AFMBE Session Report & Episodic Horror Gaming

So, I ran a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE) on Thursday. It was my first game in over a year, and first time using that system.

It was a blast!

It was also my first salvo in an attempt to get regular gaming jump started. My plan is monthly gaming using AFMBE to run horror one shots with rotating DMs (or ZMs in this case). We are all in our 30s or 40s, busy with family and work and random interests, and weekly gaming locked into a storyline curated by one person just seems impossible. So, horror anthology gaming, kind of like the Twilight Zone. We use pregens every session, but XP accumulated by players stays with them, and can be used to modify their character in whatever session. This incentivizes continued presence without punishing absence. New players or one time only appearances by people is also encouraged, avoiding the hard feelings of spotty campaign participation, but also adding a little spice to the proceedings.

Admittedly, AFMBE has a lot of whistles and bells, so it was also a good chance to test drive the system and slowly learn it. There wasn't too much looking things up, and now I am familiar with the rules and how they run. If the seasons take off, ZMs can also draw from the Buffy RPG, Terra Primate (basically Planet of the Apes), The Evil Dead and CJ Carellah's Witchcraft besides AFMBE books. That is a lot of gaming potential there.

Anyway, on to the adventure!

Most people I know are off somewhere for summer holidays, but thankfully my mates Casey and Paul were around and agreed to give AFMBE a spin. I decided to let them have two characters each, and run them through an adventure I had made entitled "Generation Kill Zombies," based on the miniseries Generation Kill about the 1st invasion of Iraq. The synopsis I wrote for myself is at the bottom.

First, for characters we used the Soldier template (corebook pg. 78). I encouraged Casey and Paul to come up with one word personality descriptors they could use like Risus cliches for their characters. They did not disappoint.

We began with four characters:

Casey
1) Billy, a 'techie' from Georgia in the USA. +1 to Int and tech rolls, starts with a taser pistol.
2) Ricky the Rat, NYer like Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy. +1 Per and searching, always has the right gewgaw when needed.

Paul
3)  Father Ted McBride, parson-like figure from the UK. +1 to people skills, also carries various medicines all the time.
4) Bobby Staunton, contractor from Manchester. + 1 End/Str, good with munitions.

PART ONE - THE SET UP

07:00-07:30
I informed the players it was February, 1991, and they were soldiers in the coalition invading Iraq. They began with their mission briefing in a tent. A commander Grenfell greeted them then ran them through the covert mission they were given.

First, they were shown this photo:

Grenfell informed them that the Iraqi army was in disarray and that US and ally troops were now rushing to final objectives before a peace settlement and withdrawal. Their mission would be to go to the Al Muthanna R&D facility, which had been bombed and partially destroyed by US airstrikes, and recover strategic assets. Only the bio-toxin building and animal house were intact and showed minimal activity, and otherwise most personnel had abandoned the area after the bombing run. They were looking for 3 things:

1) data on the Scud missiles and nerve gas they contained
2) any cash 'repatriated' to Iraq during its unlawful invasion of Kuwait
3) any of the 3 'chemical brothers' or A-list war criminals in the US army deck of Iraqi VIPs to be captured, and who all have a bounty on their head

The PCs would be given a Humvee mounted with a machine-gun and whatever gear they requisitioned. They thanked the commander and were on there way at 07:30.


PART TWO - ON THE ROAD

07:30-10:30
Three hours later, deep in Iraqi territory they received a radio transmission from a convoy of three US trucks that had stopped to fix a flat tire and started taking sniper fire. The CO of the convoy was requesting any nearby unit to help neutralize the sniper, and the PCs realized they were the closest. Without hesitation, they agreed to go help out. This is the scene I sketched for them:

The team pulled up on the far side of the village away from where the sniper was and 1 klick from the stranded convoy. Stashing their Humvee behind a dune, they humped over to the village, incurring a 1 Endurance loss from the heat. The village was a lump of low thatched huts made of baked clay surrounding higher buildings with flat roofs. It looked like this:

I informed them they could easily climb on top of a thatched roof, but a flat roof would take something more. They elected to go through the main entrance quietly.

A few Stealth rolls later and they were through the village entrance and up a central stairwell onto the rooftops. They catch a glimpse of the sniper at the far edge of the roofs moving between hanging laundry and reed partitions, and Billy & Father Ted decide to close the distance with tasers drawn while Ricky and Bobby cover them with their assault rifles. The plan works, and Billy shoots his taser leads into the sniper from behind.

To their dismay, the insurgent turns out to be a boy of 13 or so, and Father Ted quickly realizes a taser jolt intended for an adult male may be the reason the boy is turning blue. Using his knowledge of medicines recreational and legal, Father Ted stabilizes the young insurgent, who they carry downstairs.

At the base of the stairs they are confronted by a woman wailing at them and gesticulating at their prisoner. Father Ted realizes it is probably the boy's mother, and in his poor Arabic somehow manages to calm her down. Although the village seemed nearly deserted at first, the four soldiers can now see women, children, and the elderly peeking at them from cracks in windows and doorways. The players muse about whether the boy was just trying to protect his village or really a soldier.

