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. 

More Clearing the Shelves

Once upon a time I embarked on a quest to play all the games I had bought but never used. I even made a blog post about it: Clearing the Shelves

However, I did not clear the shelves. Things came up. Recently though I find myself running two game nights a week. One for WFRP 2e and one for the Grim North (it’s on Thursday, drop in style, you should play.)

It occurred to me last week that WFRP 2e was a shelf game. Another one ticked off the list (except I added two to the list by buying Basic Fantasy RPG and Classic Traveller, neither of which have seen the table.)

The 1st edition cover is better

So of the original list I’ve run: Warlock! Through Sunken Lands and WFRP 2e. All which proved to be excellent and campaign worthy games. Through Sunken Lands I’ve actually run twice with two different groups. In order to tick off another game I plan to convert the Grim North to Crypts and Things Remastered. At least temporarily. That sounds grander than it is given C&T is a Swords&Wizardry based game and I already use the Complete version of that system for the campaign. I’m interested to see how it works out. C&T is explicitly designed to be more pulp sword and sorcery than most retro clones; so the characters are a bit more robust and mechanically capable than your average S&W PC. 

All this does lead me to think about the possibility of turning more shelf games into table games. Some of those games are beasts though. Runequest. Empire of the Petal Throne. Traveller. The One Ring. All games I think are suited to longer form play, or at least I would want to run them out for more than a one shot to really get the full experience. 

Essentially there’s no rush, it’s all play and should all be good fun. 

Molemen Attack! But Why?

 

Fighting back against years of Surface Dweller oppression 

The GM’s Five Minutes is a long established tradition for when the players go in an unexpected direction. As in “Give me five minutes to figure out what’s happening and we’ll continue.” A powerful tool in the sandbox style you should probably be using for your games. Of course everyone knows that their GM, no matter how good they are, cannot prepare for every possible avenue of player ingenuity (nor should they try.)  We all buy into the illusion that is not the case though so when the GM uses some weak subterfuge such as a sudden and unscheduled bathroom break we can all pretend we don’t know they’re locked in there, looking at pages of now irrelevant notes, going “What the fuck am I going to do now?” And we all know that’s fine.

And if you can’t think of the answer then there’s always the oldest trick in the book: Orcs attack! That’s how Gary did it, probably Dave too, even Tolkien flagged for ideas at times. That’s fine too. Thinking time is created while the PCs deal with whatever generic omnipresent threat is on the warpath right now. Of course it may be that it’s not orcs and probably better if it isn’t. The more mystery we can engender with our stop gap time filler the more the game will progress. So if we can work out why the attack takes place or what is left behind that gives the players something to investigate then that’s probably better. 

Is there anyone I haven’t told that the Grim North doesn’t have orcs? Ok, good. So in those Grim moments molemen attack. Molemen are burrowers, there is an almost unlimited amount of them lurking under the cities and wildernesses of the North; and they hate you and want to devour your flesh. They can spring up practically anywhere, which is convenient if you  are Grim North GM with time on your hands and no idea what to do with it.

For some reason these are d7 tables, I must have in a deep DCC phase when I wrote them but none the less, sharp eyed readers will recognise the format stolen from the Black Hack

Mole Man Activities

1. Feasting on fresh corpses
2. Performing incomprehensible ritual
3. Carrying out undermining operations 
4. Kidnapping surface dwellers of import
5. Scouting for large scale mole assault
6. Searching for escaped flesh crafting experiment
7. Setting ambush for someone else

With.....

1. Renegade Patrician
2. Pack of mole dogs 
3. Near Seer
4. Ancient buried artefact
5. Crudely made human masks
6. Overwhelming smell of decay
7. Mankiller Molehemoth

Champions of the Battlepits

As mentioned previously it is possible to hire a champion to represent you in the Battlepits. Fortunately for the prospective employer, Citadel Minatures produced this handy of catalogue of appropriate candidates back in the ‘80s…

Canonical list of Grim North Battlepits Champions 

So if you’re in legal trouble, and you can find them, you can hire PAPWORTH ORGANGRINDER! Quite honestly, I don’t know why you wouldn’t. 

