...that the Lester Dent estate probably wouldn’t let it (he died in 1959, but there are mentions of the estate in 2015, so I presume it’s a going concern), but golly, “Lester Dent Pulp RPG” would be a fine name for what it says on the tin.
Monday, December 12, 2022
Friday, December 9, 2022
Next Flight: Sewer Kings 3c The Ambush
Icons
This is from Victory RPG’s Sewer Kings.
House Rules:
- Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
- Spend an advantage when using Regeneration and get your Regeneration level in Strength back.
The Ambush
Flip-Flop was above the buildings, using binoculars to look down at the roar. “Traffic’s heavy. Why don’t they transfer prisoners at three a.m.?”[1]
Thursday, December 8, 2022
Next Flight: Flying Solo 2d (bonus) Raiders of The Lost Torc
Icons
House Rules
- Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
- Regeneration with an advantage gives back Strength levels.
- You can use Fast Attack with all your powers, but it costs an Advantage to switch between attacks in a panel. (That is, you can punch twice, but it’s an Advantage to punch and blast.)
This builds off the scenes in Victory RPG’s Flying Solo, which was written by Fran Vaughan as an M&M Superlink module for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition. (When I converted characters, I used the same artwork as in the module, but I don’t see attribution on them. Anyway: no intent to infringe or take money; if it’s an issue, please contact me at jhmcmullen@gmail.com and I’ll remove the artwork.)
The adventure itself has been presented as parts a-c, but it’s more a toolkit for use in a campaign. So instead, I present a scene where I just bring almost everyone together. Because of what happens in the next part of Sewer Kings, this bonus part has to happen here; besides, I originally set it for the same day.
Raiders of the Lost Torc
Across the street, yellow police tape still marked the entrance to the museum. There were no obvious policemen, but they had seen the night watchman pass.
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Next Flight: Flying Solo 2c A Day At The Museum (Succubus)
Icons
House Rules
- Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
- Regeneration with an advantage gives back Strength levels.
- You can use Fast Attack with all your powers, though it costs an Advantage to switch between modes. (That is, you can punch twice, but it’s an Advantage to punch and blast.)
Credit for the story goes to Victory RPG’s Flying Solo, which I presume is written by Fran Vaughan as an M&M Superlink module for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition. When I converted characters, I used the same artwork as in the module, but I don’t see attribution on them. Anyway: no intent to infringe or take money; if it’s an issue, please contact me at jhmcmullen@gmail.com and I’ll remove the artwork.
A Day At The Museum
At work at the museum, Emily Morgan invited Tara Kleine to lunch. Tara’s first inclination was to refuse—and then she remembered that both Flip-Flop and The Reach had told her that she needed to get out more, and needed to meet more people.
Saturday, December 3, 2022
Next Flight: Sewer Kings 3b Cleaning The Sewers
Icons
This is from Victory RPG’s Sewer Kings.
House Rules
- Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
Cleaning The Sewers
The Reach was humming while he worked in the headquarters. He was humming because it had been a good dinner and evening, and he was working because the headquarters always needed something. Silkworm, the original owner, had jury-rigged everything; jury-rigs eventually fail. In about three years, he figured, he would have replaced everything with real fixes and it would be the HQ of Theseus. Today he was fixing the combat simulator. Last week the Trouncy Castle had knocked Flip-Flop into a wall and left a dent, misaligning one of the projectors. (At some point alien friends of Silkworm had given her hard light technologies and the combat simulator’s mechanisms were—pardon the expression—utterly opaque to anyone not familiar.)
Friday, December 2, 2022
Felewin & Ninefingers 2 — A Step Off The Road (Actual Play)
Iron Gauntlets
Felewin and Ninefingers 2. Actually posted December 3, 2025 but backdated because it was done long ago.
Felewin & Ninefinges 1: The Haunted Graveyard —::— Felewin & Ninefinges 3: TThe Sanctuary Ruin
A Step Off The Road[1]
The dozen lean wolves chased them to the edge of the river. After Felewin and Ninefingers jumped in to the cold water, one or two actually put paws in the water, but they went no farther, because the river was fast and deep.
Felewin and Ninefingers saw the wolves for only a moment, because the current carried them down, toward the coast, toward the Black Forest. The river clutched at them and pulled, trying to duck them and drown them. It took most of Felewin’s strength to keep his head up. He was not numb yet but it was painfully cold and he knew numbness was coming. Ninefingers had been thrashing; he went down and did not surface again.
Felewin dived, trying to find the goblin’s scrawny body. Nothing; he dived again. Nothing. Had it been too long? How long was too long with goblins? He dived again. This time he brushed against something and grabbed it. He felt cloth, tried to look at it in the murky water, couldn’t, pulled it up.
It was Ninefingers.
It took all of Felewin’s strength to keep both of them afloat.
It wasn’t until much later that the river slowed, and they ended in a bend where Felewin could drag them both out.
#[2]
Felewin shook out his mail hauberk and set it in on the boulder, in the sun. He stored the hauberk in oiled cloth, but it was still wet and might rust. It needed to be dried and sanded and oiled.
Ninefingers was stretched on the field, naked but for a breechcloth. His greenish skin glistened from the river. His clothes were stretched out on the grass beside him, at waist-height for him: the grass was that tall.
The sun felt good on Felewin’s naked back as he sorted his belongings. The food had dissolved in water or turned into a gooey mass. He kept his sword near, in case there were things about.
Probably they were still the Black Forest. The river had taken them downstream. They were not at the coast yet; Felewin had only heard dim tales that there was a coast.
“Well, we didn’t get eaten by wolves,” Felewin said.
The goblin didn’t open his eyes. “But we lost all our food.”
“Pretty much. Cheese blob? Nowhere to keep it.”
“Thanks.” As Ninefingers chewed, he said around the cheese, “I set traps. Noose won’t hold more’n a bird or squirrel, but it might help.”
“You know, wolves don’t normally attack people,” Felewin said.
“Starving, by the looks of them. Maybe something else out-hunted them?”
#[3]
Felewin’s own breechclout was still damp, but the sun was going down, and it got cold at night. He went to the boulder to get his clothes—and saw that his mail hauberk was gone. He grabbed his sword and slowly got dressed. He checked behind the boulder. No, his clothes were there. The leather was stiff from the water, and he pounded it absently before putting it on.[4]
Ninefingers came out of the forest bearing a dead rabbit. “Behold the conquering hero! And it’s easy to skin!”
“Put your clothes on. Be ready.”
The goblin tilted his head, then draped the dead rabbit on a tuft of grass and dressed.
In a low voice he asked what was going on. Still scanning the area, Felewin told him.
“Griffin? They like shiny things. Like innards.”
“What gets me is that I didn’t notice the noise. That’s chain. It makes some sound.”
“That’s because we’re not noisy, like some people,” said a high, sibilant voice.
A group of small, reptilian humanoids stepped from the tall grass. The grass was nearly as tall as they were. They had spears: small knives bound to sticks. Felewin slowly sheathed his sword.
#[5]
“Lizard-people?” asked Ninefingers.
“Tiny lizard people?” corrected Felewin.
“Kobolds! We are kobolds!” said the one who had already spoken. Another kobold began to sing, but the first one silenced him with a gesture. “And we won’t be pushed around anymore.” A kobold shook the sharp end of his spear in Felewin’s face.
“We weren’t pushing,” said Felewin.
“Coming right to the edge of our city, taking our food supply…you were pushing.” He paused a moment, waiting for a response. Felewin made none. “Very well. The mail was simply a rental fee. For the use of our fine field.” He looked at the rabbit. “And we’ll have to charge for the coney, too.”
“We’re lost,” said Felewin.
“Oh, a finder’s fee!” said one of the kobolds—perhaps the one who had started singing. Felewin couldn’t tell them apart, except the lead kobold wore a badge and a slightly different jerkin. “We found you!”
“Let me handle this,” said Ninefingers, “because it looks like everything you say will lead to a fee.”
Felewin said to Ninefingers in a quiet voice, “I have a few silver if they’ll take that instead of my mail.”
Ninefingers said, “Shhh! They’ll take that as well as your mail.”
“Are you his servant? Because there’s a servant fee,” said the lead kobold.
“I’m not his servant. I’m his—” What was a good word for what he was? “His companion.”
“Companion fee! Companion fee!” shouted one of the other kobolds.
Felewin said to Ninefingers, “You’re related to them. Surely you can make them see light.”
“First of all, no, I’ve never seen them before. Second, you’re more closely related to every stinking human on the continent. Can you make them all see the same thing?”
“Hey!” said the lead kobold. “No big words!”
“Big word fee! Big word fee!” The excitable kobold jumped up and down until a fellow kobold hit him on the head.
“Can we see your boss or leader?” asked Ninefingers.
“He’s too busy to see you!”
“We’ll wait,” said Felewin. Ninefingers looked at him. “Sometimes people would wait for days to see my father, and he was just hearing cases.”
The kobold nodded. “You’ll have to hand over your sword.” Felewin looked at him. The kobold said, “No fee this time.”
“Unless the kobold holding it charges you a holding fee,” added another kobold helpfully.
The pair gathered their things. A kobold took the rabbit. Another tried to take Felewin’s sword—he refused to relinquish it.
Ninefingers handed over his dagger. “You know, in an Aprak nest, disputes are resolved immediately. That’s why we sound so sad in the human world.”
“That’s the reason?”
“It could be that I’m just not jolly,” admitted Ninefingers.
#
“Behold!” squeaked the lead kobold, as they stood in the woods.
Three shacks sat in a clearing. They were in use, but they had obviously not been maintained in years. The grass was high around them, and the trees loomed at the edge of the clearing.
“A company of adventurers?” A splash of paint marked a sunrise on the side of one building. “That looks kind of like the emblem of the Golden Helm Society.”
“Loggers,” said Ninefingers. “They were going to tame the great woods. Came to our nest looking for orclins to do brute force work.”
Felewin squinted. It didn’t really look like a golden helm. “It didn’t work out?”
“No, we don’t associate with orclins. They’re animals.”
“I meant the logging—
A stick hit Felewin in the middle of his back. “Stop talking! Behold the wonder that is...” He chirped, then chirruped, then squeaked.
“Pardon?” asked Felewin.
“In your tongue...Koboldia!”
“Where?”
“The buildings!”
“It’s glorious,” Ninefingers assured him. “Can we go now?”
“I need my mail,” said Felewin. “I can’t afford to buy a replacement.”
#[6]
A cloud passed over the sun. Felewin glanced up—the sky had been clear today, until now.
Great wings blocked the light. They stood in the shadow of a bird so huge, it blocked the sun.
Not a bird. Felewin saw the trailing legs and the leading forepaws. A griffin, perhaps? And it blocked the sun because it was low—it skimmed the tree-tops and dropped into the clearing. It was as large as a boar, perhaps, but the wings were huge, reaching as far as four men across.
No, not a griffin: it had no beak. The face was more feline. Definitely fanged.
The thing grabbed a kobold by the scruff of the neck, shook it violently, and swallowed him in two gulps. The beast was standing by the entrance to one building, and another kobold disappeared down its gullet.[7]
Without thinking, Felewin drew his sword and began running across the clearing. He had to distract the beast. With luck, it wasn’t poisonous or didn’t breathe fire or emit dangerous fumes—
His sword bit into the thing’s haunch, right beside the tail of a bird. His sword hit something—bone?—and stuck there.
#[8]
That hurt made the beast drop the kobold in its mouth and turn to Felewin to swipe at him with a massive paw. The claws whistled as they passed him. Felewin yanked at his sword to no effect, and the thing flew off.
Felewin screamed in frustration. “It has my sword!” He balled his hands into fists and no kobold dared go near him. “Now I have nothing! Nothing!”
Ninefingers said, “But you’re still alive.”
“Yes, but—”
“Would you rather be dead and have your sword, or alive and without?”
Felewin relaxed his hands. “You’re right. Alive.” He shook out his arms. The kobolds were all staring. “Shall we go?”
According to the kobolds, the smallest shack was the royal shack. “It has a door that works,” confided the lead kobold. Before they went in, Felewin asked him his name. He clacked his jaw and made a hissing sound. “Pok-hiss?” asked Felewin.
“You’re not getting the tones right.” The kobold repeated it.
“He can’t hear them,” said Ninefingers. “He’s just a human.”
