Nightmare of the Black Goat [little extra]

My players made a Law & Order / Criminal Minds style "Murder Board" to go over the "case info":

Each of the major players involved has a sheet with details as well as a suspected timeline and general features of the "Nightmare Deaths".  The Note Cards are new info from session 4.

This really was one of my favorite GM moments when the players get excited enough to make props!

Nightmares of the Black Goat [ACR-004]

... in which the Truth is Revealed ...

The Party

• Boreas, 6th level Winter Mage
• Pendergast, 5th level Dusk Mage
• Alois, 5th level Cleric of the Unfettered Raven
• Cairn, 3rd level Dwarf Fighter Anointed of Narkul
• Ichabod the Lucky, 1st level Fighter 

A much better mix than last time ... let's hope this goes well for them!


Session Highlights

• The characters spend much time going over the clues they have gathered; identifying rumors vs. facts; and postulating theories to determine a course of action.  This alone blows my GM mind.
• Fritz Oon's establishment was attacked by the Goat-Man which caused a huge fire in the Guildhall Warehouse district.
• The party got a lead on a witch in Callistown and discovered the family of Aggie Penwith
• Aggie was killed by the nightmares.  Her Cousin Braget dies the sam way three days before.  She used to work for Marlowe VonManx!
• Braget, it was discovered, was a serial killer/rapist in addition to being a devout worshiper of the Black Goat!
• There was a mighty fight with an Unholy Golem of the Black Goat.
• Meeting with Jasmine, steward of VonManx estate they found out Aggie was fired and went to work for Hagren of House Orzin.
• The party then found out that there was a price on Boreas' head!
• Using some clever tactics and god awful good die rolls the party captured their would-be assassins, charmed them, and using some awesome magicial illusions delivered the head of Boreas to Jackie the Blighter.
• Not surprisingly, that turned into a fight, which the party won.
• Turns out that Hagren never meant to kill Tyrna - that was an accident.  Everything after that was just cleaning up loose ends.  Braget because he introduced the Black Goat magic, Aggie because she introduced Braget, Micha because he failed to plant fake love letters (before Tyrna's death), Edmun because he planted the nightmare under Micha, and Oon because Hagren had gone mad with power and was now just trying to kill everyone on his "list".
• The party encountered the Sword Wraith of the Black Goat - a form of pure shadow, great goat horns, and red pinpoints of hateful light.
• Alois' mighty faith held the thing at bay while Pendergast and Boreas used their arcane knowledge to use the summoning circle it was nesting in to actually banish the creature.
• Moments later Hagren came rushing in and was summarily beaten down.
• The party turned Hagren over to VonManx and the list of cult members to the Praetoria.
• Heroes again the party recieved full recognition of ther valorous deeds
• They now have the loyalty of the Penwith children (all 12) - contacts in Callistown
• The admiration and patronage of the Noble House VonManx - useful for getting cool adventures and jobs
• Favored Status among the Tower - giving them some minor authority and the occasional "free pass"

GM Notes
This was a tough adventure, but I took a new way of writing it up.  Mystery adventures are notoriously crap in RPGs, but using a few clever tricks, I think I nailed it.

1) The plot was actually very simple, but not revealed.  The party was thrown into the middle of a plot that was under way.  Half the adventure was figuring out what was going on and the other half was stopping it.

2) Locations, and NPCs.  Each location of the adventure and each NPC in the adventure got a 4 bullet point write-up. This forced me to keep things simple and efficient and keep the adventure focused.  It also left room for improvisation which is important in these things.  Each note also referenced at least one other location or NPC, creating a web of activity.

3) Clues are the meat of a mystery.  I made sure that there were multiple ways to find a particular location or NPC, but only a few clues as to the specific situations.  This gave the PCs a mind map to work from - they know House Orzin was involved, but not exactly how until they talked to NPCs and poked connected events.  I tried to avoid "required clues" - and at no point did I need to feed or railroad the party - the players were awesome.

4) Red Herrings  ... I made none.  There were some ambiguous clues and the Players gathered some irrelevant information but, much like I expected, they created their own red herrings to follow.  I think in an RPG red herrings are a waste of time to prepare as they will crop up on their own.  Players tend to latch onto crazy ideas and run with them.  I let the players do this a few times but made sure the distraction was short lived - as adults we only have so much time to play games and spending an entire session investigating something that turns out to be useless would be a real bummer.