The Battlepits…

Recently a small group of PCs entered the Battlepits of Nox Aeterna for the first time in the history of the Grim North. Following the disastrous Clam-Slakeheart wedding; one of the few survivors, a certain Graydon Slakeheart, has taken out legal proceedings against Tulip and Rufus. They can’t afford the weregild so they’ve set out to prove their innocence and hopefully entertain the crowds in The Grim North’s version of court tv. 

The Battlepits (tip of the hat to the Bloodsword books, naturally) are the judicial arena of the city. Those accused of crimes can face a variety of different disciplines in order to prove their innocence. This can range from the simple but popular “man vs. wolves” to the considerably more complex “dungeoneering.”  

In terms of determining guilt or innocence man vs wolves is fairly straightforward; if you get chewed to death by wolves then you’re guilty. Justice is done. 

Preoceedings can be made more complex and or entertaining by manipulating the environment. Man vs wolves but we’re on a moving platform suspended over a pit of spikes, for example. Or man vs strange beast from the wilderness. In fact the business in supplying strange beasts from the wilderness is allegedly very lucrative and the sort of thing player characters could easily get involved in. 

Similarly, the introduction of prosecutors can influence matters. Hired by the plaintiffs these are effectively gladiators that fight on behalf of the wealthy so they don’t have to present themselves to actual physical danger. Additionally It is permitted for slaves to represent their owners, potentially earning their freedom If victorious. The time honoured tradition of using a noble excuse for thoroughly reprehensible behaviour. 

So Tulip and Rufus are faced with the Battlepits event du jour: “Dungeoneering.” An artificial enclosed environment of rooms and corridors is created, open at the top so the crowd of bloodthirsty spectators can observe, and the PCs are unleashed. Their goal, find the Emblem of Innocence. The obstacles are mostly traps and puzzles. Also Slakeheart hired a prosecutor to impeed their progress, i.e.kill them, the impressively armoured Ergot Vile Groundshaker.

The Grim Binder

My GM binder for the Grim North is a fairly recent  development. I have always previously worked from notes on my iPad but I was finding it a bit difficult to navigate in a hurry and wanted something that was: A) Easy to reference and B) A bit more permanent. 

There are some random tables that I use all the time and don’t change much in terms of contents so it made sense to start with them and see what needs develop from play. 

So I took an old A4 ring binder and printed some stuff out to stick in there. I’m using plastic sleeves to contain the print out and trying to keep them in some sort of logical order. Failing that, one that makes sense to me. 

The current contents are:

• General Encounters of the Grim North (and what are they up to?)
• So you need a Grim North Adventure in a Hurry?
• What do we Want?
• Where is Tonight’s Ill Advised Escapade Taking Place?
• What’s Complicating Tonight’s Grim North Session
• The Random District Table
• Cults of the Grim North 
• Thieves Crews
• Random Thieves Crew Activites
• Table of Random Contacts
• Random Patrician Names (and associated mental illnesses)
•  Critical and Fumble Tables (very much a work in progress)
• In the Possession of the formerly alive NPC…
• Guilds of the City
• Tavern Generator
• Random Grog Table (important due to Conan’s rule)
• Grim Omens
• Breachers from the Outer Dark/Farthest Black
• Weird Occurrence Table
• Random Portal Destinations 
• What’s on Sale at the Purveyor of Unusual Wares
• Who’s in at the House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire?

Ideally I’ll add a page for each District of the city, complete with its specific random encounters, and likewise for regions outside of town and I have a big generator for random Gloom locations and events that I need to get around to printing too.

