles and black shells composed the twisted, fossilised, shrunken faces of the screaming dead. These were eventually defeated although Silent Silvie the Acrobat rolled appallingly, Vayne the Bard would have been horrifically injured if not for Alvis's mystic healing and Ram the Thief nearly died. Reduced to negative one hit points she was on her way out.
Vayne: "There must be some way I can stop her dying"
Me: "How exactly are you going to do that?" Knowing that there were no mechanical options open to the party.
Vayne: "True love's kiss."
Me: "Ha ok, I'll allow it." And so she did not die.

The session was planned around several independent supernatural threats which were then inexpertly interwoven with a simple fetch quest to recover some lost children in a park. I was pleased with how it turned out, good players making the game very enjoyable to run and they didn't even encounter the Tatterwitch and her pumpkin demon, any of the soul burned Black Magicians or the Cold Dead. Maybe next Hallowed Eve...

White Box Hangouts 3: "This Is Not An Adventure, it's A Pub Crawl"

I am the god of hellfire and I bring you...

 It was dark and smoky in the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for hire. Dramatis Personae: Silvie, an acrobat, and Alvis, a mystic. Refusing to enter the sewers at any cost, the PCs decided to investigate what happened to Dek's missing beer delivery. Especially as it came from an old mercenary buddy of his from back in the day, Gorm, who had retired from the killing business and set up the Black Cow Brewery in the Canal district.

In heavy snow, the ruin of a brewery was found to be still smoking, clocks were examined and granary proprietors questioned, a trip to the Bleak Elephant public house yielded no trace of Gorm but beer was drunk out of horns, an eavesdropper was discovered and chased through back alleys, he was subdued by skilful flail work, a recipe for scones and information were extracted from him, the Alleyway Brotherhood were implicated, further investigation took place, the PCs were menaced by a small but vicious dog, a trip to the Pig and Barrel was proposed, a loud religious song and dance was performed, a wall was surreptitiously vaulted, incautious running caused a heavily burned floor to cave in, acrobatics saved the day but no one was around to see, Gorm was recovered from the smoking ruins of his brewery, there was planning, the mothman was seen flitting between rooftops but he spoke to no one, there was reconnaissance, mulled wine was deemed to be too expensive, a map was drawn in ale, the Battle of Five Dials was fought, a flask of oil was hurled into the canal (non intentionally,) surprise was not gained but initiative was, sling stones careered wildly out of the darkness, mystic powers were used, Marius the duelist proved to be a fearsome ally, Alvis took a club to the head and had a brief nap, there was "friendly fire" only with clubs, the Alleyway Brotherhood was warned off but only after a large woman urinated directly into a thief's face, victory was celebrated, heavy drinking was deemed to be the best thing for a serious head injury, a weird ebony and silver animal skull was recovered, silver looted from thieves was shared fairly with NPCs! Dek and Gorm were grateful and promised favours and the waiving of the fee on any future House jobs.

Another enjoyable session. Thanks to Eric and Paul who were exemplary players.

The City of Pallid Masks - Actual Play

The City of Pallid Masks

With seven (count them, SEVEN, players,) most of them new to the old school, this was the first session of a foray into my reskinned version of B4 The Lost City.

Following the horrific snow storm that engulfed their caravan the PCs found themselves exploring a strange black ziggurat that towered above the rubble of a ruined city. It was topped by three giant statues. Statues of three forgotten gods.

A dead man/ape hybrid, with fearsome tusks, was blocking open a secret door into the structure. A crossbow bolt in it's chest from a triggered trap....

After much explanation that in Swords and Wizardry (Complete) 1st level mages really do only get one spell and some misfortune around traps, proper old school play started to kick in. Ten foot poles. Doors smashed of their hinges with hammers. That sort of thing.

An encounter with a lizard wolf put the frighteners on them after one fighter nearly died but in finding the Sacred Band of Gerrain they learned of the existence of the under city, the names of the three gods and their followers and the new, dark god who had caused the downfall of the civilisation that surrounded them. Its people had turned to drug use and human sacrifice, descending into a narcotic fuelled unreality. The Sacred Band stated they were searching for the sword of their god, "Remorse" which they believed had been taken by the Magi of Usamigaras, the elephant headed deity of medicine and sorcery, and was somewhere within the pyramid.