5) Timelines and Action were super important to keep things moving forward.  I had a timeline of what happened before "Day 0" when the party was directly involved and I had what the next 2 weeks would look like if the party did not get involved.  Of course they did get involved.  A great examples is that Fritz Oon was going to be the next victim.  But the party identified Fritz as an NPC to talk to earlier than that and warned him that there was some shit going down so Fritz beefed up security and wasn't killed.  The action keep the tension up and the party moving to resolve the issue without spending a "week resting" or any of that nonsense.  It worked out great.

This ended up being one of the most exhausing games I've run but also the most satisfying.  Thanks to my players for making this great!

Nightmares of the Black Goat [ACR-003]

... where a party of mages and a cleric learn that the underworld is woeful indeed ...

The Story So Far

This is a quick summary of adventure points rather than a detailed recounting - i'll leave that to one of the players.

• Micha, a member of the MSR was found dead after a group nightmare (about the Black Goat)
• Micha was hired for a job related to Marlowe of HouseVonManx
• Tyrna of Minor House Quin, died in a similar manner to Micha, happened at House VonManx
• Tyrna spurned Hargran of Minor House Orzin for Marlowe
• Micha's job was related to love letters from Marlowe to another woman
• Apparently Marlowe cannot read or write (scandal!)
• Micha's nightmare was caused by a Somnia Venu'um (Dream Poison) - a creature of the patchwork
• The create was clearly related to the Black Goat - and may be infecting others!
• Micha's body was burned and his goods recovered from the MSR, except for one person
• This was Edmun, friend of Micha and former Blighter (a more powerful gang)
• Tracking Edmun the party found his body with a pair of multilated halfing
• Edmun was killed by a ritual magical dagger
• A nearby beggar says he saw a man in black with gnarled horns run "that way" 30 minutes ago
• The beggar also pointed to the goat man's "blood money" which he would not touch
• The party followed a clue and went into the Undercity to follow the now somewhat cold trail of the goat man

The Party

The party makeup was not the standard group ... this lead to some issues.

• Boreas, 6th level Winter Mage
• Pendergast, 5th level Dusk Mage
• Jonas, 1st level Skyward Mage
• Rena, 1st level Cleric of the Unfettered Raven

No fighters, no thief, and two first level characters among mid-level characters.  The role playing was strong, but the actual strength of the party was seriously unbalanced.  This led to some issues.


A Bloody Shame

After much discussion the party of 4 determined the best course of action was to follow the ramblings of the beggar and the bloody hand-print into the sewers.  Marching order became important.  Who carried the light source became very important.  And when things started climbing out of the sewage to attack the party, all of this became wildly important.

The nasty things were driven off with an incredibly violent spell from Boreas.  The party ran into a small issue with some grates blocking the way but managed to climb to the other side.  There was some discussion of what was carved on the door and what is might mean (a bit of levity with the literacy skill check).  It read "Fynk Of" ... which was a poorly carved version of "Fuck Off". 

After dealing with a rather nasty trap the party managed their way through the door, and was confronted with massive amounts of graffiti about how awesome the Blighters are, how much this or that person sucks this or the other, and that the Black Goat Rules.  Everyone agreed they were on the right path.

Down the passage they go, with the lantern burning bright giving off tons of light.  And then the ambush happened because they were wandering around gang territory with a huge beacon of light.  It went poorly.  While the only non-mage too to the front to protect everyone, a single battle axe blow drove her to the ground and spilled her guts everywhere (-13 HP is a tough place to end up).  A huge blast of hardened snow (hold persons) and an eruption of oily black shadow (smoke cloud) and the party, minus their now-dead cleric, fled.

What Followed

There was some more role playing, but Rena's player took off.  It was a nice day and no one blamed him.  I don't recall much past that moment.  Later I talked with Rena's player about it.  He was fine with the situation - he did what he thought Rena would do but forgot that he wasn't playing his 5th level character who could have likely taken those jerks out or at least held his own while the mages lobbed artillery.  The adventure didn't go poorly because of bad role playing, but because of bad gaming choices.  This first part of the adventure was level agnostic - anyone can follow clues and look for things and interview peeps.  This part, though, was tough and the combat too much.

