Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 5: On The Run

So there I was in the restaurant, already freaking the hell out over the thought of getting dragged back into the Council, when things actually got worse.

I could hear Sophie Booth over the police sirens outside, talking to the restaurant staff. I was about to be arrested. I was considered dangerous, and they were calling for backup. Which meant I had maybe two minutes to figure out what to do. Two minutes that could be spent negotiating a deal with fucking Percy, because let's face it, the Council are loaded and a lot of problems go away when you throw money at them, and he'd probably jump at this chance to get me exactly where he wanted me.

Except the thought of handcuffs and a police cell meant any sensible thoughts like that were being drowned out by one thing. Out. I had to get out. Right now. The room we were in had a window. Not big enough for a person, but big enough for a bird. So I smashed it open with whatever high end tableware I could get my hands on, shifted, and fled.

From above I could see more police outside the Mitchester. DS Gunne was in Fiona's face, while she was trying to grab something off him. I could see Topher slamming two police officers' heads together. I should help, I knew that, but my head was still full of handcuffs and my heart was beating so fast I felt like it was going to burst.

Then Gunne screamed, and Topher made a run for Vanessa, carrying Fiona in one arm and her chair in the other. He's a big guy but it's easy forget just how strong he actually is. They were going to escape. Except from up there I could see more police arriving. The backup Sophie had called for me. I was going to have to do something. Wind, lightning, anything. Except the sky was perfectly clear and the air almost unnaturally still.

Then it came to me, the predator instinct breaking through the blind panic. I stooped, snatched a pigeon out of the air, and slammed it into the window of one of the police cars. Vanessa took a bump as Topher turned her around, and I doubt him and Fiona fared much better inside, but then he was flooring it out of there.

I'd stopped one car, now dealing with a mass of feathers and pigeon guts, but there were others after them, and after seeing Topher narrowly evade a road block I realised there was something else I could do to help. I scanned the road for tailing vehicles, and spotted a route that would get Vanessa out of there without running into any more trouble. I figured he'd have the sense to realise a low flying falcon with peacock blue chest stripes was me, and follow my lead.

I hung back once we were clear. Topher seemed to know where he was going, and it wasn't long before Vanessa was pulling into a garage next to a pub in Hartcliffe. I flew in after them, got in the back, and put on the emergency spare clothes. Which unfortunately are some of Topher's old gym clothes, so they're several sizes too big, but it's not like I had a choice.

I didn't know this pub, but I did know the local community garden well enough for the landlord Pavel to know who I am, and Fiona knew him well enough to know he's be OK with us using his place as a bolt hole. We got a warm welcome, bratwurst, and some drink I can't pronounce that tasted like plums and burning.

Pavel offered us his living room for the night. Fiona patched herself up with more Deep Heat than I thought was possible, then finally broke the silence to tell me the one thing I didn't know: why we were on the run from P Division. It was the Sibyl. They'd been found dead, murdered, in the ruins of St Peter's in Castle Park and we were the prime suspects. Shit. And Fiona had ripped another of those talisman chains of Gunne, who was stinking of bitter ash.

Time to backtrack a little. I told them about my evening, and what the Council had hinted at finding. The vault under the Cornubia is the first thing they thought of as well. They'd spent the evening with Gus, and that had been going pretty well, right up until the point where they'd been about to swear a blood oath and Gus had acted like there was something very wrong with the smell of Topher's blood.

Fiona and me looked at Topher, who was looking almost as shifty as he did right after Celia had that vision about him. I'd always figured, super strength, healing impossibly fast, kind of shifty about running water - he was a dhampir, right? Wolves hate those. But no. He hadn't told us about his father. Changeling, Fiona concluded. Topher described how his father had appeared to him, with his head wreathed in flames.

Then I felt it. It was like icy fingers pushing into my brain, trying to push Topher's words right back out again. I'd felt it before. It was the same thing that happened with Celia's phone, when Damian's photo was being hidden from me. It was much harder to stop it this time. I could feel I was fighting against something incredibly powerful, and just holding onto that memory left me drained.

But that's when things started to come together. Everyone knows pyromancers don't exist and there are no fire-aspect fae. Except..maybe the reason we think they don't exist is because any time someone actually learns something about them, the memory gets pushed out of their brain?

We had two leads. Whatever it was the Council had found near the observatory, and the Sibyl themself. If Fiona could get them to talk, we could probably learn a lot about what was going on. Trouble was, Fiona relies a lot on her magical tools for summoning the dead, all of which were at the Mitchester. Which meant for to her have a reasonable chance of contacting the Sibyl's ghost, given that we don't know their full name either, we'd need to be at the site of the murder, or with the body.

There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to go anywhere near the police station in my current state, which as far as I was concerned ruled out the morgue. So it was going to have to be Castle Park and an active crime scene. Shift change at 8am would be our best shot, but even so it was going to be a challenge. At least we had time for some sleep before that. Fiona set an alarm for 6am and we all drifted off to sleep.

Except we all woke up again at 5.30am when Fiona was jolted awake by her alarm wards going off. She'd taken something out of that vault at the Cornubia and someone - probably someone from P Division - had just found it. And from Fiona's expression, that someone was likely in extreme danger.

We got back in Vanessa and drove to Castle Park. There wasn't a big police presence, but it was enough that we certainly weren't going to be walking in without attracting far too much attention. The three of us were rather physically distinctive, after all. We were going to need a distraction. Topher suggested getting their attention and getting them to chase him, but I had another idea.

By then I didn't have it in me to mess with the weather, or even take wing, but one thing about being a shapeshifter is you have to get very cool very quickly about the fact some of your close friends are going to see you naked. So it was only moderately embarrassing to leave my borrowed gym clothes with the others and streak past the police officers. I swear I could almost hear the Benny Hill music as I sprinted through the park. By the time I got back, disguised in a borrowed coat, there were several more naked people running around the park. Enough to keep the police occupied for a while. I could feel the run had done me good as we raced into the church.

The place had been desecrated. Hairline cracks in the altar, charred streaks on the walls, and every trace of plant life scoured from the cracks in the floor. It stank of burning. Fiona called on the Sibyl, and asked who killed them. They said it was us - or rather something that wore our faces. A prince of the seven, the lord of a thousand faces, Maymun. A djinn.

How could we prove our innocence? The djinn was backed by an oathbreaker. Malcolm Roberts. We all knew that name. One of the people on the pub licensing committee. DSI Roberts.

Fiona had one more question. Djinns aren't British fae. What was this one doing so far from its native lands? They come where they are bound, to serve their sovereign.

That was a whole other question in itself, but right then we had to get out of there before the police got back. I got back into my clothes, and dropped the borrowed coat on the edge of the park where its owner could find it. Then it was back into Vanessa. Fiona called a contact at the hospital to check on Gunne, but it seemed he was still unconscious. That talisman had burned him badly.

We needed to find DSI Roberts, and P Division weren't going to be any use at this point. Clan Kielsyn had gone off us a bit after getting a sniff of Topher, it seemed. We were running out of places to turn. Except that nasty little shithead of a fae, Firs, still owed me one. The coin he'd given me...well I knew damn well I'd left it in a drawer at the Mitchester, not in Topher's old sweatpants, but here it was. I didn't know how I was supposed to use it, so I just let loose with every insult for the slimy bastard I could think of, until we rounded a corner and there he was at the side of the road.

He got in the back, insulted my clothes and suggested I needed some lipstick, but he did know where to find Roberts. Except he wanted something else in return, and while normally I'd take time to argue a better deal rather than give him anything, time wasn't on our side. What he wanted was my phone number. I didn't like the idea of him phoning me, but at least for the moment my phone wasn't on me. I gave him the number and he scratched it onto his arm. It wasn't for him, he said. And I had a horrible feeling I knew exactly was making deals with Firs to get hold of my number. Lucien.

We had bigger things to deal with right then though. Firs gave us the address and left the car. We drove to a much swankier part of the city and a house that looked far too expensive even for a DSI's salary, with a Tesla parked outside. While Fiona and me wondered about the best way to get inside, Topher went straight up to the front door and knocked.

A small Filipina woman in a cleaning overall opened the door, and once Topher made it clear he was going in whether she liked it or not, let us all in. The house was unsettling. It was too dark, with too much shadow in between the vases of withered flowers.

We found Roberts at his desk, lounging with a glass of whisky in one hand and the other down his trousers. He turned to face us as we approached, asking if we were going to threaten to break his knees. Fiona asked him about being an oathbreaker. He didn't have much to say. Topher brought up the subject of that nice car he had outside, and I pointed out how those things catch fire really easily. But it was Fiona who finally managed to get a rise out of him, even if it did mostly just seem to wind him up. He pulled out yet another talisman, but all the same, he winced when Fiona mentioned Maymun. He got the point about her being a necromancer, but pointed out that ghosts don't count as witness. He told us they'd infiltrated every possible level, and there was no magic that could stop him testifying that he'd seen us leaving the scene of the crime. Because it was the truth.

The cleaner knocked on the door. Roberts told her to come back tomorrow. Then the door opened, and in the doorway was no cleaner but a creature with its head wreathed in flames. It opened its mouth and a jet of flame shot across the room.

Even as I could feel my skin burning, I was reflexively shifting. If my opponent had been human, I would have blinded it, the way my talons raked through its face. Topher picked up Roberts and threw him at the djinn. He missed, but at least Roberts was out of action for a bit. Fiona was sure that despite its supernatural powers, it wasn't going to be much tougher than a human, but I couldn't pay too much attention to that as I was dropping out of its grasp as it reached up to grab me, and going for its chest. All I got was a beak full of ash, but Topher's punch landed, and the creature somehow dissolved into ash.

We needed some serious words with the now seriously injured Roberts, but we certainly weren't going to be staying at his house any longer. We all bundled into Vanessa. A plume of smoke was already coming from the house as we left.