Still, wartime is hell and firing on a convoy makes you a combatant, so they radio the convoy to bring an interpreter and pick up their captive. This done, they continue on to their objective.


PART THREE - ANIMAL HOUSE

12h30-13h30
At the gates of Al Muthanna, the team decided to visit the animal house first. They pushed straight up to the front of the building, guns ready under the noonday sun. Nobody was there, and the front double doors were slightly ajar. They scouted the perimeter and found a well-used civilian car, which Billy immobilized by taking its spark plugs.

They crept inside the double doors to find a small flock of sheep sheltering from the baking sun in the now shitstained lobby of the building. After a brief search they turn towards the closed double doors leading to their interior of the building. Ricky motions the others to silence and presses his ear against the doors.

He hears the opening beats of Madonna's 'Justify My Love', which was dominating the Top Forty at the time. The others listen as well, dumbfounded. (I had started the song on Casey's cellphone, so it became the soundtrack of this portion of the adventure). Ricky eases the doors open and sees a hallway leading straight in, with a door on either side about 15 feet down, and a barricade made of desks, chairs & equipment twice that distance further down.

The team decides to advance down the hallway and simultaneously breach both doors. They inch down the hallway, then Fr Ted and Ricky break left while Billy and Bobby break right. On the left, they find the building's kitchen, now a mess of food crates, dirty dishes, and garbage. On the right, they bust in on a young Iraqi male lying on a bed, dressed in a dirty lab coat, Madonna T shirt and boxer shorts reading books on a bed.

"Don't shoot, please!" the young man pleads in near-perfect English. They tie his hands and he explains that he is Mustafa, a research assistant here in the animal house who learned biochemistry at Michigan State University. He tells the soldiers that all his colleagues have fled since the bombing, but that he stays to care for the sheep, read and listen to music.

They ask Mustafa about the barricade, and he is quiet for a second before responding. He reports, "They tested gas on a monkey down there. Three of my coworkers came in, none came back. I could hear the screams and sounds from here. Luckily, the doors are all auto-locked. So I made the barricade and don't go down to the research labs anymore." The four soldiers agree to follow Mustafa's example.

They ask about the Bio-toxin building and Mustafa draws them a map.

Mustafa explains that the small platoon stationed at the facility had left after the bombing, but that a small group of a half dozen Republican Guards (RG) stayed with the facility head, Sayid. The players show Mustafa the kill or capture card for Chemical Sayid and Mustafa confirms this is the man they are looking for.


PART FOUR - THIS IS A SHOWDOWN

13:30-14:30
The PCs load Mustafa into their Humvee and drive to the bombed out barracks down the road from the Bio-toxin building. Ricky creeps through the ruins to the side closest their target and peeks out to confirm a heavy machine-gun nest and two RGs guarding the front doors of the facility.

He reports to the group, and they decide to let Mustafa return to the animal house on foot while they sneak around to the rear of the building. The team inch across the dunes on the far side from the machine-gun nest.

Coming to the far side, they note the balcony on the roof as one possible entrance, and Ricky decides to climb up using a grappling hook and line he happens to have in his gear bag. The rest of the team decides to wait until he gives the all clear before climbing up.

But the signal never comes. Instead, Ricky knocks over some furniture on the patio, alerting Chemical Sayid who waits in the office beside it. Sayid begins firing 3 shot bursts at Ricky, the first a critical (if I recall) that tears through Rick's armor and his life points. Rick returns fire

Meanwhile, on the ground the remaining team members take action. Father Ted goes to scout around and see if the front guards are coming. (I secretly roll that the soldiers there and on the roof have been ordered by Sayid to stay at their posts or die, and so they will not come looking for the PCs, but only engage when the PCs enter their location. Lucky for the team!) Billy does the same on the other side.

At this time, Bobby tries to breach the wall with an explosive charge, but in his nervousness he fumbles around for a few rounds until succeeding. The wall blows inward, and Bobby slips in to find several civilians with horrid chemical burns staring at him unmoving from inside holding pens (the zombies, taken from Nazi zombies on p. 191 of corebook) on the left, a corridor to the lobby straight ahead, and a door to the stairwell besides the elevator on the right. He opens the stairwell door and clears the area, while the returned Billy goes to the elevator and Fr Ted comes back from scouting and starts clambering through the smoke filled hole.

Back on the roof, Ricky starts firing back into the office with his grenade launcher, missing Sayid directly but kicking him around and setting his office ablaze. Rick gets initiative and with an aimed shot brings Sayid down. He debates opening the door to the front of the building, but smartly decides to stay still and bandage, missing an encounter with the two Republican Guards stationed on the other side.

Returning downstairs. Billy's investigation of the elevator is seen on camera by the guards in the security office, who remotely lock the elevator and unlock the cage to the chemical zombies, who immediately begin to rush out. The next few rounds are a flurry of dice rolls as Father Ted is jumped and Billy and Bobby begin firing at the other zombies as they emerge from the cage.

