Wicker Valley, episode 29: Dancing with Djinns

My new ex-cultist friend, whose name was George, helped me get the remaining injured cultists out of the building. Michael was trying to interrogate one of them and not getting very far, possibly because the guy didn't actually know very much based on how little George was able to tell me. He clearly didn't know what he was getting into. He'd been promised having wishes fulfilled but hadn't exactly believed in all this magic stuff. Well, he did now.

Adam and Elizabeth showed up in Vanessa, and I couldn't have been happier to see them. Arthur, who was proving quite talented at magic, set up a ward to keep the scarabs inside, and Adam incinerated the scarabs while Elizabeth set up an ice wall to make sure the building didn't catch fire.

Michael and me had both been a bit shot during the fight, and while neither of us were looking too bad, we did spend a few minutes bandaging while the others did a bit of scrying with dead scarabs, something that really put me in mind of a prank my brother played on me once. Then it was back in Vanessa and Arthur's car, along with George, as we followed the trail to a shepherd's hut holiday home. Definitely the right place. It was covered in scarabs. Arthur did a quick divination and confirmed that the leader was inside and in the middle of some magic.

We left George in the van, and Adam started hosing down scarabs while the rest of us went round the back to the door. It was magically locked as well as normally locked. Michael's cricket bat took care of the regular lock and I was starting to get a handle on alternate timeline me's grimoire enough to make use of it for a quick unbinding on the magical defenses. That gave me the confidence to try something else new - I enchanted Eddie's gun to give it a bit more oomph if necessary. Arthur put a ward around the building to stop the leader from leaving, and in we went.

Well the enchanted gun seemed to work out well for Eddie, who managed to both intimidate and slow the guy down considerably with a shot to the leg. Between that and Michael's cricket bat, they did separate him from the bottle and his magic book, and while he tried to teleport away, Arthur's ward meant he ended up slamming into the wall of the hut and getting knocked out.

Eddie relieved him of his collection of magic seeing in the dark stones, and we took everything back to the junkyard to put in the oubliette. We weren't done yet though. We still had a djinn to trap. I got to work reading the book. It was in some strange text that Google Lens told me was Semitic. That's the problem with Google Lens. It's handy for me, but does make it far too easy for regular people to stumble onto arcane secrets best left alone. Anyway, I found what we needed:

• At least three people to do an arcane chant.
• One person to dance with the djinn.
• A pair of flaming torches for the dancer to wave.
• Quite a lot of silver.
• A large mammal to sacrifice. A camel was suggested. We decided on a cow as significantly easier to obtain in Wicker Valley, and also we could eat it afterwards.

Eddie got on the cow issue, calling some friends to help out. Adam dug up the necessary material for flaming torches and silver and Michael slipped off somewhere, presumably to practice his dance moves. Then it was back into the van once more, and we drove to the warehouse, as that seemed like the place best set up for dealing with things without causing trouble elsewhere.

Then things went wrong when we got out of the van and a sudden wind picked up most of us and dumped us back at the junkyard, as apparently djinns are really petty. And when I say 'dumped' I mean some way up in the air so we all crashed into the ground. Elizabeth and me got to work magically repairing Arthur and Eddie until George showed up again to drive us there a second time. This time things went a little less dramatically and we all got inside.

Elizabeth, Arthur and me started the chant, Michael danced with the torches, Eddie and Adam stayed close at hand to deal with problems and apply the silver to the bottle when needed, and George handled the cow. Not the smoothest magical ritual we've ever done, and we almost caught fire a few times, but we got there. Michael ended up with tiny flames burning in his eyes, which I thought looked lovely, although other people seemed to find it unsettling. I'll have to find him some of my old dark glasses from before I got a proper handle on my human form.

Then we just had to clean up. The bottle went into the oubliette. George went on his way, and I asked him to keep in touch, since knowing a friendly antiques dealer could very well be useful. I butchered the cow, perhaps not very expertly as my training was in dismemberment, not so much this kind of thing, but it should keep us in burgers for quite a long time. We fired up the barbecue back at the junkyard, and while Adam seemed oddly less keen to be the grillmaster than usual, we all got a good meal.

Then we all sat down for a proper talk, the first chance we'd had since this all kicked off. Eddie talked about some of the strange experiences he'd had as a child. Michael told Eddie and Arthur about our time travel adventures, and Elizabeth told the story of how she became a witch. A lich. She's totally a lich. And I talked about growing up in a family of demons.

