Learning Starforged: Prologue and the Iron Vow.

On the advice of more experienced players, I've upped each of Spider's stats by 1, which I'm told should give her a chance of surviving more than five minutes in solo play.

I'm using the Stargazer app to keep track of things.

The comms module on the Manta made its familiar irritating beep. A wave from Vesper Frost. Spider pressed the button to accept and Vesper's familiar steely features appeared.

"Hi, Vesper." Spider only said this to wind her up, but for once, there was no demand to refer to her properly as Mayor Frost.

"Skip the nicities, this isn't a social call. I'm hiring you."

Spider's eyebrows shot up. "Huh. Who do you need finding?"

"Kaisa. She's been taken."

It had been two days earlier that Spider had been sat in a spaceport bar drinking cheap liquor and discovering that the spacer she was talking to was actually Vesper Frost's daughter. She hadn't even known Vesper Frost had a daughter. That was because Kaisa hadn't been home in so many years, she wasn't even sure her mother would want to see her any more. Spider disagreed. Only a terrible mother wouldn't want to see her child, and Kaisa was quick to confirm that that wasn't the case.

And now something terrible had happened.

A cloud of dust blew up from under the Manta as Spider landed in the field that passed for a landing strip on the edge of Paxton.  She was expected. The gates opened as she approached them, and Vesper herself was waiting outside.

"Mayor Frost."

"Spider."

Vesper ran through the details in her office. A raiding party from Wellspring had been sighted and the usual security protocols put in place. Except Kaisa wasn't accounted for, and didn't know the signals, and when the raiders had arrived she was still outside. She'd been carried off alive, but if they'd planned to keep her that way, Vesper would have expected a ransom demand by now. There had been nothing.

Spider clutched her poker chip tightly in her hand. "Mayor Frost, I will find her. And I will bring her back to you."

Swear an iron vow: roll +heart +1 because she's swearing to a connection.

Strong hit! It's clear what to do. +2 Momentum

Rank of Dangerous.

Learning Starforged: Getting Started

I've played Starforged once and enjoyed it, but only recently picked up a copy myself. Chapter 2 -  Basics - seemed pretty complicated on a first read, but I remember that playing it felt pretty smooth. So clearly the way to go on this is to play a solo game and see how it goes. I'm going to work through this in blog form. So on to Chapter 2: launching your campaign.

First up is defining your campaign setting. This is a fairly large section with fourteen categories to define aspects of the setting. After a quick browse through these I've concluded this would be a lot more fun to do with a group. For my solo game I'm going to base things on a tried and tested setting that I've used in multiple game systems and always enjoy playing with: the Firefly Verse.

Character Creation

Now to make a character. I've got the asset cards ready, so I need to choose two paths. There's a table with some inspiration, and rather than roll, I've let my eyes be drawn to something that looks interesting. Fugutive hunter. That gets me the assets Armoured and Bounty Hunter.

Well I guess I'm playing the Mandalorian. That's cool.

Next is a backstory. Again there's a table of prompts. Rather than roll I've had a read, and several of them have sort of mashed together in my head. My character's family ran a successful business. I initially thought restaurant, but let's go upscale a bit and make it a casino. Then organised crime got involved, in the shape of Niska, and when her family refused to pay protection money, there was an attack. She escaped, but her family were killed and Niska now runs the casino. Her hatred of criminals lead her down the road of fugitive hunting.

And that leads me nicely onto the next step of writing her background vow. It's her primary motivation. I'll keep it simple. Destroy Niska.

Now I need a spaceship. I need a history for it, and one option in the table is stealing it from a notorious crime boss. So that was one of her early attacks on Niska's organisation, more a minor snub than actual harm, but it gives her satisfaction to know she's taken something from him. There's another table to give it some unique features, and this time I will roll. 39. It looks defenseless, but exterior panels open to reveal weapons. Perfect. Another roll. 16. Gravity generator is notoriously fickle. Yes, those weapons are an after-market add-on and whoever fitted them did a shoddy job with the wiring, meaning they keep pulling power from the gravity generator. A roll on the starship name generator gives me a name for it: Manta.

Now I need one more asset, and I'm going to go for a support vehicle so she can get around planetside. The hoverbike seems like a good choice for a solo bounty hunter.

Stats are next, and by now I think I know what sort of person she is, so here goes:

• Edge 2
• Heart 1
• Iron 2
• Shadow 1
• Wits 3

Just a few more details to add now. She's female but androgenous looking with short cropped hair, not that most people can tell that as she keeps her armour on most of the time. She acts aloof but that's got more to do with a fear of getting close to people in case they get hurt - or she has to hurt them. Rolling on the name generator gives me Yelena Pearson, callsign Spider. She prefers to use the callsign at all times, as her regular name reminds her too much of her past.

And finally, equipment. I don't have to go shopping! Wonderful. Yelena has all the normal weapons and stuff a bounty hunter would carry, and a small toolkit for hoverbike repairs. She needs an item for swearing iron vows upon, and obviously that has to be a poker chip with the name of her parents' casino.