Oh, and we set fire to the Tesla on the way out. Just, you know, on principle.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 4: Who is Nigel?

I woke up at 9am when the alarm I'd been unkind enough to set for myself went off. I dragged myself out of bed, threw some clothes on, and remembered Celia.

Celia was fine. Awake and dressed. She'd had a text from Gus to tell her Damian was at Southmead Hospital. I assured her I hadn't given him her number. Then she had a momentary vision. She saw me with stag horns on my head. I don't know what it means but I've got a bad feeling it's tied to that coin Firs gave me somehow.

I walked Celia to the door, talking music on the way, then went to make breakfast for the others. Which I wouldn't normally do, but Fiona was in no condition to be doing it and Topher was too busy helping her out. Over scrambled eggs and tea we made our plan. Of the names the Sibyl had given us, only one was familiar. What's more, we knew exactly where he was, and he was probably feeling positive about us right now given that we'd just saved his life.

We got in Vanessa the Land Rover and Topher drove us to Southmead accompanied by Portishead. For such an interesting guy he sure has a boring CD collection. I could barely keep my eyes open. Damian was in ICU but he was awake and had Celia sitting with him. He was still putting on that fake Jamaican accent that's not fooling any of us, even in his current state, and was pretty happy to see us. Happy enough to answer our questions about Nigel, anyway. Nigel is a massive bellend, and also his dad. And he's a big man in the Mercury Collegium. He operates out of a pub called the Chelsea and has a Glaswegian attack dog called Colin.

He had less to say on the name Klaus, but at least he could tell us that he was Damian's sponsor in the Clan. It was obvious he needed some rest, so we went on our way. Our next move was going to have to be talking to either Klaus or Nigel, and right now the werewolves we'd just helped out seemed like a better bet than the Mercury Collegium. Topher gave Gus a called and arranged a meeting for Sunday Lunch at the Mitchester.

It rapidly became apparent that the Bristol traffic was not going to allow us to get back in time to get the lunch service going. And Vanessa's pretty roomy but I could feel myself getting increasingly antsy, stuck in the car in what felt like an endless traffic jam. In the end I couldn't take it any longer. I opened up the sunroof, shifted, and launched myself into the air, leaving a pile of clothes and a brief burst of ozone and daisies. With hindsight I should probably have warned the others first.

I had some pretty standard beef and turkey laid on for lunch service but we were about to have special guests so I decided to pick something up on the way back. There are pheasants in the city if you know where to look, and I soon had an alternate menu option to take home. I tapped on the window to alert Cassie when I got back - I swear that girl still thinks I have an unusually smart pet falcon - and she let me in.

The others arrived half an hour after we started serving, moments before Gus and Klaus, by which time I'd eaten the parts of the pheasant not considered fit for table and reverted to human form. Cassie called in the request for the chef's special, telling me one of the customers was really good looking. After getting a look at Klaus, whose gait was the only thing about him that didn't scream accountant, I really hoped she was talking about Gus.

The werewolves were pretty cagey about everything. According to them, Damian had been taken into the clan on his own merits and had proved himself. I asked about Nigel, but they denied any knowledge of that name. As they went on their way, Fiona assured us they were lying, but we weren't going to be able to get any more out of them without something to offer.

Then my phone went. Amelia. She'd set up a meeting for 7pm in a nearby tapas restaurant. Hardly ideal since we were still on a time limit for solving this problem for the Sibyl, but high end restaurant reservations aren't the kind of thing that can easily be changed and we needed this information.

With no further leads it was obvious we were going to have to talk to Nigel. Topher was concerned his showing up while Colin was around was likely to start a fight, but the alternative was me and Fiona going in on our own, and while I can look after myself, I can't look after Fiona too. We wanted him with us, and we wanted him armed.

It was obvious from the outside what kind of pub the Chelsea was. People sitting around with poorly concealed weapons, the stench of weed, the kind of cracked windows you get from people being thrown at them, and nitrous oxide canisters littering the ground. We parked nearby, not wanting to put Vanessa in the car park, and headed for the door. We were intercepted by what I assume was the landlady. She obviously didn't like the look of us, and told us to get in our Chelsea tractor and go home.

We asked about Nigel, but once again we were stonewalled. Topher brought up Colin without much effect. She told us to leave again and we could see weapons were being drawn. So it was going to have to be a show of power, and my power is the weather. I called the wind into a swirling vortex around us, picking up litter, nitrous canisters and bullet casings. How dare she talk about Vanessa like that? Fiona reached into it and picked out a bullet casing, getting stares from some of those around. Stares, and weapons sheathed. It seemed we'd made our point.

The pub was nasty. A grimy little place with one of those squishy carpets that have had far too much beer spilt and never cleaned up. Nigel was seated at the back, behind a bead curtain. He bore enough resemblance to Damian that we knew we had the right person. On with the show of strength. He demanded Topher and me sit down. We looked to Fiona for instructions, making it clear she was in charge. She stood her ground and we stayed standing. Again we'd made our point.

Then he did something none of us expected. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of his fingers. And the air was suddenly full of the smell of bitter ash.

I would have liked to ask him how exactly he learned how to do that, but I was on a time limit, so went straight for the obvious. What was going on involving Klaus and his boy? Nigel's response confirmed Damian's description of him as a bellend. Seems he's one of those parents who don't believe in kindness. No wonder Damian wanted nothing to do with his dad, or his business.

I was starting to hope we might get somewhere when Colin walked in, threw a folder on the table, and immediately abandoned what he was saying to get in Topher's face. Fiona took the opportunity to ask Nigel why the bitter ash smell had shown up somewhere associated with his son, which I think actually surprised him. For a moment I thought I was about to have to do a runner with Fiona, but holy shit, Topher actually challenged Colin to a game of darts, and in the resulting confusion I managed to get a look at that folder.

There were photos inside. One was that vault underneath the Cornubia, and from the state of it, it was definitely after we'd made our visit. The other was the Mitchester Arms, with an arrow drawn on pointing at Fiona's window.

We didn't stick around much longer. Back in Vanessa, Topher told us Colin was wearing a silver chain that didn't look like the kind of jewellery a man like that would want to be seen wearing. I knew what it was. A talisman. Similar to one Fiona had seen DS Gunne with, it turned out. With Gunne apparently too sick to take a call, she called one of his people, who said it was from some stuff belonging to DCI Choudhury, Myers' predecessor.

Then Topher spotted we were being followed. Some old Ford. Vanessa can shift when we want her to, and Topher shook them off. But why would anyone follow us? Everyone knows where we live. Especially people with photos showing Fiona's bedroom.

I was going to have to hustle if I was going to make my dinner date, and the others were going to have to get back to Clan Kielsyn for a trade of information if we were going to get the Sibyl's job done in time. So I got dropped off near the Mitchester and went to get ready. I don't have much in the way of clothes suitable for anything fancier than my own kitchen, but I've got one decent pair of shoes and a nice dress from Primark. Along with some makeup and tidying up my hair I felt I looked quite respectable.

Or at least, I did until I got to the door of the restaurant and remembered that places with Michelin stars are on a whole different level. I guess the fact I had sunglasses on probably didn't help, but it's either that or go flashing my freak eyes to the normies and I felt out of place enough already. Fortunately the staff were expecting me.

I saw Amelia first. Straight away I took in the designer dress and the red soled shoes. It took a moment longer to spot her earrings. Silver studs, mostly hidden by her hair. The ones I gave her when we were still sixth-formers. God I miss her.

And then there he was. Percival Fitz-Percy. Fucking Percy. That place pretty much trained the swearing out of us, but that one stuck. He wanted me to take the sunglasses off but I refused. He had to know why I hide my eyes but still. No reason he needed the specifics.

He got straight down to business, calling me his biggest failure. Yes, I'd heard it all before. So much promise. So much potential. Amelia pushed a ring box across the table to me. I tried to make a joke about how this didn't seem like the right time for a proposal, but my heart wasn't in it. It was a ring, of course. A Council of Merlin signet ring, just like the ones they were both wearing. He didn't have to say a word but he said it anyway. He wanted me to take it, become an associate member of the Council, and started digging up my so-called arcane lineage. So he could stitch me up with some kind of noble heritage and have me inherit land and money and shit.

How dare he? The absolute bastard, trying to lure me in with money, like I'd have given up my college scholarship to go and work in a pub if it had been about money. Because if they'd actually given a shit about my so-called lost noble heritage they'd have done something for my parents instead of doing nothing until my talent manifested.

But I needed info. So I was going to have to at least take the ring box and think about it for a while. And he'd listened to Amelia over the bitter ash smell. He agreed it sounded fae, and took the opportunity to remind me of a few things I already knew from classes, like boggarts being associated with earth and larceny. Honestly, being reminded of those cute little dickheads was probably the best part of the evening. But fire had never come up, and of course there are no real pyromancers despite what some people would like to claim.

I was starting to wonder if he was just going to tell me things I already knew, but then he started talking about something else. Something they'd found near the observatory. Amelia said that it was beautiful, and I needed to see if for myself. I thought of the vault under the Cornubia. Could there be more than one? And it sounded like I could get all the answers there, but of course I couldn't be allowed to visit, or even be told any more about it. Because I wasn't a member of the Council.

I said I needed time to think about it. I needed to know more but the thought of getting back in their gilded cage was making me feel sick. I was glad of my sunglasses because I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, and all I was actually thinking about was how I hoped Fiona and Topher were back at the Mitchester because if I was going to cry in front of someone I wanted it to be them and not Amelia and especially not fucking Percy.

Then his phone went. He looked at it, showed it to Amelia, and both of them went white. Then I heard the police sirens outside.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 3: Visions

Back at the bus stop I took the time to check my phone. I'd delivered the best bread and honey the Co-op could provide into the fairy ring, and now there was a message with a thumbs-up and an extreme close up of a boggart's face. How they did that without a phone of their own I don't know. Probably best not to think about it.

