SESSION 31B: THE VAULTS OF FORGOTTEN EVIL

November 9th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

WORD ON THE STREET

They decided to head back to the Banewarrens and rejoin Kalerecent’s watch. On their way, however, they passed down Tavern Row. Here they found a dozen ravens perched here and there on various buildings.

“What’s going on?” Tee asked.

“Could it be the Killravens?” Ranthir said.

“I’ll find out,” Elestra said.

While the others continued on, Elestra put her ear to the street. She heard a few people talking about an incident on Tavern Row: The day before, a centaur named Unos, the owner of the Old Goose tavern, had been found murdered in the common room of his tavern at dawn.

Drowning out the affair on Tavern Row, however, were the varied reports surrounding the events at the Cathedral. There seemed to be a good deal of confusion surrounding the exact details. Public opinion was still split fairly evenly on the issue of Rehobath claiming the mantle of the Novarch, but that opinion was beginning to slowly shift in his favor.

THE EMPTY VAULTS

Elestra rejoined the others in the excavated cave outside of the Banewarrens. Kalerecent reported that everything there had been quiet during their absence, and so they headed down to continue their exploration of the farthest vaults.

Passing down a wide hall they came to a T-intersection. The narrower corridor they entered was lined with more than a half dozen of the now familiar warded doors.

One of the doors stood ajar. Inside the chamber beyond this door was a long, metal box, not unlike a lidless coffin. On each of the four corners of the coffin-like receptacle a large amethyst has been inlaid. The inside of the box was lined with six heavy leather straps, arranged in such a way as to bind someone within.

Tee was tempted by the obvious worth of the amethysts, but cautious as well. (They’d already encountered one cursed jewel in this place.) Ranthir examined them closely and determined that the gems had been used to focus several enchantments onto the inhabitant of the box. Some of these appeared similar to those found in a stasis box while others appeared to have some form magical negatement as their purpose.

“Would these enchantments have held Tavan Zith’s abilities in check?” Tee asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Ranthir said. “But they’re harmless now. The spells were broken and the magical energy has dissipated.”

That’s all Tee needed to hear. She pried out the valuable gemstones and dropped them into her bag of holding.

They went back out into the hall. A careful examination of the remaining doors revealed that the wards on one of them had been broken. They opened this door to reveal an empty vault with a large, circular depression in the center of the floor. This depression was filled with water and large patches of the rest of the floor were damp as well.

Tee discovered runes worked into the inner edge of the circular depression and Ranthir was able to identify them as part of enchantments designed to bind something to both the material and ethereal planes. He hypothesized that this chamber might have been used to contain the ethereal-shifting, blue-skinned troll-spawn they had fought before.

THE VAULTS OF FORGOTTEN EVIL

After a brief debate they decided to break open the remaining vaults. Opening the first of these released a blast of chilled air. A large block of ice filled the center of the room, extending from the floor to the ceiling. A careful inspection of this ice revealed that it was laced with thin filigrees of golden thread and Ranthir was able to discern that these threads were minutely etched with tiny runes. Unfortunately, he had no idea what purpose the threads or runes might serve. Large bulbous shadows could be seen within the ice, although making out any sort of detail was quite impossible. When Ranthir was satisfied that he had learned all that he could learn (which was little), he stepped back. Tee started blasting away at the ice using her dragon pistol.

After only a couple of shots, the ice had already cracked badly. Tee lined up her third shot—

—and the ice shattered! A slimy, writhing tentacle burst free. It was followed moments later by more. Tee fired blindly into the ice and then the creatures within were free.

There were three of them – blobs of soft tissue and pulsating gray matter; long tentacles writhing in levitative air; numerous, bulbous, yellow, feral eyes and befanged mouths scattered haphazardly within the folds of flabby flesh.

Tor, who had been standing on guard, dashed forward and slashed his sword across the eye of one. Tee, switching her dragon pistol to her side, drew her sword and lunged forward – stabbing through the eye of another and feeling the familiar thrill of it (although this eye was larger than most).

And then Agnarr stepped forward and with a single mighty swing his flaming greatsword cleaved its way through all three of the creatures in a single blow.

As each died in a deflating, wet heap of protoplasmic flesh, a wave of horrific terror swept across them – but each, in their own fashion, found a way to steel their soul against it.

Elestra, thinking of the wraiths they had fought before, took the time to burn the corpses thoroughly.

THE VAULT OF THE PAIN DEMON

They broke the wards on the next door, finding a vault not dissimilar in character but smaller than the last, with a pillar of ice suspended between floor and ceiling.