Starting Sector

The book says this part can be skipped for a more freeform galaxy, but I want to engage with this a bit. I'm keeping it simple for now and just creating one settlement on a planet whose details I've made up myself. I'm going for a mix of rolling dice and picking interesting options.

Paxton is a small settlement engaged in agriculture and hunting. It would look like a rustic idyll, were it not for its defenses - the pallisade wall and watchtower are an intimidating sight as you approach the town. The town mayor keeps a firm grip on everything that goes on in town. Paxton is between two larger settlements that are constantly feuding, and is often caught in the crossfire. With that in mind, the defenses make more sense.

Now Spider needs a local connection. Leader is an option for their role, so let's make it the mayor. Vesper Frost is easy to underestimate at first sight, but she rules Paxton with an iron fist and is as ice cold as her name suggests. She's got enough power to make her dangerous.

Finally, a roll on the sector trouble table gives me a raider clan emerging as a dominant threat under a new leader.

Begin The Adventure

And so it's time to choose an inciting incident and set out on a sworn quest. I have something in mind now, based on what I've got so far. Paxton has once again found itself caught in the crossfire, but this time someone's been taken. Vesper has reached out to Spider for help bringing them back. But for this to be worth swearing an iron vow, it needs to be personal. The missing person is Vesper's daughter Kaisa. She's a spacer and hasn't been back to Paxton in years. Spider was the one who persuaded her she should visit her mother.

And with that, I'm ready to begin.

Revelation 2023

It was a bit nerve wracking going back to the Garrison, as the last time I was there, five of us caught covid. Somehow this manifested in an unusually high level of organisation, and I managed to leave early enough on Friday to beat the rush hour and was in the bar shortly after 5pm. Unfortunately, nobody else was. It wasn't until 9.30pm that a few more people arrived and the socialising began.

Normality resumed on Saturday morning though, as even with a few illness-related drop-outs we had a good crowd in the jailhouse ready to play.

Game 1: Kult

Having made these cool handouts for my scenario, A Walk In The Park, I had to run it a few times. I had three players booked, and had modified the scenario to run with three players instead of four, but with the last minute drop-outs I figured I should be ready in case there was someone in need of a game, and printed the fourth character as well. And there was indeed someone in need of a game, so things ran with the normal four players.

This game gets a bit of a tweak each time I run it, which in this case meant I'd added back in some of the characters' disadvantages. This makes a bit more work for me, but things tend to run faster offline than online, so it's doable, and I think it adds a little more depth to the characters. I still might tweak them further, but I'm really happy with how things went.

I also did a bunch of laminating this time. Laminated character sheets worked out well for this, as marking stability and conditions with dry wipe pens made it a lot easier to erase things as they changed. I might need a slightly finer pen for writing in wounds, but otherwise this is working really well and should save me a lot of printing for scenarios I run multiple times.

Game 2: Apocalypse World

I loved the TV show Blood Drive and it's a great fit for Apocalypse World, so I was pretty damn excited about this one.

I've played with the same GM before, and played a Brainer both times, but since we were going for a different setting this time, I decided it was time to branch out a bit. Inspired a little by the character of Grace in the TV show, I picked up the Battlebabe. One of the playbook moves for the Battlebabe is having such great reflexes that you're considered to have 2 armour providing you're naked or nearly naked, so I decided she was dressed in wedding lingerie with a tiara and veil. Continuing that theme, I picked two custom weapons, a massive handgun and a bladed chain, and named them the Best Man and the Maid of Honour.

Then we had to decide if any of us were teaming up in the race and sharing a car. One player, who'd picked up the Brainer, had described his character wearing a leather tuxedo, and that just felt like fate. So Sunset and Scratch in their luxurious Rolls Royce with added spikes, were racing against Mustang the Driver and Barbarossa the Gunlugger in their armoured coupe.

The race route was unveiled, and the GM asked us what was so bad about the town we were going to have to drive through. Cannibals, one of the players said, and thus we created Hungry Bowel Town, where every building looked like a pizza hut, where trenches filled with dips and dressings bordered the roads, and a moat of burning barbecue charcoal surrounded the outside edge.

As expected, we were forced to stop off in Hungry Bowel Town when our engines stopped working. Scratch and Sunset went into a basement, as Scratch was sure the problem was coming from beneath us, while Mustang and Barbarossa went into the town centre where they found a statue of a giant chicken. And suddenly everything started making a horrible sense. This place had been built by a fast food company, and had been called Hungry Fowl Town, until the weirdness from the Scar had made everything go wrong.

Anyway, the statue was actually a mask for a giant chicken man, and once Scratch had killed him with mind powers we were able to leave. The other car had drawn ahead, and tried to stop us. There was a bit of an incident with a grenade launcher, resulting in both Barbarossa and Scratch exploding. Mustang got into the Rolls and entirely failed to convince me to drive away, so I put the Best Man to his head and told him to get out, then drove away and won the race.

