Wicker Valley, episode 8: Wards

We gathered supplies and discussed where to perform the summoning ritual. Robin was all for an old barrow or fairy mound, which to me sounded like asking for trouble. Mike and me were all for a very normal woodland clearing, but I think it was Adam who eventually got us set up in a car park. I set up a circle of salt with Gillian's help, and the mirrors were positioned inside it. Robin wandered off into the bushes to relieve himself - I swear, him and Adam seem to think there's no problem you can't solve with urine - and Mike tied up Adam so he couldn't do any damage in the event that things went badly.

I don't know what it was that Robin found in his pocket. Best not to ask about these things sometimes. But it was enough to mess up Adam enough to bring the creature to him. Mike spotted it first. I caught glimpses of eyes and teeth in the mirrors, but I had to concentrate on chanting, and making sure Gillian was holding it together enough to keep going.

The plan was for the three of them inside the circle to deal with the thing, but when it started tearing chunks out of Mike and Adam, I knew I had to intervene. I reassured Gillian that she had this, and was safe outside the circle, and went in with claws out. Robin held it off Mike, I shredded it from behind, and that was enough for Mike to grab a piece of broken mirror and take the thing down.

We looked at each other, covered in blood and black ichor. Mike untied Adam. Gillian was unharmed, but there was a limit to what even my voice could do about the things she'd just witnessed. Then I noticed the look on Robin's face, the way Mike suddenly stiffened, and the breath of an angel on the back of my neck.

I didn't turn round. That way lay terror, and it obviously got to Robin as he was off running. I saw Mike grab a mirror and realised what he was doing. I did the same, looked at the thing's reflection to get a grasp on where it was, then spun round and drove my claws into it, tearing it to pieces. Father would have been proud, of my actions, if not of my motives.

By the time we'd taken out the rest of the creatures, Mike and Adam were both in a bad way. I helped Robin patch them up, then saw to Gillian while Adam got a petrol can and set fire to the remains. The fire attracted the police's attention, but I told them it was a traditional Samhain bonfire, and the others passed off our appearance as particularly detailed Halloween costumes, and we got off with just being told not to light fires in other people's car parks. Which seemed fair.

We took Gillian home. Mike asked if he could sleep at my place so he didn't have to explain his appearance to his housemates. Which meant the next morning was super awkward. Nothing happened - just showers and sleep and coffee. Still. Oh 🔥.

I texted Adam to let him know we were on our way, and he sent me back a shopping list. One trip to the hardware store later we arrived at the junkyard. Mike walked right in. I found the ward was still keeping me out. I texted Adam again to let him know. I wasn't going to be pushing my way in this time, not after what happened last night.

We all agreed we needed to take a look at the church to see if the apparent new ward on that was doing the same thing. It was. Mike and Adam walked straight in. Robin had to force his way in. I decided not to try. The place already makes me itch. Robin and me walked the perimeter, working out exactly where the boundaries were, while the others headed inside. Unfortunately they didn't manage to intercept the vicar quick enough to avoid him spotting me out there. Not great, looking all suspicious around someone who already has a thing about demons.

While Mike and Adam got roped into tea with Reverend Matthews, Robin and me decided it was worth checking if this was happening with every church or just that one. We already suspected the vicar was up to something and this would be a useful confirmation. We went to the Catholic church, a rather newer building made of bricks instead of stone, and while I got the familiar prickling sensation, neither of us had any trouble getting near the place. That settled it for me. The vicar was up to something.

We still had one thing we needed to do, which was to check on Gillian after last night's activities. It seemed she'd slept for the entire morning. Probably for the best. Hopefully we won't have to ask for her help again any time soon. All we wanted this time was to make sure she was OK, and ask if she'd raised any wards.

She had - just a small one to keep the moss hag out while she was working. So another one to check out. This one didn't keep me out - just zap me a bit on the way through. Which checked out with what we knew so far, as this was just a minor ward compared to the rather beefier thing I'd helped Adam set up for his place.

It looks more and more like I was right to suspect the vicar. So I suggested we do the thing I really didn't want to do. Break into the church.

Wicker Valley, episode 7: Halloween

After the moss demon incident we all needed a bit of a break. I didn't see much of the others for a couple of weeks, as I spent every free moment going hiking. I'm not sure if it was to get fresh air and exercise like I keep telling myself, or to reassure myself that the countryside was behaving itself and staying in its proper place. Either way, it helped.