Father Ted is choked and punched, but manages to survive and take out a zed while Bobby and Billy mow down the others as they come out of the cage. Just as they finish and before they can move further into the building, Ricky calls down, drops the suitcase of cash to them, and starts painfully making his way down.

Lucky, lucky, lucky! They decide not to push it and sneak back around to the barracks the way they came before getting in the Humvee, picking up Mustafa and heading for HQ.


PART FIVE - YOU CAN'T GO HOME

14:30-19:00
The PCs drive back the way they came, Father Ted's face busted up by a zombie, and Ricky covered in bloody bandages over his gunshots and shrapnel wounds. Although Chemical Sayid has been obliterated and they have destroyed or left any data on the chemical weapon and its strange effects, the one success is the suitcase of 1.5 million USD that sits on the backseat of their Humvee with Mustafa.

They pull into their base to find huge billboards proclaiming VICTORY! and HUGE USO SHOW!  They park and return to their briefing tent, but Grenfell is not around. The base seems nearly deserted, with only a few essential personnel on duty. Music blares from the nearby amphitheater, so they make their way over.

As they climb the stairs into the arena, they see a huge crater with the remains of a SCUD missile strewn in and around it. The 1000 strong crowd in the amphitheater all stand eerily silent amid the blaring music, their faces bubbled and oozing like the Iraqi test subjects the team had run into at Al Muthanna. Suddenly, a zombified George Bush senior on stage points in their direction and howls, and the crowd moves en masse towards our heroes.

Fade to black.


REFLECTIONS

Yeah, I took it easy on the guys. The zombies were non-infectious, and enemy soldiers only engaged when PCs entered their zones. I have no problem with any of this - the session was just a test drive of the system, as well as a taste test to drum up interest for monthly horror sessions.

If there is a next time, nobody will be so lucky, including me if someone else ZMs! If I can't rustle up a local group, I may run sessions on G+, so drop me a line if you are interested.


RESOURCES

Generation Kill Zombies
Scenario synopsis

This is the adventure outline I wrote for myself to keep me on track as ZM. Feel free to run it as is or punch it up with more details or events as you desire.

Events

• Radio call out from a platoon pinned down by sniper fire, PCs choose to go or ignore. 15 year old sniper on top of village huts.
• Going through factory ruins, run into zombie-like old caretaker.
  
  

Locales

The Animal House: One caretaker is still here feeding the animals, some sheep and some rabbits. He has info. about the Bio-toxic facility (zombie features, 6 soldiers, Chemical Sayid)

The Bio-Toxic Facility: Outdoors, 2 soldiers man a machinegun and sandbags.

First floor, 2 soldiers with AKs behind bulletproof glass in security office of lobby, iron door to hallway. Hallway leads to security office door, then locked electronic door to holding pen filled with 2d6 gassed civilians, and turn to elevator at end. Video cameras everywhere. Sayid will shut down elevator and open pen doors when PCs pass turn.

Second floor, main hall with three offices on right, cafeteria and prayer room on left, d6+1 zeds here, and stairway to third (top) floor at end.

Third floor, stairway has 2 soldiers with AKs at top. Door on left is maintenance, right is balcony leading to roof, middle is general office with d6+1 zeds and door to Sayid's office at rear. Lots of Scud and zed gas data here. Sayid has $1.5 M USD in his office safe, will slip out to balcony and climb ladder to roof to escape by rappelling down. The controls to elevator and auto locks are here, as well as Scud firing remote control, which Sayid uses when PCs enter general office. Office shakes, mechanical noise, sound of blast off from Scud in underground silo behind facility.

Motor pool: Next to Bio-Toxic Facility, has two jeeps hidden under tarps.

Denouement: PCs get the money, info, or POW if they survive. They drive back with no incident until they get to the camp, see "Victory!" signs everywhere, hear music blaring from USO ampitheatre. Go in, zeds turn on them, end of session.

Interweb Buried Treasure Find – TSR 2001 A Space Odyssey RPG?!?

I have been pretty tied down before my preliminary exam on Thursday (today), but while web surfing to de-stress, I came across two TSR modules for Star Frontiers based on the movies 2001: A Space Odyssey and the sequel 2010. They are available at the Star Frontiers website in the Modules section. They are well made curios invaluable to any Kubrick film or Clarke scifi buffs, but gamers might balk due to their extreme faithfulness to the source materials.

Although I thought maybe the OSR hadn’t stumbled onto these retro goodies, a quick search for images resulted in reviews of them by Grognardia. Whereas James M didn’t see Star Frontiers as a good fit for the game and understandably dismissed the modules’ gaming usefulness due to their extreme railroady nature, I thought they were great resources for someone looking to run Star Frontiers as ‘harder’ scifi than the default setting, an aspect of the rules modifications they present which James also comments upon. More than that, as an inveterate OSR DIY guy, I think these railroads are ripe for Jacquaying and modding with switchbacks, loops, and alternate tracks.