Fortunately both Scratch and Barbarossa had recovered from exploding, so I was able to spend my prize money on a wedding dress so we could finally have a proper wedding.

Game 3: Kult

Unfortunately the GM for the Saturday evening game of Kult had to pull out, so I offered a second run of A Walk In The Park. Again I picked up another player from another cancelled game, which was lucky as one of the original players also had to drop, so I ended up with three players for this round.

Another entertaining run, with a different ending to the morning game. There are two general directions the end can take on this one, and it was good to get both of them in one day.

Game 4: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

This was me GMing again. Only my second time running this game (with the first being the practice run for this scenario), but I was pretty excited to see how it was going to go. It feels strange going into a session without much in the way of pre-written material, but it really works for this one.

My pitch was Robyn Hood and her Merry Maids, and I'd picked six suitable playbooks for feminised versions of the most popular characters from various versions of Robin Hood. With four players, this meant plenty of choice even for whoever picked last, plus two characters who could be NPCs for the game.

By way of plot I had six situations for the players to choose from, and they ultimately combined two. Robyn Hood and Alanna Dale had been captured and were imprisoned in Nottingham Castle, where there was also a high society wedding happening. They went in to do a rescue mission, but decided that they had to do something about the wedding as well.

By the end of the session, the Merry Maids had got away with both the brides from the wedding, two guardswomen, a lot of jewellery and a dog. Highlights included Briar Tuck managing to marry two people simultaneously, then swing on a chandelier through a stained glass window and landing on a horse outside, Jill Scarlet sliding down a curtain using a knife to slow her fall and using the remains to make a new dress for Lady Marian, Dutch the Miller's Daughter taking out half the castle by smashing a lantern to set the dungeon on fire and sending flaming rats in all directions, and Little Joan managing to so thoroughly humiliate the Sherriff of Nottingham that he was forced to let them all escape.

I could use a little more practice running this system, as I'm still getting used to the GM moves, but overall this was exactly the kind of swashbuckling romance I was hoping for. I hope to offer this one again at future conventions.

Game 5: Apocalypse World

This was supposed to be A|State, but we'd lost enough players by then that it wasn't really viable. Fortunately the GM for an Apocalypse World game based on Metro 2033 had brought enough playbooks to take on an extra player so I joined that instead.

I picked up the Gunlugger this time, as I was getting a bit tired and figured that would be reasonably uncomplicated. That turned out to be a good choice. I inadventently caused early chaos by shooting someone I really shouldn't have, but later managed to punch another character back to life after an encounter with a supernatural smoke cloud.

The playbooks we were using for this were the ones from 1st edition, which had significantly more complicated rules for determining Hx with the other PCs. After some confusion, particularly for people like me who've only ever seen the 2nd edition playbooks before, we abandoned that and used the 2nd edition version to sort out the numbers. While a lot for my tired brain to deal with at the time, it was very interesting to see how the game had evolved between versions.

Reflections

Covid has done a number on my stamina. Normally five games in two days would be no trouble at all and I'd still be full of keen by the end of game 5. This time not so much. I had enough energy left for the two hour drive home, thankfully, but after that I was completely wiped out. Fortunately I find running games to be energising, so I should do OK at Seven Hills where my games are currently scheduled for the final slot of each day, and Concrete Cow where I'm planning to GM in the evening slot. But the prospect of having to pace myself at conventions is not an encouraging one. I have to hope this is only temporary.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 9: The Vampire Mansion

Round the back of Carolina's mansion, Damian smoothly opened one lock and broke his picks on the second. Topher squeezed it until it opened. Beyond the door was an ornamental garden full of statues, which I didn't trust at all, not least because I could feel a magical energy coming from the garden. Damian threw a stick into the garden, one of the statues moved, and the stick exploded.

There had to be some way to either get across safely or turn it off. I used the Blackberry to ask Damian to throw a stick higher up. It did have a height range, so no barrier to me, and Topher seemed pretty sure he could run fast enough to dodge it, but that was no use to Fiona and Damian. I flew up higher to see if I could see a pattern in the garden's layout. I couldn't, but I did spot the marble control pillar on the roof. Of course, that's what the romantically entangled vampires were guarding.

Taking them both on by myself would likely have gone badly. Instead I caused a distraction, flying between them as they were about to kiss, so they were too busy worrying about almost getting a mouthful of feathers to notice Topher sprinting across the garden and climbing a drainpipe. He smashed their heads together, and while they were stunned, Topher stabbed one while I drove my silvered claws into the other's scalp. His flesh melted like butter under my claws, and then both of them turned to dust.

I stole their designer jeans, and rejoined the others. Topher smashed the pillar, and the hum faded. I gave the others the heads up, and once Damian had tested with another thrown stick, in we went.

Fiona disabled the alarm and soon we were in the kitchen. Everything here looked ancient, like nothing had been updated since the 80s, including the spice rack full of dusty jars of expired herbs. Appalling. The only exception was the jar of garlic powder, which was large, new, and had a fill line on it. Used for pranking other vampires, no doubt.

