IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 13D: A TIME OF TRAGIC REST

December 16th, 2007
The 1st Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Dominic had watched the duel between Itarek and Morbion through a haze of dull pain and desperation. It was taking all the strength he could muster merely to keep Itarek on his feet, and he couldn’t understand why Morbion didn’t simply strike him down and ensure his victory.

When it was finally over and Itarek turned to weep over his comrades, Dominic turned to his own comrades and began the rites to heal their broken bodies.

When it was done, all of them – Dominic, Agnarr, Ranthir, Tee, Tor, and Elestra – were amazed to find themselves still alive. It had seemed to all of them that the catastrophe at the door would be their final folly.

But although they were alive, they were far from well. Their bodies were battered, bruised, and burned. Wounds still oozed fresh blood through crude bandages. Dominic had expended nearly all of their healing resources, and there were still the goblins to be healed.

An argument broke out at this. Elestra simply dismissed the goblins as a concern – they had decided that other grievously injured goblins were beyond the point that they could or should be saved, and these were no different. Tee agreed with her – without healing magic they might find it difficult or impossible to escape back to the safety of the clan caverns.

But Agnarr was adamant: If they had the ability to save the goblins, then the goblins must be saved. “Without them we would be dead.” He pointed to Itarek. “Without him we would all be dead.” Read more »

Trail of Cthulhu contains some rudimentary guidelines for the use of explosives. They can be found on my system cheat cheet, but I’ll briefly summarize them here for easy reference.

SETTING EXPLOSIVE DEVICES: Requires an Explosives test. A Sense Trouble test (difficulty 4 or the result of the Explosives test) can be made to dive out of the way our pull comrade to Close range.

THROWN EXPLOSIVE: Make an Athletics test (difficulty 2 for point blank range, 3 for close range, or 5 for near). If aiming for for a very specific spot the difficultyies are 3 for point-blank, 4 for close, or 7 for near. If the explosive is not balanced for throwing, add +1 difficulty.

OTHER EXPLOSIVES: Artillery/mortars use a Mechanical Repair test. Rifle-Grenade uses a Firearms test.

TRANSPORTING EXPLOSIVES

These basic guidelines are quite useful. However, at the, let’s say, “prompting” of my players, I’ve found the not-so-occasional need to figure out what might be involved in the transportation and use of truly prodigious amounts of explosives. In the case of globetrotting campaigns like Eternal Lies or Masks of Nyarlathotep, this has often included hauling explosives on lengthy wilderness expeditions. (You’ll probably have similar experiences with the scenarios in Pelgrane’s Mythos Expeditions, although I don’t own that book personally yet.)

DEDICATED PORTER: An additional porter is required per 1 large gun or 1-3 charges of dynamite.

CARRIED BY INVESTIGATOR: If explosives are carried by an Investigator, they will suffer damage per day and an increased difficulty to physical tasks (as shown on the table below). A maximum of 6 charges can be carried by a single Investigator.

URBAN AREAS: Transporting large amounts of explosives through metropolitan regions usually requires a Stealth test (or similar precautions). The difficulty of this test is increased based on the number of charges (as indicated on the table below).

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 13C: THE TALE OF ITAREK

December 16th, 2007
The 1st Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The fire bathed him and cleansed him and brought the cairn-dark to his eyes. The bane-doom of his clan had come to rest upon his shoulders, too. The memories of the caves passed before him, and he traveled the Long Hall to the Mysteries of the Plain.

But as he journeyed down the Long Hall, he saw before him two figures. And one had the form of a man with golden skin. And the other was that of a great snake with silver scales and gossamer wings.

And the figures spoke to him thus, with voices of conjoined chorus: “Turn back, Itarek Clan-Warrior. This hall is no place for the quick.”

And Itarek answered thus: “But my place is upon the Green Fields of our Lost Fathers, for I am dead, my liege-lords.” And he fell to his knees and bowed his head, for they seemed to him now to be great chieftains.

At this the golden-skinned warrior laughed and the silver snake spoke again, this time its voice seeming no more than a whisper: “How can you be dead, Itarek Clan-Warrior? For you yet breathe.”

And at the words breath burst in Itarek’s chest and the blood beat through his veins. The figures seemed to step behind a veil, the Long Hall faded into shadow, and he opened his eyes once more upon the heart of the bane-doom.

The heroes of the world above had fallen. Their broken bodies lay scattered upon the floor. Only the Holy Man of the Forgotten Gods remained, and Itarek understood now that the strength had been restored to his limbs and the breath to his body only through the divine grace that flowed through the faith of this man. And Itarek felt that faith being born in his own blood. He felt it beating through his own heart.

Now, beyond the Holy Man he saw the bane-bearer Morbion and, at his side, a demon of corrupted flesh. He saw, too, that the Holy Man wavered upon the bloody brink of death. His fingers tightened upon his sword. His legs beat down upon the floor and he rose.

Itarek stepped forward and lowered his sword. “Morbion!” he cried. “I name you Kinslayer and Clanbane. I utter clan-curse upon you. And in the name of those you have killed and those you have corrupted, I give you the challenge of the clan.”

“Do you think me still bound by your mortal law?” Morbion said, and his voice was cold ash. With a flick of his wrist, the bane-bearer sent his demon forward – a mavering maw of muscular death.

Itarek thrust forth his sword, and impaled the demon upon it. “Bane you may be,” he said. “But in your chest still beats a goblin heart.”

And he wrenched free his blade. The demon fell dead at his feet, and in the eyes of Morbion the flickering flame of anger was kindled. Itarek saw it. He knew it. And it gave him hope, for now his vain words rang true in his own ears: Strange and blighted Morbion may have become, but he was not beyond the ken of blade or the bite of steel.