“Oh,” said Pok-hiss, who reached up to the handle, unlatched the door, and entered. The door stopped about a hand’s-width from the jamb, so each kobold went in easily, Ninefingers with only a little difficulty, and Felewin looked at the door in disgust. He kicked the soil, trying to open the door farther, then managed to get it open wide enough to squeeze in.
The room smelled of kobold, a musky reptilian smell. Felewin blinked in the semi-darkness. The floor was covered with leaves and scraps of cloth, arranged into sloppy nests. Most of the nests were occupied; the occupants were by decoration kobold females. That was the only way Felewin could detect the difference in sex.
“The king has a harem?” he asked Ninefingers in a low voice.
Ninefingers shook his head. “No, he’s the protector until they lay their eggs.”
Something poked Felewin in the thigh, and he stepped forward, almost stepping in a nest with every step. He felt large and awkward in this room. Finally, he reached the counter, where a brawny kobold sat, almost as wide as Ninefingers.
“Kneel!”
Ninefingers knelt. Felewin said, “If I kneel, I’ll hurt someone.” He did bow his head.
The brawny kobold said, “Oh. You may stand.”
“This is King—” Pok-hiss chirped three times, each chirp slightly different. “But human, you can call him Totinkin.” He looked firmly at Ninefingers. “But you have to get it right.”
Felewin saw Ninefingers roll his eyes.
“Do not speak until I speak,” said the king. Felewin nodded. “Not even nodding.” His voice was deeper than that of any other kobold they had met, which meant it was a medium-high-pitched squeak.
“We are honored to meet you, your Highness,” said Felewin.
“No speaking until I speak.”
“But you spoke,” said Felewin reasonably. At his side, Ninefingers sighed.
“I wasn’t speaking as the king then, and I’m not now, I’m speaking to help you. When I speak as the king, you’ll know, by the extra rich sound of my voice,” said the king.
“Sorry,” said Felewin.
“No, no speaking yet.” He cleared his throat. “We wonder what your intentions are, in the fair land of Koboldia.”
Felewin remained silent. Ninefingers hit him on the hip. Felewin shook his head.
“That was my extra rich voice,” said the king. “You can talk now.”
“Oh.”
“He can’t hear the extra tones,” said Ninefingers helpfully. “Humans. You know.”
Felewin scowled at Ninefingers. “O king, we are strangers in your land, and came upon it by accident. We were escaping wolves—”
“Hungry wolves.”
“—and ended up here.”
“You have our permission to stay.”
“Your fees have left us quite bereft of funds,” said Ninefingers. The king stared at him. “We have no money left.”
The king thought about this. Finally, he said, “Then you must perform a service for us.”
“He already opened the door,” said Pok-hiss, unable to contain his excitement any longer.
The king thought about this. “Then you may have one fee given back.”
“My hauberk, please.” Ninefingers covered his face with his hand.
“But your hauberk is worth the staying on the land fee and the protection from beasts fee.”
“I’m the one who scared it away.”
“You did? You scared it away?” He turned to Pok-hiss. “Is this true?”
Pok-hiss switched to kobold-speak, and hisses, chirps, and squeaks filled the space between them. Finally the king turned to them and said, “Get rid of the monster, and all debts are canceled.”
“Including time needed for healing afterward?” asked Ninefingers.
“Yes,” said the king.
“And room and lodging until the monster leaves?”
“Yes,” said the king.
“And a new sword?” asked Felewin.
“No,” said the king. “We are a new nation. We need our swords.”
Pok-hiss said, “We don’t really have swords.”
Felewin sighed. “All right. I swear.”
#[10]
Having obtained the king’s permission to camp outside, they sat around the fire eating the squirrel from Ninefingers’ other snare. “The problem is going to be killing it with no weapons,” said Felewin. “I have nothing but a knife. I suppose I could make spears…” He licked juices from his fingers. “Any more?”
“None. And I had no luck finding plants.”
“The beast is too big to get in the forest, so it must be hunting clearings—but I can’t imagine there are enough clearings. Not this near a river.”
“Logging,” said Ninefingers. “They opened it up.”[11]
A squeak sounded to one side. Ninefingers saw a female kobold standing by the edge of the light, by a tree. Felewin said, “We won’t hurt you.”
Without moving, she said, “Thank you. You saved lover.” Even though it was in the common tongue, most was inaudible to Felewin. Ninefingers translated.
The two of them talked while Felewin watched, with Ninefingers asking many questions, and the kobold struggling to answer in the common tongue. Finally, the kobold slipped away.
Ninefingers chortled happily. “Found a grave, I think. And the Corrough bury with weapons.”
Felewin started to rise. “Let’s go!”
“I’ll go. We need it by tomorrow, so speed is important. I can see in the dark and you can’t. I don’t want to be responsible for you when you’re walking into trees and tripping over roots.”
“But it’s a tomb!”
“I started in grave-robbing. It’s a cairn. Worst I can see will be a ghost, and I know how to handle those.”
Felewin sank down. “All right. If you insist. I can wrestle a wight for you, though.”
“No, but—thanks.”
#[12]
Ninefingers checked the stars again. Yes. He was going in the right direction. There. A pile of rocks, surrounded by a ring of mushrooms.
Ninefingers looked at the mushrooms. They were almost never a gate to the fey lands, but.... He threw a stone into the ring, without hitting the cairn.
Nothing happened.
There were traps that were only activated by a living being, but he had no cat or mole to throw in. He took a deep breath and stepped over the ring.
Again, nothing happened.
He looked at the quarter moon. It was a third of the way up the sky, so he had some time. He wished he had a pry bar, but the rocks didn’t look too large: most of them were smaller than his head. He had not wanted Felewin along for all the reasons he said, and one more: he didn’t intend to replace the rocks afterward.
He was shaking. Okay, I’m nervous.
Ninefingers began to dig. Hours later, nearly at the body, he began to feel the tingle in his skin that often heralded the approach of some tomb guardian. He swore, and loosened his dagger, and kept throwing rocks.
He deliberately didn’t unveil the body’s head or arms or legs: if the body were possessed by some guardian spirit, he didn’t need it to grab him. In a cairn, swords were normally placed at the side of the deceased, for a lesser warrior, or on the chest, for a greater fighter. In this case, he was betting on the side: although they might not have known about the river, he figured a significant fighter would have been burned. He wanted the sword, not the guardian.
There was no sword at its side. Was the deceased left-handed? Ninefingers scraped stones back in place, then scampered to the other side and dug there, testing with one hand before he exposed more.
Nothing. Check the chest, then. Perhaps he had been buried without a sword, or he had an axe, or a bow—could Felewin even use a bow? Ninefingers had never seen him.
No: there was the sword, a long sword with a cruciform guard on the chest of the dead person. From the clothes, the deceased had been a woman. The sword was rusty only in spots—she must not have died that long ago, or it would be rusted all over. The sword was not exceptional, and would not have fetched an extravagant price. It was only unusual in being long. But—from what he saw of her—she had been tall.
He grabbed the sword by its rope-wrapped hilt, and felt that it was slick with mold. He pulled the sword free; it was almost as tall as he was. And then he heard a murmur. He wasn’t sure what it was, and he looked around. The river? But the trees in the way kept you from hearing the river: the noise drowned in wind among their leaves. There was no scabbard; or if there was, he wasn’t going to look for it. He still felt the tingle, but there was no guardian that he could see.
Just nerves.
He took a length of twine and tied the sword so he could carry it back.
An owl hooted, and he jerked in sudden surprise. Okay. I’m scared.
And then he ran.
#[13]
Felewin had most of the rust off. The blade was discolored with it, patches of it along the blade, filling the odd grooves the sword had. He had done his best to clean off the hilt, though if he had string he would re-wrap it. While his mentor might not have approved of the job, Felewin knew what he had started with, and the sword held an edge. Ninefingers had caught another squirrel and managed to find some insects. Felewin’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten much yesterday, and this squirrel had to be split between them. Finally, he was ready. He took the sword in hand and started by swinging it.
“It’s longer than mine. Corrough, isn’t it?” He tried swinging again. He could feel the extra weight in his shoulders. The blade moved slower than he liked, too. And the tip wasn’t sharp enough. He guessed the Corrough style didn’t involve a lot of thrusting. He didn’t mention it, though. Ninefingers had done a nice thing, thinking of a replacement.
Felewin lifted the tip of the sword and tried thrusting, then stopped. “Did you hear that?”
“The kobolds? Now that I know what to listen for, I can’t not hear them.”
“No. A woman.” He frowned. “Maybe in distress.” Then he laughed. “Oh, it’s the sword. It’s supposed to make a whistling sound when you whip it overhead. You don’t get all of it because of the rust.”
“Just what we need.” Ninefingers wrested a piece of savory meat off the squirrel. “You know what this needs?”
“Six more the same size?”
“Yes, but I meant salt. Some herbs. Maybe some carrots.”
Felewin sat down cross-legged. “I’ll have my half before you’ve imagined a feast and made me hungrier.”
They ate in silence, drawing the meal out as much as they could. Too soon they were done. “Well,” said Ninefingers, “that’s breakfast. Do you have a plan for the birdcat-thing?”
“Kill it.” said Felewin.
“Your cause is just, so you will have the strength of five,” said Ninefingers sarcastically. “You have to get to it first. How are you going to do that?”
“I was thinking of a poisoned lamb or goat or something staked in the clearing there. And then, while it’s busy, kill it. And we haven’t got poison or a goat. What does that thing feed on?”
“Kobolds.”
“I don’t think they’d be okay with us staking a couple of kobolds in a clearing.” Felewin said thoughtfully, “You could do it, though.” Ninefingers stared at him. “You wouldn’t even need to be staked. It comes in for a landing and then you run like stink.”
“No, I’d have to stick around to keep its attention while you fight it. And the second you get hit by those wings, it’s over.”
“Boulders. There’s a gully between hills that I crossed last night. When it comes in for the attack, you roll a boulder down in it and pin it. Then it doesn’t leave and you can finish it off.”
“That doesn’t seem really sporting.” Felewin held up a hand. “I know, it’s not sport. And it has a huge wingspan.” He took his last bite of squirrel and then said, “Do you know anything about rocks and rockslides?”
“You do have to know whether the crypt you’re going to enter is safe.”
#[14]
A sound woke Felewin. A rainstorm in the distance? He didn’t want to go under the trees with the bugs, but if it was raining, he didn’t want to get wet. He lay still, listening.
“—ust die. It must die.” A woman’s voice, heavily accented. He grabbed the hilt of the sword—
—and she was there, before him. Tall, muscular, plain. “You must kill it,” she said. She had a Corrough accent.
“The winged beast?”
“Yes. It killed me when I fought it.” Ninefingers stirred, so Felewin got up and walked into the woods, keeping an eye on landmarks. He did not want to get lost, but he did not want the sound to bother Ninefingers either. She followed him, walking even though she didn’t touch the ground. When they stopped, he could almost imagine she was really there, and it was just the moonlight and the dappling of trees that made her seem insubstantial.
“Here. The wings hit you?”
“No—poison. There is a gland in its mouth—poison killed me. Instantly.”
“And now you seek justice.”
She nodded. “There were so many things I wanted to do. Right wrongs, marry, have children....”
He smiled. “That sounds like my plan for my life.”
“I’m sorry we never met. I am—I was—Glendaras of the clan Olerrough.”
“Felewin. Not a member of a clan or house.”
“How many children do you want?”
“As many as I can have—but I need a title first.”
“I needed honor...but there is no honor in an unmarked grave.”
“Your sword is long but well-maintained.”
“I am tall. It saw much use.”
“I am used to a small sword. Two edged, yes, but also for thrusting.”
She laughed. “A small sword is a knife! A real man uses a sword that can take a hand and a half.”
“I’m worried. We have not enough food, so we must find the beast and kill it in a day or three. I have a strange beast, little help, an unfamiliar sword...”
“If you let me...I can possess your body. You would at least have the advantage of someone who knows the sword and has fought the beast. And I have fought the thing many times in my imagination.”
“My fight is mine alone.”
“Of course. So long as my sword is involved in its death, honor will be satisfied.” She leaned forward. “You are very much like the husband I imagined having. Tell me of the wife you foresee...”
#[15]
The next day, Felewin went to the proposed trap site without mentioning Glendaras to Ninefingers. He started the day tired: he and Glendaras had talked until late about—well, about the beast, certainly, but about everything else.