There were a few messages on the Whatsapp group, most importantly Topher confirming that he hadn't been eaten by werewolves, although in slightly more guarded language. I've told them they don't need to worry what they say in the Mitchester Arms RPG Club group chat, but I guess we're all still getting used to that. Fiona had a lead on what was going on with the licensing situation, so I let them know I'd dealt with the fairy ring problem and would join them there.

There turned out to be Holly Court, one of those hideous brutalist flatblocks that seem to have grown on this city like a rash. I was the last to arrive, and explained that I'd made a deal with three boggarts. They were sceptical, but appreciated that it was a better option than unleashing a rawhead on the city.

Inside, Fiona headed for the lift. I looked at how cramped it was, especially with Topher and Fiona already inside, and decided to take the stairs. I arrived out of breath, just in time for Fiona to fail to get the lock open. I took over, and next thing I knew the pick had snapped. Of course Topher managed to punch it open with damn near surgical precision. Not that I was complaining.

I don't know what Fiona was expecting to find in this flat, but none of us were expecting nothing. The place was completely cleaned out. Except it wasn't completely empty. There was a lingering scent of bitter ash. The same thing I could smell when visiting the boggarts. Shit.

I was reluctant to believe there was absolutely nothing left here so went for a more thorough look around. Behind a curtain there was a far more mundane ash smell. Picking through the burned fragments in an ashtray I found a photo. East Asian woman, maybe Chinese. A note on the back called her a target and an easy mark. Fiona recognised the picture. Lin Xia, a city council clerk. Seems someone used her to cause our licensing problems. Fiona took the photo to give to DS Gunne as evidence. Strange it was still here though. Careless. That didn't fit with everything else we'd seen here.

We were just about to leave when we heard the door swing open and some kid walked in. I say kid. Didn't take long to clock a fledgling vamp, especially when he clearly wanted us to know. He called himself Steve and said we were on his turf. Thank god for Fiona's ability to bullshit her way out of damn near anything. There was some talk of him doing a better job with his sigils in future and we made another attempt to leave.

Except as I was following the others out, Steve said he recognised me, and that's not a good thing coming from a vampire. I hung back a bit and suggested maybe he'd seen me in the pub, but no. It was as bad as I feared. Lucien. I stopped entirely. Not smart, but at that moment being alone with a fledgling vampire sounded better than having to explain to the others about Lucien. Apparently he still talked about me as 'the one that got away'. And Steve was reminding me that while he was only a fledgling he was still a predator, and it was all I could do to remind myself that so am I. I might have left a little faster than was entirely dignified.

Fortunately there was plenty to distract me back at the pub. Cassie was looking frazzled and the agency staff we'd got for the day weren't inspiring much confidence. Plus there was the impending meeting with Clan Kielsyn that Topher had set up. What really worried me though was that bitter ash smell. It felt like fairy magic, but no kind of fae that either Fiona or I had ever heard of. I needed help, and who better than an actual associate member of the Council of Merlin?

Amelia answered the phone pretty quick, and it did feel good to hear her voice again. Asking for help didn't feel so good. She agreed, but of course it came with a price. And the price was having dinner with possibly the only person on Earth I like even less than Firs or Lucien. My old Dee College tutor, Percival Fitz-Percy.

I was thinking of checking what kind of mess the tweaker that the agency had apparently mistaken for a chef was making of my kitchen when I heard screams from downstairs. Seems Celia had been attempting some divination and it had gone...not well. Topher said she'd had frost coming out of her mouth, which certainly explained why he'd thought it was a good idea to throw a kettle of boiling water over her. Fiona was applying first aid, so all I really saw was the triskele she'd drawn on the floor. Apart from where the water had washed it away, it was identical to the one on the coin Firs gave me.

There was nothing else we could do for her at this point, and we couldn't miss our appointment with Clan Kielsyn. So I packed my trowel, and a surprisingly charming guy called Gus picked us up in some fancy car and took us to the Cornubia. A hole underneath a pub wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting - but then, what had I been expecting? It was a challenge getting Fiona and her chair down there and I suspect it hurt more than she was letting on. But it was worth it.

The room was beautiful. It had everything. Vaulted ceilings, carved walls, designs picked out in gold and gems showing a mix of native wildlife and pretty much any occult symbol I could think of. But the important thing was the three people covered in frost, floating above an empty pool in the middle of the room. Even under the frost I could see one of them was Damian.

After some careful examination we had a fair idea what we were looking at. A ward, and a big one too. If we were going to get those people out, we were going to have to destroy it, and that probably meant destroying this room with it. Which I'd do in a heartbeat, but I wasn't so sure about Gus. I guess I shouldn't have underestimated pack mentality.

It took all three of us plus Gus to do it once we'd got everyone else clear. At least if this all went wrong there'd be none of us left to blame. As we hit the four corners, the carvings melted and flowed onto the floor. I kept my eyes on Damian, and saw him and the others sink slowly to the ground as the frost retreated. They were obviously in need of urgent medical attention and Gus and Topher carried two of them to the ladder. I'm not that quite that strong but found it in me to drag the third all the same.

Gus was pretty hard to read when we got out ourselves, but he gave Fiona and me business cards which seemed to be some kind of token of respect and took us back to the Mitchester. Poor Cassie. We're definitely not going to use that agency again. And if that wasn't bad enough, we all spotted a familiar pair of six inch Louboutin heels. Fiona knows how to handle Carolina Fortunato though, whether she's acting on behalf of the Mayor or the Sodality.

My kitchen was a wreck, but before I could get started on fixing that I had to check on Celia. Seems Topher felt the same. We'd put her to bed in a spare room, but she was awake now and looking much better. And we had good news for her. We'd found Damian and he was going to be OK. She started tearing up at that, so I hugged her, and then the floodgates opened.

She'd just about managed to calm down and start asking why we were looking so gloomy when we'd just saved someone's life when suddenly she dropped the mug of cocoa she'd been holding, threw back her head, and started speaking in a voice I didn't recognise.

"A figure made from fire, ash and smoke laid in repose on a black stone table with a broken crown at its head. Flowers of pink, blue and yellow sprouted from its body and were burnt away only for new blossoms to erupt from under its skin."

Then she was back with us, and in her own voice asked Topher why she'd just seen him burning.

She was clearly exhausted, and we left her to sleep, but Topher was acting shifty. I knew what the flowers meant. Discipline, self-control, honour and bravery. Was that how Topher saw himself? He didn't seem sure about the brave part. And he was definitely hiding something. Celia's vision had clearly shaken him up, and it seemed to be something personal. But he obviously didn't want to talk, and I had a kitchen to clean. We could discuss it in the morning.

I was thinking it might be nice to get up a bit early and take wing for a while, but at something like half three in the morning I was woken up by someone hammering on the door. I legged it downstairs and found the most nondescript man I've ever seen demanding Topher tell him how many of us were here. Then he called over someone I never expected to see at the Mitchester. The Avonian Sibyl.

We did all the right stuff, inviting them in, offering hospitality. Turns out the Sibyl likes draught beer and pork scratchings. Mr Average turned out to be not quite so average in the teeth department. At least he turned down the offer. That could have been nasty.

The Sibyl had a request for us. "The clan found Damian’s odour too strong for their delicate noses, yet took him in anyway. It was only when Nigel’s name came up that paranoid Klaus relented and called him brother. Why?" We had twenty-four hours to get them an answer. We could hardly refuse. I watched the Sibyl go. I'd never seen anyone quite so powerful before. So why did they look melancholy and defeated?

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 2: Magic Mushrooms

Friday night, April 2023. Busy night at the Mitchester Arms. Business as usual - except there's no such thing as business as usual, is there? I'd had a long day prepping food so that everything would run smoothly in the kitchen. Rabbit pie, or mushroom pie for those too squeamish or too vegetarian for rabbit, and chips. Can't go wrong with chips. Celia was in the bar playing up a storm - not literally, I should say - and people were up and dancing. I completely lost track of Topher and Fiona although I assume they were doing their usual thing. I saved them dinner though. It was a cold night and Topher had to be freezing out there.

I shut the kitchen at ten as usual and started the clean down. Not too arduous with tonight's offerings and by half past I was done. I'd just put together a tray for the others and was about to take it out to them when I heard a noise at the other sound of the door. It took me a moment to place it, but then I realised it was someone crying.

You know that thing where you think someone is just a casual friend, someone you'd smile at if you saw them on the street but otherwise wouldn't really go out of your way for, but then something happens and you realise that person matters a lot more than you thought? Well, maybe you don't, but anyway, that's what happened when I opened the door and saw Celia in tears.

I brought her into the kitchen, got her a cup of tea and asked what was up. Boy trouble, of course, but not what I expected. Her guy Damian was missing and has been for several days. Obviously she'd told the police, and with Damian working for Clan Kielsyn you'd think P-Division would have taken an interest, but they'd told her that he wasn't missing, even though they didn't seem to have any idea where he actually was, and their last message was basically telling her to fuck off and that they had no records of Damian even existing..

I could see where this was heading, but at the same time this was seriously weird. On top of everything else, Celia's a diviner. She doesn't lose things. But I didn't have time to think about that because Celia got her phone out to show me her photos of Damian, turned white as a sheet, and dropped the phone.

I fumbled the catch but still got a look at the lock screen. Celia's definitely the type to have a photo of her boyfriend on her lock screen. Except it was actually a photo of Celia, which seemed a bit odd until I started to realise there was something deeply wrong with this picture. It was obviously a selfie, but Celia's hands were both in the picture and the angles seemed wrong. Then I felt it. Magic.

Normally the Sight is literally that - sight - but this time it came to me as a kind of pressure in my head trying to make me not See. I'm not even sure what I did to get past it and I felt drained afterwards, but Damian was back in the photo.