How would I do that? One way to see 2001 is a space where extremely hard scifi (i.e. human technology like HAL and the Discovery) meets extremely soft ‘techno-magic’ (i.e. the monolith and starchild, and more if you’ve read the novel). Put in this way, adding in the goofy space opera of the original Star Frontiers is hardly a stretch, and so my first move would be to ignore the restrictions to human characters outlined in the modules. Next, since the modules and their source films and books take place over enormous spans of time, from the Dawn of Man to centuries in our future, a bit of Star Trek style time traveling from the Star Frontier’s timeline would be in order. Finally, as a DM I would be OK with PCs going off the rails of the film plot. I’ve always had the dream of running Lord of the Rings and letting the PCs try whatever they want to get the ring to Mordor, maybe allowing Gandalf all spells with the caveat that using any unlocks them for the forces of darkness as well. I’d try to do a similar balancing act with these modules. If possible, I’d run the modules without letting players know they are gaming 2001, but I’d also be open to players in the known who are happy to muck about in the setting.

Here’s an example of how I would Jacquay the first chapter, including some of the complications and reactions I would have anticipated:

The Dawn of Man – It is the default Star Frontiers future, and the PCs are contacted through an agent to make a delivery for a princely sum of money. The condition is that they ask no questions and do not pry into the unknown devices installed on their ship or the cargo it holds, and they must sign a Non Disclosure Agreement to that effect. The cargo is, of course, the moon and Earth monoliths, and the mission is to deliver them to our solar system at the dawn of mankind.

If the PCs do not have a ship suitable for transport, one is provided for them, and unbeknownst to them can both travel FTL and in time. Note that I am a big handwaiver with this type of lightspeed/parsecs speed vs time stuff, and as PCs should be ignorant of what is in store for them, I see no need to get into it. If the PCs have a suitable ship, they are asked to leave it with the agent for a day, after which it is fitted with the FTL and timejump devices and cargo is loaded.

Any attempt to tamper with the devices or pry into the cargo should be met with increasing warnings and danger. Players should first be told that the devices make no sense to even the most skilled mechanic or technician in the group, and both their function and purpose are a mystery. Attempting to open them should either not work (cutters can’t cut the material, there are no joints, etc), deliver warning shocks (small damage or unconsciousness) or worse (increasing damage, a warning message from the agent). If the players don’t seem to want to go along for the ride, tell them they are knocked out by some force, awaken unharmed in their ship but with a Breech of Contract notification informing of the legal repercussions if they disclose any details of the agreement they had made.

If the players do play ball, they are put in stasis until their ship reaches our moon in antediluvian times. When they awake, the shipboard AI informs them that their first mission is to bury the monolith on the lunar surface, so PCs will have to suit up and accomplish this. To throw players off, the GM may describe the lunar monolith as a translucent or transparent oblong filled with tiny crystalline circuit structures as in the novel instead of the ebon monolith from the film. As a red herring, the GM may want to add a subplot of lunar quicksand that sucks down either the ship or several PCs and complicates their task (see the Arthur Clarke story ‘A Fall of Moondust’ for inspiration).

The real action starts on earth, which the PCs may not recognize as such due the change in constellations over the millennia and the difference in Earth’s atmosphere and composition of continents. The ship AI can navigate around the system, but will curiously be unable to give time or coordinates in relation to the PC’s normal setting. The ship AI informs them they must plant the second oblong near a group of cave dwelling apemen, then observe and record its interactions with them for two weeks. It’s up to the players to plan – do they knock out the apemen with stunners, or try and sneak it in? (See Jack Kirby’s 2001 comic for inspiration.)

Once the device is set, it comes to life at night, blinking and flashing hypnotically, after which the entire tribe sleepwalks out to stand rapt before it. After the first night, players making a perception roll will notice the apemen are walking more upright and using sticks to knock down fruit instead of climbing to get food as they did the day before.

The GM can introduce several dilemmas here to challenge the PCs. First, a predator jaguar or tiger can threaten the apemen, or a rival tribe could show up and threaten their access to water or food. Have some apemen die or be injured in front of PCs to provoke a reaction. As the apemen are influenced by the alien device, have them become more aggressive and start using weapons such as sticks or bone clubs. Have a Cain-Abel style first murder occur before the PCs to show them that maybe the monolith’s influences are not entirely benign. If players decide to fire on the monolith or stop it, have any human character instantly devolved into an apeman and modify his stats as per the module (p. 4). Now the game can switch to a return to try and restore the timeline.

If the players allow the monolith’s function to proceed, after the two weeks they are placed back in stasis and wake up in orbit around Earth’s moon just before the discovery of the lunar monolith, with US and Soviet teams rushing to reach the object pinpointed by magnetic scans as in the crater Tycho. Their mission next is to stop the Soviet advance and surreptitiously assist the US team. Once again, throw dilemmas at the PCs, such as the hidden armaments of the US team and the unarmed Soviets. Make them question whether their mission is good or not, and make all humans speak Russian if they decide to stop the Americans. Have fun with the wonky paradoxes of time travel and going off the rails of an established property.