I think we're going to make a good team.

Wicker Valley, episode 28: Teamwork

We gathered at the junkyard again. There was a bit of trouble with the police after our antics to retrieve the lid of the djinn bottle, so Adam and Elizabeth went off to deal with that while the rest of us hit the books to try to work out what to do next. Michael suggested using the bottle lid as a focus to try to find the rest of the bottle, so I got out the map and candles.

Not the best scry I've ever done. I think all the time travel was causing me confusion between the way part of me thinks it should be done and all the things I wrote in my grimoire from a different timeline. Long story short, I knew roughly what area to look in, but I was going to need a new map. At least nothing caught fire this time.

Toby the definitely-not-a-gargoyle put in an appearance, and he was looking in a bad way. Apparently I was supposed to be training Michael in something. I asked for some guidance about exactly what I was supposed to be training him in, but didn't get much of a response. Hopefully he'll come back with some answers. In the mean time I offered him a hug because he really did look a mess. I didn't know creatures made of stone could get black eyes.

Meanwhile Eddie was showing off some serious research ability. He figured out we were dealing with a fire djinn, that our best option for hurting it was with holy things, and that djinns had a nasty habit of granting wishes in the worst possible way. A check of the police scanner (after a check to see if we actually had a police scanner) showed strange goings-on involving a swarm of insects at a farm not too far from the area I'd picked up from the bottle lid. We were definitely going to have to check that out.

First we needed transport though. Adam had taken Vanessa the bat-van. Arthur had a car, but it was still parked at the Wicker Stop. Of course I had a way of getting to it, but not exactly a subtle one. But Eddie and Arthur had both just seen me do a scrying ritual, so what was the point of pretending to be normal? I put my arms around Arthur, and teleported us both to the Wicker Stop. The swirl of wings was back to being leathery, not feathery. Maybe that was just a glitch and I hit a seagull mid-teleport last time?

Anyway, Arthur had to sit down for a moment after his first teleport, but soon had us back to the junkyard. Michael had been through Adam's costume cupboard, a thing he has now, and found a bunch of backpack style supersoakers labelled with little crosses. I don't know what happened to cause this timeline's Adam to have that much holy water on standby, but it was probably going to be very useful here.

We tooled up. Overalls as a bit of protection from bugs and general dirt, which had the added bonus of making us look a bit like the ghostbusters. Although Halloween was some time ago now, so perhaps wandering around in costumes would look a little weird? What time of year was it anyway? With all the time travel, I'd completely lost track. I was happy enough with my regular weapons, and Michael was sticking with his cricket bat for this one, but the other two brought out guns! Arthur had a sniper rifle and Eddie had a 9mm? How on earth had they managed that? I'd had to go on a course just to get my shotgun license. Not that I was complaining. With Adam and Elizabeth still tied up dealing with the police we were down quite a lot of firepower.

We got back in Arthur's car and drove out to the farm where things were happening. Ranger Tom was there, and was clearly pleased to see us, which was quite a relief. The farmer was furious though, so I went to have a chat with him using my best soothing voice to calm him down. While I defused the situation the others went to check out a mysterious cloud of smoke. When they got back, Michael looked OK but the others were a bit green. They'd found a homeless person who'd wished that he had wheels. It hadn't gone well for him, and he'd died when his new engine stopped firing. From what we were hearing from the police, he wasn't the only one in a bad way.

We were going to have to stop this before anyone else got hurt. Eddie, again proving himself absolutely invaluable, figured out straight away where the cloud of scarabs were heading. Arthur drove us to the old warehouse district where we'd previously dealt with the tooth monsters. Scarabs were crowding on the roof, and I teleported myself and Eddie up there to have a look around and see if we could deal with them. I saw nothing, as I was far too distracted by scarabs trying to bite me.

Arthur got himself set up with his rifle, and the rest of us snuck in around the back. Cultists. Not really surprising, as Michael had a strong hunch that's what we were going to find. Michael managed to surprise one of them and knock him out. Unfortunately I don't think Arthur has had proper training with his rifle yet, as his first shot hit me. Fortunately I'd already armoured up by then, so it was time to pop the claws and get down to business.

Absolute chaos, with people hiding, and a sudden cloud of black powder which Michael went running into, and more missed shots. I'd managed to rake one of the cultists pretty badly, but then I remembered the conversation we'd had right before we went in. Top priority was finding the djinn bottle. So I spoke to the cultist I'd just clawed, putting every bit of temptation I could muster into my voice, and told him if he wanted to live, he should help me find the bottle.