I told Celia we'd try to find Damian, without making any specific promises, and after some emotional hugging we went to find Fiona. It was agreed. We'd take the case in exchange for a favour. All the same I was worried. Glamours can be pretty powerful but to do one like that that's affecting memories as well as vision? That's some serious magic. Fiona asked for Damian's full name, and I'm glad Celia was looking at her and not at me, because I know what Fiona is thinking when she asks that question.

Turns out the others had had an eventful evening as well. That creepy bastard Firs had shown up to ask Topher to look into some surprise fairy rings at the rugby club. And DS Frank Gunne had dropped by to give some Fiona some info on why the pub's licensing was up for review way too early.

We closed up at 2am as usual and sent Celia home in a taxi. No way any of us were letting her cycle home alone at that time of night. I headed to the attic and bolted my flight window. Not long afterwards I started to sense Fiona's wards settling across the building. They feel quite comforting, but at the same time, the fact she felt the need to set them wasn't reassuring.

Next morning over breakfast, Fiona reported on her nocturnal activities. She'd tried to call up Damian's spirit and failed. That either meant he was still alive, or was in more trouble than we could possibly imagine. Other than that, all we had to go on was what Celia had told us. The last time she saw him, he'd got a text at 11pm telling him to go to the barracks because he was due on the night shift.

This case was starting to look like it was going to involve at some point walking into a werewolf gang hideout, and while I'm not entirely without defences, I felt like Topher might be a better choice to chase that one down. I was feeling more confident about dealing with the rugby club situation. I just had to tell myself I wasn't doing it for Firs, I was doing it for Topher.

I took the bus to the rugby club. With all of us going different ways, it didn't seem fair to take the only car when I've got other transport options in a pinch. I regretted that later, but it was the right choice at the time. I attracted the attention of a couple of kids on the bus. Just a hint of magic about them and it looked like they'd picked up the same about me. I saw one of them change his eyes, just for a moment. Maybe not the smartest thing I've done but I couldn't resist lowering my sunglasses to let them see my eyes. I got the reaction I wanted. Then they started talking about how I was really old, in my thirties at least, and then the bus stopped and they got off before I could give the cheeky little sods a piece of my mind. Old! I'm only twenty-five!

Having spent much of the journey otherwise occupied, I didn't really have a good story prepared for when I got to the rugby club, so I decided to keep it simple. Introduce myself as an expert on the problems they'd been having with the pitch. Which is true, after all. Except I couldn't find the groundskeeper when I got there and ended up attempting to explain myself to the junior coach who seemed to think there was nothing wrong with the pitch. And to be fair, when I looked outside, it looked fine. I managed to keep up the act until he had to go and take a phone call, and then went out to see the pitch.

Close up it was clear things were not what they seemed from a distance. Topher said the problem was with fairy rings and damaged turf. Things looked OK because they'd removed the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms and covered the bare patches with turf. I got my fingers into the dirt to see what I could feel.

Damp earth. Warm bodies. Safety and comfort. Except there was something else. Something sweet and sickly and decaying underneath. What was that about? There was the familiar shimmer in the air that told me a fairy portal had been opened there. It felt like reality had been bruised. I didn't know what the key to open it was, and I really hoped it wasn't people playing rugby.

I took a step back to look at the wider picture. Rings, not ring. I found the others at the four corners of the pitch, then located the centre point. Nothing there at the moment, but a suitable offering might do the job. First I stopped off to talk to the coach again with a fragment of fungus to wave at him. He was on the phone with some parent by the sounds of it. I've never heard a man so happy to hear the pitch was unusable due to a major fungal infection.

I went to the Co-op for freshly baked bread and non-adulterated honey, and took it back to the pitch. I made a suitable offering in the centre, and the portal shimmered into existence. I exchanged a few words with those on the other side, establishing that they didn't seem hostile. All the same, I requested safe passage both in and out of the portal. With that established, I stepped through.

OK, here's a secret. I love boggarts. The young ones, anyway. The older ones are scary fuckers and I have as little to do with them as possible. But these three little guys? Adorable. I love their funny little faces and their tiny horns and spindly arms and inability to grasp the concept of property ownership. There are much worse things to find on the other side of a fairy portal.

The best way to get anything out of a young boggart is often just let them talk until they end up telling you what you want to know. It wasn't long before talk of the pitch turned to talk of bones. That's what they thought I was there about. Stolen bones from under the pitch. Talk of bones led to talk of how they were going to make a doggy. A doggy made of bones sounded like bad news. Like a rawhead, in fact, and the last thing we need is one of them rampaging through the city.

Why would boggarts want to make a rawhead though? Or even know how, for that matter. They said it was because their burrow was too hot. Why they thought this would be more helpful that, say, a fan, was unclear. But then I caught a scent in the air. Bitter ash. Nothing good smells like that. And that's when I realised the boggarts were terrified.

I couldn't let them continue stealing bones - or messing up the rugby pitch, for that matter - and honestly I felt sorry for them. So I made a deal. I'd find them a new burrow to stay in while we dealt with the heat problem, and they'd put the bones back. Put them back before or after, they asked. Before, I told them, and offered to sweeten the deal with more bread and honey. One disgusting spit-covered handshake later, the deal was made.

Now I had to actually make good. Out of the portal I pulled up a map on my phone. It had to be somewhere with plenty of wildlife and ideally some caves, if the boggarts were going to agree to move in. Troopers Hill fitted the bill, but it was quite a way away. Too far to realistically walk, and however we got there we were going to need disguises. Some children's raincoats from the changing rooms did the job, and I called for a taxi. No way was I getting on a bus with three boggarts. This way only one person had to be exposed to them.

Dealing with boggarts is a strange mixture of frustration and charm. Sure, it's frustrating when they get into a taxi and instead of sitting on the seats they sit one on top of the other on the floor. And that string through the ears trick really isn't appropriate in front of normal humans. But it's hard to be too annoyed with them, even if I did have to stop them pulling the driver's hair. I asked him to play some bhangra so that he wouldn't hear any weird noises from the back, and it's lucky I did because it took quite some time and a reminder of the offer of bread and honey to get them to spit out all his CDs.

Finally we made it. I took them up the hill, and once I'd convinced them to go for the natural slopes rather than the nearby allotment, they pulled up another fairy ring and started getting settled in. I left them to it and went in search of more bread and honey.

Who should I meet in the local shop but that bastard Firs? At least he was in a good mood. I'd handled things to his liking, without anyone getting hurt. He gave me the offered reward of a token in the form of a large silver coin. Or rather, he held it out and dropped it on the floor, and while I was picking it up, remarked on the white roses I'd planted and how much of an improvement he thought he'd made. Absolute filthy bastard fae scum. But he was gone, and I had the coin. It was bigger than any standard coin and had a triskele on one side and a crowned head in profile on the other. I had some suspicions about it, if nothing solid as yet. And I had a lot of questions that need answering about what was making the boggart burrow so hot. But at least I could tell Topher the problem was solved and get back to the question of what happened to Damian.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 1: Meet Flora

We've just started a new Liminal campaign, and so far have done character and crew creation. We're the staff (landlady, bouncer and chef) of a waterfront pub in Bristol which we have of course named the Mitchester Arms because why wouldn't you?  Here's my character, Flora Perry.

It all started when I was at 6th form college and started seeing things.  The kind of things that first made me think I'd been drugged and then that I had some illness that was making me hallucinate.  I was terrified.  Fortunately I had someone I could confide in: Emily, my best friend from the day we both arrived at college.  She told me that I didn't have to be afraid, because she could see them too.

So that's how I ended up joining her at Dee College on a scholarship.  Turns out I have a natural aptitude for magic.  My parents hadn't a clue what it was all about - they were just proud that I was going to university.  I hated it there though.  Learning magic was fine, but having to do it in a dusty old college surrounded by a bunch of rich arseholes was horrible.

I tried to stick it out for Emily's sake, but the last straw was when I found out my tutor was preparing to have us both made employees of the Council of Merlin.  That's when I decided I'd had enough and got out of there.  I still had my NVQ and commercial kitchens had never seemed more appealing.

I don't talk about those first few months in Bristol.  Let's just say I made some bad choices involving a dhampir, and it took me a while to realise I needed to get out of there as much as I needed out of Dee College.  I just hope I never run into Lucien Black - if that's even his real name - ever again.  There are things my new friends don't need to know.

After that I threw myself into learning magic again.  I'd seen peregrine falcons while out hiking and dreamed of flying.  There's nothing I'm more proud of than figuring out how to shapeshift on my own.  Although it turns out magic comes with a price.  Sometimes it's years of tedious study.  Sometimes it's embarrassing moments when the predator instinct kicks in, and eyes that never change back.

I finally got a job at the Mitchester Arms, which means I now live in an attic room with a convenient window.  It's not much but I've cheered it up with some rugs and a drum that I'm learning to play.  I've also picked up some bronze plated gardening tools.  Decorative and practical.

My one big regret is that I lost touch with Emily.  She's showed up again recently, fully fledged associate member of the Council of Merlin, keen to bring me back in for some reason.  She's changed her name to Amelia Fitz-Henry, and wouldn't be caught dead in the Mitchester Arms, so we've been meeting up in places that fit her new social station.  And it feels silly, but I really want her to take me seriously.  Just so long as I don't get pulled back in to the Council.  I'm done with living in cages.

ConDensed 2022

I had a packed convention schedule planned for autumn 2022.  The Owlbear and Wizard's Staff in September, then a three-weekend run in October starting with Furnace...

Two days after Furnace I tested positive for covid.

I had to cancel my attendance at the following two events, and significantly scale back my participation in the online A Weekend With Good Friends.  By the time ConDensed rolled around again though, I was...well, still fairly ill, but well enough to run the two games I'd pitched and do a bit of setting up stuff, even if I was significantly less useful than I was last year.  If the venue wasn't conveniently less than ten minutes' drive from my house I'd probably have cancelled, but being able to go home and have a rest whenever I felt like it made everything easier.