Anyway, with my prelim done expect a speed up of posts of the backlog of ideas I’ve had while grinding away at my thesis.

The Weird In Mystic Japan – Part Three

ADVENTURE SEEDS

Here are a few adventure ideas ripped shamelessly from Japanese sources. All adventures take for granted that PCs are under orders of a lord and follow his decrees largely unquestioningly. If not, DMs will have to find different reasons for adventuring. Try to enjoy the weirdness of the adventures and not punch them up with combat too much to please western audiences. Make interactions and social restrictions a vivid part of the world, and you should have the right feel.

1. Possession (Genji Monogatari)

Several murders of night watchmen and travelers have occurred and PCs must find the cause. The bodies are mutilated as if mauled and partially eaten by some animal. Either by stakeout, investigation, or scrying they find that a noble lady is possessed by a demon which turns her cannibalistic at night. The lady is kin to their lord, so they must find a way to out the demon without harming her, all the while keeping the incident quiet from villagers who might raise arms to protect themselves.

2. The Peony Lantern (Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan)

A nobleman has started wasting away, losing strength and becoming wan due to sleepless nights. He refuses to divulge the cause of his lethargy, and so the PCs are sent to find out. By either surveillance, consulting a medium or other means, they discover that the lord is haunted nightly by the ghost of an old lover he spurned and caused to waste away from grief or commit suicide. PCs must drive away the spirit, either by satisfying its demands for justice, or convincing the nobleman to repent and either become a monk or publicly shame himself by professing his dalliance.

3. Space Girl (Osamu Tezuka, Hi no tori)

A peasant’s wife has run away while he was at war, and now returning as a minor noble he asks the PCs to find her and his child. She has left behind a magic kimono of shimmering, unearthly colours that radiates magic. The kimono can only be worn by female characters, and transports them to the moon, where the wife originally came from. The kimono-wearing character can miniaturize two other characters and carry them in her sleeves, but any more PCs will have to find alternate transport to the lunar surface. The moon people are pacifists but also great sorcerers using magic items, and PCs will have a hard time convincing the woman and her now grown son to return to war-torn earth and live with a former soldier. One complication may be that the son wishes to return but the mother doesn’t, forcing PCs to help him make his escape back to earth. Another complication is that miniaturized characters stay that way on the moon.

4. Wolf Head Kashira (Osamu Tezuke, Hi no tori)

PCs are ordered to stop a bandit chieftain has been terrorizing the mountain roads, but investigations shows that he is only attacking the wagons of a certain clan. The chieftain is said to have a wolf’s head and is magically protected by animal familiars. If PCs meet the wolfhead, he reveals that he is the clan’s disappeared heir, whose face was flayed by the current clan head, covered with a wolf’s head as an insult, and then left for dead. By some strange magic the heir recovered but with a wolf’s face and animal powers. He will only stop his attacks when the current clan leader is dead and the heir’s rightful place and face restored to him. PCs may have some serious questing to do to achieve this.

5. Moth woman (Osamu Tezuka, Dororo)

Children from a small village have been disappearing at night from their houses, and the lady of the village has asked for help to calm her subjects. PCs are sent to investigate and sensitive characters or priests may be lead by the beckoning of ghostly children to the run down old hut under which their bodies are buried. Under the tatami mats in a tunnel are the children, wrapped in cocoons and undergoing a horrid transformation into mothmen. Following the tunnel to its end brings the PCs come face to face (tail?) with a grotesque moth creature, who turns out to be the underside of the lady of the village. They must battle to stop her while defending themselves from the child-mothmen she awakens with her screams.

6. Dirty Old samurai (Shigurui/Vagabond)

In a small village on the stormy coast, a veteran samurai lives and protects villagers from bandits and rival clans. On a visit to the village, PCs see that the old bushi has gone rogue, is often blind drunk, tests his blade on villagers, and takes their daughter’s maidenhood when they are 12 or 13. The samurai must be stopped, but as he has higher rank than the PCs, is an expert swordsman, and has magical arms and armor from his past adventures, they will have to find some subtle way to discredit or destroy him. Note that the samurai is paranoid and wily, and will not fall foolishly into any old trap, but will kill all who shows animosity towards him. He is just as deadly when drunk or sober.

7. Freak Circus (Suehiro Maruo, Shojokan)

The circus comes to town, and the elder son of the lord starts dallying at the tents of the freaks. The PCs are sent to drive the freaks off, but must deal with threats including Snakelady, who can shoot poisonous snakes from her orifices; Rotting Man, a bandage-enwrapped ex-soldier who cannot be killed by mortal weapons but simply loses gobbets of flesh; Giant Baby, an ogrish man with the temper and jealousy of a child; The Mouth, a limbless obese giant who rolls over PCs attempting to crush then eat them; and Dr Ching, an evil sorcerer from the continent who can thrust characters into their nightmares. If PCs are victorious, they find the son in a sorcerous sleep, which may require questing for holy objects to break.