When I wasn't out hiking it was basket weaving in the Wicker Stop. We had a couple of tourist groups in wanting to do the workshop, plus with Halloween approaching I had to help out Mike and make some decorations for the cafe. I think I did a great job. The wicker cobwebs were particularly charming.

I didn't plan much for Halloween itself. I was in the cafe all day, serving pumpkin shaped biscuits along with the coffees. Only one thing stood out - some guy who clearly wanted to be wearing a black suit despite actually showing up in jeans, with the kind of haircut that screams ex-military. Some old friend of Adam's, it turned out. I got them some eyeball biscuits and left them to it.

Once I'd finished closing I got out the TV. I'd invited the whole gang over for a movie night. Adam suggested some old movie called Beetlejuice which he reckoned was a classic, and it had Winona Ryder who was great in Stranger Things so I thought we could give it a go. Mike couldn't make it. The church was doing one of those house of light type things to try to bribe people into not doing Halloween, and he'd been roped in to do the face painting.

We weren't very far into the movie when we got a message from Mike. Something had happened at the church. Carmen and Gillian had showed up, but Gillian couldn't make herself walk through the gates of the churchyard.

This was bad. Gillian had been through a traumatic experience and had barely left the house since. Now she'd gone out for a night of harmless, if rather cringy, fun, and it had backfired horribly. Mike had told them to come to the cafe instead. I got them tea and biscuits and tried to reassure Gillian that whatever it was would pass. And it seems I've finally got the hang of the voice of temptation. I can only imagine my mother's horror if she knew I was using it to comfort a frightened girl.

I hoped we could have a nice peaceful evening after that, but no. Adam was convinced there was something watching him. I lit some sage, but he didn't seem to think it was helping, and when the movie finished he insisted we all go back to his junkyard. He wanted Gillian and Carmen to join us for some reason, but they weren't convinced, and I certainly wasn't bringing out the voice of temptation for that. They went home, and I went to the junkyard with Adam and Robin.

I don't know what happened when we got there. I know Adam has wards on the place because I helped him set them up and I'm specifically excluded from being affected by them. Adam and Robin walked in as usual, but when I tried, I found I couldn't. And it just wasn't that uncomfortable feeling I get from churches. I physically couldn't make myself take one more step. I stepped back, and then got the feeling that something was behind me.

Normal kids have monsters under the bed. I did too, except the monster was the archangel Gabriel. That's what I saw when I turned around, standing there in all his shining glory, flaming sword in hand ready to smite me. I recoiled, and he was gone.

The others saw nothing - although they did insist on dragging me through the wards. And I wasn't the only one experiencing strange things. Adam had had a moment back at the cafe when he remembered something terrible from his past, and Robin was hearing the sounds of wolves howling. We got Mike on the phone and learned that strange things were afoot at the church too - five or so more people besides Gillian had found themselves unable to enter the churchyard.

Then there was Robin's police scanner, which was telling us that an old man called George had collapsed dead on the street.

Getting me out of Adam's wards proved just as difficult as getting me into them. Mike was already there when we joined the scene, looking after another collapsed woman that the police scanner had warned us about. We were starting to understand now. The problem was fear, which rapidly became evident when one of the police officers became convinced that he'd seen a creepy clown. I reassured him that he'd just seen someone in a Halloween costume, while Mike backed me up.

Time for a team discussion. We were going to have to set a trap to capture this fear creature before it could do any more damage. The fact it liked to stay behind people wasn't helping us with identifying it. Adam was pretty sure that he was the one it was after though. What we needed was a circle surrounded by mirrors and magical fetishes, and enough people with experience in this kind of summoning magic to perform the ritual.

Which meant we needed backup, and the only person around with the necessary skills was Gillian. Well, at least it's getting her out of the house, even if Carmen definitely doesn't approve.

North Star 2023

This North Star was an unusual convention for me, as I managed to convince my husband to join me. Despite having been roleplaying for almost as long as I've been alive, and being by far the more social and outgoing of the two of us, he's always been reluctant to join me at conventions. This time was different. The prospect of a full weekend of Star Wars and Star Trek might have done the job.

Game 1: Starforged

I've been playing a solo Starforged game in the Firefly setting to help me learn how it works, and loved it, so I had to take the opportunity to play someone else's Starforged Firefly game. The premise was we were a group of bounty hunters who were chasing the Serenity crew to win a bounty placed by Niska.