By nightfall, the rocks were in place and Felewin felt more confident with the sword, but not enough: it was twice as long as the one he was used to.
The snares, however, were empty. Ninefingers had found some bitter roots, and they chewed those slowly.
A kobold stood in the twilight at the edge of the clearing. “Why are you still here? Why does that beast still live?”
“And hello to you, Pok-hiss,” said Ninefingers. “We’re fine, thank you for not asking.”
“There’s a fee for staying without killing.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Felewin said. “We’re—”
“Ah,” Ninefingers said over him. “We have to charge you the rock-movement fee. How much is the staying without killing fee?”
“Depends,” said Pok-hiss. “How much is the rock-movement fee?”
#[16]
I would rather have a lamb, thought Felewin, as Ninefingers tried to prance in the clearing. Ninefingers does not look appetizing.
In fact, Ninefingers looked awkward and mostly naked. This time, he had affected a limp. In the beginning, Ninefingers had spoken—“Oh, I am lame!”—but had given that up as he tired.
Pok-hiss said that the beast fed mostly at twilight, but that might have been because that’s when the kobolds were out. Glendaras said it also fed at noon: something that big had to feed often. So they were trying to entice it at dawn, noon, and dusk. This was noon, and it was a merciless hot noon, away from the cooling breezes of the river. Felewin was sweating in his leather and mail.
Felewin yawned, and in that time Ninefingers disappeared and the beast appeared. He pulled the rope and it broke. He swore. Below he could hear the low drumbeats of wings and Ninefinger’s cries. He moved to the side of the pile and grabbed the stick that the rope was attached to, and yanked, then pulled his arm away.
The rocks rolled down the hillside with a satisfying roar. Even the beast had to notice that, and Felewin ran behind them, at one point outpacing some rocks. It spread its wings to fly away—
Ah. The rocks pinned one wing of the beast. Felewin drew the sword, because the beast was tugging and he had to disable the other wing. He stepped up to hit the thing’s wing, his sword hit nicely—but too near the hilt. He was standing too close.
Could have told you, said Glendaras in his mind.
He tugged hard—the sword had bit into the creature’s flesh—and now he had its attention. It swiped at him with one large paw, and he managed to dodge, but almost lost the sword. From the corner of his eye he could see Ninefingers had already made the trees.
A yank—and the paw hit him hard, like those falling boulders.[17] The mail protected him from the claws, but the blow knocked the breath from him. He hit the ground, hard, his hand numb around the sword. The thing was strong, like a bear but worse.[18]
He struggled to his feet. The moss gave him a good grip. The thing would have attacked him but the rockfall held it back. He waited a few seconds while he got his breath and then waded closer again. The thing mewled piteously, like a cat.
Too close! cried Glendaras.
The big sword sank into the thing’s shoulder, right where the wing joined its back. He grunted as he pulled it free. When he was standing this close, he didn’t get the clean slash he should have. He counted too much on the sharp point to graze the target, and that wasn’t happening with this sword. He staggered back.
The thing pulled hard on its wing. Stones grumbled and then it was loose. It tried to take off with a powerful leap—and fell to the ground. Felewin limped to the trees. A pain-maddened creature was twice the threat.
The creature tried to follow him, but Felewin had chosen this spot carefully. It snapped at him and it spittle sprayed him—but it did not latch on to him. A wild swing of its paw slashed his leg but the leather took most of the damage.
Now.[19]
Felewin swung hard, hoping to crush its head. The sword sank into its skull. The thing collapsed. Felewin aimed carefully for a moment. It started to rise again—
Felewin gathered his strength for a stroke that took all his strength and more, that left him dizzy and staggering. Felewin cut off its head.
See? he told his invisible spectator.
Very nice. Except—
He could hear Ninefingers clapping. And then a shadow passed over the clearing.
That’s too small to be the one I fought, Glendaras told him.
He looked up to see the big one landing.
#[20]
Felewin stood motionless as the huge beast walked to the corpse of the other, smaller beast, and then sat and keened. Felewin wished he were hidden; all he could do is stand still, and he was so tired that he felt he was going to fall over.
Still, he mustn’t move. That’s what he told himself.
Yowling, the beast lunged forward. Felewin jumped backward, and if the beast hadn’t seen him then, it did now. He didn’t see Ninefingers around. Good. Get to cover.
For now, the trees were keeping it at bay, and Felewin asked himself if he should even fight it. After all, he had only agreed to kill one monster for the kobolds. The beast backed up and charged again from a different angle. Saplings bent under the force of its—her?—charge and one massive paw grazed Felewin. He managed to bat her away with the blade.
No: the spirit of the agreement was that he would free them from beasts. That was the knightly thing to do.
He took a deep breath and charged. His first hit, while the beast was looking at something (Ninefingers?) was a good one, hitting the beast along one wing. He heard bones crack and smelled the salty blood of the beast. He even managed to avoid the bite, though he was spattered with venom and spittle from the thing.
But then the sword got tangled up in feathers and the flailing wing caught him on the arm, numbing it and knocking him down.
#[21]
Get your sword up! screamed Glendaras[22] in his head.
He got it up in time for a paw to hit mostly the sword but also him, knocking him across the clearing. The shock of landing was so great that he thought he was going to pass out and all he could smell and taste was moss. He was stunned: nothing was working but his mind. He was sure he was going to die.
The beast started to come after him, and there was a distant yelling.
Ninefingers.
The goblin had come out of hiding to dance at the edge of the clearing. The beast glanced at Felewin, who wasn’t moving, folded one wing along its back—the other started to fold but trailed on the ground—and charged the goblin.
Felewin heard the splintering of trees as he tried to breathe, as he tried to move his arms. Even his fingers would be a help.
He managed to get to his feet, using the sword as a cane. Then he used both hands to grip the handle. Get the blade up!
He managed to get the blade up into something resembling a ready position, though his pose was sloppy as a beginner’s. It moved in, fast, and he folded, and went with the leg it used. He rolled on the rock and moss. His eye seemed stuck shut; he touched it with one finger and it came away bloody.
He knew, then. He couldn’t fight this thing.
It was a sad realization, but a true one. With his own sword, maybe. With a month’s practice with this sword, perhaps. But now?
Please, Glendaras. Take this body. Finish the monster.
#
She stepped in, and slowly stood up. Glendaras/Felewin whirled the sword over his head until it whistled, a sound as eerie as a graveyard at night. The beast dove, and he danced away from it as though he had never been hurt. With a scream, he attacked the monster.
#[23]
Ninefingers watched in amazement. Before, Felewin had been tentative and uncertain, but not now. Now he was confident and sure of himself. The trick with whirling the blade? He hadn’t been able to do that before. And Ninefingers was pretty that the scream had been in another language.
Maybe one that Felewin didn’t know.
Ninefingers thought, Suppose I did hear something when I grabbed the sword. Perhaps there was a guardian, the one that I felt. And suppose that it’s the one fighting.
He watched. Felewin had just cut the thing’s leg, hamstringing it. He seemed to be doing okay against it: both were hurt—it hit him again, but both of them were fighting cautiously now.
And, if it is something possessing him, do I want to do anything until the beast is dead?
And, because the answer to that was no, he made sure he was safe, ignored the mosquitoes, and settled in to watch.
#[24]
The thing died, its belly slit open. The stench of open entrails was in the air, and Ninefingers ran forward, slipping on the gore. Felewin, bleeding and broken, stood at the edge of the clearing and gave no sign of recognizing Ninefingers. Then Felewin began to plod, dragging the sword in his hand.
“Felewin?” asked Ninefingers.
The man gave no answer. He walked away.
Toward the river.
#
We’re done, thought Felewin. What are you doing?
Your wounds are grievous, Glendaras told him.
Then I should lie down and rest.
I can take care of you, she told him. Let me wash your hurts.
The body is mine, he protested. They reached the end of the clearing.
Felewin struggled to control his body. He had slowed it to a dull plod but could not take control.
We will be together, Felewin. Death is a lonely time, out here in the wilderness, without someone to say proper rites. We can reside together in the sword.
Felewin insisted, I won’t die.
Felewin sensed Ninefingers near him, tugging, trying to get an arm. He tasted dirt as Ninefingers tripped him. His body began to crawl to the water.
Felewin tried to find some way to grapple with her control.
#
The drone of insects in the summer afternoon was broken only by the scraping of Felewin’s knees on the forest floor and by his harsh breathing, hard as if he’d just run the length of the continent. Ninefingers waved a hand in front of his face. No reaction; Felewin still saw nothing.
He tried, first, redirect Felewin. He was not strong enough to pick the man up and set him in another direction, but he could place obstacles in his way—bushes torn from the ground, for instance.
Felewin went through them.
It was too far to the snares to get any twine to bind him; he needed something local.
Next Ninefingers tried poison creeper, which grew in loose loops in some of the undergrowth. Rashes broke out on Felewin’s skin but he did not stop crawling to scratch at the itch.
He yelled for the kobolds to come. He didn’t know exactly what they could do, but any help—
Pok-hiss popped up. “There is a calling fee.”
“Felewin—he’s possessed. Stop him!”
Pok-hiss drove his spear into Felewin’s boot, by the toe. The leg tugged…and they watched as the spear came out, breaking the shaft because the point was caught in the ground. Blood began to seep from the sole of Felewin’s boot.
Ninefingers hugged the man’s sweaty and bloody thigh and tried to hold it back. No; Felewin was inexorable. One might as well try to stop the river from flowing. “This is what zombies are like,” Ninefingers told Pok-hiss.
The water was only a few paces away, now.
Frantic, Ninefingers stood on the blade of the sword that Felewin was still dragging,[25] and tried to push on his shoulder. It was like trying to stop a horse—but it got a reaction. Felewin, or the thing that controlled him, lifted the sword, dumping him off, and hacked at him. Ninefingers was so surprised that he didn’t roll with the blow until almost too late.
Felewin slowly stood. “Keep him busy,” said Ninefingers to Pok-hiss. “I’m going to get the sword.”
The kobold nodded. “Will that work?”
“I don’t know, but it has to. I can’t swim.”
Pok-hiss grabbed his spear’s two pieces and hit Felewin hard across the knee. Felewin tumbled again, and started dragging himself to the river.
Ninefingers muttered, “Sorry,” and stomped on Felewin’s wrist. It would take too long to cut off his hand. The fingers twitched but did not open. If it were slick, wet— thought Ninefingers, and he looked at the river.
Ninefingers could smell the water, now. He had to get Felewin’s arms wet. He was going to have to get wet.
“Keep him on the ground. I want him to crawl into the water,” he told Pok-hiss. Pok-hiss smiled and with enthusiasm brought the broken stick of his spear across Felewin’s back, bringing the man down.
Still Felewin kept going. The sword blade was in the water now. The cruciform hilt was still in his hand. “Keep him down without hurting him.”
“How?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t pierce him.” Pok-hiss kicked the inside of the man’s elbow. Two more movements. One more.
There!
He dug his fingers into the muck and got them around the guard. He pulled. Felewin pulled back, and he was much stronger than Ninefingers. The sword was almost wrenched free from Ninefingers, when the goblin pushed it and twisted it and then, at the bottom of the push, pulled it up, making a hook shape.
It pulled free. Ninefingers had the impression of a woman screaming, and he threw the sword into the water. It did not fall far from Felewin, only a few paces, but Felewin fell as if he had been the one struggling. His face was nose-deep in the cold water, and Ninefingers struggled to pull him free, with Pok-hiss yanking at one foot.
Not now, thought Ninefingers. Not when he isn’t possessed any more.
He wedged his torso under Felewin’s head, lifted it out of the water. Muddy water streamed out of Felewin’s nose and mouth. Ninefingers stopped then. He had no more strength; fighting Felewin had taken the last of it, and Felewin was too heavy.
He stood there trembling, an Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders, unable to move, unwilling to give up.
“I don’t think this situation is covered by the previous agreement with the king,” said Pok-hiss. “How much would you pay if I could get Felewin out?”
“Three silver pieces.” Ninefingers didn’t know how much longer he could do this. The water looked very inviting—
“Five.”
“I only have three. Two copper as well.”
Pok-hiss appeared to think it over while Ninefingers trembled. “A deal.” He chirped and a dozen kobolds appeared and dragged Felewin free.