8. Shadow Banquet (Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan)

A distraught young musician begs the PCs to save him from ghostly samurai who visit him every night. He hasn’t slept in days, and if he falls asleep at night when the samurai come to hear his music he will be forced to join them in the hell between worlds. PCs can either fight off the samurai if powerful enough, or more likely should quest to various temples and apothecaries for magic ink to write wards all over the musicians body and Buddhist Sutras on paper which can bind or wound the ghosts.

9. The Phoenix (Osamu Tezuka, Hi no tori)             

The high priestess of the clan is growing old and has started fearing age and death. She sends the PCs to an island where the legendary phoenix has been spotted, with orders to kill it and bring back its rejuvenating blood. The bird is deadly and fearsome, but getting to its lair is made difficult by the presence of savage natives who revere it as a god. If players do manage to kill it and retrieve its blood, which is always boiling hot, the death of the bird causes an eruption of undead who begin plaguing the countryside. PCs may seek to revive the bird, which can only be accomplished by throwing its body into a volcano. If they do bring its blood back to their mistress, she drinks it but is ironically consumed alive by fire bursting from her innards, also giving birth to a newly formed phoenix which flies off back to its lair. Irony!

10. The Spirit Gun (From a Big Comics Original supernatural manga about an antiques shop whose name and author I forget)

Officials of the clan are being assassinated at night by a young gunman who disappears like smoke whenever guardsmen give chase after a killing. PCs are given sketches of the assailant and must try to find him. If they go to the burakumin (social outcast) district, they will find that the boy was from there but died many years ago, and that his father is a woodcutter on the edge of town. If they meet the woodcutter, he is a kindly old man who invites them in for tea, and tells them the tale of how his son died out hunting. In truth, the youth was killed accidentally by a noble also out hunting, and his spirit now haunts his rifle, which the father keeps hidden in his house. PCs will have to assuage the spirit by somehow getting it justice.

11. The Fox Stole (as above)

A lady of the clan is found strangled in her chambers, but with no signs of struggle or intrusion. If characters investigate thoroughly, they find a few items of the lady’s clothing are missing. A few nights later another lady dies in the same way. If characters investigate, they will find more clothes are missing, and one item, a fox stole, is on both missing item lists. If they interrogate the handmaidens, they find one in either case has sold their deceased mistress’ articles to support their family. Tracking down the fox stole to the antiques shop where it was sold, PCs find that it has just been purchased by another lady. They have scant hours to find the cursed garment and stop another killing by the fox stole, which was cursed years ago by a rival clan to strangle the wearer when placed around neck and shoulders of a noble of the clan.

12. Mud Flinging (Ge ge ge no Kitano)

Construction on a new fort has halted as workers are attacked by a strange giant humanoid rising from a nearby pond who flings enormous balls of mud at them. Men have nearly smothered under the mud, and a death will occur if something isn’t done. The PCs are sent and are easily overwhelmed by the creature. Any PC speaking youkai language will learn that the creature is yelling “tanbo kaese!”, or “Give me back my fields!” It is actually the guardian god (kami) of rice fields that have been destroyed  The PCs must find a place for the youkai, preferably in a rice field that is clean and well-kept.

30 Day Challenge Catch Up – 11, 12 & 13

Favorite Adventure You Ran

The only published scenario I have ever run faithfully is ‘The Hall of Risk’ for Stormbringer. Wish I still had a copy.

I tried some small D&D dungeons (forget which ones) but there was no spark. When I ran ‘Hall’, it was like lightning in a bottle.

‘Hall of Risk’ is a gonzo ‘special episode’ type of adventure that is far removed from the dungeon. Adventurers go to the gaming hall of Balo, Jester of Chaos, and play such games as craps, chess using themselves as pawns (about 15 years before Harry Potter did it), and some other things I disremember, for the chance of getting Chaos-tainted powers.

It was a laugh riot, a micro-dungeon that really hit the aesthetic of Moorcock’s Elric novels and allowed Stormbringer to step out of D&D’s shadow, which prior scenarios like ‘Tower of Ykrth Florn’ did not. It also showed me that my mind worked better with freeform mini-sandboxes, which basically describes the adventures I have successfully run since then.

Favorite Location

Which brings me to my next answer – NOT the dungeon. I don’t loathe dungeons, but I don’t run them well, so don’t often try. My mind works better grasping a whole gameworld or even multiverse loosely than trying to get the details right of a small locale like a dungeon. My players seem to enjoy when I do this, as do I, and I even enjoy playing in someone else’s dungeon. But I don’t usually run them. I am hankering to run B2 or White Plume Mountain just for the experience, but more drawn to sandboxes like Isle of Dread.

I even submitted an adventure to Chaosium back in the day that was kindly rejected by Lynn Willis. In it, players worked for a treacherous exiled Melnibonean nobleman aiming for the throne of Imryyr, and had to travel from Melnibone, to the Plane of Air, to the Shadow Realm, to World War Two Italy, and one or two others I forget to get materials needed. The scenario is lost to time, but when I read Rogue Mistress I thought how much better my adventure would have been.