Fiona gave us a run down on vampire societal structure. Given the number of cars outside there could be as many as seven vampire lords here, and at least twelve fledgelings, probably a lot more. At least the mid level vamps would be asleep. There were also human guards to worry about, although Topher had hit up some horse owning acquaintance to get tranquilisers to deal with them.

We made our way quietly past a mostly empty larder and up the stairs into a ridiculously opulent dining room, fitted out like we were in the palace of Versailles. On the table were the remains of a meal. They'd actually turned blood into haute cuisine. I could see the remains of jellies and foams and actual flecks of gold leaf. Disgusting. I was almost impressed. Almost.

The next room was the kitchen full of the molecular gastronomy stuff needed to make a meal like that, where Damian thought we would find the secret entrance we were looking for. Topher went in first, disturbing a naked young woman who sounded an alarm, waking up two guards with machine guns, and grabbed a kitchen knife. So that could have gone better.

Topher knocked out one guard. I tried to disarm the other, but missed, and took a spray of bullets for my trouble which almost drove me into the path of the naked woman's knife. Fiona had her own problems with a fledgeling showing up to try to strangle her. She dealt with it, but at the cost of a cracked wheelchair axle.

Once Topher had finished throwing people out of the window, we got the alarm switched off, but a call came through a radio asking what was going on. Fiona dealt with it. I was still trying to deal with the amount of pain I was in after that fight. Or rather, deal with the fact that the pain was fading faster than it should have done. I had a cautious stretch, and I could feel things already starting to knit back together.

The pain was fading, but still present, so Fiona spent some time patching us both up. We still had to find the secret entrance. Fiona and Damian found the trapdoor under a kitchen island. I found the tile that opened it, and hopped up and down on it until I could get someone to come and step on it. The entrance opened, and a stench of gore rose up from the staircase. Everything was quiet.

The room at the bottom was a mess. Dead bodies everywhere. So much gore. It wasn't so much the innards that bothered me, especially in falcon shape. It was what was left of the outsides. What there wasn't, as Damian pointed out, was any vampires.

Topher opened one of the side doors. There was a man in there, old but fit looking, and asleep. Possibly the head of security. Definitely the kind of person who'd be trouble if he woke up. Topher went in to deliver a sedative but I guess horse tranquilisers are kind of bad for using on humans as he didn't react well, and then another fledgeling dropped from the ceiling. I dealt with the vampire with the increasingly familiar talons to the face approach, while Fiona made sure the man didn't die. I was worried for a moment. These people aren't monsters, just humans who made bad choices, and I know all about that.

While we were dealing with that, Damian had spotted that some of the bodies on the floor looked a bit more intact than most. I went in to investigate. Vampires aren't the easiest thing to identify through the Sight, especially when in their case it's more of a smell and I was already overwhelmed with the smell of death in there, but I did find eleven of them. Topher sprinted around the room applying silver zip ties. They started to scream, and we had to stop ignoring the pair of big double doors at the end of the room.

I didn't even bother counting the number of vampires in there. Too many. The one that mattered was Carolina, sitting on a white marble throne with two vampires sitting at her feet chained to the throne. The other thing that mattered was Celia, covered in lacerations and lying on a dais in the middle of the room. Grabbing her and running was out of the question. We wouldn't even make it to the dais. And we'd just walked into a nest of vampire lords. None of us were getting out of this alive.

Except Carolina hadn't actually called for our deaths. She was in full villain monologue mode, making a big show for the other lords about how they were going to take over the city now they controlled the Sibyl. And I realised that was what it was. A show. Because incredible as it seemed, she was actually scared of us. Killing us would have implications. I might not have wanted the job of Seneschal of the Steamwheel Court, but it wouldn't be good for vampire/fae relations to take me out. Killing Topher might well antagonise his father, and I have a feeling Fiona would make a very nasty ghost.

Anyway, I couldn't say any of that while in bird form, so I hopped over to the Blackberry and entered 🧛🐔👆 a couple of times and hoped the others got the message. Fiona did, and started taunting her, until we ended up with an agreement. We would fight, her against all of us.

It was a tough fight. She was fast and deadly, but we had the right gear. We took her down, and Topher threw her at the feet of one of the oldest looking vampire lords who looked like she'd been around since Viking times. That one demanded that we kill Carolina in exchange for our freedom. Topher looked hesitant. I would have done it, but Fiona had already fired her crossbow.

We got a bit more than anticipated. There was another young woman they'd picked up along with Celia, and both of them were handed over. I didn't recognise her, but Topher obviously did. He picked them both up and we got out of there.

It was a scary drive to A&E and I found myself wishing I'd not shifted back to human for the drive, but I was far too tired for another shift by then. We took both women in. Celia was in a bad way, and the other woman didn't look much better. I sat down with Topher in the waiting room. He looked even more stressed than I was, which wasn't easy. There was some reassurance to having him there though, and I hoped he felt the same. Fiona was no help, off calling wheelchair repair companies.