From a slightly safer distance, Tee again used her dragon pistol to blast away at the ice. Obviously her shots were disrupting whatever magicks had been laid upon the ice because it was not long before the shadowy form within began to shift and move.

As the ice began to crack, waves of hate-filled pain radiated from it. Grimacing against the pain, Tee continued firing. The demon trapped within finally burst free. Its skin was a glistening ebony. Its eyes were a blood-red crimson. Its mouth was a toothless maw with razored lips. Chains were fused about its wrists, each animate with hatred.

As it came free, Tee fired a shot, but it ricocheted harmlessly off the demon’s chitinous shell. The creature howled and the waves of psychic pain battering them seemed to intensify.

Ranthir recognized the thing: It was a naturally demonic creature. Its chains had been soul-bound to its demonic essence – binding its own pain sympathetically and allowing it to reflect that essence back in the psychic waves which were assaulting all of them (although Ranthir tasted only the edge of it from his relatively safe haven in the hall).

Agnarr and Tor had fallen back before its first assault – the waves of pain overwhelming their minds and the animate chains harrying their defenses – but now they rallied, pushing it farther and farther down the length of the narrow chamber. Step by step the pain demon was forced back.

Agnarr suffered grievous wounds from the chains – the cold pain of them numbing his limbs. And the assault of primal pain was strengthening. Those nearest the creature could feel it now as both a psychic and physical thing. The manifestation of pain itself was intense enough to open cuts upon their bodies.

In the end, they were able to beat the creature down.

Tor was left with a single, dramatic cut upon his cheek… But Agnarr welcomed the warming touch of Dominic’s healing.

THE CHITTERING SWARM

The next few vaults proved to be empty. There were no signs that they had even been used.

But then they unleashed the demon swarm.

As the ice of this third vault shattered, the chittering creatures boiled out. Agnarr and Tor had held the chokepoint of the door, but it mattered little as the creatures swarmed around them in every direction.

They found it difficult to fight the swarm. There was a pervasive aura around the dozens of demonlings that seemed to muddle their minds and the tiny creatures would hop from place to place, crawling over them and slipping into their clothes and armor. Some even tried to pry their way into mouths.

Tee fired several blasts ineffectively into the carpet-like mass of demonlings and then fell back before their indomitable advance. The party, in general, split awkwardly in two – with some retreating one way down the hall and others retreating in the other.

The creatures, despite their small size, had vicious claws that ripped and tore as they leaped and scuttled here and there in a chaotic, eddying swirl of motion. And the party discovered, to their horror and disgust, that the creatures were exuding some sort of unnatural black thread – iron-like in strength and binding to the wounds they dealt. The demonlings were literally stitching their limbs together.

Seeaeti howled in pain. Dominic quickly found himself mobbed by the creatures and rendered almost immobile within a cocoon of their black thread.

Ranthir poured flame from his hands and this had some limited success, but still the creatures came. Elestra called down bolts of lightning from thin air, but the demonlings seemed to dance around the scorching blasts.

They were going to be overwhelmed.

“Run!” Ranthir cried.

Elestra did. The others dived for cover.

A bead of fire flew from the tip of Ranthir’s finger into the midst of the chittering swarm. It blossomed into a ball of flame…

And in its wake were left the charred and stinking corpses of the demonlings.

Agnarr stepped forward and put the last of the little fiends out of their well-deserved misery.

This, however, still left them with the difficult task of undoing the demonic, black thread that had been sewn randomly across their bodies. Tee tried to simply rip her way free, but this opened some grievous wounds that sent black spots dancing across her vision.

They started carefully cutting each other free of the stuff. Only Elestra seriously botched this procedure, ripping a gaping wound in Dominic’s side. (The others dissuaded her from helping them with their own extrications.)

THE ABANDONED CAVES

They had now explored this entire section of the Banewarrens and made it as secure as they could (largely by killing everything in sight). Without passing through the sealed door, there was nothing else for them to do here. And so they were left with waiting for the emergence of whatever creature had slipped through the door before Kalerecent had shut it.

They decided to complete their explorations of the caves in which they had fought the umber hulk. Some of them were anticipating the possibility that the creature had returned (affording them with an opportunity to finish it off), and although others were skeptical that it would, if nothing else, eliminate the possibility of a second, unknown entrance to the Banewarrens.

It was an easy matter to return to the caves. Pushing farther into their depths, the group spotted a second passage that had been concealed by a boulder. A little distance further on, Tee saw that the passage they were in opened up into a larger chamber and that, out of that chamber, a second passage appeared to turn in the same direction as the concealed passage behind the boulder.

“Why would it put these boulders everywhere?” Elestra asked.