Favorite Trap/Puzzle

I guess another reason I dislike running dungeons is that I feel old D&D traps are somewhat cheap or gimmicky. Roll or die. Lose three PCs on a chest with 30 copper coins in it. Fall in a pit. Yawn, isn’t this supposed to be a game/fun? Grimtooth’s traps were fun to read, but drew cries of ‘Unfair!’ when they mashed adventurers to a pulp with no real chance of escape.

I think for traps/puzzles to work (i.e. to add to the enjoyment of the game) they need to have two elements, namely 1) risk and 2) reward. And as the risk gets bigger, so should the reward. The pit in the 1^st cave of B2 is basically roll or fall in, with no real reward and lots of risk. That’s lame.

Which takes me back to ‘Hall of Risk.’ It has both these elements, and players willingly risk their characters for the chance of a reward. In other words, the puzzle/trap of ‘Hall of Risk’ is a mini-game itself, and players who know the rewards will willingly throw themselves into it again and again. In D&D, the dungeon itself is a successful trap/puzzle itself, drawing adventurers who risk death for coin and experience. Where D&D sometimes falls down, in ALL editions from what I’ve seen, is posing arbitrary traps with little knowledge of what’s at stake and the chances of success.

SPIDERS & ANGELS - A Stormbringer 1e adventure, Part One

SPIDERS & ANGELS

A Stormbringer 1e adventure.

Here is the first installment in my Stormbringer 1e scenario, ‘Spiders & Angels.’ Why Stormbringer 1e? It is the grand dame of fantasy rpgs, and allows you to tromp around Michael Moorcock’s multiverse. It’s beautifully broken and eminently playable.

So yeah, why not?

Don’t expect tons of stats or explanations. Read the adventure, get your mental bearings and fill in details as needed. A Random NPC Generator is provided at the end for Gamemasters lacking inspiration or wanting to leave things to chance.

EPISODE ONE

PART THE FIRST – THE FALLEN CITY

It starts with a rumour that comes to the Adventurers, of a fantastic city fallen to the earth 1d6+1 days’ travel from where they are. Gamemasters can have an old contact slip them the information for a share of the spoils, or a diviner tell them, or a deity contact them, or whatever is convenient and discrete. If play starts with this adventure, use the following table to decide starting locale and the rumoured location of the city, and have players prepare as they can for the journey to come.

STARTING LOCALE

1 Start in Karlaak, fallen city is in the Weeping Waste. Wooden armor, bows and horses are half price, metal weapons are triple.

2 Start in Isle of Purple Towns, city is near the Unholy Fortress. Adventurers will need to hire a boat and crew. If they fail a Bargain roll or are just loudmouths, word gets out and all costs triple in addition to having rival crews to deal with.

3 Start in Lormyr, city in the hinterlands of Yu. Any characters publically professing allegiance to Chaos must make a Luck roll (POW x 5%) or draw the attention of Inquisitors of Law.

4 Start in Pikarayd, city is in the hinterlands of Dorel. Any characters publically professing allegiance to Law must make a Luck roll (POW x 5%) or draw the attention of Inquisitors of Chaos.

5 Start in Aflitain, city is in the Marshes of Mist. Mounts cost double and no one will rent horses as few return from the Marshes.

6 Start in Immryr, city is on one of the lesser abandoned isles of Melnibone. Non-Melnibonean characters will have their hands full escaping the Dreaming City, much less arming and equipping themselves, while any found outside without imperial permission will be executed.

PART THE SECOND – THE FAKEOUT

Once the Adventurers have started out on their journey towards the fallen city, the Gamemaster should throw a completely random and distracting encounter at them. The point is to provide a red herring that heightens anticipation for the fallen city.

1 Bandits! A number of bandits equal to the Adventurers plus 1d4 more block their path demanding coin. Adventurers may pay a suitably hefty amount or decide to fight as they see fit. The bandits are poor locals looking to prey on soft travelers and will flee if any are killed or incapacitated.

2 Clakars! A traveling family of 1d4+1 Clakars spies the Adventurers from afar and decides to hunt them. They will start by flying over and dropping rocks on the Characters. If the Adventurers can slay one Clakar or if the creatures can slay one Adventurer and make off with his corpse the encounter ends and they fly off.

3 A caravan! 2d6+2 wagons with 3d6+3 caravaneers wind through the wilderness. Though wary at first, they will offer hospitality in the form of tea, a meal, directions, and shelter for the night. If the Adventurers offer violence the caravaneers will attempt to defend themselves, but are simply mortal merchants and can all be slain if the Adventurers are up to the task. If the caravan is massacred by the Adventurers, the Gamemaster should go to pains to convey the bloodthirstiness and brutality of their actions. The cargo is dried foods, nails and metal weapons. A lockbox contains a sufficient amount of operating money.