We randomly rolled for character types, and got a scoundrel, a fugitive hunter, a medic and an occultist. With Firefly not being a particularly occult setting, I decided my character's ability to veil herself in shadows was something she'd learned at the same institute as River Tam.

Things went as unsmooth as things in Starforged are inclined to do, and there were some injuries when our captain got into a fight with Zoe, but we were able to take her and Wash captive and track down Malcolm Reynolds and co. Things were further complicated when we discovered that there were quite a few more members of the Reynolds gang than we were anticipated, including River, who my character remembered from her time in the institute.

Apparently previous groups have decided to join forces with Reynolds at this point. However, given how many of us River managed to stab before we could react, this didn't happen. By the time we were done, River and Wash were both dead, and the latter's corpse used to take out a minefield. We got our bounty, stayed on the right side of Niska, and the 'verse presumbly went very differently from then onwards. Perhaps it was our crew who eventually discovered the secrets of Miranda?

Starforged is my new favourite system for Firefly and this was a blast. One of those games where the only negative is that we won't get to spend any more time with those characters.

Game 2: Things From The Flood

My own scenario, Witchlight, is set in 1996 and features the somewhat reluctant members of the school film club discovering the secrets of the Vac. Being a 90s teen myself, this setting resonates for me and it was fun to take the group twenty-seven years into the past (even though a part of me is convinced it can't be more than ten years ago.) I set it in the Norfolk loop, as it's the setting that I'm most comfortable with. I've never been to Sweden or Nevada, but a significant amount of my family are Norfolk farmers.

I could still use some practice with this game, this being the second ever time I've run it, but I'm pretty happy with the adventure. One to keep in the convention rotation for a while. Things From The Flood doesn't get as much love as Tales From The Loop, but I really like what it does with the setting.

One tweak I might make for future in-person runs is to have handouts for people's iconic items - not least because one of them is a mobile phone and absolutely nobody can remember exactly what a 1996 mobile phone looks like without googling it. Some period appropriate images should help with the atmosphere as well. And for online runs, having everyone's favourite song queued up in WatchTogether should be fun.

Given how popular this was in sign-ups I'm going to bring this one to Furnace to give a few more of the Garrison crowd a shot at playing it.

Game 3: Star Trek Adventures

I'm not a big enough Star Trek nerd to be completely at ease with Star Trek Adventures character creation, but I do know it well enough to play a pre-gen character. And with the prospect of two linked games, one in TOS and one in TNG, I was keen to give it a go. My husband also got into the TNG game with me, and he's a massive Star Trek nerd, so I was confident this would be fun.

And it certainly was, with all kinds of wibbly wobbly timey wimey things happening, characters swapping tables as they got displaced in spacetime, and finally the GMs pulling out a pair of walkie talkies when we managed to establish communication between the two times. The best moment was when we insisted on the two Romulan captains in different times talking to each other and the GMs had to roleplay between themselves.

This game was supposed to happen in 2022 but got pulled when covid meant one GM had to drop out, so I'm very happy to have got in this time. Linked games have to be difficult to pull off and this one was a delight.

Game 4: Monster Of The Week

While MOTW isn't typically a sci-fi game, the preview documents for the latest kickstarter arrived not long before the convention, and included new team playbooks. One of them, Agents In Black, was clearly modelled after Men In Black. And Men In Black is all about aliens, which is definitely sci-fi so...

I'd been intending to write a scenario involving the notorious concrete cows for a long time. I thought it was going to be Liminal, but when I started thinking about what alien threats the Agents In Black could take on, the cows came to mind once more.

From the fairly large pile of playbook options, I picked five that seemed to fit the concept. With three players in the game, that gave them a variety of options without being overwhelming. Choosing names was simplified by using the naming convention from the movies where everyone has a single letter codename. So the highly experienced Agent Q, newly recruited rookie Agent X, and small but deadly alien Agent B set out to solve the mystery of the concrete cows and save Milton Keynes.

As with Witchlight, this was only my second time running not only the scenario but the game itself. Again, I think I need more practice, but overall I'm happy with how things went down. This particular scenario could use more handouts. I had a few photos ready on my tablet, and Google Maps ready to go, but a couple of printouts would have sped things along.

I'm planning to run this again at Concrete Cow, because how could I not? And given that it's a PBTA game I'll probably bring it out for Revelation as well.