“I don’t know,” Tee said. But she decided to head down into the larger chamber to see if it did, in fact, meet up with the concealed passage in the way that it appeared to…

And narrowly avoided falling into a pit of loose gravel as it suddenly gave way beneath her feet.

From that they concluded that these boulder-hidden passages had been used by the umber hulk to bypass the traps and snares that it had laid out for the unwary.

With grunts of exertion, Tor and Agnarr managed to leverage the boulder out of the way and they headed down the passage it had concealed.

In the twisting passages beyond they found what appeared to be the creature’s lair: A large bed of stone had been crudely constructed in one corner of a cave in which other stones had been arranged and shaped towards some strange purpose.

“Could it be some form of art?” Ranthir said.

Tee briefly considered the possibility of taking this “umber hulk statuary” and selling it, but she eventually decided that there was unlikely to be any sort of meaningful market for it. Certainly no market worth hauling around several tons of stone for. “I might be able to hustle it… But it’s just not worth the effort.”

Hidden behind some cleverly arranged stones in another corner of the cave they found a surprisingly rich stash of gemstones and gold.

In the next cave they discovered the creature’s “larder”. A horrible stench permeated the air and the walls were slick with moisture. In a low spot near the center of the cave was assembled a grisly, bloody mess: The partially dismembered corpse of a goblin and a half-devoured corpse, greenish white with bloating and decay, that looked as if it might have once belonged to a man.

Tee was disgusted by the sight and wanted no part of it. But as she turned to leave, Agnarr stopped her. “Aren’t you going to search the cave?”

Tee bluffed him into thinking that she had already searched the bodies, but the others eventually convinced her that she should.

“There might be some sort of identification,” Elestra pointed out. “We could let people know what happened to him.”

Tee sighed and started searching.

“Wait,” Agnarr said. “I thought she already searched them?”

“I’m just making sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There were no identification papers, but the man was carrying a small coin purse drenched in sickly decay. Tee left it where it lay.

Running the Campaign: PC vs. PC Social Checks  – Campaign Journal: Session 31C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Youtube is back bay-beeeee….

This video almost never got released, but patrons of the Alexandrian made me reconsider. You can also read the original essay (which was actually adapted from the script for this video) if you’d prefer.

We also have more videos in the editing pipeline, so I hope you’ll join me in crossing our fingers for more cool Alexandrian video content.

Go to Part 1

WAGES OF VICE (T.K. Johnson) struggles quite a bit with continuity problems and fragility, with the former also contributing quite a bit to the latter.

There are two major continuity glitches. First, it’s fairly clear that the original premise of the adventure was changed at the eleventh hour. As published, the premise of the adventure is that five years ago the Kings of Coin — who rule the city-state of Zinda — made a deal with a witch named Proud Edun. The witch would use her magic to create the jeli flower, a crop with fantastic commercial value which would make Zinda (and, more importantly, the Kings of Coin) fabulously rich.

In return, the Kings of Coin agreed that their firstborn children would all serve as Proud Edun’s apprentices, learning her magical arts. But Myx Nargis Ruba, one of the Kings of Coin, said, “Hey. What if, instead of doing that, we just murder her?”

And the other Kings of Coin agreed and Proud Edun was murdered.

But there’s enough references scattered around the adventure, that it’s clear the original version of this backstory was that Proud Edun was promised the souls of the children. (If I had to make a wild guess, I would guess this was changed because it was too similar to the premise for “The Fiend of Hollow Mine.”) The problems this creates, however, are mostly ignorable.

The other major continuity glitch, though, is more fundamental. The premise of the adventure is that Proud Edun’s daughter, Kala Mabarin, has shown up to claim revenge by killing the kids who were supposed to be apprenticed to her mother. After the first murder, though, reality in the adventure just kind of bifurcates.

In one half of the adventure, Madame Samira Arah — the newest member of the Kings of Coin who (a) doesn’t know about the original double-cross of Proud Edun and (b) is the commanding officer of the Silent Verse, which is the Kings of Coin’s police force — has warned the Kings of Coin of the danger posed by Kala Mabarin and ordered all of their kids into protective custody.

In the other half of the adventure, however, nobody has warned the Kings of Coin and their kids are just wandering around, attending official functions, and getting openly targeted by Kala Mabarin.

This state of affairs just kind of randomly switches back and forth, depending on whichever scene the PCs happen to be in at the moment. It’s incredibly disorienting and fairly fundamental to the scenario, making it one of those crux points where I find players start checking out because the game world stops feeling real to them.

This is compounded because the core structure of the scenario is simultaneously arbitrary, unintuitive, and deprotagonizing.