Game 1: Abyss

If there's one thing I can be sure of at a convention it's that a game with James Mullen is worth a look.  In this case it was a game of supernatural action horror in which we would be a team of unique individuals with diverse powers fighting to protect the world from the supernatural.  Which sounded right up my street.

I picked up Paige Turner, a monster hunting librarian, who was joined by an immortal, an amazon, and an ogre.  We were dispatched to investigate a series of disappearances in a library, which turned out to have a lot more occult wossnames going on than it initially appeared.  We eventually located the culprit and defeated it, taking a brief detour via a dimension of things which didn't exist, but got home by realising that a portal back to our own world was firmly in the category of things that didn't exist so we just had to find it and step through.

It was an absolute blast, and definitely something I'd play again.  The book looked great too, with very distinctive red and black artwork.  One to look out for in future.

Game 2: Dungeon Crawl Classics

I hadn't signed up for anything on Saturday morning, but I figured I had time for a good long rest between then and the evening so I showed up to see what was on offer.  DCC at conventions tends to be funnels, which I've tried and don't particularly like, but this time someone was running a levelled game and that I was definitely up for.

I was the last to arrive at the table, being a last minute addition, and nobody had picked a thief character yet so I took that one.  As usual the challenge of thinking of a name presented itself, and the GM didn't think my choice of Alice was particularly fantasy themed - but if you're going to give me a character with an occupation of 'Cooper'...

So the four of us set off to participate in the biannual kobold cull, by whatever method we chose.  Alice initially demonstrated absolute incompetance, but fortunately Harold the cleric was rather more effective and we all survived the first encounter.  Things picked up after that though, and by the time we got to the kobold caves Alice actually managed to be useful.  Then a small child, who the entire party was already convinced was some kind of ancient wizard in disguise, disrupted our attempt at diplomacy with a magic missile.  At which point Alice pushed her off a cliff.  The magic ring and book of incantations we looted from her corpse in no way conflicted with our disguised wizard theory.

I'd like to see more levelled DCC at conventions.  It's a great game and there's so much more to it than funnels.

Game 3: Kult

After an afternoon spent resting, I was ready to run A Walk In The Park, my newest Kult scenario.  With so much depending on inter-character relationships, I was worried about numbers, but I had the four players that I wanted and I was ready to provide a suitably horrible time.

I'd prepared some handouts for this adventure.  The premise is that the characters are on a challenge hike, and have to find geocaches along the way with logbooks to record their arrival time and other items.  Being able to hand the prepared sandwich boxes to the players each time they reached a set point added an extra dimension which I thoroughly enjoyed and it looked like the players were having fun with them as well.

There's always an element of unpredictability in this scenario, largely because each character's backstory has a question for the player to answer themselves.  Sometimes those are just details for the player to know, but frequently they get worked into the scenario in new and exciting ways.  It's things like that that make Kult such a joy to run.

Game 4: Liminal

There was no way I could attend a convention at Billing Aquadrome and not run Sins of the Father, my Liminal scenario that begins with a body being found in the river at Billing Aquadrome.

I had the most efficient team of characters ever this time, bringing the adventure in at half an hour quicker than the previous offline group.  Part of that was the player who picked up the face character really knowing how to face.  That gave me an extra challenge in the form of spotlight management.  Not my best skill as a GM, as I tend more towards a 'throw the PCs into the scenario and let them sort it out' kind of approach, so I was having to put a lot of effort into making sure everyone got involved.  I don't think I entirely succeeded, and can certainly see things I could have done better.  At the same time, I did do a better job of it than I have on previous occasions, and under more difficult circumstances too.  There's room for improvement but I am improving.

Post-game

And that was that.  Finishing early wasn't entirely a bad thing, as for some reason the venue had decided we all had to be out by 6pm, despite the fact that there was still one more game slot in the evening and many people were staying on site until Monday.  Fortunately the nearby pub/carvery had been so impressed by the behaviour of those of us who'd had breakfast there that they offered us space to play the final game slot.

After eating a carvery meal though, I decided the best thing for me was to go home and rest some more.

Reflections

Venue issues aside, it was great.  I got to see old friends, meet new people, and generally have a fantastic time, despite my current health issues.  And anything that's been done twice is now a tradition, so that means we have to keep doing it every year.  Right?

Furnace XVII

Things were a bit touch and go on the run up to Furnace.  Two weeks beforehand I managed to pick up a nasty case of flu.  With the week before the convention seeing attendees dropping like flies with covid, flu and other illnesses I was wondering if I was actually going to be able to go.  But by Friday my health had improved considerably, and with the NHS website saying that flu is infectious for 3-7 days after symptoms appear, I was confident that I wasn't going to inflict it on anyone else if I showed up.

Game 1: Apocalypse World

Things kicked off on Saturday morning with a game of Apocalypse World.  Given that it was the same GM as my first game of Apocalypse World, I was tempted to play Pity again, and when said GM also suggested it, my mind was made up.  I made one change, switching out the brainer ear plugs for a pain projector, as the ear plugs are a passive item and therefore a bit more boring than the more active ones, especially in a one shot.

The rest of the players consisted of two PBTA veterans and one guy playing for the very first time.  We soon established that the town of Stagnant Waters was being visited by a mobile fight club housed in a luxury yacht on wheels being towed by a big rig.  After that things got weirder.

The more I play Apocalypse World, the more I like the idea of playing in a campaign.  Preferably with at least some of the same people.

Game 2: They Came From Beyond The Grave

The prospect of playing the characters in a 1970s B-movie was too good to pass up.  The Haunting of Abbeyham Priory is a quickstart adventure for this system, with a delightful set of pre-gen characters, each with a character portrait showing them suitably dressed for the setting.  The five of us piled into the Austin Allegro, and in a cloud of cigarette smoke and patchouli, started our investigation into the haunted priory, where we encountered many strange and horrifying things, although perhaps nothing was more terrible than the 1970s instant coffee.

I'm not totally sold on the system, it being a little too much like Vampire for my liking (understandable since it's from Onyx Path).  It did have some great features though, and I particularly liked the rewrite system, where we had a pool of points we could spend for rerolls ("What? My character would never mess up such a simple task that badly!  We're rewriting that bit.") and a number of other special effects ("We're going to get to the secret lair via this tunnel that was built for the previous movie that used this set.")

All round a good laugh, and definitely something I'd play again at conventions.

Game 3: Kult

Game 3 should have been a game of Delta Green, but with the GM succumbing to illness shortly before the convention I stepped in with a replacement.  There were four players besides myself, and I had a bunch of four player Kult games prepped.  Although with one player making alternative plans, and another also falling ill, I ended up with only two players.

I went with Called to Account, as I had it prepped ready for another convention, and also I was fairly sure I could run it with only two people.  And it ended up being a very different experience to previous runs, not only because there were two characters absent, but also because of the way the players chose to portray the characters.  End result: no PVP, and an ending that wasn't exactly happy, but certainly worked out a lot better for the PCs than things normally do with this one.

Game 5: Liminal

Having survived contact with three different campaign groups, I decided it was about time Sins of the Father became a convention scenario.  Once again I'd lost a player due to illness, but found a replacement in one of the people who'd lost their GM for that slot.

Four members of the Northampton branch of P Division set out to solve a murder and prevent the river spirit from flooding the town.  I'd done one practice run online with these pre-gens and made some minor tweaks to backstories that seemed to make things a little smoother this time.  Each game is a learning experience, and this game will continue getting polished over the next few conventions.

Game 6: Liminal

It's October, so time to break out the Halloween specials.  For me, that means my adventure Mischief Night.  I used the same set of pre-gens as for the previous game, but with flu having prevented me from running an online playtest, I had no idea how it would go with these characters.  The answer turned out to be pretty damn funny, with the players finding some uniquely creative solutions to some of the problems placed in their way.

This scenario is a little less polished than the previous one, but based on this run I'm happy to keep pitching it at conventions.  And the pre-gens are working out well, with some very creative takes once they get into the hands of the players.

Reflections

My first in-person Furnace, although after Revelation and North Star there was no real question whether I was committed to the Garrison conventions.  I'm finding that I really value the Friday evening in the bar, as a time to catch up with people I might not otherwise see much during a packed schedule.  Well worth taking the time off work to allow me to get there early.

Covid and everything else permitting, I hope to get to all four Garrison conventions next year.

The Owlbear and Wizard's Staff 2022

After switching to online play for last year's Owlbear over ongoing covid concerns, I decided this year I was going to go for it and show up in person.  There was a new venue this year - St Patrick's Irish Club in Leamington Spa - and it looked like an easy drive.

Things kicked off on the Friday night with curry and the pub, but feeling a bit socialised out after larping the previous weekend I decided to skip that part, save myself the extra drive, and show up on Saturday morning.  With the venue only an hour's drive away, staying over didn't seem necessary.

I might have slightly reconsidered my stance on that when waking up unnecessarily early on Saturday morning.

Game 1: Things from the Flood

I've played Tales from the Loop a few times now, but this was my first time playing Things from the Flood.  The game world is the same, but several years later and after the explosion of the Loop.  This worked perfectly for me.  While I don't remember the 80s all that well, I was a teenager in the 90s, so playing a group of 16-18 year olds in 1996 is spot on for me.  The kid archetypes of the original game have been updated to ones more suited to 90s teens, with things like Motorhead, Party Animal and Snob.

The premise for the game, however, was that we were a band trying to make it big by winning the Battle of the Bands, so we began by deciding what instruments we played, and suggesting names for the band, eventually agreeing on Supergods.

Everything I like about Tales from the Loop is there in Things from the Flood, except in the 90s.  So basically I'm going to have to buy this one.