4 A lone Hero! He or she is on a quest and will not stop to talk. Any attempts to parley are rebuffed, any violence is met with merciless force. The Hero has 99% in weapon of choice, and can summer one type of supernatural aid chosen by the Gamemaster. The Hero will destroy Adventurers if he or she can or flee with supernatural aid if threatened.

5 A beast! A giant animal is sighted in the vicinity. Roll 1d6 – 1 crocodile, 2 mastodon or elephant, 3 cat, 4 bull, 5 lizard 6 buck. If left unmolested, it will wander off. If the Adventurers attack it, the beast will do its best to destroy them.

6 A strange wanderer! Roll 3d6. He or she is from 1 Hawkmoon’s realm, 2 Corum’s, 3 our world, present day, 4 our world, historical period chosen by the Gamemaster, 5 a fictional realm chosen from the Gamemaster’s own readings, 6 a completely alien world. The wanderer is totally helpless but needs to get home or at least to civilization. If the Adventurers help out, either give them a reward or have the wanderer return and save them at some future point.

PART THE THIRD – THE CASTLE OF THE UGLY SISTERS

After days of travel and the encounter above, the Adventurers arrive near the fallen city. From afar they think it a natural formation or mesa, but as they draw close any character making a Known World roll, or else from Oin, Yu, the Sighing Desert or the Weeping Waste will recognize it as very alike a giant insect hill. It is a 30 meter high monolith with signs of having dropped from the sky and impacted the ground. Adventurers have two choices of ingress – either scale the craggy walls to the entrance holes they can see up their, or crawl into one of the radiating cracks in the ground from where the city landed.

At this point, Gamemasters should throw a rockslide at the players, unless they are already injured from a preceding encounter. Have them make Dodge rolls or take 1d4 damage, which is halved if they are wearing armor. Hopefully at least one Adventurer will take minor damage, which can be used to advance the story as described later. If players arrive inside unscathed, feel free to throw a wild animal, insect, or hostile force of looters at them to ensure they get clipped. The point is to inflict minor damage, not cripple or kill Adventurers.

Whichever they choose, after some effort the Adventurers find themselves in a giant shaft leading from the dark chamber at the bottom of the city to the sky above, with entrance holes leading off to darkness at irregular intervals. Have all make a Perception/Search roll. Suddenly, the successful roller sees a grey nun-habit and robed figure disappear into the nearest hole, strangely enough by apparently walking on the wall. If no one succeeds, tell players they hear a fall of rocks from the same area.

If Adventurers follow the figure or noise, they proceed through a dark winding organic tunnel until they see a pulsing light at the end of it. If they manage to Sneak closer to the light source, they see a half dozen of the robed, nun-habited figures standing in a chamber whose walls are made of glowing crystals and fluorescing latticeworks.

If Adventurers enter the chamber, they will see that the ‘nuns’ are hideous, spider faced humanoids with bulbous lower bodies. They radiate a feeling of complete alienness, as does the room and all the weird furnishings in it.

If Adventurers attack, the nuns flee by walking up the walls and disappearing in holes near the ceiling, then attempt to communicate telepathically as described below. They have Dodge skills of 75% and 15 Hit Points with one point of armor each, DEX 18, and can be slain easily if the Adventurers can hit them. If Adventurers enter peacefully, one of the nuns draws a slim rod and shoots a green ray at them, which hits one wounded character automatically. (NOTE: Secretly inform the hit player that his character is completely healed, but that he cannot tell other players until his character’s turn comes around. Hopefully this will sow a little chaos and lead players to think before they act in future).

If any nuns survive, they begin to talk telepathically to the Adventurers as follows:

“We are the Si-Anan, knowledge seekers through time and space. We come in peace and the spirit of inquiry, and wish you no harm. Our city was attacked by our enemies, the dread Winged Death, and our flight generator destroyed. If you would help us gather the materials to repair the city and move on before the Winged Death arrive, we would be in your debt and reward you.

What say you?”

Let the characters debate their course of action. If they decide to exterminate the Si-Anan, they will spend a fortnight wandering aimlessly through the city while the nuns scuttle away, then the Winged Death will arrive and slay all who remain. If they off to help, the Si-Anan will meet them and discuss plans. The Si-Anan can read minds, and any attempt to lure them with false promises of help will go unanswered.

END OF EPISODE ONE

BONUS – RANDOM NPC GENERATOR

Use these tables to make a character on the fly. Simply roll 7d6.

First Dice – 1-3 is a male, 4-6 is female

Second Dice – 1 or 6 is Lawful, 2 or 5 is Neutral, 3 or 4 is Chaotic

Third Dice – Favorite weapon is 1 Sword 2 Axe 3 Club 4 Bow 5 Polearm 6 Daggers

Total of Next Three Dice – Gives weapon skill as follows:

3 Unskilled 10%, 4-5 Beginner 25%, 6-8 35%, 9-12 50%, 13-15 65%, 16-17 Veteran 75%, 18 Master 90%

Seventh Dice – 1 Unarmored, 2-3 Leather, 4-5 Half-plate or barbarian, 6 Plate