IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 10A: The Labyrinths of Ghul

Tee and Elestra both recognized the statues as depicting the legendary figure of Ghul the Skull-King…

Towards the beginning of the campaign journal for Session 10, there are a couple large blocks of text – one for Ghul the Skull-King and another for shadowveined rock — which were originally written up as handouts for the players: If/when their characters succeeded on the requisite Knowledge checks, I’d be able to hand them these one page summaries.

The alternative to this, obviously, would be for the GM to simply read or summarize this information out loud. So why go to the extra effort to write up a handout?

First, you’ll note that there’s a lot of information being conveyed in these handouts. I’ve tried to keep the presentation of that information efficient, but that’s just resulted in the information being quite dense. Presenting this amount of information in written form (particularly if accompanied by visual references or enhancements) can aid comprehension.

Second, it highlights the information as being of particular importance, helping to make sure that the players pay attention to it. Of course, this only works if you don’t overuse the technique. (These two handouts weren’t explicitly designed to be delivered in such rapid succession, but the group had failed their earlier Knowledge checks to recognize Ghul’s Labyrinth by ways of its unique architectural features, and it was only the more explicit examination of the statues of Ghul himself which provoked their memory.)

Third, such handouts can serve as rewards. This is particularly effective with certain groups (the ones who light up and start clapping their hands with glee when the GM dips his hand into the Big Box of Handouts), but even with players are less inherently excited by this sort of thing

For example, the original version of the Shadowveined Rock handout included a number of mechanics, as you can see in this PDF version of the same:

I didn’t include these mechanical details in the campaign journal, eschewing them for a purely narrative approach, but the original handout included all kinds of information that would allow the PCs to leverage their discovery of the shadowveined rock to maximum effect (including unique items that they could either commission or have Ranthir create, for example).

Fourth, on a similar note, such handouts serve as reference material, allowing the players to easily review what they know about a particular topic (without having to freshly quiz the GM about it). This is particularly important because these handouts — like any exposition dump — should only exist for a purpose. The GM shouldn’t just start waxing rhapsodic about obscure details of their campaign world in the middle of the session without any rhyme or reason.

In the case of the shadowveined rock handout, the primary purpose was to serve as a rules reference when the players needed it later. (I do this a lot, actually: Packaging up snippets of non-core mechanical material into handouts and effectively drip-feeding the content into the campaign. In the case of shadowveined rock, it was something I had created. But this is also a really effective technique for incorporating material from supplements.)

In the case of the Ghulwar handout, the knowledge of Ghul provided context that helped them to navigate the dungeon they were standing in. So being able to refer back to these key facts regarding his life and exploits was continually useful for them (particularly as their expeditions extended between sessions and, later, years of out-of-game time).

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 10A: THE LABYRINTHS OF GHUL

November 3rd, 2007
The 28th Day of Amseyl in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The group briefly considered the possibility of returning to the city above to obtain healing services for the poison that was weakening Agnarr’s body. But Dominic testified that the poison would not prove mortal – that it had, in fact, already run the worst of its course – and the tempting enigma of whatever lay beyond the door of blue steel was too tantalizing to resist.

Tee pushed the door open, revealing a long hallway made from the same cream-colored stone. About sixty feet away her elven eyes could dimly make out that the hallway opened out into a larger chamber of some sort.

The sunrod in Agnarr’s hand was sputtering, so he threw it aside and cracked a new one. With his light behind her, Tee headed down the corridor. The shadows flicked and leaped around her as she made her way towards the larger chamber.

Emerging into it, she found the ceiling vaulting more than forty feet above her. In each corner of the room, upon ten-foot high daises, stood immense statues more than twenty-feet high. Each statue was identical, carved from a dark gray rock that stood in sharp contrast to the pale stone and depicting a broad-shouldered figure wearing a skull-faced mask who looked down upon the center of the chamber with his arms crossed proudly upon his chest.

Tee and Elestra both recognized the statues as depicting the legendary figure of Ghul the Skull-King.

THE GHULWAR

The Ghulwar was a legendary conflict which took place in the area around Ptolus sometime during the misty aeons of prehistory. It had long been discounted by serious historians and scholars as a mere fancy entertained only by the gullible and credulous. But recent discoveries in the subterranean labyrinths beneath the city would seem to lend credence to at least some of the ancient tales. The tales vary in their character, but the general outlines are such:

Ghul – the Skull-King, the Half God, the Sorcerer’s Get – built a great fortress called Goth Gugamel upon the Spire of Ptolus. He claimed to be descended from the Banelord (a still older, malevolent figure whose tale has been lost entirely to the modern world). Within his black fortress, Ghul worked dark arts upon the orcs, raising up a mighty army of them. This army poured forth from Goth Gugamel and laid waste to the all the lands from coast to mountain.