The basic hook is that the PCs arrive in Zinda to attend — and I know this is going to shock you — a festival. As soon as they arrive at the festival, which is called the March of Vice, they stumble upon the corpse of Jacopo, Kala’s second target and first victim. They get sucked up into the investigation when Madame Samira arrives on the scene and says, “Outsiders? Sounds useful for a case that reeks of powerful conspiracies.”

I love Madame Samira. She’s a fantastic character. I think she’s the major saving grace of the entire adventure. She is simultaneously outsider and insider, and the more she learns about what really happened, the more she’s like, “Blackmail over all my political rivals? How fascinating. Tell me more.”

Samira’s own conflict between what’s right and what’s useful adds a delightfully independent vector of ethical haze to a scenario that’s already dripping with moral gray.

From this point, the “investigation” (which can only be loosely described as such) follows a linear path:

• Samira hires the PCs and tells them to go to Thornapple tavern, where they can question Zenia, one of the Coin heirs. Zenia was targeted for assassination yesterday, but escaped, triggering the lockdown.
• On the way to the Thornapple, the PCs coincidentally walk straight into another assassination attempt.
• At the Thornapple, the PCs walk straight into another assassination attempt. (A redo on Zenia.)
• Zenia’s father then confesses that this is all his fault and tells the PCs the whole back story with Proud Edun…

… and this is weird, because he doesn’t actually know that. He has no information identifying the killer as Kala or linking Kala to Proud Edun. (That doesn’t happen until later in the scene and only if (a) the PCs took prisoners and (b) they succeed on a skill check.)

In any case…

• The PCs have absolutely no leads. However, if they’ve learned what Kala looks like (which they easily may not), they can just ask around randomly to see if anyone on the street has seen her. If they do, a random person will tell them, “Yes. She was heading towards the conclusion of the adventure.”
• The PCs can then head to the conclusion of the adventure and walk straight into another assassination attempt, where they can either capture, kill, or negotiate with Kala.

Ultimately, “Wages of Vice” is juggling some really interesting ideas, but doesn’t really manage to pull it off, in my opinion.

Grade: D

Prep Notes: If you’re running this adventure, I recommend prepping a list of the Kings of Coin and their kids. “Okay, so who are the kids being threatened?” is a question the players are very likely to ask. The adventure has this information, but it’s scattered across the text in a very unuseful way.

SINS OF OUR ELDERS (Stephanie Yoon) sees the PCs leave the wine festival in Zinda so that they can head over to the springtime festival of Dan-Nal in Yeonido.

The core cool of Yeonido are the gwishin. Derived from Korean mythology, the dead in Yeonido often rise as undead spirits with unfinished business. This often includes fulfilling unfulfilled duty or correcting imbalance or injustice.

I really love Yoon’s decision to make the gwishin a central pillar of Yeonido as a setting — a haunted city that seeks to draw a veil over their unquiet spirits while discretely making right what they can and appeasing what they cannot. You can frame up an entire campaign with this concept: ghost-hunters settling sins-made-manifest. Virtually any adventure you can imagine can be hung from gwishin hooks with a uniquely supernatural flair: one part Perry Mason, one part Cold Case, one part The Ring.

“Sins of Our Elders” is, of course, itself based around a gwishin mystery. Long ago, the magistrate Dae Won-Ha spent decades doing ??? that resulted in prosperity for Yeonido, but her work was constantly being undermined by Young-Gi, the younger brother of Queen Young-Soo. Young-Gi’s efforts failed, and Won-Ha became a hero of the common people, but also Young-Gi succeeded and Won-Ha became a figure of infamy. Also Young-Gi arranged it so that the credit for whatever it was Won-Ha had done was given to Queen Young-soo. This all happened so long ago that the infamous(?) Won-Ha has passed from living memory, and also so recently that Young-Gi and other people who knew her personally are still alive.

Ten years ago, Queen Young-Soo died and Won-Ha’s gwishin appeared. The PCs need to figure out who the gwishin is, why she’s pissed off, and how she can be appeased.

The core problems of “Sins of Our Elders” mostly have their root in this backstory. It’s vague at best and seemingly contradictory more often than not. The problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to design a coherent mystery when the solution to the mystery hasn’t been defined. It’s like a murder mystery where the solution is “somebody was killed somewhere with some sort of weapon.” You can’t really build clues to reveal the truth if there’s no truth to be revealed, and so “Sins of Our Elders” continually struggles to provide clear clues for Won-Ha’s true legacy because “she did good stuff” doesn’t give you any sort of concrete revelation.

You can see another example of this vague backstory infecting the adventure in the hook. Dae Won-Ha has been taking her revenge on Yeonido in the form of a magical fog. The fog descends on an area, robbing the people there of their memory while Won-Ha wreaks havoc and destruction and terror. Then the people sort of “wake up” in the aftermath, ignorant of everything they did (and that happened in the fog).