Housekeeping

But for like Grim North houses

Currently playing: WFRP 2e on Sundays. It’s ok. I had this scenario knocking around from my clearing the shelves project. Reading “The Devils” by Joe Abercrombie put me in a Warhammer state of mind so I decided to run it. I’ve not run 2e before and I’m not sure I like it. The game sessions have been fun enough but the early 2000s action economy is not to my taste. The PCs are involved in an attempt to cleanse their mortal souls in the eyes of Sigmar by recovering some holy items of behalf of his Church from the Border Princes. It’s suitably downbeat and gritty so far.

Additionally working on: Grim North open table for Thursdays or like any weeknight really. It’s not that open because I can’t be arsed to advertise for players everywhere but it’s scheduled for this week regardless. Probably tidy up a loose thread with some experienced heads and then start offering it to the world for next week. 

In the background: Been tinkering away with various Grim North bits. The Grim Underworld progresses. If any PCs found the entrance it’s probably playable in its current form. There are seven mapped areas of level 1 and most have at least a minimal key. It very much has the theme of mole men, undead and cultists at the moment  

I’ve added a few bits elsewhere to the world. Encounter tables for the Far North and the Plains of Sanguine Desolation. A few smaller dungeon locations. More details on the factions of the Grimwood. This sort of cumulative prep is building the setting as a whole but doesn’t generally help with what’s going to happen in the next session. It’s very much how my mind works in creative spaces though. 

Considering: Time and healing. One of the WFRP PCs took a fair bit of damage last session which he believes is going to take 6-8 weeks of game time to heal. I’m not sure how fun this is. One of the grumbles about Dragon Warriors from my players was they always seemed to be injured. Access to magical healing should be rare in WFRP and DW, which it is in my games but I wonder whether constantly dealing with injuries, while more realistic, this is the most enjoyable aspect of the game. I’m reminded of Chris in my Carcosa game saying it was easier to die and roll up a new character than barely survive and heal back up. Hmm.

Into the Gloom

“Scarcely out of the city, we were set upon by eel-men. They slew the captain, and when we’d driven them back, only two crewmen were alive. We attempted to recruit a new crew in an accursed town in the Gloom. Only a small boy answered the call, and he proved to be a thing beyond our ken. We lost the last crewmen, and barely made it back in a rowboat.” Rufus Rose, Fighter Level 2

The Raid on the Temple of the Molybdenum God

Lovely chunk of Molybdenum 

Following on from their exploits with Black Market Thyme/Time the PCs undertook a mission to steal the bones of the Prophet of the Molybdenum God from his resting place in the aforementioned God’s temple. Carkus Swole, lay priest of the Scions of Mineralism, hopes they can steal the molybdenum-ised bones of the prophet and replace them with some iron bones of dubious origin. 

Carrying out reconnaissance during a guided tour of the temple. They visit the Alloyed and Unalloyed chapels but they don’t really come up with a plan. They do observe that the sarcophagus in which the prophet is entombed is guarded by the Molybdenum Guard. Four of the elite templars stand watch in 12 hour shifts. This is more security than our protagonists anticipated. 

They retire to the local pub to sink a few ales and divise a suitable scheme. However on their way to the Dread Elephant tavern they come across local thieves crew the Van Cortland Blades about to burn down the pub which it transpires is full of cultists from the Society of the Magenta Joy. 

The player characters decide to prevent the Aron and engage the thieves in hand to hand combat. Although ultimately victorious, a flaming barrel of oil rolls down the hill towards the Temple of the Molybdenum God. Taking advantage of the chaos the PCs charge in. They use drugs found in the house party escapade to incapacitate the Molybdenum Guard but as the they remove the mineralised bones of the prophet they are faced with a horror of the ancient world, a molybdenum elemental. 