“I think the deal with the king takes care of the usual lying on the shore fee,” said Pok-hiss ruefully.
Ninefingers staggered to the shore. “It does,” he said, and fell down.
#
When Felewin awoke, he hobbled over to the smaller beast and retrieved his sword, still stuck in the thing’s rump. Half of the meat had been removed, and ants swarmed over the rest. The kobolds invited them to the feast, and finally Felewin was full: there were two beasts’ worth of meat to eat. For a fee, they showed the old logging path that had led to the buildings.
Felewin tried several times to get Ninefingers to talk about what had happened, but he would not. Once they were on their way, far from the kobolds, Ninefingers cleared his throat. He told Felewin what had happened, and Felewin told Ninefingers what he had done.
“Thank Vult you were fighting her,” Ninefingers said. “It’s the only way I won. At the end there I had no strength left. Finally I paid them three silver pieces and two coppers to pull you free.”
“That’s all right. I had five silver pieces left and I would have paid it all.”
“Yes, but I didn’t want them to know that. I made a better deal!”
Monsters
Both kobolds and griffins are in the Iron Gauntlets expanded edition. For ghost possession, I assumed it was Fabrica Mentus/Union, mechanically.
Game Mechanics
[1] Adventure setup: This time I’m going to stretch the Mythic system. The duo are on the road when something happens. That’s the setup. Chaos 7, and we’ll see what that does. If I need to, I’ll use the Lady’s Honor adventure from the Iron Gauntlets rulebook, but we’ll see.Scene start: Altered (7). Well, I figured it would be. We’ll deliberately start with an event. Context—they’re on the road, travelling. Event is PC Negative, trick, adversities. So in getting away from some adversity, they use a trick and end up in the middle of whatever.
[2] Scene setup: Interrupted. NPC action, bureaucracy, usurp.
[3] Scene setup: Unaltered
[4] Scene start: Altered (5). I keep thinking they’ll do “The Lady’s Honor” and get altered or interrupted. This time, they meet something.
[5] Iron Gauntlets: The game’s version of kobolds talk in “chirps, whistles, squeaks” and so forth. I’ve added the common language.Physically, they are the Iron Gauntlets version of kobolds. I’m sure the personalities are totally different...
[6] Scene setup: Interrupt (4) PC Negative, desert weapons.Okay. Attacked by something, and Felewin loses his sword.
[7] Mythic question: Probable innocents are being harmed. Does Felewin attack (likely)? Yes (42)
[8] Iron Gauntlets: Felewin goes all out in this attack, because he’ll start being cautious next round. Two successes and he only needs one. Its Toughness doesn’t activate, so it takes two Fatigue, 2 Injury. That -1D might save him.And it fails its composure roll and flies away.
[9] Scene setup: Unaltered (9)
[10] Scene setup: Interrupt.
[11] Iron Gauntlets: She’s hiding (stealth). How tough is it to see her? Only one success, so both of them see her easily.
[12] Scene setup: Altered (7) Event: Introduce a new NPC: Failure, Weapons
[13] Scene setup: Unaltered (10)I was interpreting the failure as “bringing back a haunted weapon.” More will come.
[14] Scene setup: Interrupt (4)Okay, I was going to have the ghost appear during the fight, but this works too.
[15] Scene setup: Interrupt scene (2) Iron Gauntlets: Ninefingers takes twice as long to make sure, and just engineers a proper rockfall-on-command. On the other hand, Felewin still has -1D with this sword.
[16] Scene setup: Unaltered (8)
[17] Iron Gauntlets: Felewin burns 2 points of luck to reduce the damage, so he takes 1 Fat and no Inj. The thing is oversized, so it’s relatively easy to hit…until it gets 4 successes on its Fit roll or 2 sets of 3 successes in a row. Then it pulls free. 1 that time.If he does 3 Inj to a single location (chest or wing), the thing can’t fly. He does 2 on this shot, because it fails its armor.
[18] Iron Gauntlets: It hits, but Felewin’s armor stops all of it, which is certainly lucky.Next round, Felewin goes first.I’m treating the possession as 8 dice of Fabrica Mentus power, the Union ability.
[19] Iron Gauntlets: In the game system, this is called a prostrating task, trading fatigue levels for dice. In this case, Felewin has aimed (+1 die) and 2 levels of fatigue (+2) for a total of 8 dice. And he gets a good result, at the risk of being nearly unconscious. Of course, he thinks this ends the battle. He’s as -3 Fat, -1 Inj. Mythic Question: Is the thing alone (Likely)? No (79)
[20] Scene setup: Unaltered (8)Iron Gauntlets: Do both Ninefingers and Felewin make their stealth rolls? Two and 1 successes, respectively. And the beast makes 2 on observation, so she sees both of them.
[21] Iron Gauntlets: He hits on the first shot, and the thing’s armor doesn’t protect her from it; it misses.Next round, Felewin goes second, and it hits him for, well, a lot. He uses all his Luck negating the Injury effects.
[22] Iron Gauntlets: I don’t know if it’s legal, but she uses her own luck to get rid of his injuries. I’m treating the possession as 8 dice of Fabrica Mentus power, the Union ability.
[23] Note that I’m treating this all as one scene from a roleplaying perspective, though I separate each time I change POV.
[24] Scene setup: Altered (5) Gah. Well, in every adventure there’s a point where a last new thing is introduced and they have to solve it with what they have. So no more scene setups. From here to the end, I’ll just use Mythic when I can’t decide.
[25] Iron Gauntlets: He spent all his luck to get rid of the 2 points of Inj and 1 point of Fat.
Monday, November 28, 2022
Next Flight: Flying Solo 2b Damsel In Distress (The Reach)
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This is the second adventure from Victory RPG’s Flying Solo, which was written by Fran Vaughan as an M&M Superlink module for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition.
When I converted characters, I used the same artwork as in the module, but I don’t see attribution on them. Anyway: no intent to infringe or take money; if it’s an issue, please contact me at jhmcmullen@gmail.com and I’ll remove the artwork.
The portrait of The Reach is by Ade Smith for the character Flux in the excellent campaign setting Stark City. It is used here entirely without permission, and again, if there’s an issue, contact me, and I’ll remove the artwork or provide better formal attribution, or something.
House Rule: Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
Damsel In Distress
The Reach liked riding the subway in his secret identity, Jason Crawford. Yeah, the subway was sometimes crowded, frequently disgusting, and prone to breakdowns.
But it was real, full of people who wore no costumes and didn’t try to take over the world or steal arcane relics. For instance, on today’s ride, there had been one kid who had never heard of earphones for his phone but had a complete discography of AC/DC, three university kids about Flip-Flop’s age celebrating the end of term, and one old man who really wanted to talk gargoyles and rain spouts to anyone near him. He’d seen one, the old man said. “Wasn’t a gargoyle yesterday, but was this morning.”
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Next Flight: Sewer Kings 3a Fundraiser
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This is the first scene or chapter Victory RPG’s Sewer Kings, being interleaved with their Flying Solo. Art and story are copyright by Victory RPG.
- House Rule: Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
Fundraiser
Down the street from the bank, The Reach got the situation from the officer on the scene. It wasn’t even dark at this point in the summer: all of the businesses in this part of town were closed but hadn’t been closed long. “The explosion happened after most of the employees had gone home,” said the officer who talked to The Reach. “We figure that was when the wall went up.” The wall was debris at both ends of the alley beside the bank, piled about twenty feet high. The wall was made of cars, garbage cans, a dumpster, parts of a billboard…[1] The Reach noted that all were ferro-magnetic. Magnetic guy.
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Next Flight Flying Solo 2a Corporate Raider (Flip-Flop)
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This is from Victory RPG’s Flying Solo. There are three solo adventures and my intent is to use the three characters of Next Flight as characters from the solo adventures. Will that work? I dunno. I also intend to interleave those solo bits with the scenes from the same publisher's Sewer Kings. I have no idea if that will be successful.
Anyway, the first one will be Flip-Flop, then The Reach, then Succubus.
- House Rule: Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
Credit for the story in the first three scenes goes to Victory RPG’s Flying Solo, which I presume is written by Fran Vaughan as an M&M Superlink module for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition. When I converted characters, I used the same artwork as in the module, but I don’t see attribution on them. Anyway: no intent to infringe or take money; if it’s an issue, please contact me at jhmcmullen@gmail.com and I’ll remove the artwork.
Corporate Raider
Henny (as herself, not as Flip-Flop) was passing time until Dr. Kittner appeared by checking out an automated CRISPR tool on the Expo floor. Dr. Kittner had said that he was going to unveil something that (he said) would “revolutionize computing.”
Next Flight: A tale of two modules
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I was thinking that I haven’t published any solo plays for a while (I know, you’re heartbroken), but honestly, I haven’t done many. However, I have the Flying Solo and Sewer Kings both done or nearly done, but looking at them, they’re both sort of piecemeal things, with chunks to be dropped in sessions and then later picked up.
So I figured what I would do is take the three chapters of Flying Solo (and the fourth that I added) and the four chapters of Sewer Kings and see what they’d look like if you interleaved them. Will it be interesting? Well, at least as interesting as these things ever are.
For convenience’s sake, I'll be numbering them Flying Solo a, b, c, and d, and Sewer Kings a, b, c, and d. We’ll see if they end up being interesting.
As an addendum, I should point out that all of these solo play things have both the tags “Actual Play” and “Fiction” on them. I play them out, and then I do a half-revision, where I turn things like “She tried to hit him and succeeded!” into “She hit him hard.” I don’t remove any results or change things that are unpleasant, but I try to make it read easier and eliminate some of the redundancies. So it’s like fiction in that way.
Actual roleplaying can take a meandering path, while fiction tries to support the story. My current opinion is that actual roleplaying doesn’t really have a story, but we create one in the retelling. So I’m turning it into a story.
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Villains - a taxonomy
Image from Fainting Goat's Deluxe Super Villain Handbook
Right now I'm thinking about villains.
Coming up with an adventure means (for me) coming up with villains. And a villain group is more likely to give a player group a decent run for its money than a single big bad. (Not always true, but mostly.) So while a single big bad is easier for me to conceptualize, it's also easier for the players to win because of a lucky shot.
That is not necessarily a bad thing, but you don't want that all the time.
Wait, let's back up a minute.
Let's make up some terminology. For bad folk facing a group of heroes, you have:
- Big Bad is a single monolithic force who just overwhelms the heroes. Your Galactus, your Kang, your Dr. Doom, your Dormammu, your Amazo, your Starro, your Prometheus, and so on. The intent is that taking on this force directly is going to be tough. Sometimes the Big Bad can be defeated by a trick (“simple garden lime!”) and sometimes you gotta think outside the box. Sometimes it's just overwhelming force (I'm thinking Doomsday here, who defeated the whole Justice League to show how tough he was), but that concentration of force will come at a cost. Depending on the story, the Big Bad might have other resources, which could include any of the other types of bad folk.
- Puppeteer is a weird hybrid: a single opponent but usually a set of punchables in front of the heroes. He can be treated as one of the other groups; we say no more about him today.
- Villain Group is a group of opponents. Usually they have better teamwork than your heroes, at least in the beginning. This is your Masters of Evil, your Hyperclan, your Injustice League, your Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. I feel like there are more memorable Big Bads than Villain Groups, but comics have been around a long time, so I'm probably wrong. If the evil cult has a small group of super-powered leaders (vampires, demons, aliens, whatever) then it's an Agency headed by Villain Group.
- Horde is a special category I made up for “overwhelming numbers but no individual distinction” such as the Brood. They have a goal, but you're not working against an individual, you're working against all of them. A sudden uprising of zombies, for instance, might be a horde. Hordes are often subservient to a big bad (because it's more satisfying to cut off the head of something) but they don't have to be. (If they're not subservient, then all of them have to be exterminated, which might not be what you want for your campaign.) A Horde feels to me like it often engenders horror, whether it's aliens taking over bodies or the dead rising.
- Agency is a group of non-powered opponents, probably with some kind of tech support (really good weapons, for instance). Like a Horde, they have to be disabled in some way, usually by getting the government to pull their funding. Examples might be AIM or Hydra or SHIELD or maybe the Church of Blood.
(Individual heroes can also have equal antagonists, but that also is outside my remit today.)
You can mix and match: perhaps the Agency hires or creates a Villain Group. Perhaps the Puppeteer tries to make use of a Horde. Maybe the Villain Group hires the Big Bad, and then there's a personality conflict that involves violence and property damage.