I Almost Forgot

I got to introduce the NPC Fritz Oon and his Conduit to Lydos.  Basically think of Khan Souphanousinphone (the asian neighbor) from King of the Hill mixed with the vulgarity of Mooj (Gerry Bednob) from the 40 year-old Virgin.  That was fun.  Also I introduced the first bit of "Magic of Scions" into this itteration of the campaign.  One of my players may write something up.  We shall see.

 

 

Nightmares of the Black Goat [ACR-002]

I took the time to write up a mystery/investigation adventure based on what we started in the previous session.  The players are still mid-adventure after another session, so I can't write up everything, but a few notes until we get where we are going.

Writing a Good Mystery Adventure is Tough, but not impossible
Writing any sort of adventure is tough, but coming up with a plot that is intricate enough to be interesting but not so convoluted as to be unplayable as a game is a tough line.  I took my notes from the first session and put together 3 things

1. The Story of who did what and why
2. A Timeline of events both past and possible future
3. A Location and Character point-map

Then I let things go and the players will drive the actions. The timeline of possible future events is based on the party not wrinkling the plans ... those will change as the NPCs react to events.  I'll post up more details about the above once the adventure is completed.

The Adventurers as Sleuths
The fun part of this is there is a building sense of dread without any direct conflict.  The party is getting involved in something that is happening - sticking their nose into some dark business and becoming part of the story. They can see that murder is definitely involved, a botched thieving job, love and jealousy, treachery, a class conflict between nobility and the common, and of course dark magic, mind-control creatures from the patchwork kingdom (the Venenum Somnia or Dream Poison), possible infection and outbreak, and the machinations of the most wicked and vile Cult of the Black Goat. Watching the players find clues and weave them into a narrative and expound on possible theories is somewhere in between a law and order episode and True Detective (Season 1, of course).  They seem to be having fun and I'm LOVING it.

NOTE
This post was delayed ... I was expecting a write-up of the adventure from one of my players but it didn't happen, which is too bad.

Player Created Rumors and It Begins! [ACR-001]

... in which the players derive the action and the GM improvises like a sonofabitch ...

Player Created Rumors
When the Aldsburg Chronicles campaign first started I introduced the idea of players giving rumors of potential adventure plots.  It took a bit of getting used to (both in style and form) but in the end everyone got there and it added TONS of style and flavor to the campaign.

The last few session of the Aldsburg Chronicles were the players tracking down and battling a daemon they let loose to get parts to cure a curse so they could be more effective in hunting for a giant ruby rumored to be under Juniper tower but to get there they had to find a secret gate and OHMYGODIMEXHAUSTED. Something happened and whatever rumor turned into a crazy campaign that was NOT episodic.  It was fun, but not quite what I was hoping for.

So enter Aldsburg Chronicles Reboot. After a discussion of how the campaign had changed and the players could keep their characters (or make new ones if they wanted, which 1 player did) I started the Rumors again. Let's see how round 2 of the player-driven campaign works out.

The Rumors
As always, the players lay out "what their character heard" and I'll adjust a bit to make sure things flow.  What we ended up with:

• The Cult of the Black Goat has been causing nightmares all around Aldsburg - it is affecting all manner of folks and causing endless woe.
• Children have been going missing not only in the Warrens but also in Bridgingate - a strange green residue is the only clue.
• A mysterious figure known as the Gambler has been seen around town, followed but a small heard of ever-changing goats.  It is said you can bet family members against your weight in silver ducats.
•  At night a Ghost Tower can be see to rise in the great ruined piles on the far side of the sky girder.  Screams and cries are said to be heard echoing across the ruins. Some say the tower is the result of a wizard's curse and the only way in is with a feather from the wizard's griffon familiar who is still alive and leads the pack of griffon that infest the region.
• A massive sinkhole has opened in the ruins - some say it is an inverted tower!  Old Crelly said he wandered down and saw the Prison of Glass.  Obrin thinks that the legendary Doktir Flemming, a Lord of Scions, created the tower and it is coming back to mirror the Ghost Tower.