Finally the doctor came out. Both of them had lost a lot of blood. Celia was still unconscious. But Genevieve Blogg-Herald was awake and wanted to see her brother. That explained a few things, while raising a lot more questions, like what she'd been doing in the car with Celia in the first place. But there was nothing else I could do at the hospital and I was exhausted. Fiona had called for a wheelchair taxi, so together we went back to the pub.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 8: On Celia's Trail

I did my best to reassure Damian, who was probably supposed to still be in the hospital, and told him to come to the pub. There was a knock on the door almost immediately. Topher let him in and got him a beer. I made him a sandwich. I've got a lot of butter to use up.

Damian told us when he last saw Celia, which was pretty obviously right before she came to see us. Her phone seemed to be off, which hopefully meant she'd followed the advice we gave her. With her presence at the warehouse being the last lead we had on her, Topher volunteered to go with Damian to help search. Fiona was staying home with her giant pile of books. I felt like I should be helping her with them. Then I thought about how I already had an appointment to read a load of old books with Amelia in the morning. Fiona, bless her, told me that the books were in old Slavic or something so I wouldn't be able to read them anyway, and suggested what I really needed was to get out on the wing for bit.

Vanessa is easy enough to spot from the air. I followed the car, but I was also noticing things I'd never noticed before. Signs of the Steamwheel court's presence across the city. Doubtless something to do with my new job. Bloody Firs.

Vanessa came to a stop at the side of a dual carriageway, and Damian immediately legged it across to the other side where there was a crashed car, lying on its side with all the windows smashed. I circled lower for a better look. Damian was having an argument with the police officer guarding the scene. Not getting very far since he's a hotheaded young idiot, but he was providing a distraction. I took the opportunity to get a closer look at the car.

The entire side was buckled. My first thought was that it had been hit by another car, but looking closer, that didn't feel right. Whatever hit it had been smaller and sharper than the side of a car. I stooped, going in through one of the side windows that now faced the sky, and had a poke around while Topher attempted to defuse the argument. The car smelt of loamy soil and decomposition. I'd smelt that before, on a vampire. I spotted an iron nail caught in one of the seat wells. The kind of thing you might carry as a protection charm, and this one smelt of Celia's perfume. As I retrieved it, I spotted something else. Red nail varnish. No, red lacquer. There was only one way that would get left behind. Someone had been in here wearing Louboutins.

Topher had calmed things down and had a friendly chat with the officer. Time to get out of there. I launched myself back into the air, iron nail in my claws, inadvertantly terrifying the officer on the way out, but at least the mundane police don't get funny about unusual looking birds in their crime scenes.

Back at the pub, Fiona seemed to be having some kind of ghost party. I tried to ignore it and went upstairs to get dressed. By the time I got back down, things seemed to be relatively normal so I shared what I'd discovered. The nail, the smell, and the lacquer. It all added up to one thing. Celia being abducted by Caroline Fortunato, mayor's aide and very powerful vampire. I thought we might have to restrain Damian from going after her straight away, but even he was smart enough to realise what a stupid idea that would be. Fortunately he didn't seem to realise the implications.

Fiona shared some of what she'd got out of her book pile. It all seemed to come down to one thing. A primordial fae, imprisoned somehow underneath Bristol. Straight away that reminded me of what the boggarts had said about the sandman.

Damian's phone beeped. Someone called Anton, telling him to lose his number. It sounded like Damian had managed to annoy quite a lot of people in his search for Celia.

We had to get her back. Not just because she's a friend and it's the right thing to do, but also because we all suspected by then that she was going to end up being the new Avonian Sibyl. The old Sibyl had maintained a fragile peace, which was already breaking down without them, and if their replacement ended up getting turned into a vampire, the consequences could be dire.

We needed weapons. None of us were exactly equipped for fighting vampires, and we were going to need silver. Fiona knew a shop in the market that sold silver and esoteric knick-knacks, which seemed like a good place to start. He couldn't help us, but he did know a weapon maker, and told us how to find him and how to respond to his tests, in exchange for Gus's phone number. At least I think that's what happened. I was distracted by his pet raven who was a complete arsehole and said a lot of uncalled-for things. I told him I hoped he got hit by a truck.

We found the weapon maker at the given address. An absolutely huge man, in a place that didn't seem to entirely confirm to the rules of geometry. He asked us to say his name. Fiona and me said it in unison. Wayland.

There were some shenanigans involving a hammer and anvil, which we recognised as the test the silversmith had mentioned, and once we'd convinced him that we could handle weapons responsibily, he gave us a shotgun, a crossbow, and a magic ring which he assured me would give my falcon talons a bit of an upgrade.

Damian had done his part while we were out, getting hold of floor plans for Carolina's house. We thought about heading out straight away, but realised that Celia still had time, and our chances of success were a lot better if we were well rested. I made us some dinner. Chicken kievs and garlic mash. Not all vampires have the garlic aversion, but I made damn sure that any who did would not be coming anywhere near us.