This curse is beautifully thematic: The Yeonidons don’t even realize what’s happening to them. It’s a curse of forgetfulness as vengeance for being forgotten.

So, as I mentioned before, this has been going on for ten years when the PCs arrive in Yeonido. The fog doesn’t affect outsiders, so the PCs immediately realize that something weird is—

Hold up.

It’s been ten years and no outsiders have come to Yeonido and noticed the fog in all that time?

At the other end of the adventure, the conclusion is also fatally flawed by the lack of a clear foundation.

Logically, “Sins” is an adventure that would end with the PCs discovering the true story of Dae Won-Ha and then taking action to make sure the truth is known. But there isn’t a true story to discover, so there’s nothing for the PCs to reveal. This forces a conclusion which can be roughly summarized as, “Jeez, Won-Ha. You’re really overreacting. Yes, the Queen and her brother conspired to rewrite the history books and make you look like a villain, but we found a teacup you signed that was gathering dust on a shelf and a couple other trinkets, so it’s not like you’re completely forgotten.”

And then Won-Ha is like, “Yes. You’re right. As long as that teacup is gathering dust, I can rest easy in my grave.”

I really want to like “Sins of Our Elders” because there’s some really cool potential in it, but it just doesn’t quite hold together for me.

I would give the adventure itself a D, but the raw potential of the Yeonido setting gazetteer pulls the whole package up into the C-range.

Grade: C-

Prep Notes: What “Sins of Our Elders” desperately craves is a specificity. A specific truth that happened. A specific lie that was told. One way to achieve that is to make Won-Ha a martyr. This gives you a specific event — the martyrdom — that can be clearly stolen from her.

For a full dose of irony, what if she perished trying to get rid of a powerful gwishin that threatened Yeonida?

Perhaps this could be the gwishin of a dragon, whose grievance with the city was connected to the environmental damage wrought by Yeonido’s expansion. Dae Won-Ha had done much to right those wrongs and bring balance back to the community, but only by offering herself could she quiet this final threat.

This adds a thematic level to the adventure:  Dae Won-Ha offered herself to restore balance.

Queen Young-Soo’s version was that she went out into the forest and slew the spirit, setting a tone of violence and conquest which still informs the Tiger District’s expansion into the forest land.

The Truth and Reconciliation at the conclusion of the adventure isn’t just about who gets credit; it’s about understanding the true moral of the story.

If you’re revising the adventure in this way, it shouldn’t be too difficult to bake your new revelation lists into many of the scenes framed in the published adventure. You might also want to change the central structure from “an NPC tells the PCs where they should go to investigate” to a district-based urbancrawl with a handful of sub-revelations (e.g., “Who’s this Young-Gi guy we keep hearing about?”)

GOLD FOR FOOLS AND PRINCES (Dominique Dickey) features the most adorable of the Gygaxian “I think the PCs have too much treasure” metal-eaters — aurumvoraxii.

The adventure is set in the Sensa Empire, where generations ago the aurumvoraxii were hunted to extinction. This has allowed the gold mines of the empire to prosper.

Enter two princes: Prince Kirina and Prince Simbon, both of whom are vying to be named the heir to the imperial throne. Prince Kirina has hatched a scheme which involves triggering a cave-in in the mines while simultaneously summoning aurumvoraxii. After secretly creating the crisis, he’ll head down into the mines and heroically solve it, improving his reputation generally and, most specifically, with the powerful Aurum Guild who oversees the mines. Kirina is, of course, quite unhappy when both Prince Simbon and the PCs stick their noses into the situation.

This is a strong premise for an adventure. The problem, unfortunately, is that it’s executed as a nonsense railroad:

• After some giant scorpions attack, the PCs need to track them back to an alley and make a skill check to find conjuration runes. (Prince Kirina also summoned these scorpions for no reason other than to provide clues revealing his involvement. Which I think is super polite of him.)
• Even though people are dying in the mines, everyone will insist that the PCs go talk to some random scholar about the runes they found. Good news! The scholar is the bad guy working with Kirina. (How lucky!)
• While talking to the scholar, the PCs need to randomly decide to steal some papers off his desk for no reason. If they succeed on a skill check, they do.
• Then they need to make a skill check to analyze the notes, revealing that the scholar is the one who designed the spell that was used to summon the giant scorpions. The PCs will not be allowed to do anything about this.
• The PCs now go down into the mines with Prince Kirina and Prince Simbon. While there, they have to make a Perception check to notice that Kirina has a piece of paper.
• If they succeed on the check and notice the piece of paper, they must now decide to randomly steal it for no reason, requiring a Sleight of Hand check to do so.
• The paper proves that Kirina has a copy of the spell that was used to summon the giant scorpions. The adventure assumes that the PCs won’t do anything about this until they return to the surface, which… uh… have you ever met any PCs?