This was the First Campaign of the Ghulwar, and it only came to an end when an Army of Sorcerers stood up to Ghul and stopped his rapacious armies. His goals of conquest thwarted, Ghul then called forth the Utterdark – a magical darkness which blanketed all the lands which he had conquered. Thus began the Cold Quiet, during which Ghul labored within the halls of Goth Gugamel.

The Cold Quiet ended as the Second Campaign of the Ghulwar began: Ogres and trolls and creatures of even worse countenance had joined the army of the Skull-King. The tales of this Second Campaign are even wilder than the first: Armies of dragon-mounted elves. A conflagration which burnt all the lands beyond the Mountains of the West to ash. In the end, the Utterdark was banished and Ghul fled from the Forces of Light which had been arrayed against him. It is said that the Avatars themselves hunted down Ghul and slayed him.

After making sure that the chamber was safe, Tee waved the rest of the group forward. As the light drew closer she was able to look down the corridors leading away from the room. Down the far corridor she saw double-doors of gray stone, but looking down the other two corridors she found halls lined with niches in which stood life-size statues of orcish warriors.

The group ultimately decided to follow one of the statue-lined halls. Tee again took the lead, drifting on the edge of shadow with her keen elven eyes plumbing the shadowy course ahead of her.

She came to another large room – nearly the same size as the last. As she drew near to it, however, she found the air growing suddenly cold. Her breath steamed. She came to a stop and waited for the others to catch up to her.

Looking into the room, she could see that nearly the entire floor was covered with a raised bas relief of black stone that depicted a skull-like sigil:

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Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

When I originally ran Eternal Lies, I semi-coincidentally included a couple of local airports. This was primarily because (a) I wanted to make the opening scene really specific and filled with lots of historical details in order to immediately begin immersing the players into the time period and (b) while searching for visual references of DC-3 planes for the Silver Sable I stumbled across this amazing photo:

In any case, roughly two-thirds of the way through running the campaign, I realized that getting very specific with each airport they arrived at was a very effective technique for this type of campaign. Compared to using a sort of “generic airport”:

• It made the arrival at each location memorable and distinct, creating a clear starting point for each regional scenario.
• It immediately established the transition in environment and culture.
• It transforms arrival and — perhaps even more importantly — departure into a scene which has been much more specifically framed. This seemed to encourage meaningful action (by both the PCs and the NPCs) to gravitate towards the airports, which had the satisfying consequence of frequently syncing character arcs and dramatic arcs with actual geography and travel itinerary.

In other words, it’s true what they say. First impressions are really important, and it turns out that in a globe-hopping campaign the airports are your first impressions.

Now that I’m running the campaign again, therefore, one of the things I prioritized was assembling similarly specific research on the other airports in the campaign. (As with other aspects of the campaign, I find that using historically accurate details seems to both heighten immersion and create a general sense of satisfaction both for myself and from my players.) As an addendum to the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies, I’m presenting these notes in the hopes that other GMs will find it useful.

One thing I realized in the process of assembling this material is that, even moreso than I had suspected, during the ‘30s air travel was this incredibly experimental, regionalized, and freeform ideal. Today we associate airports with these massive, institutional, homogenous experiences, but in the ‘30s every airport had its own unique flavor. This is something that I think a GM of Eternal Lies can really lean into, because it will emphasize just how much bigger the world was back then compared to day. How much more isolated; how much more strange; and how much more alienating.

Make sure to also grab the Props Packet for this addendum, which contains photos and other props for many of the airports.

Note: New York’s airport (Floyd Bennett Field) is fully detailed in 1.1 New York and is not detailed below.

ETERNAL LIES ADDENDUM – AIRPORTS

(PDF)

PROP PACKET – AIRPORTS

(Zip File)

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

This addendum to the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies adds historically-sourced local newspapers to all of the major locations of the campaign.

I have not researched papers for New York (the PCs spend so little time there; and, if in doubt, use the New York Times) or Thibet (the PCs are in such an isolated location that newspapers are unlikely to be available, except perhaps for an international edition of a paper like the Paris Herald Tribune, as described under Bangkok newspapers).

Hitting up the morgues of local papers for leads has become such a standard procedural element for Cthulhu-esque investigators that I probably don’t need to pontificate upon it at any great length here. It should be noted that the original campaign references a number of specific newspapers in which specific articles of note are published; those are generally not mentioned here (although obviously they also exist). The purpose of this resource is to provide a firm foundation for the GM to improvise from when the PCs go off the beaten path and begin performing unanticipated background research.