We drove to the house shortly before dawn. I went for a scout around in bird form, then reported back by typing into a phone. After I broke a couple of regular smartphones this way, we got a Blackberry with hard keys, and I told them that the top floor was basically deserted, and that there was hardly anything to see on the lower floors, meaning that most of them were going to be in the basement. Five flash looking cars parked around the back meant that Carolina had friends visiting, so we could expect some resistance. Oh, and there was one sentry on the roof, although he was a bit busy. I switched to emojis for that part. 🧛🪑🍆 I hope I made things clear.

ConTingency 2023

I didn't actually plan on going to ConTingency. Having a lot of stuff on the calendar and still being a bit wary about covid, I decided I'd skip this one. And then the real life Call of Cthulhu character and all round bad influence, CJ Romer, told me he had a spare bedroom in his lodge and would I like it?

And I'd had a bit of a rubbish time with Autumn conventions, having to miss two entirely and scale back my participation in two others, and I'd got this brand new winter themed adventure all ready to run...

Prior commitments meant I couldn't be there for the first couple of days, but I was able to book some time off and arrived in Hunstanton at lunchtime on Friday. I had just enough time to get my stuff into the cabin before CJ dragged me off to play a game.

Game 1: The Yellow King

The Yellow King is, as the name suggests, based on the works of Robert Chambers. We were playing in the default setting of Belle Époque Paris. As the last player to arrive I picked up the last available character, a poetess called Anna. We were a group of art students, and as one player rapidly pointed out, we were basically early Eurotrash. We rapidly settled into drunken debauchery, briefly interrupted by actually going to an art class, bur really that just pointed us towards more debauchery as we began digging into a mystery regarding a new dance craze from Argentina known as the Tango.

This game uses the Gumshoe system, but a variant version of it that seemed less focussed on spending points and more on making creative use of your special abilities. I'm really not a fan of Gumshoe as a system, but this variant I found rather better and reasonably well suited to this bizarre game. I might even consider playing it with someone other than CJ.

Around this point I realised that I'd completely forgotten to have lunch, so decided to treat myself to a meal in the venue's restaurant, and also managed to track down Lloyd for a chat. There we were joined by some of Lloyd's friends, whose names I entirely failed to remember. And then it was time for another game.

Game 2: Casting The Runes

Casting The Runes is another goddam Gumshoe game, and not a better variant version either. But I love the ghost stories of M. R. James enough to put up with Gumshoe for a bit. Plus it was CJ running it, who loves those stories just as much as I do.

We were the members of a psychical research society based in Bury St Edmunds, which one of the group quickly named Bury The Dead, a name that stuck around longer than I expected. We went to investigate a haunted pub, but an encounter on the way there soon put us on the road to a much bigger mystery.

If you do like Gumshoe, I thoroughly recommend this game. Both the core game and the adventures are written by people with a real passion for Jamesian ghost stories and it shines through. It's just not for me. And talking of which...

Game 3: Cthulhu Dark

I'm firmly of the opinion that Cthulhu Dark is the right system to run Jamesian ghost stories with. All it needs is to change the name of the game's single stat to Fear.

In December, in a burst of post-covid creativity, I opened up a bunch of old files I hadn't looked at for a while, and found a half-written adventure about a haunting at Christmas. I'd started writing it when Casting The Runes first arrived, but rapidly stalled as I realise Gumshoe and me weren't getting along. Finding it again, I decided to give it a try with Cthulhu Dark instead, and this time everything worked perfectly. My online playtests were great, with good feedback from the players, so I decided to bring it to ConTingency.

Cthulhu Dark is a game that lends itself to on-the-spot character creation. I provided a little initial guidance: the three characters for this scenario are an academic, a doctor and a reverend. Beyond that it was up to the players to fill in the details. For tracking their fear levels we used my box of multicoloured skulls. The three players thoroughly embraced the setting, giving me three delightful characters to work with as they uncovered the mystery taking place at Alderley House.

Then it was time for a trip to Tesco to make sure that I did actually have lunch.

Game 4: Black Code

I'm always up for new cyberpunk and I first played Black Code with its author at ConDensed 2021, so I was pretty excited to find a space in a game. I picked up Aedon, the same character I played last time, a bioframe with a pair of scorpion stingers that she could use for both combat and healing. We picked up a rather complicated job that involved acquiring some additional data in the process of investigation a different data theft. Which might not sound exciting on the surface, but which involved dealing with some big name rappers, not to mention a few terrorists along the way.

Whitt does an incredible job of bringing the setting he's created to life, and there were plentiful moments of comedy mixed in with the darkness of cyberpunk. I really need to get on and actually run this game myself some time, especially since it sounds like there might be a campaign coming.

Game 5: Kult: Divinity Lost

The Kult game was full when I went to sign up, so I put myself down for something else, but half an hour before the game was due to start I had a look at the sheets and saw someone had dropped out. With more people signed up on the reserve list for the other game, I removed myself from that and added myself to Kult.