Now, it's fun once in a while to have the Big Bad show up, trash everything, and then be vulnerable to one of the heroes' attacks. Can't be the point of the session, it seems to me (having run more than my share of pointless sessions). You want some kind of equivalence.
I don't have a deeper thought at this point. My tentative conclusions are:
- Memorable characters of any kind usually repeat.
- A Big Bad who is simply defeated by a trick is usually not memorable.
- A Horde can be frightening but usually isn't particularly noteworthy.
Friday, October 21, 2022
About that campaign...
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First of all, I’m running it. Setting it in our version of Stark City, so it’s current day but otherwise the same as in the book from Fainting Goat Games. We go three Thursdays a month (other Thursday is book club for me) and Thursday is ideal because during the game my spouse is at choir practice.
Everybody’s on the more powerful side. Nobody turned out to be the doughty two-fisted adventurer with a mask and a grappling gun. We have ranged transmutation, mental blast, amazing strength, several element/energy control and alternate form characters, and a speedster. Powerful mix.
We’ve missed one session because I finally caught COVID and wasn’t up to it, so we've had a session 0 and two more...which brings me to my topic.
I was a bit too rigid in the first session and didn't let the players win enough. I disliked that I did that, so I resolved to say “yes” more.
Single paragraph context: Plan was, meet the mercenary group and trash them, and then discover a vast conspiracy behind the mercenary group. Well, various plots got planted, they met the bad guys (a party of five situation with three kids: sixteen, twelve, and eight, but the twelve year old has duplication). The speedster sixteen-year-old got away with the eight-year-old, but the tween stayed behind and defected to our heroes. The session still has ten or fifteen minutes to go.
And then the improvisation started. The players found some earpieces belonging to the vast conspiracy and we had fifteen minutes left in the session. Surely they could find the source...so I said “yes.” They found the Poseidon Building in Tesla Industrial Park. One of the players theorized this was a mental control thing, imprinting personalities on host bodies, so he examined the building for a mind shield. (When you have Amazing Telepathy, you just look through windows, try to check minds, and look for when you can't. Not that he described it for me; it might have been a stunt, too: Detect Mind Shield. We weren't in combat time, so I didn't care.)
Say “yes,” right? There was a mind shield over the basement.
Fortunately, time ran out just before they decided to infiltrate the building.
Originally, the conspiracy was relatively normal people trying to create superpowers reliably. We know that this can be done, because most of the characters have Transformed as their origin, and at least one went looking for the change. With the new facts in play (I like the idea that it's personality superimposition), I have to re-think this. Maybe this is the Great Race of Yith, transformed for comics?
I have to meet at least half the players' expectations as they make their way in; the other half I can leave as dangling plot threads, I think.
And I have to have a map: secret basement base.
Game Quotation: “Hiding your base with a mind shield is as unobtrusive as trying to hide things from Superman with lead.”
GMing note: There are several powers that can wear off at a particular rate, such as Nullification and Stunning. Both got used last session, and I now know that the GM has to keep track of pages as they pass. One power is easy (but should be tracked; as powers come back, they get stronger) but the Stunning that got used last time was power nine...and nine pages is a loooong time. So I'll add a pair of clocks to my GM sheet.
Monday, September 12, 2022
New Campaign Prep: My thoughts so far
Icons
I'm missing me some superhero gaming. So I'm going to run something online. Here's what I know so far:
- It will be either Roll20 or Roll20+Discord for voice.
- My current plan is Thursday nights, 7:00 Eastern, except for the one night a month I have book club also on Thursdays. (This Thursday as I write this.)
- The setting will be Stark City in the present. When necessary, we'll introduce sliding timescale, but I think it will go fine. When in doubt, we'll use Chicago as the model, so there will be (for example) a Morgan Park Zoo.
- The focus of the campaign will be the city. While there will be stuff that focuses on specific neighbourhoods (for example, if a player wants to focus on his or her attempts to improve the neighbourhood), or some
- Characters will be rolled. Oh, someone can build on 45 points if they want, but the bonuses that come with a particular origin only come with a rolled character. Of course, the emphasis on rolled characters means that I have to be adjacent in some way so people don't “accidentally” roll twenty 12s in a row. I might re-think that because if you don't trust folks, why are you gaming with them? However, being able to talk through the Qualities is a big deal. Qualities inform the focus of the game, really.
- I'm not a big fan of Knacks but I'm going to allow them, with the known thing that having a knack can reduce your starting determination pool to 0; if you don't have a knack, you can't have a starting Determination less than 1.
- Pretty standard superhero thing. I'm not throwing in any twists.
Because I was listening to an interview with George MacDonald this week, the first adventure will be a bank robbery with some time-travel shenanigans mixed in. (No, the robbers themselves won't have time powers, but they'll be pointers to a time-travel thing that's probably not accessible to the PCs, and which might be an overarching big bad of the first arc...if the players are interested.
To a large extent, I don't want to plan anything without knowing who the players are.
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Idea du jour: Elves
fantasy
What if the elves we see are obsessed with nature because they are urban. I mean seriously urban. They're long-lived and population pressures long ago forced them to use up their world. What we see are campers and hikers and even eco-terrorists.
Elves in Faery actually look more like punk rockers and salarymen.
This is why elves are all, “We will not help,” and against industrialization: they’re trying to preserve our world. The elves we see are the upper class, the ones who can afford to take a sojourn of a few centuries in our world.
So when your characters take a trip to Faery, they might get the technological/magical help they need, but they're traveling to the ultimate urbanized area, full of industrialization and concrete and mazes.
Monday, September 5, 2022
City names
Icons
This is a general thing, but it's for an Icons game I’m planning.
It seems to me that for a city-based superhero game you can go real or fictional. Real has the advantage that all the maps are available and the stuff is right there. Fictional has the advantage that you can include new stuff as needed and mould the city to fit your needs, your themes. And, of course, you can do both, starting with a real city and modifying it to your needs.
I am inclined to a fictional city in this case. I might change my mind; I won't be asking for players for a few days, so there's a chance for me to change. But right now, I'm thinking that I want to be able to shape it. I might use a real city as the basis but I plan on changing enough stuff that it might as well be a fictional city.
Here's what I want:
- A four-colour mood. Not necessarily Silver Age, but some goofiness might sneak in.
- A zoo (got an adventure idea that requires a zoo)
- Waterfront in case somebody comes up with an aquatic hero
- Some kind of university or lab, because we'll need some experiments.
Actually, Chicago is a good fit for what I want, although it's entirely possible to get too grim.
So I've talked myself into using Chicago.
Sunday, September 4, 2022
Weird Idea O’ The Day
So driving all day does things to the brain.
I present this concept:
James Bond: The Musical
Numbers include:
- Most Famous Secret Agent (sung by Moneypenny and the chorus)
- Lethal Sidekick Even Stephen
- I'm Limestone Scaramanga (But You Can Call Me Spectre)
- Suggestive Name, I'll Turn You (On)
- I Expect You To Die
- Base Ain't So Secret On Fire
I haven't figured out what Felix's role in all of this, though.
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
ICONS: Being Nausated...an alternate technique
Icons
As you know, I do solo plays converting adventures from other systems, and that means sometimes coming up with Icons-appropriate things to do instead of the original. So here's another post about a situation and what an Icons-appropriate solution might be.
An "Icons-appropriate thing" might be a pyramid test, creating an Advantage or Disadvantage, or a succeeding at a test scaled by results rather than a series of tests. That is, instead of saying:
| DC | Result |
|---|---|
| DC 10 | The gang is recruiting |
| DC 15 | The gang has superhumans recruited |
| DC 20 | This robbery was to get money to fund the next part of the scheme |
It becomes:
| Result | Information |
|---|---|
| Failure or marginal success | No info |
| Moderate success | "The gang is recruiting" |
| Major sucess | "Our gang is recruiting and we've already got supervillains, so you better watch out" |
| Massive success | "We're recruited people, even supervillains, and this robbery will pay for the next stuff to come!" |
When converting M&M stuff, it's generally fast enough to say DC 10 = Difficulty 3, DC 15 = Diff 4, and so on, adding 1 for every 5 or so (and always adjusting based on what they're actually trying to do; this isn't a blind process).
In Sewer Kings, by Victory Games, I ran across an option to have the heroes nauseated by suddenly going into a sewer (and presumably not a storm sewer, though that can smell bad, too). I don't have my copy of M&M2E handy, so I can't look up the effects of Nauseate rank 4 or rank 8, but I'm guessing that it paralyses them with the smell unless they make a CON roll.
(This analysis is based on that concept. If that's not what Nauseate power did, well, it's wrong for this situation, but the idea might be useful for something you're running.)
In that case, the intent is to have them lose actions until they make the roll, but I looked at it and said, "So what?" They're not meeting the villains until later, and if they can't move, well, they can't meet the villains; at this point there's no time constraint. So blindly substituting Stunning doesn't mean anything.
But creating Trouble — a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell — that might be useful.
Plus, Icons has mechanisms for eliminating Trouble. An awful smell might be dealt with by creating a nose covering, by putting on the rebreather the character carries for underwater adventures, by activating the sealed life support systems that aren't normally on, and so on....all of which can be dealt with by a Maneuver or spending a Determination Point.
Instead, my solution was that all players get Trouble (and a Determination Point), manifested as a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell. They can use the normal techniques for getting rid of Trouble. (Characters who can't smell or are androids or whatever just bypass this: no Trouble, no DP.)
And, because people get used to terrible smells (even normal people) whether the character does something or not, the Trouble goes away once the character has succeeded at a Pyramid Test, strength tests against difficulty 3 by default but player suggestions encouraged.
This idea can be used for any kind of physical inconvenience that people eventually get used to, like sea sickness or terrible smells. You might adapt it to something like emotional hardening to the unearthly if you were going to run a horror sword-and-sorcery game with Icons.
Hope that's a useful idea for people. I'm sure that's in one of the published adventures, but I seem doomed to re-invent the wheel, so here it is.
Thursday, August 4, 2022
Next Flight #1: Lair of the Wrathmaster
Icons
Lair of the Wrathmaster
I was going to do a solo play with Uncanny Justice, but I’ve got myself into a situation with them, and until I can figure out exactly why Abe got called to the realm of Faerie, I can’t go forward with that.
Instead, here is a solo play with other new characters, based on Fainting Goat Games’ “Lair of the Wrathmaster,” and using the new characters Flip-Flop, The Incredible Reach, and Succubus. All are 45-point characters (I rolled them up but started fiddling so I said the hell with it and changed them to 45 points).
House Rule: Prone people are +2 to hit hand-to-hand, absent cover.
Scene 1: The Crepes of Wrath
Flip-Flop got to this Crepes of Wrath restaurant first but stayed up above the buildings until The Reach arrived, then swooped down. The crowd beyond the police tape cheered and someone yelled, “Get’em, Reach!” He waved casually until he found the officer in charge. At the building itself, Succubus appeared in a shadowed doorway and walked out to Flip-Flop. Both male and female police stopped and looked at her. There were cat calls from the crowd, but Succubus paid them no mind; they were a distraction.
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Felewin & Ninefingers 1 — The Haunted Graveyard (Actual Play)
Iron Gauntlets
The first Felewin and Ninefingers adventure, created so I could try both Iron Gauntlets and Mythic. It worked out pretty well, so I did a second one.
Felewin & Ninefingers 2: A Step Off The Road
The Haunted Graveyard
Felewin & Ninefingers 1, it turns out[1]
Felewin’s broad shoulders sagged with fatigue as he nursed his beer. Tomorrow morning’s walk should finish his quest. Ninefingers the goblin was that far from justice—justice that Felewin could execute, if he were a knight. But bringing Ninefingers in tomorrow would grant him knighthood, he was sure of it. That and the other things he had done—
He glanced at the goblin, who sat beside him, as far away as possible, the rope between them taut and barely visible in the dim inn. Ninefingers had drunk three times as much ale as Felewin: how did the goblin drink so much without getting tipsy? Felewin shook his head and looked back at his ale. He had once seen ale with foam on the phead, a Seftish brew given to his father—
There was a tap on his shoulder.
“Goblin, I have no patience.” But it wasn’t Ninefingers. It was a haggard woman. Ninefingers sat behind her, watching over the rim of his ale horn.