If I were to write an essay on how to design a mystery scenario (and I have), this would be pretty much exactly how I would tell you to NOT do it.

“Gold” requires:

• Questionable investigation decisions by the players. (For example, just randomly stealing papers from people for no reason.)
• A sequence of 6+ skill checks, missing any one of which completely derails the investigation.

All of which ultimately unlocks a semi-hilarious interaction with Prince Kirina where the PCs make a DC 14 Charisma check to convince him to confess to high treason in front of a huge crowd of people.

There are some ideas here which are potentially interesting, but they’re inchoate to the point where there’s nothing really worth salvaging, in my opinion.

Grade: F

Prep Notes: “Gold for Fools and Princes” is the first adventure in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel to not feature a festival. But you should totally add one.

The premise of the adventure requires the essential bit of exposition that the aurumvoraxes were wiped out by Emperor Kassa, allowing the gold mines of the Sensa Empire to prosper. But, as written, there’s no way for the PCs to know that until after they’ve identified the aurumvoraxes. So the core revelation of, “Oh no! They’re back!” is handed off to an NPC.

But if you add a Festival of Gold, staged by the Aurum Guild to celebrate the anniversary of Emperor Kassa eradicating the aurumvoraxes, you can slip that bit of exposition in (along with a bunch of other stuff about the importance of the Guild and the mines).

Beyond that, if I were running “Gold,” I would probably strip it down to its core:

• Get rid of the Machiavellian stuff.
• Cave-in opened up a cave that had hibernating aurumvoraxii.
• The two princes are competing for glory, providing a cool roleplaying crux against the challenge of the dungeon.

But to really make it sing, you’ll probably also want to redesign the dungeon to feature encounters that could play strongly into this dynamic. (At a minimum, I’d want the princes to be able to meaningfully split up instead of being stuck on a linear path.)

Go to Part 5

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 31A: Kabel in Hiding

This is a trap. Head to Pythoness House, a manor house overlooking the King’s River Gorge in Oldtown. I will contact you there. Go now. They are coming.

Creative elements — characters, locations, actions, items, etc. — can manifest in a roleplaying game through:

• Introduction, when an element first appears.
• Repetition, when an element reappears.
• Reincorporation, when an element reappears in a new context and/or with connections to other pre-existing elements.

The distinction between repetition and reincorporation is a finicky one, and arguably often doesn’t have any practical effect. But the key thing we’re talking about here is setup and payoff.

It is narratively satisfying to our “evolved to deliver a dopamine hit whenever we identify cause-and-effect” brains when we recognize patterns and see the connections. We’re hardwired to fundamentally believe that the world makes sense, and that’s why we find deus ex machina so unsatisfying. (Plus, the payoff makes it clear we weren’t just wasting our time watching the first half of the film.)

There’s a whole gaggle of writing and improv techniques you’ll find clustered around this concept. You’ve got Chekhov’s Gun (if you make a big deal about something at the beginning of the story, it should have a payoff at the end) and the Rule of Three (you set it up, you remind the audience of what you set up, you get the big payoff by bringing it back a third time). All kinds of stuff.

Of course, the advantage a writer of a novel or movie has is that they can go back and revise the script to setup the stuff they need: If Jayhawk needs a gun in the final scene, for example, they can go back and hang it above the mantlepiece.

In a roleplaying game, though, you can’t go back and insert the gun. (Unless you’ve got a time machine. And if you have a time machine, please get in touch.) This is why it’s usually more useful to draw our inspiration from improv theater techniques, and think primarily in terms of:

• What has already been established in the fiction?
• How can I use those elements to fulfill my current creative needs?

(Unlike pure improv, though, the GM’s scenario design does afford some opportunity to plan ahead. So don’t discount that entirely.)

You can see this, for example, in the Principles of RPG Villainy, where simply asking, “Instead of a new villain, is there an existing villain I can use again?” can add great depth to your campaign.

Another way of thinking about this is that, each time you reuse an element of the campaign world, you are building up the players’ (and PCs’) relationship with that element. It’s kind of like applying lacquer. It’s all about the layering.

You’ll usually not even know what all those layers are adding up to. The mere act of adding the layers is enough. You’ll find the destination once you get there.