Morbion came forth and the tentacles of his corruption beat upon Itarek. But Itarek did not fear them. Behind him, the Holy Man remained upon his knees and Itarek could hear the murmur of his prayer and could feel the golden strength of it flowing into his limbs. It knit his wounds and soothed his pain.

“Bane you may be, but in your chest still beats a goblin heart!” he cried again. He raised his sword and brought it low. And at its passing, one of the corrupt tendrils fell free and flew from the back of Morbion.

Morbion cried in rage: “I have forsaken your ways!”

And Itarek answered with sword and word: “Forsworn you may be, but oaths there are that must be kept!”

And another tendril fell. And Itarek saw that, like his sword, his words had found their mark – for Morbion paid no mind to the priest or his prayers, and all his hate was bent upon Itarek alone.

And for this Itarek was glad, for he was sure that without the prayers of the priest he would be lost. Fast with blade he might be, but no speed could match the terrible might of Morbion.

Even then, as if to mock his thought, Morbion bore down upon him and drove him to the floor. His twin tendrils closed about Itarek’s throat and he laughed, “Did you think to stop me? Know that the Galchutt shall awaken! Know that all hope is lost!”

Through the red blackness that blurred his vision, Itarek looked up with bloodshot eyes. Through bruised and bloodied lips, he smiled. Through choked voice, he laid his sooth: “In darkness you may be lost, but the fires of our clan will light your way.”

And the prayers of the Holy Man beat upon him and spurred him. In that prayer he found his strength.

And now Morbion fell back before him and the anger in his eyes turned to fear.

“In the fires of our clan, your limbs shall burn, your blood shall boil, and your soul shall die!” And Itarek thrust his blade deep into the chest of Morbion.

The Bane-Bearer and Kinslayer and Clanbane fell. And his final breath was a warning and a curse: “The chaos comes. There is no hope…”

And Itarek turned his eyes from him and looked upon his fallen comrades and he wept.

NEXT CAMPAIGN JOURNAL

So you’re a GM who wants to run a new gaming system. Maybe you’re a little intimidated because it’s more complex than anything you’ve run before. Maybe it’s your first time prepping to run a game you haven’t previously played. Maybe it’s just something new.

In any case, you want the process to go smoothly. And you want to make as few mistakes as possible. (Although Step #0 is really accepting that mistakes will happen, and that’s okay. That’s part of the process.)

Step #1: Read the Rulebook. Cover to cover. I’m afraid there’s no cheating around this and no shortcuts. If you’re lucky, the RPG you’ve chosen will have a well-organized rulebook, but the process of mentally “touching” every page of the book will not only prevent you from missing a rule entirely, it will also begin constructing a mental map of the rulebook which will allow you to look up information inside it more quickly.

Step #2: Cheat Sheets. Make a cheat sheet. It’s real easy to fake mastery of a rule system when you have it all laid out six inches in front of your face. The act of creating a cheat sheet also enhances your own learning process: It involves “touching” every part of the system a second time, and also requires you to mentally engage with that system and really understand what makes it tick. (A lot of RPGs are also terrible when it comes to technical writing, and the act of boiling a messy text down into a clear cheat sheet will also result in you pre-resolving difficult cruxes that would otherwise booby trap you during play.) The cheat sheet will also often suss out those weird rules that RPG manuals leave lying about in dank corners.

Step #3: Run a One-Shot. If I’m interested in running a long-term campaign in a given system, I’ll virtually never start by jumping directly into that campaign. I’ll run a one-shot (usually with pregens). It allows both me and the players to work out the kinks, and the players gain a lot of valuable context when it comes time for creating their long-term characters.

Step #4: Co-Opt Player Expertise. Do so in every way you can. That includes, “Bob, can you look up the rule for pugilating people?” It also includes defaulting to, “Anybody know the rules for pugilating people?” (instead of defaulting to looking it up yourself). There’s sneakier stuff, too, like, “I can’t figure out how to beat the PCs when they use ability X. So I’m going to design a bunch of bad guys who use ability X, and I’ll see how the players deal with it.”

Step #5: Rules Highlight Sessions. This is something I originally discussed in Random GM Tips: Running the Combat, but for any game with a lot of specialized sub-systems, I’ll very specifically design sessions which highlight a particular sub-system so that we can, as a group, get a lot of focused repetition using it. Often groups struggle with these sub-systems because they only come up once every four or five sessions, which means every time they come up you’ve forgotten the last time you muddle through them and you end up muddling through them again. Having problems with grappling? A whole scenario based around grasping gorillas and their pet pythons will usually lock those rules in for the group. You’ll have increased expertise across the entire group.

Step #6: Set a Reference Time Limit. If you find yourself getting frequently bogged down in the new rules, set a time limit. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for in 30 seconds (or 60 seconds or whatever feels right to you), make an arbitrary ruling and move on. Be open and clear about what you’re doing with the players, and make a note to review those rules after the session. Then, before the next session, review the correct rules with the group.

Step #7: Identify Your Hierarchy of Reference. This is something I originally discussed in the Art of the Key, but you should try to prep your scenario notes so that everything you personally need is on the page. (This can tie in well with #5.) Where the system cheat sheet gives you the core rules at your fingertips, this technique puts the relevant class abilities, superpowers, creature features, and similar character-specific abilities that are pertinent to the current situation at your fingertips. Over time, recognize when you’ve mastered certain material so that you can refocus your notes on just the stuff that you need now (i.e., “I now know what the Spring Attack feat does, so I can stop copy-pasting that into the NPC stat blocks.”)