When I originally ran the campaign, I also found that it was not particularly uncommon for the globetrotting PCs to specifically request a local newspaper upon checking into a new hotel. Being able to reference specific papers (with a few personalizing factoids to distinguish one broadsheet from another) proved to be a remarkably effective and immersive technique that can contribute greatly to the meaningful sensation of the campaign moving through space and culture.

ETERNAL LIES ADDENDUM – NEWSPAPERS

(PDF)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 9C: Jade

Session 9 was a momentous and very busy session. There’s a lot of stuff I should really comment on, but I’m running out of space to do so, so we’re going to tackle a number of micro-topics here.

TALES FROM THE TABLE

You may recognize the story of “Athvor Krassek”. It’s been told on the Alexandrian before, in Tales from the Table: Unexpected Successes.

This is also the session from which the introductory transcript of Legends & Labyrinths is drawn. If you compare the campaign journal to that transcript, you’ll notice that the transcript has been altered from the original version of events in a number of ways to tighten the sequence of events and create clarity.

I also made alterations in order to highlight specific mechanics, since I was using the transcript in combination with the sidebar reference system to create a seamless tutorial of how narrative, mechanic, and table conversation weaves together to form a typical RPG session. (I tried to do something similar with the Infinity RPG, but it didn’t quite work out for a variety of reasons. Which is a pity, because I think the approach is really effective at introducing new players to RPGs through the medium of text.)

THE UNEXPECTED HAMMERSONG

Ranthir, however, had been struck by a thought: Since the Hammersong Vaults was essentially the only bank in town, it seemed there was a good chance that they might have stored something here between the time they came to Ptolus and the morning they woke up with amnesia.

Holy crap.

This is literally the type of thing that I live for as a GM, but it nevertheless flabbergasted me completely. Let’s review the three key factors that led to this moment:

First, I used using Monte Cook’s Ptolus, which, as a city supplement, is insanely detailed. Its incredible depth and richness means that when the players say “I want to go to a bathhouse” or “I want to find a bank”, instead of improvising something off the cuff you can instead crack open the 650 page tome and say, “Okay, here are the bathhouses in town.”

In this case, when they went to find a bank for storing their newfound wealth, there was really only one option: The dwarven-run Hammersong Vaults.

Second, when designing the back story of what had happened during their amnesia I had followed the exact same thought process. Where would they go? Not the exclusive banks servicing the Merchant Houses. They’d have rented space in the Hammersong Vaults.

Third, one of the players needed to have the inspired insight to realize that their amnesiac selves might have done the exact same thing they just did.

And, in fact, they had. Which is just so unspeakably cool.

And when people ask, “Why would you want a 650 page tome detailing a city in such lavish detail?” this story is basically the answer to that question. It creates these moments of immense immersion by granting the game world a sense of concrete reality; turning it into an incredibly detailed sandbox for the players (and GM) to manipulate and experience.

So how was this “supposed” to play out? Well, as I’ve mentioned before, the investigation of their lost memories was a multi-stage process that was triggered over time by a number of different revelations that would each lead to meta-investigations. One of these triggered revelations was supposed to lead them to where they had hidden their key to the Hammersong Vaults, which they could have traced back to the vaults and used to access the vault they had rented.

Ironically, when this triggered event came along much later, they never figured it out and, thus, never found the key. Which means that if Ranthir hadn’t made this intuitive leap, they probably never would have found their old vault.

As it was, I was able to use their lack of a key to temporarily delay their access to the vault. (Although there were other options: They could have broken in, for example.) I did this primarily for reasons of balance, but it ended up paying off in the long run: The anticipation of waiting for the day when they would be able to access the vaults massively ramped up the sense of accomplishment because they were constantly being reminded of it, and, commensurately, cranked up the satisfaction of the reward they eventually received.

It was, after all, well earned.

METHUL = HELMUT

Tee had often speculated that Helmut might, in fact, be the mysterious Methul Watcher: “Methul” was an anagram of “Helmut”, and Helmut was an astronomer – a Watcher of the skies.

Here we see one of the unexpected perils of using pre-published material.

In this case, I had heavily modified the original scenario (which is found in the Ptolus corebook) and added additional layers of conspiracy and intrigue around the identity of “Methul Watcher”… all of which became completely irrelevant because, as Tee noted, “Methul” is an anagram of “Helmut”.

Tee’s logic here is, in fact, so unassailable that I have to believe that this was deliberately done by Monte Cook. Unfortunately, Cook neglected to mention this in the published adventure and I, unlike Tee, didn’t notice it.

So here, too, I was caught completely flat-footed by the cunning insights of my players.

I could use more “problems” like this.