The flip side of this technique begins when you first introduce the element. A key trick here is making sure you drop enough specific detail so that you CAN reincorporate that element in the future. This doesn’t have to be a lot. In fact, to start out with, you may not need anything more than a label. For example, when the PCs go shopping for supplies, make a point of giving the shopkeep a name.

The name gives you handle that you can grab. If you don’t give the shopkeep a name, you won’t be able to easily refer to them as being the same shopkeep the next time the PCs go shopping.

Of course, giving the shopkeep a name doesn’t obligate you to reincorporate them in the future. There’ll probably be lots of random details that get scattered into your campaign that will never be revisited. That’s just fine.

As you make a point of establishing these handles, though, you’ll likely discover that the players also start picking them up.

You can see a very large example of that in this session, as the PCs decide to offer Pythoness House — which they know to be long-abandoned — as a safehouse for Sir Kabel and his knights. But you’ll see it at every scale of interaction: They might choose to specifically go to that shopkeep you mentioned. Or hit up an NPC they met a half dozen sessions ago for a favor in solving their current problem.

Or might even be a blink-and-you-miss-it reference in casual conversation.

If you’re a player reading this: Do more of this! You’re helping to make the campaign something more than the sum of its parts, gently tugging it into a comprehensive whole.

As a GM, when this happens, you’ve basically got two responsibilities:

First, get out of the way. For example, I had a different idea in mind for Sir Kabel’s plans. I could have easily had Sir Kabel say something like, “Thanks for the offer, but I have other plans!” But that would obviously be a terrible idea.

This is largely just another example of default to yes, but I find it to be particularly vital here. Reincorporation is a really important way of giving meaning to events. (Pythoness House is available to serve as a safehouse because you cleared it out.) It’s also a great way of demonstrating that the game world is persistent; that it continues to exist even when the PCs aren’t looking at it. (Pythoness House didn’t cease to exist the minute you looked away from it.) So unless you have a strong reason not to embrace reincorporation, you should try to avoid stripping your campaign of meaning and verisimilitude.

Second, lean into it. If a player cares enough about a past event, person, place, or thing to spontaneously attempt to re-engage with it, they’re sending a clear signal that it resonated with them. Maybe they like it. Maybe they hate it. Regardless, it mattered to them. It interests them. So take your cue and run with it:

• Drop that location into your campaign status document so that it can develop over time.
• Next time, have that NPC reach out and initiate contact with the PCs (instead of vice versa).
• Flesh out that shopkeep with a universal NPC roleplaying template or some sort of unique twist to their merchandise; or maybe use them as an adventure hook.

In the case of Pythoness House, I just needed to completely embrace Sir Kabel’s use of the location: Not just a safehouse for tonight and a meeting place for tomorrow, but the headquarters of the Imperial Church loyalists during their rebellion against Rehobath’s false-novarchy.

A one-and-done dungeon would now be a major centerpiece for the entire next phase of the campaign.

Thanks, players!

Campaign Journal: Session 31B – Running the Campaign: PC vs. PC Social Checks
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 31A: KABEL IN HIDING

November 9th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

After leaving the Banewarrens they went first to the Temple of Asche. There they had the wraiths’ malaise cleansed from their bodies. Then they crossed the Temple District to the Imperial Cathedral, hoping to claim Brother Heth Neferul’s promise of covering their expenses.

They were looking for healing resources – divine energy reservoired into wands or healing totems. Unfortunately, as Heth explain to them, such resources were not available in a limitless supply – not even from the Church. However, they were able to obtain three such wands for a minimal tithing.

From there they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. Tee took a brief detour to the Delvers’ Guild offices in the Undermarket to see if “Laurea” had received any messages from the cultists, but she had not.

When Tee joined them in Elestra’s room, Tor once again raised the idea of having Dominic assassinate Rehobath.

“We shouldn’t be saying that in front of everyone,” Tee said.

“We shouldn’t be saying that in front of each other,” Dominic said with a worried look.

Tor nodded. “You never know who might be listening.”

“That’s true,” Shim said, slipping through the wall. He looked at Tor. “Are you okay with me talking in front of them?”

Tor nodded. “Go ahead. Anything you can say to me you can say to them.”

“All right,” Shim said. “My man found Kabel. He’s at a place called Nadar’s Pub in Rivergate. It was tough. He was well hidden. In fact, the only reason we knew he was there was because Sir Gemmell knows where he is. The Order of the Dawn is assembling a posse out of the Godskeep to arrest him.”

Tor’s heart sunk. The letter from Sir Kabel had been real. He’d unwittingly betrayed him.

“Kabel sent you answer: ‘I am glad that the eyes of Vehthyl see clearly. Such sight will be needed in the morning light.’”

No one said anything for a long moment.

“Do you want me to do something more?” Shim asked.

