I'm thinking about a slight hack of Trophy Gold to change up Burdens. The gist of it all is that I want the adventurers to be trying to "push back darkness" - think hunting monsters, destroying profane summoning circles, etc. They each have their own secrets and aren't heroes, but the focus is on trying … Continue reading Thinking about Communities in Trophy Gold
I have been thinking on how to include Christian mythology (used in the sense of "sacred stories", not in the sense of "false stories"). I have an extremely complicated relationship with Christianity, certainly, but I also want to treat people's belief systems with respect. My thoughts very much do not turn in the direction of … Continue reading Christian Mythology in gaming
It took a bit, but we finally wrapped up "Necromancer's Gambit" from Tome of Mysteries. For sure, there are spoilers here. One of our players unfortunately couldn't make it due to real life considerations, so our group this time consisted of: Cordelia Miranova, the InitiateMiranda “Andi” Caruso, the Spell-slingerOphelia Graves, the Spooky We still referenced … Continue reading The M-Files: Session 3 Recap
After some reflection, I have decided to mark some posts private and thereby make them unavailable. In the interests of transparency, I want to document the reasons why. Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash First, I have removed access to my list of free D&D 5e adventures. The traffic to that one post overwhelms everything … Continue reading Marking some posts private
For "Gates of Despair", I designed a simple mechanic to represent the influence of the Unseeable God on the minds of the folks there. So as to keep things extremely straightforward, the mechanic is just a track of conditions as you go down it. After discussing it in the Mothership Discord, somebody pointed out that … Continue reading Indoctrination and Sanity in Mothership
Putting this right out there: this turns out to be the last main session of the campaign. I'll say a little more about what's next in the wrap-up section, but I think I'm mostly pleased with how this went, with a few caveats. Narrative ((For ease of reading, I'm separating out a few different story … Continue reading Gates of Despair: Session 7 Recap
The second session of our "Monster of the Week" campaign used another pre-written adventure from the Tome of Mysteries, albeit customized somewhat for my group. Spoilers for "Necromancer's Gambit" follow, so beware! Narrative The player characters in this mystery included: Cordelia Miranova, the InitiateMiranda “Andi” Caruso, the Spell-slingerOphelia Graves, the SpookyAlice Everly, the Chosen At … Continue reading The M-Files: Session 2 Recap
I recently got a copy of The Artifact in the Itch "Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality". This is a text log of my (first?) playthrough, so spoilers are likely. CONTENT WARNING: disturbing imagery, gore. Day 1 Yesterday, I received a donation of a new artifact, which was assigned the reference number #734654 in our … Continue reading The Artifact
For the Enceladus Research Facility in Gates of Despair Session 6, I didn't want to pre-populate with NPCs. One of the players had already established that their character knew several people there, and I wanted them to have some creative control over that. Additionally, the facility had lots of places and it made more sense … Continue reading Mothership NPC Generation
After an extended break due to real life, we finally got back to some science fiction horror! I also wrote up some new random tables and a new mechanic, but those will get fully detailed in separate future posts. No spoilers this time - everything is original material. The map is my own creation, using … Continue reading The Gates of Despair: Session 6 Recap
Technoskald's Forge 