First challenge: find the game, since it was in a lodge rather than the main rooms. I went via reception to get a map, plus some not entirely helpful directions that I should probably have ignored. After an extremely cold walk in the dark, I found the lodge, right behind the other players who'd had a similiarly difficult time finding it.

Then we all settled in for a game that turned out to be the highlight of the con for me. I don't often play Kult, as I'm usually the one running it, so that was exciting right away. And then the scenario turned out to be full of twists and turns as everybody's secrets gradually came spilling out. It was really everything I could have hoped for, and motivation to keep on upping my game when it comes to Kult GMing.

Game 6: Cthulhu Dark

I knew CJ wanted to play my game, and the Saturday morning game had filled up before he got to the sign up sheet. But I had another sheet with me, and since it doesn't need character sheets it was no issue to run it a second time. A slightly more comedic take this time, partly due to the reverend managing to gain a point of fear even before getting to the bit of the adventure where I start turning up the fear.

I was pretty tired by this time so decided to skip the afternoon session in favour of a shower and a nap. But first came the raffle, in which CJ unexpectedly won a Boba Fett helmet. He'd been talking about getting a present for me to take home for my husband, and I don't think there's anything in that raffle he would have liked more.

Game 7: Casting the Runes

And finally, another game with CJ, with the same character I'd played in the earlier adventure. A trip to Borley Rectory, a notoriously haunted building, tied into one of M. R. James' classic stories. A delightful way to finish the convention.

Reflections

I'm extremely glad I went. It's a lovely convention and I very much hope to attend the whole thing next year. And that's all there is to day really.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 7: Going Underground

 I decided to keep concentrating on the one thing I could fix: the state of my kitchen. Not only was everything in the wrong place, but there were also several pounds of butter in the freezer that I definitely didn't order because it wasn't the usual brand. I may not be a diviner but I can see a lot of roux in my future.

Things were pretty much back to normal when I heard a knock at the door. It was Klaus, wearing the standard famous person hat and sunglasses disguise. He had a favour to ask Fiona. Apparently the Order of St Bede have a secret Templar archive hidden under St Mary Redcliffe, possible inside a ghost realm, and he wanted us to recover it. He also wanted to know if there was anywhere in Bristol he could get an authentic goulash. Fiona had a few suggestions. I said I'd give it a shot if he had a recipe.

The fact Klaus was asking us for help rather than just sending in his own people suggested something was up, but Fiona was already practically salivating at the prospect of a Templar archive. She was going to need help. It was going to have to be Topher's help though. I really needed to see Amelia, and after showing Fiona the note, she understood why I had to go. That and she was talking about catacombs, and I'm sure she realised that the mere idea of heading into the caves behind the pub was making me start to freak out.

I sent an entirely innocuous text to Amelia, saying that it was nice to see her the other night and it would be good to meet up again. As soon as I got a positive response I shoved that stupid Merlin signet ring in my pocket and took the bus to the observatory.

I wasn't sure where to go when I got there, but that's when fucking Percy showed up. The last person I wanted to see, but it was inevitable really. He invited me to take a short walk, and while I struggled with some conflicting emotions, he told me that I didn't need the sunglasses. He knew everything, and was genuinely impressed that I taught myself shapeshifting. And it was just gratifying enought to hear one of those smug Council bastards acknowledge that I don't need their lessons that I decided I could put up with him for a little while. For Amelia's sake.

He suggested I put on the signet ring at that point. I asked him why, and I think the disgust was obvious on my face. He didn't answer. He'd got me to let my guard down for a moment, but no, same old fucking Percy as ever.

We walked down to the Coronation Tap. There was some Council minion loitering outside, who might almost have got away with it if he hadn't teamed up his hoodie with a pair of Armani shoes. Even Percy called him out on that, while I just laughed at him. Inside the pub, the barman was practically tugging his forelock at the sight of Percy. I don't think you could pay Fiona enough to make her behave like that.

I wasn't particularly surprised to find myself faced with a hole in the floor much like the one under the Cornubia. Trouble was, this time the hole was a lot tighter, and I didn't have the reassuring presence of Topher and Fiona with me. Just Percy, asking if I was the one who had trouble with this sort of thing. I managed some kind of retort but my heart wasn't in it. I just had to steel myself for it, and stay calm. For Amelia.

Percy went down first. I followed. About halfway down the smell of the place hit me. Bitter ash, worse than I'd ever smelt it before, with undertones of sulphur and vomit. I clung white knuckled to the rope, shut my eyes, and held my breath. I had to do this. For Amelia.

It was crowded down there, but I could see Amelia amongst them, plus some extremely aristocratic woman that I didn't recognise, but who seemed to be important. The vault was full of detailed carvings, but not like the ones under the Cornubia. These ones seemed warped and unsettling. Percy asked if I'd ever seen anything as beautiful, and I automatically responded that I'd seen better. He asked me what I saw. Just like being back in class.