Game 5: Tales From The Loop

And back to the Loop, this time in Sweden with one of the adventures from the core book. With the title 'Creatures from the Cretaceous' I was expecting dinosaurs, and we certainly got dinosaurs in this terrifying adventure. While I knew we were playing Tales From The Loop and kids can't die in this game, my character didn't know that and Elin's fear was very real.

Sunday afternoon is normally the point where I start flagging, and as usual it took quite a lot of coffee to keep me going through the early stages. Fortunately, when the dinosaurs showed up, adrenaline started to take over.

Reflections

I love having a specialist convention. The sci-fi theme really pushes me to be creative in my convention games, and provides opportunities that might not come up as often at general conventions.

This North Star felt a little calmer on the scheduling side of things with only the normal challenges of numbers, slots, etc. to deal with rather than the multiple covid related drop-outs that have been plaguing Garrison conventions for the last couple of years. The complication seems to have been at the event itself, where a combination of multiple games with only three players and a last-minute drop-out seems to have caused some headaches. I can only express my admiration for the organisers who do an amazing job dealing with all this and making sure games happen.

It was a little smaller than last year's North Star, and another ten or so people would have been nice. Perhaps Eurovision was a factor - it sounds like it made hotel bookings more difficult - and rail strikes probably didn't help either. We did seem to be missing a few 'regulars' though so perhaps this was a one-off.

My husband had a good time. We only had one game together (he couldn't play mine because I'd spent so much time bouncing ideas off him while writing them) but that just made for good conversation in the car on the way home as we told each other what we'd been doing. He enjoyed meeting the other players and it sounds like he'll be joining me again next year. I couldn't ask for a better outcome.

Wicker Valley, episode 6: Moss Demons

The mist was rising, the plants were engulfing the building, and while I could probably have got myself out easily enough, there was no way I could have left the other three there. What were our choices? Fight through the plants on the top floor, and have to find a way down to the ground, or fight through a lot more plants down in the mist at the bottom? Adam thought of another option. There was a magic circle right there, and me.

Of course I knew how to perform a banishment ritual. I stepped inside the circle and began the chant. The magic came easier than I expected. The worst part was feeling my human disguise draw back. The last time Michael saw me like this, my brother was trying to kill him. Maybe that thought is what gave me the strength. I drove back the mist and the plants, enough for us all to escape, but at the same time I found myself in contact with the entity we were facing. Or rather, entities. One, vast and powerful and inhuman. The other, small and very very scared.

We got out of there as fast as we could, and I told the others we needed to get to Gillian straight away. Thankfully there wasn't too much argument, as when we got there things were already bad. Robin and Adam went round the back to ensure nobody was escaping that way, and Michael and me went to the front door. Gillian's friend Carmen was there, trying to tell us it was a bad time, but we already knew that. Gillian was lying on the sofa, wearing a crown of leaves and plant matter that looked like it was on the point of burrowing into her skull.

I told a panicking Carmen that it looked like demonic possession and that we were going to deal with it. I managed to get hold of the crown, but actually separating it from Gillian proved tougher that I'd hoped. Fortunately Adam and Robin came in to join us, and while Adam's attempt to deal with the vine-like tattoos that were snaking down Gillian's arms only resulted in him stabbing Robin's armour, with their help I was able to rip the crown away. I let the others deal with disposing it. There was talk of using holy water, which I didn't want anywhere near me. And besides, Gillian had just been through a traumatic experience. She needed a hug.

Once Gillian had recovered enough to talk we got the whole story out of her. She felt like the developers were destroying her mother's legacy, so she'd used the books her mother had left her to repeat her actions. She summoned a moss hag - a fusion of fairy and demon. So when I said hold that thought about moss demons? Pretty much spot on.

We'd saved Gillian from being completely subsumed by the hag, but this hadn't actually removed it, of course. So it was time to tool up. I stayed out of things while Adam and Robin got to work making some kind of bomb. I knew what my role in this was going to end up being.

Back to the construction site. There was no stopping the thing this time. No sending it back to sleep. Gillian had awoken it and it was going to rampage. It pulled itself out of the ground, those two wooden sticks now clearly the horns of this walking tree demon.

No reason to hold back when fighting another demon. I flew at it, trying to shred its branches with my claws. It was tough, and I don't know how long I could have held out as I was battered by flailing branches. But all I needed to do was survive long enough to keep it occupied while Adam and Robin got their bomb into place.

