Monstrous Influences [DoE]

Types of Monsters
The Dawn of Eradu campaign will have eight sources for monsters, plus hybrids.  As I'm likely going to be using Dungeon World each of these will be tags.  This doesn't cover everything - beasts, humanoids, and human themselves are monsters as well,

Aliens
Inhuman terrors with inexplicable weapons and creatures (which are sometimes one and the same) grown in vats of bubbling filth.  The aliens want to enslave and do so with terror and weird surgery, implanting or infecting those they wish to control.  They can occasionally be reasoned with, but everyone knows from stories passed down by generation that they destroyed the moon.

Patchwork
Things, for no other word properly describes them, from the Patchwork are of Chaos, Nightmares, and Darkness. They want nothing more than to live in the World of Light - to sun their tentacles and air out their insane geometries.  But they are not alive and therefore cannot truly live - as abominations they cause destruction in their wake.  Simply put - Patchwork Things are demons.

Fey
The four courts of the Land of Unreason, engage in their endless Slow War that sometimes leaks into this reality.  Intrigue, surreal landscapes, blood, and the mingling of unreason are signs that the land of Faerie has claimed a bit of Eradu for her own.  The Fey Nobility care little about the World of Reason, but the lesser Fey often interact with the common folk of Eradu with ... mixed results.

Planar
The Aliens are from another dimension similar to this place.  The Land of Unreason and the Patchwork are regions within the aestheral plane that connects the various dimensions of the Prime and other planes of existence.  These other planes are themselves entire universes with other rules and laws. Sometimes creatures and beings from these universes come to visit.

Undead
A blight upon the land, the unliving horde is a problem.  Some are intelligent, but most are mindless or at least not particularly creative. They wish only to snuff out life.

Scions

There are things that are born from the Lord Scions - creatures of metal armed with strange and terrible weapons.  There is an intelligence that cannot be denied, but understanding what Lord Scions had in mind is beyond comprehension.  Many creatures of Scions have an aura of sickness around them; scions also has the highest chance for hybridization with other creature forms.

Hybrids
I'm going to use a lot of random creature creation - at least to get things started.  When a creature of a particular type is rolled up, there is a chance the critter is actually a hybrid between two types - check the Hybrid column.  If the critter is a hybrid, roll 1d10 to see what the hybrid is.

	Hybrid	Aliens	Patch	Fey	Planar	Undead	Scions	Beasts	Humanoids
Aliens	5%	---	1	---	2	3	4-5	6-8	9-10
Patchwork	1%	1	---	2	---	3-4	5-6	7-9	10
Fey	1%	---	1	---	2-3	4-6	7	8-10	--
Planar	2%	1	---	2	---	3	4	5-8	9-10
Undead	4%	1-2	3	4-6	7	---	8-9	10	---
Scions	8%	1	2	3	4	5-6	---	7-8	9-10
Beasts	3%	1	2	3-4	5-6	7	8	---	9-10
Humanoids	1%	1-3	4	5	6	7-8	9	10	---

For example, there is a 4% chance that an Undead creature is a hybrid.  Assuming we rolled that it is a hybrd then the additional 1d10 roll result of 7 the undead is some sort of planar undead.  What does that mean?  No idea yet.  Maybe some sort of undead modron servitor gone terribly awry and "fixing" the hills in this region (which involves digging a rather complex tunel system?)

I don't know how this is going to turn out, but it should be fun to find out.

History in Brief [DoE]

I've always liked a bit of history with my settings, but the folks often go on and on and get into insignificant detail. They often ten make a history exceedingly long and focused on dates - the entire fantastic nature of this other world is lost on me. Leaving gaps in the details also allows for easy customization.