Tor shook his head slightly, deep in thought. “I shouldn’t go there.”

“No,” Tee agreed.

“I could go,” Elestra said. “I could transform into a bird and fly there with a message.”

Shim took his cue and bowed out. “I shouldn’t be hearing this.” He slipped back into the wall and disappeared.

(“How do we know he’s not still listening to us?” Dominic asked. “We don’t,” said Tee.)

They eventually agreed that Tor should write a letter and have Elestra deliver it.

This is a trap. Head to Pythoness House, a manor house overlooking the King’s River Gorge in Oldtown. I will contact you there. Go now. They are coming.

“Should we tell him about the evil ghost?” Elestra asked.

“He’ll figure it out,” Agnarr said.

Elestra called upon the Spirit of the City, allowing it to flow into her body and transform it into the shape of a crow. When the transformation was complete, they tied Tor’s message securely to her leg and opened the window.

ESCAPE FROM NADAR’S PUB

Elestra flew straight to Nadar’s Pub, covering the distance to the Rivergate District quickly through the air. She took a moment to circle above it and then landed on the ledge outside the front window.

Peering inside she saw the barkeep tending to two customers. Clearly the mid-afternoon trade was slow.

There was no sign of Sir Kabel, but that made sense. It was unlikely that a hunted man would be supping openly in a public tavern.

Elestra flew around to the back. She found the kitchen window open and peeked in: There were several shelves packed with various foodstuffs, a modest cast iron stove, a pump for water, and a large fireplace for roasting. There was also a pair or large cellar doors set at an angle into the floor.

Elestra cautiously flew into the kitchen, tapped lightly on the cellar doors, and then flew back up to her kitchen window perch. She waited several minutes. There was no answer.

Elestra was still thinking over her next course of action (should she turn back into human form? but if she did that how would she get out again?) when the barkeep came into the kitchen to fill a pitcher of water.

She waited until he left and then flew back down to the cellar doors again. She tapped louder this time and then hopped up onto a nearby shelf to wait.

A few moments later, Elestra heard the cellar doors being unbarred from the far side. One of the doors was eased open and an armed woman looked out. (Elestra didn’t recognize her, but Tor later identified her as Sera Nara.)

Not immediately seeing anyone, Nara emerged cautiously into the kitchen. Elestra seized her opportunity: Swooping past Nara she flew down into the cellar. There she found Sir Kabel and two other knights sitting around a small, well-worn table.

Elestra landed in the center of the table and cocked her head towards Sir Kabel, trying to look as innocent and harmless as possible. Sera Nara came rushing back down the stairs. One of the other knights turned to Kabel with a quizzical look on his face. “Why would Killraven be contacting you?”

“I don’t think it’s one of hers,” Kabel said. “It’s too small to be a raven.”

Kabel reached out and untied the note from Elestra’s claw. He unrolled it and read it, his face drawing immediately into lines of concern. He looked up sharply. “Gather your things now. We have to go.”

As the others grabbed their weapons and several large packs, Kabel looked at Elestra. “Thank you, whoever you may be.”

Kabel and his knights headed up the stairs and out the kitchen door. Elestra flew up and watched them head south towards Oldtown, following them long enough to be certain of where they were heading. Then she turned back and circled high above the pub for about fifteen minutes, waiting to see if there would be any sign of covert pursuit or the like.

She saw nothing. Turning east she flew towards the Temple District. As she was passing over the bluffs she spotted them: Sir Gemmell leading a war party of twelve mounted knights up the Wash Street ramp.

Veering aside, she followed them from above. She watched as they surrounded Nadar’s Pub. Sir Gemmell rode forward and called out in a loud voice, demanding that Kabel surrender.

A few moments later the door of the pub swung open. The barkeep yelled out that no one by that name was in the pub. Sir Gemmell gave a sharp gesture and two his knights dismounted and entered the pub. Several minutes later they emerged with no result.

Gemmell and several more knights dismounted. Angry words began to be exchanged… and that’s when the watchmen arrived. From her height, Elestra couldn’t hear what was being said, but a few moments later Gemmell – clearly furious – mounted his horse and rode off, heading back towards the Temple District.

Elestra followed the knights long enough to be fairly certain that they were heading back to the Cathedral and then winged it back to the Ghostly Minstrel.

Returning to her room, where the others had been anxiously awaiting her, Elestra let the Spirit of the City depart her. Her body resumed its natural form.

She quickly explained what she had done and what she had seen. Tor embraced her at the news that they had (just in the knick of time) averted disaster. A weight of guilt had been lifted from his conscience.

Running the Campaign: When Players Reincorporate  – Campaign Journal: Session 31B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index