Fleeing into the sewers they discover it is not easily shaken. However they all pile through their pocket door into the temporal dead end beyond. Having failed to bring suitable offerings to Pharosocles the self proclaimed king of that realm they are suitably chastised. Whilst they attempt to wait out the molybdenum elemental, they notice the creepers that bind the door that contains some irate Temporal Hounds seem to have weakened. However they escape back to the Aecret Shack of Mercenaries Sellspears and Blades for Hire in order to receive part payment from Carkus Swole. The representative of the rival mineral sect is not totally happy with the overt way on which the bones were stolen. Surely there will be consequences. 

Appendix Grim: The Warriors

 

Gygax’s Appendix N in the 1e DMG listed the inspirational material that informed his games of Dungeons & Dragons. Of course the Appendix Grim relates only to The Grim North. 

The Warriors, Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic, is a huge influence on the Grim North. The whole concept of stylised, thematic street gangs I stole, whole cloth, and inserted into the setting. 

I didn’t want to have a Thieves Guild. It’s too lazy, straight out of the rule book lazy. Also stolen from Lankhmar and lampooned in Ankh Morpork. So, no. We’ve done that to death thanks. 

If for some bizarre reason, like you’re some sort of younger person, you haven’t seen The Warriors; it’s an old, old film about street gangs in New York based on the novel of the same name by Sol Yurick; which in turn is based on Anabasis by Xenophon, detailing the Long March back from Cunaxa to Greece by Hellenic mercenaries involved in a civil war in the Persian Empire. If you’ve listened to enough 90’s hip hop and hardcore and then watch The Warriors then stand by for the origin of a lot of your favourite sampled dialogue. 

This plot is one of the greatest premises for a role-playing game ever. The Anabasis version has PCs as foreign mercenaries in a war of succession between brothers when their employer-prince is killed. Fearing the PCs’ band could be used against them further, the victorious faction invites their leaders to a banquet and promptly murders them all. Faced with annihilation in a hostile empire thousands of miles from home, the PCs must get back to friendly environs with every hand turned against them. Sweet. Roll initiative, or whatever.

In The Warriors; ten representatives of every major street gang in the city are invited to a big meeting in Brooklyn under a truce. No one goes armed and non-aggression is guaranteed. Cyrus is leader of the largest gang in the city, the Gramercy Riffs, and it is his grand plan to unite all the gangs and control the streets of the city. All the gangs have to do is give up their petty rivalries and embrace the big picture. It’s a good speech, I dig it. Everyone seems into it until a single shot rings out from the crowd. Cyrus is killed and the gathering is raided by the cops. The Warriors leader, Cleon, is blamed for the murder and slain by the Riffs in retribution. The rest of the Warriors flee the police and start to make their way home; unaware that every gang in the city is out to get them for killing Cyrus. 

I’ve run this exact scenario as an online convention game for BurritoCon during the pandemic. Warriors of the Grim North is a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel that pretty much follows the plot of the film. Except the gangs and districts are Grim versions of their cinematic counterparts. The Dockside Boys in their sailor suits, the Grimball Furies with their painted faces and obsession with the eponymous game, the Fancy Lads in their affected finery and invites to exclusive parties. I also threw in some Grim North classics like the girl with no eyes, the Childcatcher (although this is more of a chitty-chitty bang-bang classic) and the psychopathic eight year olds who tend the bar at the Secret Shack of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire. It worked pretty well and I’d run it again if I had occasion to attend any form of convention in the future. 

A common theme that I expect to establish itself as I, at some point, get round to expanding on the Appendix Grim is that many of the things I feel influenced the Grim North is that the setting, which for a city based game is predominantly a city, and the interaction with that setting is so significant that the setting/city itself is effectively a character in the drama. So it is with the Warriors. The late night trains, the elevated stations, the parks, the tunnels, the subway, the architecture and even the street corners are all features the Warriors must negotiate. New York itself is both ally and antagonist to them as they cross its grimy territory in one fateful night to make it back to Coney Island.