Four figures stood at the cardinal points. A king with antlers and a spear. Facing him, a large shadowy figure of a cyclops. A woman, also wearing antlers, holding a lyre. And a woman in black feathers, covered in gore, with black eyes. I could name them. An-daghai. Balor. Boann. Morrigan. He wanted me to identify the battle depicted in the carvings. I didn't know, so he told me. The battle of the hill. Or possibly the battle in heaven.

Something weird happened then. The posh woman started yelling at some guy, and two others approached him, and for a moment I thought he was going to get a beating. And then they backed off.

I asked Percy why I was there, as clearly it wasn't just for a mythology test. He said he wanted Amelia and me to do some research into the Formori and Tuatha. He also showed me a black sphere in the middle and asked me what I thought. Having seen something quite similar pulled out of the Cornubia vault by Fiona, I had no intention of telling him what I thought, and asked him what he thought it was. A ward. A big one, that was going to make him famous, and he wanted me to investigate it for him.

Yeah, I know that one. Student does the work, professor gets the credit. Except I'm not his student any more. I kept that thought to myself, and he asked Amelia to show me out.

There was an Indian girl outside, who I'd seen before at the pub. She still had the slightly wonky eyes people sometimes get after a run-in with Firs, but now there was something different. She looked cruel. Amelia grabbed me and pulled me into the toilets. She'd seen that look before. It was something that happened to everyone after being down in the vault for a while. I remembered the other vault, and all the people slowing freezing in there. Rather the opposite here. And they stopped being able to smell that awful stench after a while as well.

There was no way I wanted either of us spending any more time down there. We needed an excuse to be elsewhere, and the research we'd been asked to do seemed like a good one. There were no books down there. Amelia suggested using the Merlinian archives. She was surprised I'd actually shown up though. I was confused. She'd sent a note. Of course I showed up. She hugged me then, and as I hugged her back, I realised she might not understand that it was Dee College and the Council I left. Not her. But it wasn't the time for that conversation. We arranged to meet up again in the morning.

Next on the list was dealing with the deluge of texts and missed calls on my phone. It would be nice to see the boggarts again. I took the bus to Troopers Hill, stopping off for more bread and honey. There was a large sign up in the shop about shoplifters and a very angry looking guy behind the counter. So they were definitely still in the area.

I found their fairy ring under a gorse bush, made my standard speech offering bread and honey in exchange for safe passage both in and out, and was treated to a brief fight between the three of them over who was going to invite me in. Inside the place looked like a goddam palace. They were all sitting on fancy chairs drinking from china teacups. They offered me tea, which I of course declined.

They told me how happy they were that I'd volunteered to be the new seneschal. I had to tell them that I didn't volunteer, which made them so unhappy that one started crying, so I gave him a hug while I asked about the job I'd been dumped into. It seemed it was like being a fae noble, in that you were responsible for helping and protecting members of the court, but the Steamwheel court didn't have any nobles, so you didn't get any of the benefits of fae nobility. The previous seneschal was a bit of a bastard, they told me. I asked who it was, and they didn't want to say, although honestly at this point I didn't need to ask. I suggested they draw him instead, and they drew me a picture of Firs. I agreed that he was a bastard. How did he manage to stick me with this job without me agreeing to it? Apparently giving him my phone number, and him carving it into his arm, was enough.

I took a few moments to think about all the things I would like to do to Firs.

One of the boggarts was acting a bit strange, being more aggressive than usual in wanting to be the one to show me around their home, so I nudged another and asked what was up. He insisted his brother was fine, but then escorted me back out of their realm and explained that he'd been affected by the Sandman who sleeps under the city. He was the one who'd been making their old burrow hot, and now the other two boggarts were afraid he was doing something to their brother. I made some non-committal expressions as you don't go promising things to the fae lightly, but I really did want to help. One of them actually gave back the purse he'd stolen without me having to ask for it. Something was really wrong.

I checked my phone again, and I now had multiple voicemails from Denis the troll, and given how much he seemed to want to eat people, I had to check that one out. I got the bus back into town, running through everything I knew about trolls on the way there, and paid him a visit under his bridge. He didn't seem to be engaging in the traditional troll role of maintaining the bridge in exchange for tribute, since the city council were handling that, but it seemed best not to mention that.

Denis was understandably upset that people were throwing things into the river, and showed me some assorted rubbish. He also mentioned liquids, and I'm very grateful that he couldn't fish them out of the river again. His proposed solution was to eat someone so that people would be scared and not do it again. I know humans well enough to know that as well as being an unacceptable solution, this wouldn't actually stop people throwing things in the river. We came up with a solution though. When people threw things in, he should return them to them. This was only right and proper. I shook his enormous hand and went back to the pub.

The trip into the caves had clearly been a success, as Fiona had a huge stack of books with her, but both of them smelt of grave dirt. They'd obviously had a bit of an adventure. But before they could properly fill me in on all of that, there came another phone call. This time it was Damien. Celia was missing.