Game 2: Kult

Having done the work of getting Called to Account ready to run in person at Concrete Cow 22, I wanted to give it a few more outings.  This game never ceases to surprise me, starting from the beginning when the characters were all immensely suspicious of each other in a way they've never been before, to the end when one of them actually walked away relatively unscathed.

One thing that made me happy was the amount of laughter this game caused.  There's nothing like a horror game for a good giggle.

There was an evening visit to the pub, but I decided to head home while it was still light and get a good night's sleep.  Given how absolutely exhausted I was in the evening, this was the right choice.

Game 3: Liminal

Fortunately I checked Warhorn before going to bed, so knew that Sunday's morning games started at 9.30am instead of 10am.  Unfortunately that meant getting up half an hour earlier than what I already considered an unreasonable time on Saturday.  Maybe next time I'll stay over.

Sunday morning's game was one last outing for The Reid Legacy before my first few scenarios get temporarily retired in favour of playtesting the new material.  The P-Division MTAC squad, much envied for having a team name that actually sounds cool, went hunting for a stolen book and dug up some of London's dark history in the process.

This time in addition to the character sheets I'd also printed out my 'how to play Liminal' rules summary that I normally include on the character sheet document when playing online.  I think this was useful, as it meant it was there for new players to refer to throughout the game rather than having to remember what I said at the beginning.  I'll definitely use these in future games, and might write something similar for other games I run.

Reflections

The Owlbear and Wizard's Staff is to some extent the reason I joined Twitter back in 2019, having heard that the organiser was looking for female GMs, and it was wonderful to finally get there in person.  I got to meet a lot of people I'd previously only seen as faces on a computer screen, or as names on a Twitter post.  Which certainly made figuring out who I was talking to more difficult.  Name badges, preferably including Twitter handles and icons, would be the one improvement I would suggest for this event.  Roll on next year...

RPGaDay: Past, Present or Future? When is your favourite game set?

The present.

OK, I'll elaborate.

My favourite genre, as I've mentioned before, is urban fantasy, which almost always takes place in the present day.  Changeling, Scion, The Dresden Files and eventually my current favourite Liminal, they've all been modern day settings.  And I think it works best in the modern day because it presents the fantastical world of fairies/gods/magic/etc. as a contrast to the mundane.  And nothing is as mundane to a present day player as the world of the present day.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Vaesen is a lovely game, and hinges on the clash between the modernisation of the 19th century and the traditions and folk tales of the past.  But the setting itself is already a little fantastical to me here in the 21st century, with radically different technology, social attitudes, and even little things like food and clothes.  The mundane is something that's gradually making its way into the world of Vaesen, via industrialisation, rather than something that's already there.

There's something of an overlap between urban fantasy and horror, but again my favourite is the present day.  Kult is my favourite horror game, and while you can do period settings for Kult games and I've played a few like that, I find what really brings the horror is the intrusion of the supernatural aspects of the Kult setting into what should be the reassuring familiarity of our real world.  The same goes for Call of Cthulhu, where I like the classic 1920s setting but much prefer the games I've played set in the modern day.  To me, the sanity blasting effects of contact with the mythos are far more terrifying juxtaposed against our own normality.

One argument that seems to finally be being put to rest is the idea that technology in general and mobile phones in particular make it difficult or even impossible to do horror. Sure, there's scenarios set in earlier periods where the ability to instantly contact people at a distance would be an issue, but there's more to horror than not having a phone.  Playing in the modern day provides the opportunity for technology to be part of the horror.  Japan had that figured out back in the 90s.  I can't think of any more iconic scene from Japanese horror than Sadako crawling out of the TV screen in Ring.

Modern day settings also avoid a few minor issues with historical settings, such as accidental anachronisms due to different levels of historical knowledge, or having to work around historical gender roles.  Similarly they avoid the zeerust that can occur in futuristic settings, Cyberpunk 2020 being the most obvious example (although sometimes the zeerust is part of the charm).  And I still like playing these settings - but my love of urban fantasy and horror means the modern day is my favourite setting.

RPGaDay: When did you start Gamemastering?

After playing rather sporadically with the friends who got me into RPGs, due to them living in a different town, I finally joined a regular D&D group in 2007.  These guys were long term RPG nerds, and some of them had been playing since the early 1980s.  Despite that, they weren't 100% committed to D&D.  They'd played other games from time to time, including Cyberpunk 2020 and various Warhammer RPGs, although they all agreed they were never playing Shadowrun again after what happened last time.  D&D was definitely the main game though.  I had no thoughts of GMing, not with this highly experienced group who'd been playing D&D since childhood.

Then in April 2007, White Wolf released Scion.

I got invited to play with the long distance group.  Having been thoroughly immersed in Greek mythology from an early age, I created Kallista Malekides, a scion of Apollo, skilled in both medicine and athletics.  I played a game or two.  But then it dawned on me.  I knew a lot about Greek mythology, and had a solid grasp of Norse as well.  The rest I could (and did) pick up easily enough from library books.

A few weeks of reading later, I decided I was ready.  The D&D campaign came to an end, as things normally did with that GM, with everyone dead after accidentally destroying the moon, and I asked if people would like to give this new game a go.  They said yes.

So I ran my first campaign.  I drew heavily on my knowledge of mythology to send them on a globetrotting campaign, encountering different challenges themed to whatever country they were in.  It introduced a few themes that I've come back to on future campaigns, in particular the importance of having proper toilet facilities in your secret underground lair.  After all, if you're building a temple to the Aztec goddess of filth and childbirth, she is absolutely going to want a few loos.

It took me a few weeks to really get into the swing of things, and my descriptions were pretty lacklustre to begin with, but it was all a learning experience.  In particular I learned a lot about the unpredictability of player actions, when one of them suddenly decided a certain NPC must be some massive monster and attacked him, only to kill him in one hit because he was actually just a Daily Mail reader in a Darth Vader voice changer helmet.  And I learned how to incorporate things like that into the plot, where the players now had to do a mission to deal with the fallout of killing the aforementioned Daily Mail reader, which had upset some powerful entities.

And that was how I got started. I ran a second Scion campaign before we collectively decided we couldn't deal with the janky system any more and moved onto other things.  (I'm told the second edition has overhauled it extensively and is probably a lot better.)  I was now part of the group's GM rotation, with a particular focus on urban fantasy games, and went on to run campaigns of Victoriana and The Dresden Files.

That's never changed, really.  While I occasionally branch out into GMing sci-fi and other genres, and will play pretty much anything, urban fantasy is where I started and what I always go back to.

RPGaDay: How would you get more people playing RPGs?

That's a tough one.  But I think it needs a two-part approach.

1. Raise awareness of RPGs as a fun and popular hobby.
2. Raise awareness of RPGs that aren't D&D.

For part 1 I think Stranger Things is probably doing something, especially in season 4 where we see it played by characters like Eddie who's significantly older than Mike and friends, and also portraying it as just as exciting and memorable as a sporting event.  The upcoming D&D movie could also be a positive, if it can refrain from being terrible, but really just more media with RPGs shown as a normal thing that normal people do for fun.  Unfortunately it's not always that way.  What I've seen of The Big Bang Theory seems to portray playing D&D as more of a thing weird nerds do than normal people.

And yes, the hobby does have a substantial number of weird nerds, but it's also played by actual cool people like Vin Diesel and Tom Morello, so yes, more celebrities talking about their hobby could help overcome the nerd stigma attached to this game.

Part 2 means addressing the sticky point that there are a lot of people out there who might love RPGs but don't like fantasy, and because D&D is the big name, don't realise that there are other options.  So that's what I'm doing to get more people playing RPGs: attempting to promote my own game that contains no fantasy, sci-fi or horror elements and attempts to emulate an extremely popular genre.  I've heard from several married gamers who've managed to convince their wives to give RPGs a go with Matrons of Mystery.

And the bit I can't do, but I hope others are doing, is teaching kids how to play.  I'd like to think that kids aren't encumbered by a bunch of stereotypes and misconceptions about who RPGs are for, and encouraging young people to play not just D&D but games like Doctor Who means that when my generation are all in nursing homes, there'll be people out there willing to smuggle us in some dice and character sheets.

RPGaDay: Where would you host a first game?

I'm writing this in mid-2022 and covid infections are soaring.  Online.  I'm hosting online.  Discord and Roll20.

But there will come a time when regular in-person games become a thing again.  So what you're really looking for in a game venue is a decent table and not too much noise.  I'd probably go to the Olde England, a local pub that does real ales and nice coffee, doesn't play music, and has some decent size tables.  Unlike game shops, which will usually, and quite reasonably, charge you for table space if you're not also buying a bunch of collectible card game boosters or Warhammer minis, the pub was always happy to have us there as we bought lots of drinks, and that's the point of a pub.

The pub's also a nice neutral sort of venue.  Game shops are kind of weird to walk into for the first time, especially as a woman (many of us have stories) but a pub is a pub and a normal place to be walking into.  There's other people around.  You can even go and check the place out in advance if you want to.

My first game of D&D involved walking into a stranger's house full of strange men, and that's not something I'd generally advise people to do, and definitely wasn't something I was comfortable with.  While someone's house is generally my preferred venue for an RPG, a first game for potentially new players is something I would definitely take to the pub.

RPGaDAY: When were you first introduced to RPGs?

A more complicated question than it sounds.

As a kid I watched the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon on TV, but didn't have much concept of the game on which it was based.

I think the games first entered my consciousness while I was at university.  Someone brought a copy of Call of Cthulhu to a Discworld event.  Discworld got its own game.  But I never played anything.

While doing my postgrad course I went into an antiques shop, and found an old D&D box set.

Moldvay Basic Set (1981) #DnD #TTRPG pic.twitter.com/BZ5qbLMucO

— D&D Daily (@dnd__daily) May 9, 2022

 I enjoyed reading it, and thought one day I'd like to play.  But I never played it.