A further point to all this is that as ridiculous as the Warriors is; there’s nothing realistic about the gang culture presented in this film, except maybe the poverty and disaffection, it’s played straight by everyone involved. So for a game that’s not entirely serious, it has wizards for instance, this is important to bear in mind. 

The Thieves Crews of the Grim North take their cues from The Warriors. Stylised and differentiated by quirks of attire as much as geography, none the less they are lethal if crossed and essentially they’re criminals. You probably shouldn’t be associating with them. 

However, the Grim North does not deal in absolutes*, so other organised criminal network structures can and do feature. The Naar’s gang in the Terrace District for instance or the Spirals Residents Association in the district of the same name. 

*with one exception: Absolutely no elves. No fucking exceptions there. 

Recently in the Grim North

I use the word recently with some narrative ambiguity.  However, player characters have engaged with the setting. A bonus then. Creating material for games that doesn’t get used is a sad affair. You must play to get the most from the hobby of RPG.

An out of control house party has been shut down, this has probably earned the enmity of everyone involved. It was the Von Eirik mansion and those patricians are just… well, they’re not like you and I. Amongst the invitees were The Cult of the Supreme and Baleful Eye;  and some dealers in Prophecy Fudge, the latest narcotic craze to sweep the city. It gives visions of many potential futures but one of the downsides maybe that there’s a strong chance it’s made from the excrement of prophecy moth larvae. These are hard to keep; given they are analogous to the old DnD carrion crawler; and the second stage of their lifecycle is insanity inducing and deadly in the extreme. Plus the host turned out to be the patron’s older brother, so family drama. 

Simultaneously, or perhaps at the same time, two of the PCs involved played a divergent time stream diversion where they heisted a trade for the last owlbear egg. Owlbears obviously being ridiculous (although as I child I did indeed own a set of the plastic chinasaurs that Gary based some of his monsters on, no idea how I came by them.) This created an interesting situation for me. I asked the two players that turned up that night if they wanted to continue the mansion thing without the others or do something else. They opted for something else and the divergent time stream thing kicked in. That meant some stuff I was debating including in the setting, such as the Achronous, the Lords of Synchronicity and their Time Skirmish; was now in play. Unleash the Temporal Hounds, I say (stats as Hellhound but their breath weapon is pure time, aging effects forthwith.)

The hunt for ghost snake liver took the PCs into the Underworld beneath the city and there several of them met their end. Reaching into a corrosive pool to recover a submerged sword and falling from a medium height while trying to negotiate vertical tunnels. So nothing too extravagant. They encountered more cultists (this is the Grim North, minority religious practices are rife,) albino sewer alligators, cannibal mole men and the Ghost snake itself. I’m not sure cannibal is a term I can really apply to the mole men, after all their humanity is somewhat diminished. Sentientivore is a clumsy and non-evocative alternative. 

Then there’s the whole Black Market Thyme/Time Caper. Previously in the Grim North a group of PCs were hired by the Herb Cartel to smuggle some

fresh herbs into the city. Herbs are valuable here, this is a setting of permanent winter so getting plant based stuff in from the outside is always going to be lucrative. The PCs double crossed the Herb Cartel leading to them burning down the old House of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire and the setting up of the new Secret Shack of Mercenaries, etc etc. So the PCs headed out of the city with a hand cart and some manure, intending to smuggle a barrel of black market thyme back into town. The barrel had been stolen by some of the Achronous, those who would live unaffected by the passage of time, resulting in their deaths and the acquisition of a pocket door. The door lead to a temporal dead end, a branch of the time steam left to go fallow; effectively a small extra-temporal realm. Occupied by an impossibly old Achronous, the PCs used the the realm to smuggle a barrel of ambiguous contents ( perhaps it was Thyme, perhaps it was Time) back into the city and deliver it to their employer. As he left they caught a glance of the hourglass pendant of the Achronous concealed beneath his beard. 