The Adventure
While we did make sure everyone had a protege (with the exception of the player who made a new character that has the potential to be super awesome - see below) and re-established the campaign setting, I wanted to make sure we got some gaming in. 

So i picked a rumor, wrote down 3 notes, and started my favorite thing in the world - GM IMPROV! From the rumors it sounds like the group wants a mystery adventure.  As any seasoned GM knows these are fucking tough to run, but what the hell, right?  No guts, no glory.  No risk, no reward.

...

As Alois returns from another session of "Soup not Swords" (a join mission with Our Holy Mother to feed the poor in the Warrens) a swarm of urchins follows him into the Murder of Crowns tavern.  They ask "Uncle Alois and Uncle Boreas" to tell them the story of the "End of the 8th Age".  This was a not-too-subtle move to let the player tell the story of end of the Worldgod Campaign to the players who weren't part of it ... but in these characters ... it we pretty cool.

As the sotry finishes and the group begind discussing the rumors about town and what kind of adventure they should get up to, a dark and oily misasma floods into the tavern.  The front door bursts open and a hulking pile of shaggy grey tatters storms in.  As dust and filth spray from the thing it let's loose an animalistic bellow and charges into the bar, striking anyone and everything in it's path.

In fairly short order this THING kicks the fuck out of the surprised party.  Everyone is unconscious or dead (with massive 4d6p+6 point wounds!) and somehow - SOMEHOW - Alois, Favored Cleric of the Unfettered Raven, is going toe-toe with this thing.  At this point I'm loving this combat.  The players are all in shock at the violent character deaths, I'm acting sort of surprised and ho-hum about it (you wanted a harder game, right?) and the player with Alois won't back down and contrary to his normal behavior, is arguing rules with me.  He wants to win!  As the death blow from this goat-deamon (who suddenly manifested spell abilities) strikes down Alois he and the rest of the party wake up from this terrible shared nightmare.

GM NOTE: I actually managed to pull of the "it was all a dream" bit.  Second time in my GM career.  This was even better than the first time because I had 5 players along for the ride.  W00t.  Enough patting myself on the back.

As the party gets together they find out that everyone in the Secret Lair (they need to come up with a cool name for their secret headquarters) was affected.  Everyone is ok ... wait ... oh no!  Micha is dead.  Woe and weal!  After some investigation they find some sort of patchwork thing under his bed that had to have been placed there.  Alois sends his contact Jezebel out to find information for him.


Now that the nightmares of the Black Goat are a real threat, the adventure has been set.  Jezebel returns with some info and the party decides that they should follow that exclusively.  Into Callistown - endless urban sprawl and shanty mining town craziness.

I had to end the session there because

• It was 6pm
• I didn't have much more fleshed out
• A LOT of beer had been drunk by all
• I wanted more tacos

The tone was set.  I have the adventure framework written up in more detail.  Now I'm off to learn more about running successful mystery scenarios in RPGs. 

Protege System

Having a character die sucks.  It isn't always so much that you lose the awesome guy you built up and all of the cool stuff, but that your new mook is 1st level and everyone else is a powerhouse (like 5th level).  You are a fragile and delicate flower compared to the hardened badasses that have almost two magic weapons. among them.

Enter the Protege System!  The idea is that you can impart some of your adventuring knowledge to one of more protege characters that, when your main character is taken out of action, retires, or is otherwise no longer in play you can come to the table with a character that is at least not a completely fresh supern00b.

A Note on Experience
The game I run has 2 types of experience

• Adventuring: from killing monsters, lore awards, and exploration (about 60% of all EXP)
• Carousing: experience from spending all the loot you find (about 40% of all EXP)

Adventuring EXP is handed out at the end of adventures or when there is a reasonable break in the action (not each session). 

The System

• A character may have a maxim number of protégé equal to their maximum henchman number. 
• A character may have their first protégé when they reach level 2. 
• Protégé can be of any class. 
• Protégé may pass between characters, but once passed on may not go back to a former master. 
• Protégé must be at least 1 level less than the master character. 
• A protégé may not have a protégé himself; only primary characters may have protégé. 
• Player may pass along Adventuring EXP to the protégé in the same session it is earned. 
• The amount of EXP is 2x CHA percent of any EXP earned (CHA of 11 = 22%). 
• This amount is divided among all protégé, split as desired. 
• This EXP is not lost to the main character. 
• A protégé can only gain EXP this way once per session. 
• The first time a protégé is played they are a character and can no longer a protégé and cannot be given experience points in this manner.