After I graduated I moved in with my boyfriend, who loaned me his copy of Planescape: Torment, from which I developed a deep hatred of THAC0.  I followed that up with Neverwinter Nights.

Then finally I got into actual RPGs, starting with a play-by-forum game that basically went nowhere, and then an invitation to a MUSH (Multi User Shared Hallucination), which differed from play-by-forum in that it happened live so you didn't end up waiting days for a response.  But I'd still not played any actual tabletop RPG.

And then the owners of the MUSH invited me to visit them and play a game.

We played Everway.  Character creation was low on numbers and high on concept.  I came up with Cinder, a fairytale princess who'd decided at the last minute she didn't want to marry the prince and live happily ever after, but to live her own life instead.  And equipped with nothing but a pair of magic running shoes and a winning smile, she set out in search of adventure.

I paid many more visits to my friends, who introduced me to many more games after that.  But it was that one game of Everway that started me on the path that's lead me here.

RPGaDAY: What is a great introductory RPG?

To be a great introductory RPG, I think a game needs two things:

1. Rules that are easy to learn.
2. A genre or setting that the new player is familiar with.

Which means that great introductory RPGs very much depend on the the new player.

With that in mind, I do think that Matrons of Mystery is a potentially great introductory RPG, both for its uncomplicated rules and its cosy mystery genre.

Romance is consistently at number one in genre fiction, but mystery comes in second, with cosy mysteries being a popular subgenre.  Agatha Christie is of course the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with over two billion sales.  M C Beaton, known as the queen of cosy crime, sold more than twenty-one million books and was one of the most borrowed authors from UK libraries.  If someone reads, there's a very high chance they read mystery.

And then there's television.  Midsomer Murders first aired in 1997 and twenty-two series later, it's still going.  Maybe it's not as popular now as when it first aired to 13.5 million viewers, but shows don't run for twenty-five years unless someone's watching.

Then there's the somewhat participatory nature of mystery fiction, whether on the page or the screen.  There's the invitation to the reader or viewer to look for clues, consider the evidence, and attempt to solve the crime for themself.

Furthermore, murder mystery evenings are a popular activity in Britain.  A lot of pubs and hotels put them on as an event with a meal, and there are box sets you can pick up to play them in your own home.  A lot of people who've never played an RPG in their life may well have played a murder mystery evening and be open to the idea of a mystery game.

In short, cosy mysteries are:

• Hugely popular in Britain
• Something that encourages participation
• Something people may have already participated in

So I'd like to think that if you want to introduce someone to RPGs and you know they're an avid fan of cosy mysteries, Matrons of Mystery might just be the way to lure them in.  It's a murder mystery evening.  Just like on TV.  You know how to play.

RPGaDAY: Who would you like to introduce to RPGs?

Theatre people.

I guess I should elaborate on that a bit.

By theatre people I largely mean actors, although of course that includes voice actors, comedians and other performers.  And I want to introduce them to RPGs partly because many of them seem to really enjoy it when they try it, and partly because there's a lot I can learn from them.

Gamers who are also theatre people tend to be good at bits of roleplay gaming that I, an extremely shy person, am not so hot on.  Character voices, emotion, accents, that kind of thing.  These things aren't necessary to be a good gamer.  They're pretty insignificant compared to things like treating your fellow players with respect and engaging with the plot.  But they are things that can add a bit of extra fun to a game, and seeing the way theatre people play has helped me feel more comfortable with adding more character expression to both my PCs and NPCs.

Occasional conventions aside, the vast majority of my gaming has been done with one small group in my home town.  It's only in the last few years, initially at the MK-RPG club and then over lockdown in the Good Friends of Jackson Elias discord that my horizons have been broadened and I've had the opportunity to play with a much wider range of people.  And that's been a constant process of learning, as every person has brought something new to the table.

So right now it's theatre people who have the most to teach me, but really I don't know who I'd like to introduce to RPGs.  Because none of us will know what they're bringing to the hobby until they get here.

On a slightly more serious note, I'd also like to introduce more women to RPGs.  Because even though the gender balance is improving, it's still sufficiently rare for me to sit down at a table where the number of women equals or exceeds the number of men for it to be a notable experience.  I'd like to see that change.  I think it will.  And I hope that by being visibly female and a gamer, I can help that happen.

First Time Playing: Apocalypse World

I've played a lot of PBTA games over the last few years (and even made my own) but I've only just had the opportunity to play the game that started it all: Apocalypse World.

We had four players plus the GM, and began by choosing playbooks.  I went for the Brainer, having had a sneak peak the previous night, and the others picked the Battlebabe, Chopper and Gunlugger.  There was then the now pretty routine process of picking options for name, appearance, gear, attributes and moves.  Then came relations, here known as history, for some reason shortened to Hx.  We each had some questions to ask the other players, which established some initial connections between us and gave us an idea of how we felt about each other.

To give us all a bit of focus for this one-shot, the GM asked us all to come up with a goal for our characters.  More sensible characters wanted money and respect.  I decided my weird Brainer just wanted people to be her friends, and if that meant using her mind powers to force them to do nice things for her on pain of pain, then so be it.

And in we went.  Things kicked off in a canteen.  Thanks to the GM having been watching the brilliant and annoying cancelled Blood Drive the barman was briefly modelled after Julian Slink, although after he'd been named via madlibs and ended up called Guava Seattle, his personality might have shifted a bit.  From there things proceeded in the largely improvised fashion that I'm familiar with from other PBTA games.

For how the whole thing went down see Trouble Comes to Stagnant Waters.

Other than the game itself, which was a delightful romp through a Mad Max style future and which I'm very much hoping to play again, the most interesting thing was comparing how much of this game can be found in the many other PBTA games out there.  The Sprawl loses the XP triggers and replaces them with character agendas and mission targets.  Kult: Divinity Lost drops the playbook aspect for a more flexible approach to character creation, while my own Matrons of Mystery does away with special moves entirely.  But the original game's DNA can be seen running through everything that it inspired.

There were a few bits I didn't really get.  I entirely understood the mechanics of Hx rolling over when it reached +4 and gaining an XP.  I just didn't understand why.  Maybe if I play more it'll start to make sense but at this point it really feels more mechanical than narrative.

Not that that matters.  A game doesn't literally revolutionise RPGs without being pretty damn amazing.

(And yes, I know Apocalypse World calls the GM an MC.  That doesn't mean I have to!)

Apocalypse World: Trouble comes to Stagnant Waters

Pity is a brainer.  She's a small, slight woman, with a sweet face, but the feature that catches most people's attention is her eyes with their shattered pupils.  She dresses in a ragged couture evening dress and a single opera glove with wires that seem to have fused into her skin.

Unlike most residents of Stagnant Waters, she's not particularly tough.  All the same, most people give her a wide berth.  After all, rumour has it she can kill you with her brain.

I was hungry so I went to the canteen to see Mr Guava but he wasn't there on the top floor.  So I looked through the hatch and there was Chaplain talking to Cherry Bomb.  She's so pretty.  So I jumped down and I landed between them although I'm not sure how I got there.  And I'm not sure Chaplain wanted me there but Cherry Bomb said my dress was pretty and asked how I keep my skin so nice, so I told her about the red dust.  And she let me play with her hair.

Jet arrived with his gang and he didn't look very happy.  And a bounty hunter showed up looking for Jet, and they didn't look very happy either, so I thought it would be nice if Cherry Bomb protected me if a fight happened, but I must have thought it too hard because that thing happened where her eyes went all red and blood came out of her nose.

I was a bit worried but she got up and went to talk to the bounty hunter.  They were all covered in grenades, and I was scared they might try to blow us all up.  So I thought it would be nice if Chaplain protected me instead, but when I touched him I was looking at Cherry Bomb and I thought about how I wanted to make her jealous, and I must have thought that right because Chaplain picked me up and put me in his lap and looked at me ever so nicely.

Anyway, there was a fight, and the bounty hunter got away but Mr Guava got killed and he hadn't finished cooking my snake, so I went and got in the bar and used the pulley to go downstairs and find the kitchen, and my snake had got burnt but I ate it anyway.

Cherry Bomb invited me to a sleepover and we had a pillow fight and braided each other's hair.  It was really nice.  She let me touch her hair and I was careful not to think too hard about anything this time.

The bounty hunter said they'd be back in three days so Chaplain went out looking for them before that and found them and thought he'd killed them and brought back a piece of metal.  But I saw an engraving on the back and Jet recognised the picture and we realised they were with Veritas and that meant they probably weren't dead.  So Jet decided he could still do his original plan of strapping them to the roof of the canteen and letting the sun do the job, which made one of his gang very excited.

We needed information first though, and I needed my dress fixing, so we went to see the tailor.  Cherry Bomb invited him to a party but he didn't seem convinced so I told him that was why I needed my dress to look nice and Cherry Bomb paid him to fix it and that was enough to convince him and he told us all about the bounty hunter whose name was Tiramisu and liked bombs and some things called stamps.  I told Cherry Bomb that I liked bombs too but I don't think she heard me.

Jet didn't seem to like my new dress when we got back to the canteen but he liked that we knew about Tiramisu.  Chaplain knew where to find a post office which is where the stamps live.  The problem was that we had to go through Green Radish territory to get there.

Jet wasn't sure if he wanted to take me with the others to get to the post office and wanted to know what I could do, which seemed a bit rude, so I walked up and stroked his face and thought about how nice it would be if he told everyone how great I am instead.  And he told his gang how I could take out any one of them, which I could probably do if I thought hard enough, and some other nice things, and then it wore off, but he was still impressed so I got to go for a ride on a bike with one of his gang.