Two of the party's fighters and their ranger joined the Sacred Band and were gifted with their ivory masks and anointed with their oily musk (sounds weirder than it is,) swearing to uphold the ways of Gerrain and find the sword so they could defeat the new god from the Outer Dark, Oth Talos.

Could it be that one of the party's mages accidentally partook of the dream some found on a dead native? He certainly started to behave weirdly enough.

On their way to the next lower level of the pyramid they encountered more locals, this time dressed as birds who squawked at them and bid them fly away with them, cursing them for land locked fools when they refused. Off they sped, flapping their arms.

Eventually they found some stairs down and, with some trepidation, headed deeper into the ziggurat...

Character Creation Guide for White Box Hangouts in the Grim North

It occurs to me that a character generation guide for my White Box hangouts game, which is going really well (thanks for asking,) would probably be useful.

So, for those who do not wish to spend the first five minutes of the hangout on character generation (always an option)....

For stats roll 3d6 in order. Average range is 7-14 above or below that is +/-1. Strength bonus only applies to fighters.

Class choices:

Fighter, by the book

Magic User, the same

Mystic, a reskinned cleric. Is a seeker of enlightenment in the mortal world not a worshipper of a specific deity or pantheon, more akin to a zen Buddhist.  Uses cleric advancement tables for XP, hp, attack bonus and saves. May use blunt weapons only and wear up to chain mail and use a shield. Has psychic powers that reflect the cleric spell list except that a mystic does not need to memorise spells in a Vancian fashion. He or she may select from the list of mystic powers they are trained in according to their available power slots. At first level they have one first level power slot. They may not turn undead.

Thief, uses James Spahn's Whitebox Companion as a template. Thievery is initially 2 in 6 for most tasks but 4 in 6 for climb walls.

Ranger, as Whitebox Companion

Bard, (if you must) as Whitebox Companion

Acrobat, as White box companion 2

Barbarian, as White box companion 2

Duelist, as Whitebox companion 2 except bonus while wielding a sword is +1

All characters start with max hit points at 1st level, so 6. Or, if a fighter, ranger, barbarian or duelist it's 7.

Race choices: None. Humans are the only PC race in this setting

Equipment

Starting characters may choose

Appropriate weaponry, the carriage of more than two weapons and a dagger is considered inappropriate

Appropriate armour, although no starting PC may possess plate mail

One of these equipment bundles

Either,

Backpack, large sack, lantern, 2 flasks of oil, tinderbox, 12 iron spikes, small hammer, water skin, normal rations, 5 silver pennies

Or,

Backpack, 2 large sacks, 6 torches, 3 oil flasks, tinderbox, 10' pole, 50' rope, water skin, normal rations, mirror

Or,

Backpack, 4 small sacks, thieves tools or holy water, 12 iron spikes, 50' rope, water skin, normal rations

Characters desperate for further equipment items can explain their rationale to the GM in the hangout and are subject to a case by case ruling. (Although so far this has not been an issue.)

The setting uses a silver standard where the main currency is silver pennies.

This document will almost certainly be subject to major revisions at a later date.

White Box Hangouts Game Session 2: "Comedy Side Quest"

With only two PCs this week, Tam Tenfingers and Pahn McDohl, the exploration of the upper floor of the Creepy old Von Keinlin place was deferred in favour of "a comedy side quest." 