The edge of the blast caught me, sending me tumbling through the air. Michael already knew what needed to be done next - destroying the magic circle we'd had to abandon earlier. I raced towards the tower, went to fly up, and then realised my wings were in tatters from the explosion. The fall didn't hurt, mostly because I landed on Robin.

Rather delayed, we made it up the tower, where Michael was already scraping away at the dried mud with his cricket bat. I tore into it with my claws. And between us we destroyed the last thing holding the demon in this place.

Wicker Valley, episode 5: Green Magic

We made a hasty retreat from Gillian's house. Robin went to change his outfit, in the hope of not getting recognised by Gillian if we ran into her again, and we met up back at the Wicker Stop. I could see he had questions about the wings, but was very politely not asking them. I can see why Adam likes him. Michael was done with trailing her friend and hanging around the construction site, and Adam was out of hospital, so we gave him a quick briefing on events so far and asked for suggestions.

Adam had some night vision goggles which he was itching to try out, so we decided it was time for a nocturnal group visit to the construction site. We parked the van, scoped the place out, and found a single very bored looking security guard on the main entrance. We went around the side, and soon found that the area where the murder happened had been fenced off, but the rest of the site was still pretty open.

There was a central tower building covered in moss, and it looked like a good viewpoint. But as we were heading towards it, we heard a strange sound in the distance. A sort of angry roar. I checked there were no other people around, and then flew up into the air to try to see what had happened. But whatever it was it was too far away for me to see.

We decided to stick with the original plan and figure out what that was later on. But another complication arose when the concrete path leading to the building suddenly vanished as the mud around it boiled up and covered it. Adam found some scaffolding planks and laid them down to make a new path. I was absolutely not intending to walk after what happened in the woods, but in the end it was Robin who got stuck in the mud. Apparently him and Adam think along similiar lines sometimes, and I looked away while he dropped his trousers, but watering the mud didn't help this time.

That's when we heard a horrible buzzing noise and a swarm of mosquitos poured out of the tower, forming into a humanoid form and screaming at us to get out of its swamp. And honestly I thought it made a pretty compelling argument, but we couldn't go anywhere while Robin was still stuck in the mud. Then Adam shot it with his shotgun, which was enough to make it dissipate. It was also very loud, so with Robin finally unstuck from the mud we decided to make a hasty departure.

Michael stumbled across something odd on the way out though. A little bundle of plants, in a shape that reminded us of the CND logo. A small piece of wood that none of us could identify. And blood. I didn't know exactly what I was looking at, but I knew magic when I saw it.

We confirmed that the security guard wasn't dead, and made our escape. Robin was monitoring the police scanners in case of reports of gunshots. But there were none. Just something going on at the plant hire centre. We drove over, but decided all four of us going in together would look a bit weird. So Adam went in to investigate. One of their machines had been squashed completely flat. Adam wasn't able to get much else out of them, although he might have found some more business for his junkyard, dealing with the machine remains. And I don't think any of us were surprised that another of those blood daubed plant totems was at the site.

It was obvious Gillian was up to something and while I was all for confronting her, I was persuaded that we could stand to do a bit more subterfuge first. We got some sleep, and Robin got another change of clothes, and then it was time for more breaking and entering.

Michael and Adam kept watch, and once Gillian had left, Robin and me went back in. This time we went to the upstairs flat, in search of the three missing books. We found two of them, and a few other things beside. Like a list, which started with the plant hire company, and continued with what a bit of googling proved to be people who'd invested in the new construction and similar. Targets. But it was the books that really scared me. Robin held one out to me, and just the presence of the thing made my wings pop out involuntarily. Good thing he wasn't seeing that for the first time.

It was going to give the game away about our intrusion pretty quickly, but we couldn't leave these books in Gillian's hands. Especially not when I flicked through one of them, and found my own family crest drawn in the back.

We got out of there and met up with Adam and Michael again, then headed back to the construction site. We needed to finish our abandoned investigation from the previous night. This time we got into the tower without any mud incidents, although there were two sticks poking out of the ground that hadn't been there before. They were made of petrified wood. Adam didn't like them.

The tower was pretty bare on the inside, except for tendrils of mist rolling in through the unglazed windows. We climbed up to the top floor, and there we found very clear evidence of ritual magic workings. You didn't need to have grown up demonic to know what all these candle stubs were being used for. Meanwhile outside, the mist was rising.