“Begging your pardon, sir.” Her accent and voice were coarse. Local. “I see you’re a fighter. A tracker.”
“No need to sir me.” He tried a smile. “I’m a third son. Felewin.”
She curtsied awkwardly. “Lodna of the cattle, not Lodna the seamstress. One of my sons—he’s missing. Could you— Please.”
Felewin said gently, “He probably ran away. Boys do that.” Felewin signaled that the innkeep should bring the ale cask around again.
“Not Ymon. One of my other boys, yes. But not Ymon.” She briefly described him. “He disappeared near the haunted graveyard.”
Felewin wanted to refuse her: he was tired, and within a morning of his goal: just a morning of walking would take him to the Baron and possible knighthood. But this might help his cause: any extra deed might tip the scales with Baron Coodna. And what was a day’s tracking? “All right. We’ll look.” He would have to bring Ninefingers, or the goblin would run away.
“We’re very close to the Thornwood,” said Ninefingers suddenly. “Wild beast might have got him.”
Felewin reassured the woman and sent her away. “What is wrong with you?” he asked Ninefingers.
“I would rather not get into a life or death situation with you. ’Cause the death will almost certainly be mine. ”
“You’re a prisoner.”
“Yeah. I know. Will you pay for another round?”
“You’ve had enough,” said Felewin, irritated.
#
The next morning,[2] Felewin looked at the gate. A fieldstone wall as high as Felewin’s head surrounded the graveyard. Sturdy iron gates stood before him, held in place with a thick lock. “Who would lock a graveyard?”
Ninefingers said, “People afraid something would come out. Which is a reason not to go in.”
“I promised. See if you can get this lock open.”
Ninefingers looked at it. “Puzzle lock. No key.”
“Well, if you can’t solve it...”
“I didn’t say that,” whined Ninefingers. “I can solve almost any lock, given the time.”
“Good. Because if you can’t, I’ll go find the gravekeeper.”
“Keeper’s dead,” came a man’s voice. Felewin jerked like a hooked fish, then saw the burly bearded man with a gut so big it got everywhere before him.
Am I going to be surprised by everyone in this town? Felewin wondered as he introduced himself to the burly man.
“Bolya, headman of town. Good to meet you.” Felewin started to explain. Bolya said, “—I heard why you’re here.”
“Good. Do you have the answer for the puzzle lock here?”
“No, the keeper died unexpectedly and we’ve meant to get it open before we needed the graveyard.” He looked down at Ninefingers. “Perhaps you....”
“Is there a payment?”
“If there were, it would go to Lodna,” said Felewin smoothly.
“Of course,” said Ninefingers bitterly. “Because she did so much to open the gate.” He rolled his eyes and turned back to the lock.
Felewin took out the key, unfastened the tether and locked it to the gate. “Keep trying. Bolya and I have to talk.”
The two men walked down around the corner. “Tell me the truth,” said Felewin. “What happened.”
“What Lodna said. And Ymon isn’t the first boy to disappear—we’ve lost thirteen children, pretty much one a month over the last year. We lost two in Arbel, on either side of the new moon.”
“Any chance he ran away.”
“His mother says he was good but he wasn’t a saint.” He thought about it. “But I think something took him. The graveyard is haunted. It’s locked for a reason. Though only a few boys disappeared in the graveyard. Some were near the Thornwood.”
“And have you appealed to Baron Coodna for aid.”
“Of course. But we’re not the richest area in the Barony; this land became tired during the Tanne Empire. We’re just holding on, and the Baron asks for more, and more....” He shrugged. “It feels like a land of Hool, not Delaeth.”
“But for a year! And the Baron is less than a morning’s ride away.”
“You eat what’s set before you,” said Bolya. “If you find anything, let me know. You take care.”
Felewin nodded slowly as the man went away.
#[3]
Ninefingers was sitting by the gate when Felewin reached the front again, one gate open. “See? I’m good. So we’ll take a walk here in the sunlight and then leave. Because, and maybe you didn’t think of this, but if the doors have been locked for months, he couldn’t have gotten in.”[4]
Felewin detached the tether from the gate and locked it on his leg again. “There’s a tree at the back, you can shinny up and jump over the wall there. And inside I bet we find some equivalent way to get out.”
Ninefingers cocked his head to one side. “How much do you want to bet?”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“Damn. Swordsmen first.” He waved Felewin in.
The graveyard was overgrown with grass and weeds—presumably because no one had been in since the keeper died. Felewin found himself wondering about that death. Could there be more to the graveyard?
The grass was so high it had fallen on its side. It was maybe as high as his thigh, if stretched up. It was sparser in the path, but there. Graves were marked by triangles: some by rude sticks carved and set into the ground, others by elaborate structures of wood, but still featuring triangles. In the center of the graveyard, a neglected gem among the squalor, squatted a crypt.
“A crypt? What do they need the crypt for?” squeaked Ninefingers.
“For dead people,” said Felewin, irritated.
“No, they bury their dead. The triangles show that. We should leave.” The whining tone was back in his voice. “Look, there are only a couple of reasons to have a crypt or a mausoleum.”
“Says who?”
“I started in grave robbing.” Felewin stopped, and Ninefingers was so busy scanning the ground around them that he bumped into him. “Family business,” Ninefingers explained. “So you build a mausoleum if the ground is too wet and swampy to bury them. Assuming you bury instead of burning them.”
“Secundus?” asked Felewin.
“Wealth. You want to show off.”
“Tertius?”
“Change in fortunes, right? Maybe a leftover from the Tanne Empire.”
“Any others.”
“Disguised hiding place for monsters.” Felewin laughed. “No joke. If you can’t apply one of the first three, assume monsters. That rule kept my family safe for generations, until the accident.” Felewin raised an eyebrow. “Wealthy vampires,” explained Ninefingers.” Why don’t we go back indoors and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I promised.”
“You can keep your promise but you don’t have to be stupid about it.”
“We’ll circle the graveyard once, make sure it’s safe, then into the crypt.”
“I’m gonna die,” moaned Ninefingers.
#[5]
The door to the crypt was also locked, but by a different lock. “Funny,” said Ninefingers. His fingers worked the lock while he talked. “Also a puzzle lock but from the rest of the doors, the crypt is clearly Tanne Empire vintage.”
“So?”
“So puzzle locks weren’t invented then. They used poke sticks and concealed the entry holes.”
“Door got broken by thieves and the lock got replaced.”
“Maybe.” Ninefingers said.
Felewin tried to look into the crypt but it was too dark. He turned and looked out over the graveyard. Two children were standing at the gate, peering in. He waved at them. They ran away. Ninefingers was still working. The sun had barely moved in the sky before Ninefingers said, “There.” He stood up. “After you.” As Ninefingers followed Felewin into the confines of the crypt, he sighed. “Darkness. Lovely soothing darkness. No spikes in the eyes like the way you like it.”
Felewin hit something with his hips. Oddly, his first thought was, display case? But then Ninefingers said, “Careful with the coffin.”
Felewin recoiled. Finally he shrugged off his pack and rummaged for the lantern. Worthy purchase: inside was an enchanted stone that glowed forever. He unshuttered the box.
“You notice that?” asked Ninefingers.
“The lack of dust.”
“Someone leaves by here and doesn’t want others to know about it.”
“They probably come in here, too.”
Ninefingers muttered something, but Felewin chose to ignore it. “Let’s look in this main coffin,” said Felewin.
“I’ll stand over here, ready to cut off your leg and run.”
“You’ll stand over here and help me move the lid of the sarcophagus.”
Ninefingers made a face and said, “I’m gonna die I’m gonna die.”
Felewin felt the rough stone against his fingers and heaved. The slab moved slightly. “But it will be a—erg—noble death. When I say, ‘mark’. Mark.” The slab did not move, though the two of them strained.
“Wait.” The small goblin peered at it. Ah. Right. He can see in the dark, Felewin thought. “Counterweight.” Ninefingers put his palm under one corner and lifted up. The lid came up easily. Ninefingers stopped when it was a palm-width up. “Get out your sword. In case.”
Felewin swallowed and loosed his sword. “In case.” He stopped for a moment. “Smell.”
Ninefingers said, “Unlikely. The Tanne Empire was over a hundred years ago. Also, the lid’s open now and now it’s too late.”
“Right.”
Ninefingers hauled up the lid—and then caught it as though it were lighter than he expected.
The sarcophagus was empty. “What?” asked Felewin.
“Graverobbers,” said Ninefingers happily. “I used to know this one guy, he’d take the bodies and sell the curved bones of the arms and legs as penis-bones from a giant. Alchemists in Seftil will buy those, and it’s illegal, so they won’t turn him in.”
“Did he get caught?” asked Felewin absentmindedly as he squatted to look down the length of the sarcophagus. The hinges were hidden, so one wall was too thick—
“Well, yeah, but that was because a Seftish torma tried a potion from one of his customers, it didn’t work, and the torma issued a dictate that he be killed. Depriving the torma of an heir is serious business there. Rule sixty-three: Stay away from Seftish alchemists. They’ll turn you— What are you doing?”
Felewin was now running his hand along the edge of the sarcophagus, tracing the intricate patterns on the outside. “What I was wondering is, why put a counterweight on a sarcophagus lid? A sarcophagus doesn’t get opened and shut often, so when you need to, just get six guys to do it. So this was intended to be opened and closed a lot, and by fewer than six people. Ah.” His finger slid into a hole, and the bottom dropped out of the sarcophagus, revealing a ladder that descended into a pit.
“Oh, I don’t like the look of that,” said Ninefingers.
“After you,” said Felewin.
#[6]
“The room is empty,” announced Ninefingers. Felewin had made him go first—he could see in the dark—altHough Felewin had been close behind, as the tether required. “Three doors, one switch.”
“Give me a minute,” said Felewin as he left the ladder. He could reach the switch just by stretching out his arm. He threw the switch—[7]
And the ladder folded up to the ceiling.
Ninefingers gasped.”Idiot! You just closed our exit path! Never do that.”
Felewin threw the switch down. Nothing happened. He threw it up again—and nothing happened. Next Felewin took off his shield, sword, and backpack and set them down. “Do not touch them or I will thrash you,” he told Ninefingers.
“Like there’s a benefit to me grabbing them. If there were still an exit...”
Felewin unlocked the tether and then leaped as high as he could, hoping to catch the ladder. He tried again. No luck.
“Here, I’ll throw you. I can’t leap quite high enough.”
“Yeah. That’s about a leg length you have to go. Knights. Sooooo bright.”
“I’m not a knight yet.”
“Well, when you become a knight, they won’t have to make you any stupider.” The goblin climbed into the man’s hands and got ready to jump at the top of the throw. He reached up and hung there.
“I don’t think you weigh enough.”
“Grab my feet and pull.” Felewin did. “Ow ow ow ow! Stop.” Felewin stopped, then caught the goblin as he dropped free. “I guess we’re going forward to get out,” said Ninefingers.
“And rescue the boy,” reminded Felewin.
“Three doors, no lights beyond any of them,” reported Ninefingers while Felewin got his gear on again.
“What about the floor? Which one gets the most traffic.” Felewin got out his chain hauberk. Hardened leather might not be enough. He thought about putting on the leather helm, but he hated the thing. He would keep his head bare.
“Can’t tell. Seems like they sweep here, too.”
“People instead of monsters, then. Monstrous animals generally don’t care about cleanliness.” He held up the tether. “You promise to stay near while we’re down here.”
#[8]
“Sure.” Felewin looked at him. “All right. I swear on the grave of my mother.” Felewin tossed him the shackle at the end of the tether. He caught it and tucked at his waist, saying, “We took out her gold teeth before we buried her. I still have one. Not with me, of course.”
“Suggestions about which door? None are the traditional direction of light, so there doesn’t seem to be a significance there.”
Ninefingers looked at him with pity that he could be so stupid. “We’re under a graveyard. If we find a temple or a dungeon here, it will not have much to do with worshipping the light.”
“Opposite of light, then.”
Ninefingers walked the three steps to the door and peered at it minutely. He moved from the highest point he could see on tiptoe down to the floor, paying special attention to the door handle, the latch, and the side that probably had hinges on the other side.
“I don’t think it’s trapped or poisoned.” He looked in his pouch. “You have my lockpicking tools.”
Felewin frowned and searched through his pack. “Here.” Ninefingers took them. A minute passed as he angled wire between the door and the jamb. “Done.”