 

Pretty accurate representation of the figurine itself

In the dark and smoky confines of the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire, the guys partook of the "cans only" bar and chatted to some barbarians. This resulted in a trip to the Stilt District, drinking stout in the Broken Hare with another barbarian mercenary, learning the Von Keinlin's were up to their necks in the intrigue and violence of Aeternian politics, back to the HoMS&BFH to meet their prospective new employer, being exposed to poor haggling and worse tradecraft, agreeing to meet a man in the Night Gardens while wearing a yellow ribbon and speaking the phrase "The swallow flies at moonlight," expecting to hear "but only under the Bridge of Deepest Sighs" in return, being hired to steal back a demon figurine made of clay with dubious value as a family heirloom, crossing the Paupers' Bridge to the North bank of the Skarrion, a recce of the Green Beaver public house where Barniman's golden ale was served and prize fighting the entertainment, confusion arising over the exact definition of a "Docker Boy," an exchange of information and secrecy for silver, being mistaken for minstrels, tangling with the Blackthorn Boys, the Disciples of the Forbidden Ark and the slightly inebriated Night Watch all at the same time in a four way bar room brawl, a fake headbut, a surreptitious pat down, tables and beers going everywhere, a partially successful WWE style cross body tackle, figurines rolling about on the floor and being repeatedly snatched out of people's hands, slow motion dives, boots put in to downed opponents, a rugby tackle and a suplex, a mid fight bribe, the deliberate smashing of a clay demon figurine and then spitting on it, loud complaining about said smashing, and finally making a run for it while everyone else was still arguing, getting clean away.

The Grim North Inaugural Hangouts Game: The Butcher Boys

Weird looking abandoned manor house based fun

It was snowing in the Grim North, it pretty much always is. In the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire it was dark and smoky. The place is run by Dek, an ex pit fighter and mercenary, so when four itinerant misfits turned up looking for work he offered them what information he thought they might useful. Some old sewer watchman was raving about seeing white alligators beneath the city. The Von Keinlin family had not been seen for ages and now there were weird lights and noises coming from their house at night. Some patrician's servant had been poking around trying to source a group for an object retrieval somewhere in the city.

What followed was a festival of meat delivery, dead horses, a missing horses head (location unknown,) listening at doors, pushing to front of queues, knocking ominously on doors, attempting to barge doors down and failing, successfully thieving doors open (but then Tam Tenfingers is the second best thief in the city, self acclaimed), finding something gruesome in the kitchen, stabbing it repeatedly with a spear to little effect, resolving to come back later and burn it with the intention of putting it out of its misery, pushing over a perfectly innocent suit of armour (loudly), finding a corpse in the cellar, finding another corpse in the armoury (well, chewed bits of one), recovering a grand total of thirty five silver pieces, discovering what appeared to be a summoning ritual gone wrong, torch throwing at a sub Olympic level, a would be summoner burned out from the inside, what can only be described as quite a lot of snails, a weird glowing circle inscribed on the floor, some books also burned through from the middle, and no one has gone upstairs in the Manor House, entered the detached tower or explored the rock garden.

Good times.

Whitefen, a Frozen Swamp

The swampy region of the Grim North is known as Whitefen. 

Home to the Warlock of Whitefen. Fentrolls. Batrachian Frog folk and their king, Ranirex. Giant frogs, killer newts, and frosty salamanders. Worgs. Goblin toad riders. The black dragon, Ennithraz. Bog mummy. Witch lights. The lost ruins of Fenhall Keep. The Temple of the Frog God (can't really have a swamp without one). Wereboar. Fen peasants, untrustworthy. The fenranger. Quicksand. Doppelgänger. Hang man tree. Bats. The Hobfroglin. The Fen Hydra. The Flickering Fortress.

Needs flesh on these bones.

The Raid on the Shrine of the Many Legged God

The PCs are currently based in the city of Karn, taking room and board at the Broken Ram. The landlord steered them in the direction of a mysterious woman known as the Information Broker, who operates at the rear of a slaughterhouse. Trading what little they knew, and some silver, they acquired directions to a recently reoccupied shrine out in the wasteland. After all, where there is religion, there is cash. Also they questioned her about the tattoos some of them had been given when drugged and captured by slavers.

They hired a spearman, Rolv, to accompany them for three days and set off into the wilderness.

A quick roll on the omens table gave "a found object," which I decided was a shiny copper penny. Pocketed by the former wasteland marauder stating " a lucky penny...."

Out in the wilderness they encountered a weird covered bridge that didn't actually span anything. It was just lying there. It was clearly built by the ancients but how it came to be there was anyone's guess.