The Perils of Sunday Evening Games

Currently I run for two hours between 8pm and 10pm on a Sunday evening. This is the time slot which I am most consistently available. It has its quirks. Both the players and I are often tired from the weekend or have to be up early on Monday morning. The relatively short sessions reflect this and the requirement to play via video chat. What this means for the game is that deep character immersion and ultra serious gameplay probably isn’t achievable. Hence, I have gravitated back towards the Grim North. 

An open table style set up coupled with the dark whimsy of the setting seems to work well for a group of internet friends with a couple of hours to kill (some molemen hopefully) at the terminus of their weekend. 

It does mean that I have shelved my more pretentious attempts at Otherworld immersion. This isn’t such a bad thing. There is high potential to disappear up your own arse in this hobby, if you take it too seriously too much of the time. 

The Grim North is not that game. The Grim North does not take itself too seriously. It could use some tweaks here and there though. One area I’m constantly blocked about is tying new characters into the setting at the generation phase. Something like the Warhammer careers system would probably do the job here, albeit adapted to Swords and Wizardry. So setting appropriate subclasses or the failed careers for Electric Bastionland. It’s the sort of work that when I finally complete it, will pay continual dividends. I never regret working on random tables for the setting. For instance on this week I had occasion to roll on my Random Thieves Crew Activities table which added just the right amount of chaos to the session and I was all pleased with myself like I’d done something impressive rather than just put numbers next to unimaginative, gibberish phrases and roll a die. 

Random Thieves Crew Activities

1. Me and my crew were out breaking windows…
2. Looking furtive while transporting a decent amount of narcotics
3. Casing a joint for a robbery
4. Jumping someone into the gang
5. Shaking down an innocent shop owner for protection money
6. Looking for drunks to roll
7. Gearing up for a street fight
8. On their way to burn a tavern down 
9. About to perform a rope access burglary
10. Bored and spoiling for a fight
11. Getting wasted
12. Pursuing a rival gang member on the wrong patch
13. Leaving a venue not normally associated with Thieves Crew activity such as yoga or crocheting 
14. On the run from the Law having just heisted some fresh produce
15. Acting as protection for a clandestine Patrician
16. Cart jacking
17. Tagging interesting architecture 
18. Picking pockets for practice
19. Burgling somewhere 
20. Helping an old lady cross the street

Unconscious GM Burnout

 I was burned out on RPGs and I didn’t even know it. 

Me, on Sunday nights

I was busy. I did not have time to prep. I struggled to improvise. I didn’t have ridiculous unrealistic expectations of my gaming life. When games were cancelled due to lack of players, I was not overly upset about it. 

I didn’t know it but I was burned out. It seemed like I was having a good time, even to me. I was off my game though. 

As I returned to running the Grim North to fill gaps in player availability my interest in playing and running games was rejuvenated. I was still busy but I was able to tiny prep my way around it. Ideas started to come thick and fast. I’ve been ticking over with the Grim Underworld in a slow but progressive way. One room at a time isn’t a lot of progress but it adds up. 

I’ve started to have unrealistic thoughts about Marvel Superheroes; or learning to play Champions or even Rolemaster. My MSH box has sat unopened for a long time, and I last played it before I went to University in 1996… Champions and Rolemaster I remember from the Games Store. I loved the covers but the games seemed dense and inaccessible, and beyond my meagre finances. Do I owe it to my younger self to try these games now that I could? I’m not sure 12 year old me envisaged their middle age spent buried in 600 page rulebooks or drowning in hit tables or highly involved character generation processes. 

It seems I needed a change. The signs were there but self evaluation is hard. I’m running another Grim North session on Sunday: The PCs are caught up in the ambiguity between smuggling  Black Market Thyme and Black Market Time. It’s very entertaining. And there’s lots of spelling things out. 

Foul Devices of Sorcery

Your Rod, Staff or Wand has charges that power its magic but what are they?

Bit of Wayne Reynolds for the crowd

Souls. They’re souls.

