Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Campaign Props (Zip)

This is a special props packet containing a bunch of campaign-wide material that doesn’t fit conveniently into any of the individual locations.

Letters of Inquiry: These props are specific to the characters who played in my original campaign, but I’ve included them to provide a template for creating your own (including the necessary fonts). I actually printed these letters and physically mailed them to my players so that they’d arrive roughly a week before the campaign began. (I used the Veteran Typewriter font to address the envelopes, using the character names.)

Calendar: A simple wall calendar from October 1934 to December 1936 (which should be more than sufficient time to complete the campaign). I printed off fresh months as I needed them and posted them on the wall. The calendar conveniently includes the phases of the moon for easy reference once that becomes significant in the campaign. I had the players keep a log of where they were and what they were doing each day.

Reference Documents: For use when the players learn about either A Spell to Open the Sky or the Rituals of Self-Denial, regardless of where they learn about them.

The Mouth: This image had a tendency to manifest itself throughout the campaign.

MAPS

Campaign Maps (Zip)

These 16 maps are designed to be printed at a large, poster size and used as the centerpiece for each location’s diorama. This can be surprisingly affordable: I was able to go down to my local FedEx/Kinko’s store and get them printed off for a couple of bucks each.

When I initially started this project, I thought it would be relatively easy in this internet era to find period-appropriate maps for each city. That turned out not to be even remotely true, which is why some of the maps are a decade (or more) out of date. In a few cases, however, I’ve been able to provide multiple options for a map and you can use whichever one you feel is most appropriate. (Or all of them if you want to go hog wild.)

Of the maps that are out of date, the only one that’s truly problematic is the 1910 map of Valletta, Malta. One of the key locations in Malta is located in the parish of Paola on the far side of the Great Harbor from Valletta. The only problem? As far as I can tell, the section of Paola which abuts the harbor (where the key location is to be found) appears to have been almost wholly constructed between 1910 and 1930. So it’s not on the map.

If you find more period-appropriate maps for any of the locations (particularly at a size conducive to poster printing), please share!

Go to 1.1 New York

Eternal Lies is an amazing campaign written for Trail of Cthulhu by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball, and Jeremy Keller.

The basic conceit of the campaign is that a decade ago a band of occult investigators battled against the summoning of an ancient and monstrous evil… and failed. Now the PCs need to piece together what went wrong and try to salvage whatever they can. It was explicitly designed to be a spiritual successor to the Masks of Nyarlathotep and, like that classic campaign, features a freewheeling, international investigation of epic scope.

Long-time readers of the site may recall that I consider Masks of Nyarlathotep to be one of the best RPG campaigns ever published, and that it also provided the core concept for both the Three Clue Rule and Node-Based Scenario Design. Despite the incredibly high esteem in which I hold the Masks of Nyarlathotep, however, I’m of the opinion that Eternal Lies is even better.

It’s probably unsurprising, therefore, that a few months back I started prepping to run Eternal Lies. As is often the case, however, I got a trifle ambitious with my plans. The result was a large expansion (and a slight revamping) of the entire campaign, and over the next couple or three weeks I’d like to share with you the material I developed in the form of the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies.

SPOILER WARNING

This should probably go without saying, but from this point forward there will be huge spoilers for Eternal Lies. Literally stuff that will spoil the entire campaign for you.

As a particular warning for players in my extended gaming network: I’m planning to run this campaign again at some point in the (probably near) future. If you’d like to be able to actually play the campaign, I’m afraid you’re going to have to tune out of my website for a little while.

DESIGN NOTES

There are several core elements which make up the remix, and I think the material will be a little clearer if I explain its structure.

First, there are LOCATION DIORAMAS. The campaign, as published, is broken up across nine distinct locations. For each of these locations I prepped a diorama which could be hung on the wall near the gaming table. The centerpiece of each diorama was a large, poster-sized map. This was accompanied by a variety of photos, drawings, period advertisements, and the like. The idea was to provide a rich, visual reference for the players.

The dioramas were also intended to be persistent and interactive. As the PCs gathered clues and other materials in each location, they could be added to the dioramas. And as the PCs moved to each new location, the dioramas from the previous locations would remain. Over the course of the campaign, the gaming area would become immersed in the 1930s through a slow, inevitable, kudzu-like growth.

Second, there are PROP PACKETS. These are, again, grouped by location. I used a handful of physical props which, in the absence of 3D printing, I’m unable to share with you, but most of the materials are paper props of various kinds.