They carried out the raid at night, figuring anyone in the shrine would be asleep or at a mass or some sort of ritual. The door held the ominous engraving "The House of the Many Legged God."

The raid itself was the guys finding the Champion of The Lord of One Hundred Things. Stripped to the waist and bearing a hundred centipede tattoos, in addition to his hugely ornate flail. After some challenges and tactical manoeuvring the fighter mage lunged in with his longsword and delivered a mighty one point of damage. The Champion retaliated by flailing him between the eyes for a solid eight hit points and a trip to the afterlife of his choice. Undeterred the marauder and Rolv the spearman leapt into the fray. Rolv's second spear thrust did the trick, piercing the Champion's chest for max damage and putting him down. They were so excited to loot their former comrade's body they nearly forgot to steal the ex-Champion's flail and silver centipede arm ring.

Inspecting a statue of a twenty foot long centipede the cowardly mage greedily attempted to pry out its gemstone eyes only to have its stone forcipules close on his arm for three points. Now even more cowardly, he temporarily forgot his greed and wished to flee the shrine entirely. The surviving marauder reluctantly agreed while the fighter mage's player started rolling up his new character.

Hiding outside the shrine they saw signs of pursuit so the greedy mage used his sleep spell, in a most cowardly fashion, to put them down. They then applied the customary throat cuttings and stole their pursuers silver centipede holy symbols.

They re-entered the shrine, explored a bit and fought some giant centipedes that attacked from the ceiling. They also found a captured paladin in a holding cell, awaiting his doom, who was all too keen to be freed so he could join up and complete his goal of cleansing the place of these vile centipede cultists.

Finally, they interrupted a ritual where one cultist was restraining another on an altar while the high priest was holding a giant centipede to his chest for the purposes of it biting him. The bitten cultist rushed the PCs, while the second cultist ran for a portcullis that if opened would unleash a centauripede. Rolv's thrown spear took him in the back before he could free it, and earned him the name Rolv Spearslayer, as the cultist fell to another max damage roll from the hireling. The bitten cultist quickly fell to the blades of the marauder and the paladin, centipede poison not exactly falling into the category of performance enhancing drugs. The high priest proved to be more of a problem but largely because he levitated twenty feet in the air and the party nearly ran out of things to throw at him. His darkness spells, magic missiles and thrown centipedes not really cutting the mustard against these determined warriors.

They looted some silver coins from under the altar (naturally) and made off with the high priests ornate centipede necklace, which was the  most valuable treasure in the place. They eyed up the large opal around the neck of the centauripede but thought better of setting it free because it simply looked too dangerous.

Then it was back to Karn for fencing jewellery, dividing the spoils and calculating experience. Quite a few of the silver coins were stamped with a centipede design, let's hope that there are no cultists in the city who might take umbrage with the sack of their god's shrine....

Player's map

My map

d100 Legs, or the Cult of the Centipede!

A lot of love is given to giant spiders and serpents in the sword and sorcery world. They're classic foes it would seem and play on those primeval fears. Everything from Conan to Lord of the Rings has them in the literature, they're even in Harry Potter. I fully intend to use them in my post magical apocalypse setting (which clearly needs a snappier name) but also I want something a bit different too.

Centipedes. Yes that's right, centipedes are the new spiders. Sort of.

Aaaargh! Run for your lives!

Having recently read Rafael Chandler's excellent Obscene Serpent Religion (which I recommend wholeheartedly) I hit on the idea of a centipede cult. The cult of the Many Legged God, or The Lord of One Hundred Things, as he is known.

One of the themes of the setting is that there are no "True Gods" necessarily. There are an almost limitless number of gods worshipped, some are real beings or creatures and others simply idols or fictional ideas. Either way, there is not much in the way of confirmation, only faith. However, I digress slightly.

Cultists of the Centipede God would carry out blasphemous rites using the four listed types of giant centipede in the S&W monsters chapter; cast centipede related spells; be obsessed with the number 100 and look with awe upon the blessed sons of their god, the centauripedes.