Example: Higgins earns 250 EXP.  His CHA is 14.  So Higgins has 250 * (14 x2)% = 250 * .28 = 70 EXP to distribute to his 2 protégé in any manner he sees fit.

Character Last Will and Testament
This also gives players the ability to write up a will for their stuff.  "I bequest my fine silver blade to my protégé Asgird and my suite of chain to Gwendolyn.  The remainder of my goods are given to the party treasurey except for my coin which is to be show to Kylic the thief then given to the poor so the wretch knows what he can't steal."

Posthumous EXP
For characters that were awesome but died off in a battle, they still gain posthumous EXP which can be handed out to protégé before they become primary characters.  It is that last bump for a "job well done".  If the character is going to remain a protégé then they don't get this option and can learn from whoever takes them, over.

Aldsburg Chronicles Rewritten

... wherein the Previous and Current rejoin ...

The Aldsburg Chronicles, even while set after the previous campaign, had been running on and off for a year or so.  The end of the Worldgod Campaign was pretty intense and went down one of the paths that the Aldsburg Chronicles were NOT set in.  So we rebooted a bit.

---

The end of the 8th Age was a time of great destruction.  When the Phoenician Lords, a band of madmen from another world, killed the Soul of the Eradu the skies bled metal and fire.  Waters rose and swallowed the unworthy.  Mountains punched though the ground and tumbled the weak.  Those that survived the Apocalypse saw a new sky brimming with gods and felt the world shudder as it forced itself to be reborn.

Aldsburg is the City of Towers.  It was once a place that sprawled and was home to millions.  But now only 3 towers stand tall: Lion's Tooth, Ivory Jundar, and Steel Tower.  The ruins of other towers are scattered across the scarred mountainside and inhabited by the wretched - bandits, mutants, and monsters.

Lion's Tooth is the gateway to Aldsburg and where the majority of Aldsburg lives.  Each of the layers has one of the noble families that runs it, and each layer has 2 or three townships run by lesser nobility.

Somewhere in the crown sits Clarissa the Grotesque who controls all of the Tower.  The lowest to highest layers are: the Warrens, Bridgingate, and The Crown.

Ivory Jundar is where the Opulent and Noble live.  The four levels are places of slavery and dark desires.  While the Bellmans Quarter the lowest tower level) is entirely off limits, activity between Lion's Tooth and Steel Tower take place in The Arena level.  The strange Twin Spires layer has two very distinct and separate regions split when the sky fell, but The Clouds are the highest level and allow the most opulent and most worthy.

Steel Tower was once a place of Wizards but was burned from the core outward.  It is now a place where the truly criminal and the insane are left to their own devices.  While none are allowed to leave the Steel Tower does trade and have interaction with both Ivory and Lion's Tooth. The five levels are named after the colors of the stone and steel: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue.

Surrounding The Towers are two communities: Callistown and Brindle's Gate.  The inhabitants of Callistown are farmers and miners and make the majority of the food for the city.  They live in what appears to be and endless and smoking shanty around the base of Lion's Tooth.  Brindle's Gate is on the far side of Hangman Bridge and acts as a gate town for those few visitors that attempt to visit.  It is a place of thievery and corruption.

---

The players asked a few questions but were all bought in.  With the memories of the previous Aldsburg games rumbling about the setting already feels solid.  Also, this happens to mesh up nicely with the Haven Campaign setting for the BXDH rules.

Now Aldsburg is more focused (3 towers instead of a billion) and is surrounded by both alternate urban locations but immediate "Giant Ruined Pile" sites.  The party can muck about in the immediate area as much as they like or get into some of wilderness exploration.

From the GM side I'm going to look into making point-crawl style maps for the area around Aldsburg.  Then a combination of hex-crawl and point-crawl for the wilderness.  Aldsburg and the Underworld get the old fashioned grid map treatment.