“If you’re going to take that long over every door, we will be here until I have a beard to my waist.”
Ninefingers put the tools in his pouch.
Felewin grabbed the door, pulled, and then realized it pushed. He gave it a shove and put his hand on his sword. The door scraped along the cobblestone floor and stopped half-way. “After you.”
#[9]
Ninefingers looked at the next door. This was clearly an interior door: no lock. It opened into the corridor: he could see the hinges, straps of leather, nailed into the door and a wooden jamb set into the stone.
He twitched. This was all dug out of earth and stone instead of just stone. It might be unstable. It made him nervous. You’re starting to act like a dwarf, he told himself. Grow up, by Vulk.
He might as well admit it to himself: he liked open spaces—caverns with a bit of room to them. Up top, if necessary, though it was so bright up there. Was that voices he heard? He carefully pressed his ear against the door, careful not to disturb it.
Yes. Local accents. “We should wake him up.”
“You get better results if you let them pass out and then start torturing when they wake.”
“I’m saying, you get better answers if he doesn’t get a chance to rest.”[10]
“And he’ll say anything, won’t he? Just to make it stop. No, you got to keep him on edge of the cliff, give him the rest to back down, then start it up again. It takes longer, but good quality always does.”
“Oh, high and mighty because you got made the head torturer. We both got the same amount of experience.”
Ninefingers ought to move away—he had a bad habit of listening too long at doors. And there was a scraping that meant someone was moving.
The latch started moving. Ninefingers flattened himself against the wall. The door slammed open, hitting Ninefingers on the toes, thighs, chest, nose—
“I coulda been head torturer if I married.” The man stepped forward and peered behind the door. “Hello.” He held a single candle, not a lantern.
“Hello,” said Ninefingers. “I was, uh, burrowing. Good soft earth you have here. Good.” He touched his knuckles to the earth. “Goodbye.” He ran back down the hall to Felewin. “Goons,” he gasped and hid behind the man. If only Ninefingers’ sword were in the open and not packed away—he’d lift it back. Instead, there was only the chance to hide.[11]
Felewin strode forward and met the man running after Ninefingers.
“Who are you?” asked Felewin.
No, you stab first and ask later, thought Ninefingers but he didn’t say anything. He just shrank into the wall, hoping not to be noticed.
The man—he was balding, thin, almost middle aged—looked at Felewin with wide watery eyes. Then he blew out the candle. Darkness enveloped them.
Ninefingers could see the man backing up. He cried out, “He’s backing up.”
“Of course he’s backing up,” said Felewin irritably. “Narrow tunnel, he didn’t go past me. Come on.” Felewin unshuttered the lantern again, but the man was gone.
He started to run down the hall.
I’d leave, thought Ninefingers, if only there were someplace to leave to, and he followed.
#[12]
The door was closed, of course. The question was, had they run off to sound the alarm, or were they still in the room?
Felewin tried to pull on the door, but they had pulled the latch--a loop of rope--back in. It was effectively locked. No axe, but door opens toward me. He grabbed his bow from the side of his pack and tried to fit it under the door--too thick. He pulled out his knife and tried that. No: the crack under the door was too small.
“Let me,” said Ninefingers. He slipped a long probe into the hole that had held the handle, rotated the bottom, and pulled. Light spilled into the corridor from the room.
Felewin took quick stock of the room--torture table, pit, equipment rack, three torches to provide light, and an open door. There was a man unconscious on the table. The man that Felewin had chased was standing with a flensing knife, standing between Felewin and the door. “Don’t come any closer! My partner has gone to get help.”
“Then I should finish you now,” said Felewin reasonably. He darted forward, avoiding the poker, and his sword bit deeply into the man’s leg. The man tumbled to the floor, crying out in pain, then got slowly to his feet and teetered there. Felewin slashed at the other leg, and the man waved feebly, missing Felewin by an arm’s length. Felewin was tempted to kill him, but he had not the right. The man lay there, unconscious from the pain.
#[13]
That was when the other two came in: one had the remains of good looks, the other was large, tonsured, and unshaven. Both had cudgels and knives. The large man swung and connected on Felewin’s shoulder, sending numbness all down his dumb arm. The other man swung, but he seemed afraid to come closer, so his club hit only air. Felewin gasped but he managed not to cry out. He thrust wildly and connected--his sword sank into the large man’s belly. The man cried out in pain.
Wincing, Felewin backed up. The hallway was narrow. If he stood just inside it, only one could attack him at a time--
The large man swung again, his blow fueled by rage. It hit him under the arm, and the chain and leather there absorbed it so it stung but wasn’t as numbing as the blow on his shoulder.
Felewin staggered, and his sword bit deeply into the man’s waist. The man groaned and fell.
The small man gulped and took a tentative slash at Felewin. It missed.
Felewin felt his face pull back in a grin, and he concentrated on the man’s chest. The blade just had to go there--
And it did. Twice. The man fell.
Gasping, Felewin wiped his shortsword off with shaky arms. His arm wouldn’t be quite right for hours. He thought for a second about quitting, taking these two back, but didn’t. He had promised to rescue the boy. That was what a knight did: kept his promises.
He slid the sword into the scabbard and went to the table. Ninefingers was already there, unfastening the straps that held the man down. Felewin tried to help, but his fingers wouldn’t co-operate. Instead, he fetched a cup of water from the barrel in the corner, and dribbled some on the man’s face.
“Easy, now. You’re safe, for the moment. What’s your name.”
#[14]
“Empen.” He took a greedy gulp from the cup. Felewin noticed that some skin around his belly had been cut free. Empen wouldn’t be able to travel.
“Can you sit up.” Empen shook his head. “Sure.” No one had come from the other door, so he hoped that meant there were no other guards there. And he hoped there was a place for Empen to lie down. And he hoped—
No, the list was getting too long. One thing at a time. He wanted Empen safe somewhere. This room had two doors, so it couldn’t be fortified.
“Ninefingers, scout out the next room. See if there’s anyone there, and if maybe we can hide Empen there.” The goblin left silently. “What did they want from you.”
“An artifact. They wanted a little statue, about yea high. Of a medusa. To enhance the sacrifice,” said Empen. In the torchlight, his face glistened with sweat. “But I don’t know anything about it.”
“We believe you.” The man looked around. “We? You have more people.”
“No, just-- You’ll see him in a moment. If all goes well. Here, take this.” He handed the man his wadded-up spare shirt to press against the wound. “I don’t have a healing salve, sorry.”
“No guards in the other room,” said Ninefingers. Felewin started at the sudden sound. “No exits, either. It’s the jail.”
“So they bring prisoners through the torture room.”
“I think it was a storeroom that got retrofitted, but frankly, if it doesn’t have dead people in it, I’m no expert.”
“Help me with him.” Together they moved the man to the jail.
There was a blanket on a cot in one of the three cells. “There.”
The man began to struggle. “No! No! I won’t go back!”
“We’ll break the padlock so it doesn’t close, all right?”
“I want to leave!”
“Can’t get out the way we came in. Unless-- How did you come in?”
“Secret passage. In the crypt.”
“Yeah, that’s blocked now,” said Ninefingers from his spot at the padlock.
The man sank to the floor. “We’re doomed.”
Felewin said, “Wait here. We’ll be back. And things are much better than when you were being tortured.”
“Yeah, but-.” The man slumped down, unconscious.
Ninefingers stood there, a stool leg in his hand. “We don’t really have time to talk about this.”
Felewin sputtered— “You have-- Remember that you’re still my prisoner.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we move on? The sooner we find the exit....
“And the boy.”
Felewin laid the man on the bed. They went back to the room under the crypt.
#[15]
The ladder was down. Ninefingers felt a sudden joy.
“That means someone’s here,” Felewin whispered.[16]
“Or someone’s left,” said Ninefingers. “We should leave too.”
Felewin shook his head. “No. Not you and me. Empen should go, though. Except of course, he’s unconscious.”
“Well, we could go.”
“I haven’t found the boy.”
“I could go.”
“Except you’re my prisoner.”
Ninefingers eyed the ladder. Could he scramble up it before Felewin grabbed him again? He had to try. He made a leap for the ladder—but instead of going after him, Felewin went for the switch. The ladder started to rise, taking Ninefingers with it. Ninefingers held on tight—
And felt Felewin’s hand on his ankle. He held on desperately—the ladder wouldn’t move while Felewin was pulling—but the human was too strong for him.
They sat there, in the dark, panting. Only years of long control kept Ninefingers from crying.
“I didn’t want to have to tether you again,” said Felewin.
“You….crazy. You .”
“Now let’s find the boy. I’ll tell you what,” said Felewin. “I’ll let you choose which of the two remaining doors we go in.”
I will lead you to death, Ninefingers thought. Hool take you.
#[17]
There was chanting from up ahead. Felewin didn’t know the language, but chanting had to be bad. Felewin pulled Ninefingers aside. “Chanting probably means they’re all in there. If the boy is there, he’s tied down or drugged. You get him to safety.”[18]
“The ladder isn’t down.”
“They’ll know how to lower it. Someone will run for the exit, you’ll follow them, figure out how to do it.”
“That’s your plan.”
“It’s all I got.” Felewin wished he had a shield. He took out his sword, breathed a deep breath, and charged in, yelling.
It was a large room, maybe a temple. There was an altar at the other end, with a child on it. Maybe a dozen robed and masked people were standing there, chanting. One stood over the boy, ceremonial knife at the ready, his belly leading the way.
#[19]
Felewin’s hope was that the man—had to be Bolya, with that belly, that body—couldn’t kill the child until the chant was finished. It took him precious seconds to cross the room, time he hoped the man wouldn’t use. The man was frozen by the berserker’s scream—that was the intention—until Felewin was almost there. Then the ceremonial dagger came down on the child—
—and his arm sent to one side by the flat of Felewin’s shortsword.
He tried to swing again, but Felewin was too strong, holding his arm pinned there. Felewin withdrew and stabbed, his blade sinking deeply into the man’s belly. The man waved at Felewin weakly, so Felewin rammed the sword deeper, twisting it up into the man’s chest.
The priest fell.
Felewin spared a second to pull his sword free with a wet sucking sound, and he glanced at the child.
A girl.
This wasn’t the boy he had been sent to find.
No time to think about that: two cultists approached him cautiously, wielding knives. The rest fled, out a side door he hadn’t noticed before.
One of the two cultists was tall and rangy, his head brushing the top of the room. The other was shorter than Felewin and thick-set with muscles. Neither was experienced with a knife. It wasn`t easy, but Felewin downed them without being hurt himself. They probably wouldn’t live, but he didn`t have a choice. Not what a knight would do but surely the Baron would see that.
He freed the trembling girl. “Go out that door. There’s a goblin there who will help you,” he said. “I’m going after the other men.”
The first room had pegs to hang clothes—he knew this because of the clothes hanging from them, and the robes and masks tossed everywhere—and another door. It was empty of people. He charged through.
In the next room, there were two doors and a few tables scattered. The left one presumably led out—there was a switch, already thrown. Since he saw no one there and the door was ajar—he peeked. The ladder was down, and the room was empty. Everyone, including Ninefingers, was gone.
So he was alone down here. Except for the thing next door that made the scraping sound.
#[20]
There were torches in the next room. The room, in fact, was brighter than any other room Felewin had seen. A woman in fine clothes was in the far corner of the room, bending over in a doorway. Beyond her, Felewin could see a tangle of limbs and cloth, all stiff and unyielding. Dead? he wondered.
Then he heard the hiss of snakes. Medusa. She looked human, but wasn’t. Meilor had told him that. He reminded himself not to look in her eyes. Meilor had told him that, too.
“Just stocking the larder,” she said. Her voice was low and sultry. She finished arranging Ninefingers’ paralyzed body on the pile. Now Felewin couldn’t get across the room and take her by surprise. “Children are best, but goblins are good, too. You? You’re too tough for babies. I’ll have to kill you.”[21]
“You have...babies.” Felewin tried to find a better position. A table, a stool, seven torches. Seven!
Of course, you couldn’t look in her eyes unless there were light. He backed up to grab a torch from a sconce.[22]
“Not yet, but once I do, well, it’s too late to stock.” She casually walked to a wall and threw a switch. “No escape. Ladder’s up again.”