If your wand of fireballs or whatever has thirty charges, then thirty folks went under the wavy bladed* knife to feed it. 

Thuul-Botha Cinth (a PC,) He of the Eldritch Eyes, liberated soul-burned Black Magician Kallisran of his staff and also his life. The staff held strange powers,  each fuelled by the soul of an innocent that had been imprisoned within the witch wood of the stave. Their faces appeared upon its length as though burned onto it from the inside.

*No self respecting cultist would be caught dead with a straight bladed sacrificial implement. 

The Grim Megadungeon

 

The Grim Megadungeon doesn’t exist. This map, for instance, is Mapper’s Challenge II by Dyson Logos. He missed a trick, to my mind, by not calling it Mapper’s Delight but maybe he’s not that into the Sugarhill Gang. I’m not sure how I feel about Megadungeon as nomenclature or even a play style. I’ve run a megadungeon. The Anomalous Subsurface Environment, which is good (although unfinished) and read some others. Not all of them are good. 

When it’s done well, the megadungeon encapsulates the fantasy adventure game milleu. Everything that can happen in a game can happen in a dungeon. That term is not a great one though. 

I like underworld. That’s how Dragon Warriors does it, and before that (probably influenced by too) the Empire of the Petal Throne. 

Mega-Underworld isn’t a thing though. 

The Grim Underworld probably does exist. It’s down there. From the very first post of this blog, and before, I have maintained that the city is built on the ruins of a thousand civilisations. That sounds like a megadungeon to me. So the Grim Underworld is down there. Existing. It’s just not been transcribed to graph paper, the rooms stocked and keyed, prepped for play. However, I can feel it. Can you have an Old School setting that doesn’t contain a really fucking massive dungeon? 

So I was wrong. Every time I’ve tried to write the Grim Underworld, I’ve failed. It seems, well, a bit shit. However that’s more or less what I think about every published RPG product I read too. So it’s a bit rubbish. Most other things are too. I wouldn’t wipe my arse with The Curse of Strahd and people fucking love playing that. 

Ok, ok. The Grim Megadungeon does exist. Theoretically. I can feel it existing. I wish it would stop. 

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. 

What I Do When a Player Misses a Session

Play with who turns up.

What? Yeah, seriously, just play with whoever turns up and find a way to make it work. 

In most gaming groups there will be times when you all just can’t make it on the same Wednesday or whatever. This is just a fact of modern life. Something will come up for someone at some point which means they just can’t play. 

I saw a thread on Reddit recently where there was must handwringing on this subject but it’s all a bit nonsense. If one player can’t make it or two players or something please don’t cancel your game. Just play.

Having time for play is a rare thing, allowing that time to be subverted to something else because of scheduling is a shame. Sometimes it can’t be helped but the game should continue regardless. That way great campaigns are built and I think that is what we’re after. If you consistently run your game week in, week out with the players that are available then the game will inevitably grow. If that game is cancelled frequently then it will probably end up in the great campaign graveyard; Hiatus. 

It helps if you have baked into the setting reasons to be flexible about attendance but it’s not necessary. The famous OG West Marches campaign always started and finished in town to allow for its rotating cast of players to always have the same start point. My Grim North campaign exists mostly within one huge city to allow for people wandering off mid adventure to go shopping on their own and rejoin the others later (like next week.) 

Or alternatively Time in the Grim North is mutable. So this past weekend I had two players available out of five. One of whom has just returned from a two week holiday is out of in game continuity. Currently the PCs are involved in exploring an abandoned mansion and dealing with various squatters. I gave them the option of continuing this without the others or taking an alternate branch of the timestream to do something else for the evening, try and resolve it in one session and then pick up the mansion exploration when more people were available. This is a very meta thing to put to the players but it was game time and I wanted to play. They took the alternate timeline option and the two of them became embroiled in a heist to steal the last owlbear egg in the Grim North. 

The campaign continues and that’s the main thing