I might have overdone it a bit. I seemed to have a new best friend. But that's exactly what we needed right then. He gave me his magic stone that let him see in the dark and I followed Michael into the black cloud to try to retrieve the bottle. With what I can only call some really excellent teamwork, we took down the leader, dispersed the dark cloud, scared off the remaining cultists, and then realised that we hadn't actually found the djinn yet, the leader had teleported away with the bottle, and we were still surrounded by very angry scarabs.

Revelation 2024

Normally I drive up to Garricons on a Friday afternoon and then have dinner when I get there. This time the traffic was so bad that I decided I didn't want to wait, and stopped off at a services to have dinner while I waited for the traffic to clear a bit. By some chance I'd managed to find a Burger King where there'd been some kind of catastrophic drinks failure, meaning the only drinks they had available were black coffee and Capri-Sun. One of those journeys.

I did still make it to the Garrison at a reasonable time, and was able to have a bit of a rest before heading to the bar when other people started arriving, but then it was time for bed at a sensible time ready for the games ahead.

Game 1: Matrons of Mystery

Another exciting opportunity to play my own game! I decide to take a break from Rosemary and Pierre this time and come up with a new matron. Brenda Kerr is an outdoorsy type who enjoys birdwatching. Her husband Derrick was a dentist, who left her for a younger woman. She's very proud of their two children though, Molly the footballer and Peter the doctor.

Brenda and her friends had a lovely meal in a stately home (Brenda wore her dress fleece) and a good night's sleep, but were awoken in the morning by the shocking news that the solicitor who was about to read the will in the morning had been murdered, and the famous painting, Stable Boy With Huge Stallion had been stolen! And so began a comedy of errors as the four of us annoyed everyone in sight, tampered with evidence and got covered in tea. For a while it seemed like we were never going to solve this murder! But finally we managed to uncover a few clues, with the help of Dr Peter doing a bit of extra medical examination, and finally the culprit was revealed.

But the killer had escaped! And so began an epic chase scene involving a bicycle, a moped, a horse, a Reliant Robin, and after matron Peggy had called her TV producer child, a news helicopter which we used to finally take down the killer.

An absolute delight.

Game 2: City of Mist

Despite my best efforts I've played very little City of Mist, but for once luck was on my side and I got into a game. A selection of pre-gens were on offer, including Detective Enkidu who I played the other time I played City of Mist. This time though I picked up Post-Mortem, a lab-created member of the walking dead and skilled assassin. And the three of us began looking into some strange disappearances at a hotel in the tourist district, resulting in some very creative use of a super soaker.

City of Mist is a bit of a weird system, combining regular PBTA moves with Fate tags, but it works pretty smoothly. Some of the move names I find a little unhelpful, as my interpretation of them doesn't entirely match up with what they actually do, so I have to keep reading the descriptions to remind myself. That's something that will come with practice though. So I just need to get more practice. Noir superheroes is a genre I enjoy, and I'd really like to play more of this.

Game 3: Kult

I went for my improvised Kult game, The Heist, for the evening slot, and off we went to steal an occult book from a billionaire's yacht, in what was probably the most gonzo outing this particular scenario has ever had. Although given who was playing, I'm not entirely surprised.

This one can be hard work to run, with the constant referring to the tarot cards, but it's pretty damn rewarding when it does all come together. I'm considering publishing this one. While most of my Kult scenarios involved enough work that I don't want to give them away for free (the only option as for IP reasons there's no Kult community content license), this one is a single page plus character sheets, and I think that might be worth sharing.

Game 4: Monster of the Week

Two years after my first Monster of the Week game at Revelation 2022, I brought along my own scenario, Who Ate All The Pies? and had two of the same players in the game. The team soon learned that trouble was afoot in Piesville, Louisiana, and they were going to have to sort it out fast if they were going to be able to enjoy the town fair and its annual pie eating contest to its full extent.

Thanks to transport delays we were a bit late getting started, and with character creation taking longer than usual, I was a bit worried about timing for this one. But it worked out in the end - we spent a little less time on inter-character banter and investigating the full motivations at play, but the key plot points were all played out.

Once again I've realised that the scenario I've written down isn't exactly the scenario I run, so while I'd like to publish this one (possibly along with a few other MOTW scenarios) I need to first update it to match the actually scenario.