Centauripede

Basically a hybrid with the torso of a man and but the head and segmented body of a centipede. Characterised by ferocity and  terrifying speed, the centauripede is a dangerous foe similar to an ogre in strength but with a poisonous "bite" from its forcipules. It usually causes d10 weapon damage by whatever it's wielding in its human arms due to the swiftness and power of its strikes.

Hit Dice: 4+1
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Attacks: Weapon (d10), Bite (d8+poison)
Saving Throw: 13
Special: Lethal poison, +4 save
Move: 18
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 6/400

Like this but carrying a poleaxe

Perhaps they are at odds with the Praying Mantis Cult....

Change is afoot

I'm in the midst of developing a new setting for a whole new group of players. It's going to be a post magical apocalypse world complete with insane magical constructs; flesh crafted hybrids of beast and man; ancient, powerful magics and tons of forgotten secrets; loads of bizarre ruins; the last surviving human fortress citadels; walled peasant villages; the evils of slavery; the glories and questionable morality of gladiatorial combat; no non-human player characters; dinosaurs(!);  reptile folk; a weird blue skinned, black eyed, HR Giger armour wearing telepathic, man flesh eating, hive minded race; another weird armoured, eyeless race with strange weapons and bizarre, roving fortresses; winged carnivorous apes; the fabulous treasures of the ancients; dragons; mutants; all that good stuff. As Zak S. is fond of saying, there is D&D in every direction. Or Swords and Wizardry in this case, as if that was not the same thing.

Wight is the new Black

The Wight. This is where the undead start to get interesting. Skeletons and zombies are classic foes obviously (with the latter being a pop culture obsession in the last decade,) and ghouls are good, paralysis is a great threat for the average PC. The wight however is a truly deadly opponent, that level drain is a total bitch, especially for your low level PCs who are staring death in the face with no saving throw.

Barrow Wight by verraux on deviantart

The Swords and Wizardry Complete rules has this to say about Wights:

"Wights live in tombs, graveyards, and burial mounds (barrows). They are undead, and thus not affected by sleep or charm spells. Wights are immune to all non-magical weapons, with the exception of silver weapons. Any human killed or completely drained of levels by a wight becomes a wight. "

Mentzer Basic D&D says this:

"A wight is an undead spirit living in the body of a dead human or demi-human. It can only be hit by silvered or magical weapons. Wights are greatly feared, as they drain life energy when striking a victim. "

Wikipedia says:

"In its original usage the word wight described a living human being.^[3] More recently, the word has been used within the fantasy genre of literature to describe undead or wraith-like creatures: corpses with a part of their decayed soul still in residence, often draining life from their victims."

Dragon Warriors says this:

"Wights are ancient undead, greatly feared because of their passionless evil and strange magical powers. They are the shamans and wizard-kings of a bygone age, and dwell in the bowels of their lonely burial-mounds. Transformed and sustained by their own necromantic magic, Wights appear sallow and desiccated, sunken eyes glittering with an eldritch light."

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay defines Wights thusly:

"Wights are the remains of mortal heroes, animated beyond death by their own evil wills, and by strong magic woven ivy those who interred them in their grave-mounds many centuries earlier. Wights are almost always arrayed in full armour but their pale faces are visible beneath the helm, the spectral remnants of their long-decayed bodies."

This guy.

For my Grim North setting wights are going to be more along the lines of the undead remains of sorcerer kings, the witch lords of a bygone age. Vulnerability to magic weapons only is an issue given the rarity of such items in the setting but let's say all non silver weapons do half damage. The touch of a wight will be ennervating but with some temporary attribute draining touch something like save vs 2d6 strength loss, rather than the dreaded level drain, although any victim not slain will soon recover if brought out into sunlight. In addition they will have some spells and unique powers (in addition to its spell casting DW allows a wight a poisonous breath weapon, the ability to raise fog, and cast illusions that cause paralysis through terror, all once per day.) The wight will be armed and armoured with its burial finery so there's scope for some serious treasure, given its status when alive, with the additional possibility as afforded in WFRP that when wielded by its unded owner a wight's blade takes on some of the creature's dark, unholy power.

I'm going to have to work on the stats, although I'm leaning towards making each one unique in some way.