The history of Eradu is somewhat known to my players, but it was always suitably vague to the players and characters to never be a point of conflict. This also allows me to massage it for the next campaign.  An alternate Eradu - numerous familiar aspects, but different from the original.  Below are the Ages of Eradu

Antiquity
Age of Precursors - Eradu was created and those that created it thrived
Time of Dreams - The world changed with the great dreaming; heroes were born
Sorcerer Lords - Dark wizards took control of the land and enslaved all for their dark masters
The Uprising - Slaves threw off their shackles and tok back the world

Golden Ages
Tide of Nations - Great nations were born and civilization thrived on peace and trade
Days of Steel - Technology advances, and with it the aims and goals of all sentient kind
Arcane Revival - Magic, lost since antiquity, is rediscovered and begins a new era
Rise of the Technoarchanists - Technology and Magic merge into super science and sorcery

Dark Ages
Alien Arival - the first of the Graijax arrive and awaken ancient fear ... and they destroyed the moon
The Great War - nation turns against nation; war rages across the land and societies collapse
Patchwork Bloom - The Patchwork finds a crack opened by the Great War and blooms in Eradu
Lost Years - Unknown time passes, the world rearranges itself, and the new ways emerge

Now
Dawn - Safe in Haven, adventurers begin to explore the world again

The Next Campaign [DoE]

I'm taking a GM break for a while.  The Worldgod Campaign has ended, and I've decided that the Aldsburg Chronicles ran for a good line time and were also awesome but are now over.  Also I think I've over HackMaster.  The GM's book was such a huge (and expensive) disappointment as well as the last few adventures I picked up.  I'd started customixzing this so much that the game was verging on becoming another system, which almost happened until I realized that I was simply mashing together derivative claptrap (thanks, friends, who put up with that).

But oddly without the pressure to run a game I feel like a wellspring of ideas have opened up.  I've been wanting to do some serious science fantasy mash up stuff for a while.  My other games had it, but I want to go whole hog into the post-apocalyptic strangeness.

Some Inspirations

• Anomalous Subsurface Environment
• Adventure Time
• Carcossa
• Rick and Morty
• Red and Pleasant land
• Fallout 4 but not The Witcher 3
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess
• A strong desire for Player Driven stuff
• My friend's enthusiasm for running his first game
• Banks, Vance, Lovecraft, Howard
• And recently, for some unknown reason, Zardoz

I'm pretty sure I want Dungeon World to be my next system.  Anyone out there have some experiences with it from a player or GM perspective they want to share?

The Dwarves in this next world will definitely be cannibals that wear leather made from the skins of their ancestors.  Their eternal war with the Elf are because those creatures are of the bloodline of the Vampiric Fey who want to make blades from the metal that can be extracted from Dwarf bones. Also Dwarf gain extra fast healign when eating the flesh of an Elf.

There ... that should get things going.  I'll use the DoE tag for these posts ... Dawn of Eradu.

Planescape 5e Bard [PS5]

I've always hated the Bard as an adventuring class - it never worked for me within type of fantasy I imagined.  The "Jack of All Trades" might be a fine character for an adventure story, but when there is a party of adventurers, they become lesser and, in short, the asshole with the lute.  They can inspire the party ... ok ... so what?  Instead why don't they just do something useful and make the party better by being awesome?

My long-standing dislike of bards has lead me to create a bard character for a 5e game I'm going to be playing in. I think I still feel the same way about the bard class after making this guy, but I am digging the crazy Planescape background.  Metal/punk bard half-gith slave escpaed from the Gehenna slave pits of Mongoth ... with a little bit of dragon-blood sorcerer thrown in for extra metal.

Also, I rolled a complete statistical anomoly, even with 4d6 drop the lowest standard.  Since we are bringing characters, I made sure the GM was ok with it first because the chances of rolling a 18 are 1.6%, on a set of 6 scores rolling at least 1 18 is 9%, at least 2 of them is .4% and 3 ... well, that is less than 1 in 10,000.  Mind you I also got a 5 ... but WHAT?  I wouldn't believe a player if they brought this to my table.

We shall see if this character changes my bard mind ... likely not, but it may be hellafun to play for a while.

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.