Game 5: Trophy Dark

My second game of Trophy Dark. We set off into the forest in search of a book, in the hope that retrieving it would get our souls back from a demon. That didn't happen. What did happen was a surprise conga line of murder, one character turned into a tree, and much to my surprise, my own character actually getting out alive. I'm still not sure how that happened, although I doubt life got any better for her after that.

A good game to end the convention on. Relatively short, not too much thinking with the randomly generated characters, and no expectation of survival resulting in proper drive-it-like-you-stole-it playing. 

Reflections

As I noted during a break in the final session, the one down side with increased gender diversity at conventions is having to share the toilets. It really is nice to find myself at a table where not only am I not the only woman, but women actually outnumber men. As a hobby, we're getting there.

Revelation remains a gem of a convention. Even with all the games being PBTA or FITD (or at least adjacent) you never know what you're going to get. I had five radically different games and I enjoyed them all.

Wicker Valley, episode 27: Back to the Present

We left the persuasion to Michael. He was the best at it, and I was getting terrified of turning completely into a spider. And he did it, and with some effort we all came back to the present day.

I was back in the Wicker Stop, in the basket room, in the middle of teaching a class. Could have been worse. Weaving felt very natural at that point, and I kept on top of any urge to eat flies. I got through the class without doing anything weird, and then it was time to figure out what state the world was in now.

I no longer owned the Wicker Stop, although I did seem to be a manager now, so that wasn't too bad. And Michael was still working there, although he seemed to just be bussing tables now, and there was a new guy, Eddie. I'd seen his face around town maybe a couple of times, and Michael seemed to know him.

Adam showed up on the team Whatsapp group saying that he had an apprentice now, to which the only thing I could say was 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. We arranged to all meet up for coffee the next morning and catch up. It had been a long day.

Eddie brought us our coffees in the morning. Adam had brought his apprentice Arthur along with him. With both of them hanging around it was hard to properly talk about anything, although I did suggest that next time my brother suggested going on 'holiday' we should all say no. We did manage to establish that Adam was somehow still working for the Foundation, hence the sudden arrival of Arthur, and that life had turned out rather differently for Robin, who'd disappeared when he left the oubliette and was now on some kind of motorcycle tour of Britain. Michael was back living in his old place with his housemates and no longer had a car. Elizabeth...she was still Elizabeth.

Then the Whisper Sisters walked in.

Michael hugged them, and it was all I could do not to join in. I had to settle for making sure they were well supplied with coffee and scones. I never thought I'd be so happy to see them.

No time for getting properly settled back in though, as there was trouble out at the motorway services. We piled into Vanessa, which was getting increasingly crowded with six of us in there, as it was becoming rapidly apparent that Eddie in this timeline knew a lot more about goings on in Wicker Valley. At least Arthur seemed a bit more impressed with the interior of Vanessa than he had done with us. I guess we're not quite the professional outfit he was expecting from the Foundation.

I ordered KFC on the way, because if we were going to visit the services we might as well enjoy ourselves. While I picked up popcorn chicken for everyone, the local police officer escorted some of the group in to see the body. Between that, the CCTV, and Adam's extensive knowledge of such things, it seemed pretty certain we were dealing with a djinn. Not that I could pay any attention to that though, as something was wrong with Michael.

He'd had another one of his visions, and needed to get back to town urgently to check on his brother. Urgent in an 'ask me to teleport him there' kind of way. I think Elizabeth was telling Eddie and Arthur something about the hotel as we got out of the van, but I could deal with her weird shipping later. Michael needed me. And much to my relief, I got us both into his mum's back garden without anything going amiss.

Something was different though. I was used to the swirl of my wings each time I teleported, but my wings were different. Instead of being leathery, they were feathery.

By the time I'd got myself sorted out after that surprise, Michael had confirmed that his brother was fine, but he was still worried. So I built a ward around the house. Not a great one, given that I was short of time and feeling downright weird about the feathers, but I did manage to make it resistant to djinn, fairies and demons, while leaving my usual backdoor in case I needed to get in or out.

Then it was back to business. Causing distractions while retrieving bits of djinn bottle.