Meilor had never said medusae could talk. Maybe Meilor had never fought a medusa? Around her head, the snakes writhed and hissed. He was looking, unfocused, at her navel. A trick his fighting tutor had shown him. A drop of something—venom?—fell past her belly to the floor.
He didn’t know if his trick would work.
“Thirteen children and a goblin should be enough. To feed twins. They’ll already have eaten me.”
Felewin circled slowly, keeping the table between them. Maybe the table would keep her snakes from attacking him—
She grabbed one edge of the table and rolled it, end over end, against the door to the outside. “Now.”
She moved closer. Felewin slashed, more to keep her away than anything else. His sword hit her arm and bounced off, leaving no trace. She laughed.
“Swords don’t hurt me.” He slashed again—this time a solid hit that drew some blood but not enough. “Don’t hurt me enough.”
She grabbed for him, but he dodged out of the way. His swing went wild and hit a torch—he felt something wet land on his shoulder and something brushed his hair.[23]
“You can’t win,” she said. “You’re against a god. You are pale misshapen copies of us.” She grabbed for him again and missed as he danced out of the way. “Your hair is lifeless, you fail to give yourself to your offspring, and you breed like animals.” The dodge made his swing wild, but still a snake’s head fell to the floor.
The wound did not bleed. Instead, a small serpent’s head formed there and started to grow. The wound at her side had smoothed over, too, even before the blood had thickened.
They grow back? He dodged again to try and get out of her range. He almost caught her gaze and forced himself to look away. Her fingers grazed his hauberk and he jerked backwards, out of her range.
Fire? It was said to work in the stories, when Ufasen slew the troll—
He waved the torch at her, and she moved back. He jabbed; the torch was awkward in his hand, and the flaming bitumen-soaked cloth at the top began to unravel. Felewin swore. Another torch was over there—
She grabbed for him again, and missed, thank goodness. He moved warily to the other torch and grabbed it—
She lunged forward and he narrowly avoided her, the new torch in his hand, the old one on the floor. He would have to step over it when he came near. He thrust the torch at her. She batted it away with the stool.
Snarling, she broke off the stool leg and jammed the second door shut, the one he had come through. “You will not leave,” she said.
The torch was his only hope. He got ready to dodge her, then jab her with the fire. She swept her leg, trying to dump him; he leaped over it and jabbed! She caught it in her bare hands and screamed. The burn was raw and red on her skin. She let go and backed off. They circled each other again and again.
In moments she held up her hands and flexed her fingers. They were as clean as a newborn’s hands.
So fire would not work. Sooner or later, he would grow tired or the snakes would connect or he would look into her eyes. Then he would die.
“How can you hope to defeat a god?” she asked. “I am as strong and as fast as you are. My poison can kill you. My stare can kill you. And your hurts are momentary to me.”
He wondered if he would feel the pain. Still, he thought, I will make her pay for every mouthful of flesh on my body.
He slashed with the sword and missed, then hit her with the torch. “Have a moment of hurt, then.”
The angry red flesh healed, but this time the burn was bigger, and took longer.
Wait. She didn’t say I couldn’t hurt her, she just said the hurts passed.
But what if they didn’t pass? What if he cut her, and before it healed he jammed the torch in the wound? And what if he cut her again, and did it with another torch? And another? The room had five other torches. He could do this. But if he did, it would be all offense, no defense. He would have to hold the torch in place, and the snakes would bite: their needle-sharp fangs were thinner than the holes in the chain of his mail.
He glanced at the disorderly pile of paralyzed children. The boy Ymon was there. A medusa’s gaze would eventually wear off: they would be free. Freeing them was a knight’s death.
So be it.
He screamed then, like barbarian Skjoldings scream. Perhaps she would take it as a sign of frustration, but the scream gave his arms and legs strength. She looked startled, and danced back from his sword as it sliced through the air, hunting for her. Then she smiled and took a sharp backhand blow to one hip. Felewin felt her hands on his hauberk and she pulled him in. Felewin looked down at her torso as he jabbed in the torch.
Her fingers loosened and though he felt snakes’ teeth sharp against his scalp and shoulder, he did not let go. She tried to move away, but Felewin was there, following her. Snakes again, so many that venom ran down his face and hair like green tears. He closed his eyes. Weakness started in his jaw, his head there--so he jabbed his sword in somewhere, he didn’t know where. More thorns of pain, the serpent-heads jerking in his skin, tearing it.
The medusa slumped. She fell, but he didn’t know if it was temporary. The only way to make sure she was dead was to cut off her head, so he tried, but he couldn’t make a clean cut. It was like a boy cutting leather for the first time. Finally her head was off. There was blood everywhere. And then he remembered the switch. He got up and staggered to the switch. Oddly, there were two of them. That was okay; he had two sets of hands. He used all his hands and threw the switch.
#[24]
Felewin was on a blanket in a mud hut. A cookfire sat in the corner, under what smelled like delicious stew. Lodna of the cattle saw he was awake and came over. “We are very grateful,” said Lodna of the cattle.
Ymon and Ninefingers came in and squatted near him. “I have this one back.” She ruffled Ymon’s hair.
“Mother came and found you, after some men were gibbering about a monster in the haunted graveyard.”
“That.” Felewin tried again. His voice was rusty. “That must have taken some courage.”
“I had a child to find.”
“We would have been able to help in within a day. The gaze of the medusa wears off.”
“But I would have been dead, then.”
“Yeah,” said Ninefingers. “So, you know that cows are vulnerable to snakebite.” He nodded. “Turns out Lodna has snakebite salve, but for the cows, not for people. Still worked.”
“We owe you our lives,” said Ymon, gravely.
“Yeah, about that,” said Ninefingers. “I guess I do owe you my life. So I’m in your debt.”
Felewin said, “It was nothing.”
“No, I mean, I’m in your debt. I’m bonded to you now. One life for another. My life is yours.”
“Thank you. But you have crimes to answer for.”
“Uh.... You should probably know that I didn’t steal the stuff you’re blaming me for.”
“What.” Felewin tried to sit up and couldn’t. “Why not tell me this before.”
“Would you have believed me? But now...now I feel I owe you the truth.”
Felewin swore. “And if I decide you’re lying and send you to the Baron.”
“I’d say thank you. Because there? There’s a chance to escape before I die. With you? It’s for life. No matter how short.”
Felewin looked at the Aprak’s face. As near as he could tell, the goblin was telling the truth.
“Who did commit the thefts.”
“My brother.”
“Then we should get him instead.”
“I don’t know where he is. Shortly after you took me, I heard that slavers attacked our nest.”
“How do you know this? And your nest.”
“We have ways of getting important information out. And nest is...tribe. Pack. Village. Nest.”
Felewin sank down to the blanket.”So I need another deed to prove my worth to be a knight. Killing a medusa has to count.”
“Already burned. There’s no proof, and there’s a whole cult of people who’ll deny it.”
Felewin covered his eyes with his arm.
“Knighthood is over-rated,” said Ninefingers.
Felewin removed his arm and opened his eyes. “Ah,” said Felewin. “But—”
“I’m honor-bound to say this is a stupid idea.”
Felewin sat up and looked at the goblin. “You haven’t heard it yet.”
“I don’t need to,” said Ninefingers.
“Shush. There’s an ogre that&rsdquo;s been terrorizing a town by the Black Forest. If I killed it&mdash.”
Game Mechanics
[1] Adventure setup: A small town, a woman with a missing child. Since I’m stretching at two characters (fighter and thief), this will probably be a low magic environment: more rituals than wizardly spells, or wizards are reserved for court. We need someone to set the story up. The mother, Lodna. The general scheme is that there’s a long-abandoned temple under the graveyard and a dark cult in it. Chaos 5.Scene start: Unaltered. Later, it turns out to be in Amherst somewhere.
[2] Scene start: Altered.Mythic question: Is the gate locked? Exceptional yes.
[3] Scene start: unalteredLock solving is done with standard Iron Gauntlet rules. Difficulty 2, Ninefingers is taking extra time as a sustained task for +1D, Ninefingers makes it.Mythic question: Did the boy go in the graveyard? Yes (28).I already know the answer to “whether there’s a way out,” but if I didn’t, that would be an excellent question for Mythic.
[4] I know there’s a hidden tunnel somewhere in the graveyard. (Because I know the cult operated under the graveyard.) Mythic question: Is the entrance to the tunnel hidden in the crypt? I think it’s likely. Yes. (17)
[5] Scene start: unaltered (7)
[6] Scene start: Unaltered (9) Raising the Chaos number to 6: I want more chaos.
[7] Mythic question: Does the same switch raise and lower the ladder? No. (62)
[8] Mythic question: Does this door lead to the children? (a 1/3 chance, so “Unlikely”) No (86) Mythic question: Is the door locked? Yes (13)
[9] Scene setup: Unaltered (9) That’s a lot of Unaltered scenes. Maybe I should up the Chaos level to 7.
[10] Mythic question Does the person leaving spot him (Likely)? Yes (26).Iron Gauntlets: The man grabs. He needs two successes; he gets only one. I’m not using athletics rolls, but predefined movement.
[11] Iron Gauntlets: He gets four successes on his subterfuge roll and needs only three.
[12] Scene setup: Altered (event) Mythic question: Did one man go to get the jailer? Yes (33) NPC Positive, Inform, Rumor
[13] Iron Gauntlets: Combat! Felewin goes first on reaction rolls.Felewin has been training to be a knight. The torturer is a farmer who moonlights as a torturer. Give him 3 for Fitness 3, brawling, athletics and composure.Felewin attacks. This is a dueling attack, and he gets 3 successes. So the difficulty for the torturer’s dodge is 3: he needs 3 successes.The torturer fails to dodge, getting only 1 success. He has no armor, so the sword doe 2 FAT and 2 INJ.s With two grades of injury already (that’s less 1D to fitness activities), the fight will be over in a few moments.But Felewin’s initiative is after the other two. So the jailer is large, Fitness 4, and the Head Torturer is Fitness 3. The jailer is at least proficient (dueling 4) but the Head Torturer is not (unskilled).There are two of them, so Felewin splits his pool to have two actions.The jailer goes first. He gets two successes; Felewin gets two to defend, so the attack gets through. The cudgel does 3 FAT damage. The leather armor absorbs 1 of that. Felewin is -1D for Fitness tasks; Felewin hits for 2 FAT, 2 INJ against the jailer. The jailer has no armor so it all gets through.
[14] Mythic question: Is the man local (unlikely)? Yes (32)
[15] Scene setup: Altered (1)
[16] Rather than complicated question for Mythic, I used Iron Gauntlets and rolled a composure role for each. 3 is the skill number, they need 2 successes, each has 2 dice.Two keep their composure and attack. The rest run. I rolled out the attack: two unarmed, unskilled attackers with knives against a skilled opponent? The only question was whether he’d get hurt a bit taking them down, and he didn’t.The twist: It’s not the boy being sacrificed.
[17] Scene setup: Altered (5)
[18] The twist: It’s not the boy being sacrificed. Okay, this takes it away from what I had imagined. So from here out, it’s new.
[19] Second move is for Felewin to try to stab the priest. Felewin is going to commit one additional action. He hits the priest (for 2 FAT and 2 INJ); the priest has no armor except for a ceremonial mask. The priest fails to dodge away.Priest stabs at Felewin. He misses, so Felewin stabs him again, for 1 overkill, so the priest is dead. Now the other cultists react.
[20] Scene setup: Unaltered.This is the climactic battle. The choice of a medusa is intentional--a matter of “what lives in temples?” The details of medusa biology are mine.
[21] Iron Gauntlets: Well, you’ll see how the fight goes. General rules: When possible, he’ll try two actions (additional 1D in the reaction roll). She’s confident but if her snakes can attack, will reserve two extra actions (2D in the reaction roll): She won’t do that until she is near enough to him for brawling.
[22] Mythic question: Does he look into her eyes at this point in the combat? (Unlikely, I think: He’s trying not to.) No (60)
[23] Felewin gets a 1 and a 2 on reaction, Medusa gets an 8, he goes first. He parries as she moves in, then hits well for 2 INJ of damage. Her Toughness takes 1 away of that.
[24] Scene setup: This is the wrap-up scene, and I didn’t roll for it. All I did was tie up loose ends. Other things that I didn’t bother to put in? Since Bolya was the head priest, I figure he never actually sent anyone to Baron Coodna.
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