The Green Radish territory was very creepy and there were bits of broken bikes and flowers with teeth and snakes that weren't the kind that's nice to eat but had human skin which reminded me of things.  And we had to leave the bikes behind and the light and the colours were all wrong.  So I stayed close to Chaplain to keep an eye out in case the snakes got close but he knew the way and we got to the tunnel down to the post office, but when we got there there was a bomb on the grating so we couldn't open it.

Chaplain thought maybe he could collapse the tunnel but then we still wouldn't be able to get in.  So I decided to open my mind and see what came into it.  And then I was the wind blowing down the tunnel and then up and out of a vent further down the tunnel.  So I got back in my head and told them we could get in that way instead but it would be a very long way down.

Jet and his gang had lots of wire for us to climb down, but it was very thin wire and it cut my hands and they got all slippery.  Then I couldn't hold on any more and started falling, but then Chaplain put out his arm and caught me and carried me down, so I told him he was my favourite and went to look for the post office.

It looked like nobody had been in there for ages, but that couldn't be right because we were looking for Tiramisu.  So I went in and saw some red dots on the wall, so I told the others about the pretty laser pointers and then threw myself on the ground so I wouldn't get shot.  And I didn't get shot while Tiramisu talked to the others but I did see lots of rats wearing backpacks so I told them about those too.  Then the backpacks exploded and some of Jet's gang exploded too, but I was OK down on the floor.

Jet called Tiramisu a coward and they came out to fight us properly and Jet beat them up, and I thought maybe I could think about giving up and surrendering but I thought too hard again and blood came out of Tiramisu's nose, but it was OK in the end and we all got back to the canteen and tied Tiramisu to the roof just like Jet wanted.

I think they're all my friends now.

North Star 2022

After two years of waiting, I finally got to go to North Star!

The pandemic is very much still happening, despite the government's best efforts to pretend otherwise, so Friday began with a covid test and the hope that all the other attendees would see things the same way and test too.  Then sorting out transport.  Fortunately I was going to be driving, so didn't have to worry about the rail strikes.  Unfortunately I'd found some chips in my windscreen a few days earlier, and didn't want to risk cracking the screen further on a long drive, so borrowed my husband's car for the weekend.

All of which was minor stuff compared to the organisation of the event itself, as the organiser had to do a lot of slot wrangling to deal with the effects of covid and rail strikes on game allocations.  But by some miracle, by Friday we had a timetable.

I spent a pleasant evening in the bar trying to figure out who everyone was.  When I say that gamers tend to have a certain look, people generally know what I mean, and when that's combined with face blindness, it can be really very difficult for me to recognise people.  However, we agreed that the gamer look can be very useful when you're trying to find an event in a new venue, as often all you have to do is follow the trail of nerds.

Game 1: Alien

With face-to-face gaming still being a bit new, I decided to pitch my Alien game in the first slot.  It's the game I ran for the first time at North Star 2021, but I figured there'd be plenty of people who hadn't played it yet.  Then I had to figure out how to run Alien without the aid of Roll20.

The official fillable PDF character sheets didn't really give enough room to fill in talents, or to include changing personal agendas, and the other sheets I'd downloaded also had issues.  In the end I concluded that the only option was to create my own.  Which also meant I could add a little creativity.

These turned out well.

In addition I'd brought sets of black and yellow dice for people to use, and a box of tiny skulls in different colours for tracking health and stress.  The sheets does have boxes for marking those off, but skulls were generally agreed to be more fun.  Finally I had the Alien card deck including initiative cards, meaning that for once initiative was not a horrible struggle to sort out in Roll20.

We were down a player thanks to covid, so the Pathologist had to take a back seat on this one, and I had one of the players roll the dice on the occasions when their skills were needed.  The four remaining players embraced their characters with great enthusiasm, and off we went.

The scenario was my own CSI: Weyland Yutani, which starts out with the team being called in to investigate a murder in a mining colony.  There are of course a lot more secrets to uncover than simply who the killer is, plus some horrible monsters to deal with.  Said monsters were rather more successful than usual, meaning that we made extensive use of the critical table, but for once didn't end up in a massive panic spiral.  Not that that was much comfort to the character who took the groin attack critical.

It was a bit of a push to fit this into a three hour slot rather than the usual four that I take for this adventure, even with things working faster in person.  That meant there was a little less thorough investigation of the murder - but that's not really what the adventure is all about, and all the important parts went ahead as usual.

While it was a little extra work compared to just resetting my Roll20 table, running Alien in person was really good fun, and I'll definitely be repeating this one.

Game 2: Tales From The Loop

Having just been watching Stranger Things series 4, I was entirely ready to be a kid in the 80s going to visit a haunted house.

Free League's organised play program, the League of Free Agents, provides scenarios for its members to run at conventions and this was one of them.  For characters we used the pre-gens from the Starter Set adventure, although I think we could have made original characters and still had it work out.  I picked the Jock, not having played this archetype before, and got Fredrik, a hockey player dating the Popular Kid, whose life was nowhere near as simple and perfect as it appeared from the outside.

Having shared our characters fears, and the stories we'd heard about what happened in the haunted house, we soon learned that our plans to spend Halloween there were scuppered by the disappearance of the friends who invited us and a rapidly imposed curfew.  There was nothing for it but to get on our bikes and go and find out what had happened.

Tales From The Loop is a delightful game, and this was a lovely scenario, full of things to investigate and some fun twists along the way.  The GM was one of the players from my Alien game, and I also had the opportunity to play with two people that I've known for some time but have never had the chance to sit at a table with before, and two people who were completely new to me (one of whom was at her first ever convention).

Game 3: Scum and Villainy

I'd initially planned to only run one game, as I did at Revelation and previous North Stars, but when the call went out for more games I decided I could step up.  Prior to the pandemic one of my convention standard games was a Firefly scenario using Scum and Villainy, which certainly fitted the sci-fi theme.  While I hadn't touched it over in two years, I figured I did at least have experience of running this one in person.

While I used to offer six spaces in this game, I decided to only offer four this time, to make things a little easier for me, but when rail strikes meant we were down a GM for the evening slot, I decided to offer a fifth space in the hope that that would make game assignments easier.  The five ended up including two more of the players from the morning Alien game.

While Scum and Villainy can be completely improvised and player-led, this particular scenario is a little more structured.  While the old Serenity RPG isn't particularly great system-wise, it does have useful setting material, including a complete deck plan for a Firefly class transport.  The scenario involves a drifting ship, with various items that the players can find.  What they do with said items, however, is completely up to them.  Some crews like to investigate thoroughly and figure out exactly what happened on this ship to leave it drifting in orbit.  Others, like this lot, decide to chuck the evidence out of the airlock and be on their way, only discovering later on that one thing they spaced might have been worth hanging onto after all.

This was not the easiest game to get back into after the pandemic hiatus, and I'm not sure this is going back into my convention standard scenarios, but it was good fun to bring it out again.  It remains my favourite game for Firefly adventures, and perhaps with more practice I'll get back into it.

Game 4: Avatar Legends

While I've not watched Avatar beyond catching the odd bit while my husband was watching, this game was pitched as more Cowboy Bebop inspired, so I figured my lack of knowledge of Avatar wouldn't be an issue.

I picked up Geb Hara, a 'Guardian' character who was a water bender with a monastic background and a mission to soothe the troubled souls on our ship.  I picked Mirabelle the fire bender as the character I was particularly devoted to protecting, as she was clearly the most likely to get herself into trouble.  My character was also a xeno, and with everything else on the sheet in mind, I decided that she resembled a giant capybara.

We set off to respond to a distress call, with Geb insisting to Mirabelle that setting things on fire was not the solution to every problem.  Once we discovered the exact events that lead to said distress call, Geb was willing to concede that on this specific occasion, setting things on fire was an entirely appropriate solution.  Although perhaps by the end of the scenario, a few too many things had been on fire...

 

The system was a PBTA game, but on the crunchy end of PBTA with a whole separate combat system.  Understandable, given that martial arts battles seem to be a part of the show, but it was a bit jarring switching between the basic moves and the combat moves, not to mention trying to figure out whether or not we were in a combat situation.  Balance also forms a whole sub-system, further complicating things.  It was fun to play, but not quite what I'd expect from a PBTA game.

Game 5: Fate Bulldogs

There was a prize draw before slot 5, in which I unexpectedly won a voucher for Patriot Games who were running a stall at the event.  I took the opportunity to buy a print copy of Blades in the Dark, and then headed to the final game of the weekend.

I'd signed up for "Zaggy Spacedust's Luxurious Private Space-Taxi" largely based on the title, and as I'd hoped, found myself as part of a team of anarchist terrorists who were also working for a big corporation as delivery drivers.  With the GM having forgotten to bring quite a lot of his stuff, including the character sheets, the session started off with us creating new characters.  With an option once again to play aliens, I decided to play an octopus pilot with a love of fast ships and bright colours, meaning she immediately took a liking to another PC, a chameleon-like alien played by my room sharer - the first time we've been in the same game in two whole conventions.

As Fate characters we all had a trouble, which for each of us was the person whose identity we'd co-opted when acquiring this ship.  My octopus was 'not a lawyer' - although by the end of the session she'd done enough lawyering with enough success that she decided she was getting the hang of it and might actually become a lawyer after all.

This was a great way to finish the weekend, with a game full of comedy moments using just enough of the Fate system to keep things interesting and unpredictable.  By the end we'd struck a decisive blow against corporate hoarding of intellectual property rights, while getting the group's frustrated punk rocker his moment of fame.

Reflections

Organising this was clearly a heroic effort with the number of last minute changes involved on top of the usual challenge of assigning everyone to a slot.  It's a testament to everyone involved how smoothly things went from my point of view as an attendee.

It was great to be there at last.  North Star was about twice the size of Revelation, at around 45 people, but still felt very small and friendly.  I got to reunite with people I met at Revelation while finally getting to meet people I've met at previous online events.  I'm full of enthusiasm for Furnace now.