Games for Beginners

My manager at work is considering RPGs as a possible activity for an upcoming team building day, and naturally as the team's resident RPG nerd, I've been asked to think about organising this. Which means I need to pick a game to run. Something beginner friendly, as none of these people have ever played an RPG before. I asked BlueSky and a couple of Discords for advice, and here's what came up:

D&D 5e

Pros: It's the default RPG experience. It's got brand recognition and a handy starter set, and it's not all that complicated at first level. If they've seen the recent Honor Among Thieves movie, or played Baldur's Gate 3, that's an extra bit of cultural relevance that might help grab them. If they enjoy it there's tons of material and other players out there, and it should have good VTT support if they want online games.

Cons: I'm not a big fan (team Pathfinder here) so I'd have to buy the starter set and then learn how to run it, which I would feel a bit resentful about. Plus it is complicated, compared to most of the other games I play, even at first level.

Matrons of Mystery

Pros: Not everyone is into fantasy, but most people have watched some kind of cosy British crime drama. It's a familiar modern day setting. People absolutely love playing little old ladies solving murders. The game system is pretty simple, and there's no character death to worry about, plus I wrote the thing and know it inside out.

Cons: Only about half my team are originally from Britain. I don't know how popular 'little old ladies solving murders' is as a genre in India, and the game really hinges on everyone knowing exactly how to act in this genre and improvising around it. Plus there's a few people who really don't like the Carved from Brindlewood mystery system and there's no way around that.

(Brindlewood Bay was also suggested, for much the same reasons, but I think Matrons of Mystery is better for beginners as it's well suited to one-shots without having to cut out a chunk of the game and it sticks closer to the cosy mystery genre.)

Dragonbane

Pros: It's the classic dungeon crawl experience you get from D&D, but with the complexity scaled down. You still get to have fun with maps and polyhedral dice and minis. If they've got some idea what an RPG looks like from Stranger Things, this is still on the same page. There's a handy quickstart with pregens and an adventure.

Cons: Again, I don't own it (although the quickstart is free and that's probably enough for a one-shot) and combat might be a little more deadly than D&D, meaning I'd need some backup characters.

Liminal

Pros: A modern day setting that's familiar to everyone. Grounded in folklore, which some people will pick up on, but which you don't need to know to play the game. Easy mechanics. Plus I know it really well and have my own adventures to run.

Cons: Urban fantasy is a less familiar genre than regular fantasy. Unless it turns out my team are all super into Rivers of London or The Dresden Files, this one might be a little harder to explain.

Alien

Pros: It's based on a popular film series and there's a fair chance most people will be familiar with it. The rules are straightforward, and I have my own scenarios I can run.

Cons: It's horror, specifically body horror, and that's really not some people's jam. I'd rather not have to give content warnings for a first ever game. That crit table is brutal.

Escape from Dino Island

Pros: Again, based on a popular film series which most people will have some familiarity with. Straightforward rules, very low prep on my part, and should be easy to get up and running. Built for one-shots.

Cons: Can end up going through characters rather fast, due to the injury rules. Needs plenty of spare characters. Also, being a prepless system it does call for more improv from the players than most.

Call of Cthulhu

Pros: Another classic gaming experience, and with a real world setting that doesn't require any knowledge of the entities involved. Percentile system makes it easy to understand your chances, and reasonably simple from the player side of things.

Cons: While I do own it, thanks to the recent Humble Bundle, I've never actually run it. While it is fairly simple from the players' end, it doesn't look simple due to the ridiculous number of skills. It's horror, and while there are plenty of scenarios that aren't likely to go anywhere particularly iffy, it's still not everyone's thing and character death is highly likely. Plus, as I said, many of my team are Indian and I don't like the idea of them looking up the Investigator's Handbook and encountering that particularly poorly chosen book cover.

Monster of the Week

Pros: Another modern day setting, with easy mechanics, and based on popular TV shows. Well designed playbooks to get people up to speed quickly. Loads of pre-written adventures so easy prep for me as well. Easier to keep the horror aspects on the down low than the more explicitly horror games above.

Cons: I know as much about the popularity of Buffy and Supernatural in India as I do about the popularity of Miss Marple. This is another one that really requires knowing the genre.

Conclusions

Currently Dragonbane is looking like my best option. It's the kind of game people think of when they think about RPGs, without being as complicated as my favourite Pathfinder 2e, and means I can break out some minis and polyhedral dice. I will be consulting the players though, to see if there's anything they're particularly interested in. 

If the idea proves popular with the team I may also need to recruit an additional GM, which will also influence what gets run, as D&D or Call of Cthulhu GMs are probably going to be the easiest to find.