• For newspaper articles, I printed them on sheets of 8.5” x 11” newsprint.
• Most of the photos are designed to be printed directly onto 4” x 6” photo paper.
• Larger photos are designed for 8.5” x 11” photo paper. (In some cases, multiple images are arranged so that they can be printed on a single sheet and cut out.)
• For telegrams, I found that simply printing them on yellow paper was extremely effective.
• For the record album, I have included an MP3 audio file and also a CD label that can be printed using the Neato CD labels. (The CD is obviously anachronistic, but the ability to actually take the prop and play it is pretty awesome.)

Most of these props are original (albeit often sourced from period photographs and the like). But several of the props were originally developed by and shared by others on Yog-Sothoth.com. I’m including my copies here because most of them have been altered or repurposed to fit into the rest of my campaign schema, but if you end up continuing to develop Eternal Lies material for your own tables I heartily encourage you to pop over to Yog-Sothoth and share your work with the larger community.

Third, there are my CAMPAIGN NOTES. As with the dioramas and prop packets, these are broken down by location. They serve as a quick reference for running the campaign, but obviously also contain all of the other alterations and additions I’ve made.

NODE STRUCTURE

One of my biggest goals with this remix was to enrich the node-based structure of the campaign.

As written, Eternal Lies has a fairly straight-forward structure: A short track of investigation takes you from New York to Savannah and then to a mansion in Los Angeles where you discover a book which contains clues pointing to four other locations scattered around the globe. While investigating those locations, you’ll discover additional clues which will combine to form a “final revelation” pointing you towards the conclusion of the campaign.

I liked the open-ended, go wherever you want structure. What I didn’t like was the book. First, it was a single point of failure: If the PCs don’t find the book, the rest of the campaign doesn’t happen. Second, it feels a little too on-the-nose in the metagame: It felt like the GM saying, “Here’s your menu for the campaign. Please make your next selection.”

I wanted something a little more organic. I wanted things to feel messy and real. I wanted to give the players a greater sense of charting their own course, instead of just picking from a menu of three options. And I wanted the choice of sequence to have a more meaningful impact on how the investigation played out.

First, I significantly decreased the importance of the book and liberally spread clues pointing to the other cult locations throughout the Los Angeles investigation. I also mixed things up by adding additional clues to both the New York and Savannah investigations: It’s now possible to go from New York directly to Los Angeles, for example. Or to follow a lead from Savannah and go directly to Bangkok.

Second, I radically increased the cross-pollination of clues between locations. For example, in the original campaign the only “access point” to Bangkok was the book in Los Angeles. In the remix campaign, investigators can be pointed towards Bangkok from Savannah, Malta, Mexico City, and Axum.

So if the investigators, for example, take the first clue they find in Los Angeles and skedaddle before completing the rest of their investigation there, everything will be just fine: Wherever they’re going, they should be able to dig up more clues to keep their investigation alive. (In a worst case scenario, of course, they might find themselves doubling back to Los Angeles.)

THE FINAL REVELATIONS

The biggest weakness in Eternal Lies are two revelations that the PCs have to make near the end of the campaign. The first of these is the revelation that the Devouring Mountain, where the ultimate villain of the campaign is located, is Mt. Kailash in Thibet. In the campaign as written, this revelation is theoretically split into three clues:

• A map in Bangkok showing that the villain is located at Mt. Kailash.
• A clue in Malta that the villain can only be reached at Mt. Kailash during a certain time of the month.
• A clue in Mexico City that reveals that Mt. Kailash is the Devouring Mountain.

I say “theoretically split” because it’s pretty obvious that once you get a map pointing you directly at the location, you can pretty much brute force the rest of the problem (which causes the entire campaign to short circuit).

To fix this, it has been recommended that the map in Bangkok is in a huge stack of papers and only becomes notable once the PCs discover the clue in Mexico City. This is unsatisfying, however, because it creates a dynamic where the penultimate conclusion of the campaign isn’t the result of the players solving a mystery, it’s just the GM telling them where to go next.

To make matters even worse, Eternal Lies then immediately repeats this mistake. At the conclusion of the events at Mt. Kailash, the GM is supposed to once again say, “Oh, yeah. Your characters now remember a piece of paper I never told you about that tells you what to do next.”

It’s as if you were playing a traditional murder mystery and, at the end of the scenario, the GM said, “Oh, yeah. Your character remembers seeing a clue I didn’t tell you about several weeks ago. Tom’s the murderer.”

To which I say: Bah! Humbug!

So as part of the Alexandrian Remix, these final two revelations have been significantly restructured.

First, the MT. KAILASH REVELATION consists of three clues:

• Sirikhan mounted unsuccessful expeditions to several locations searching for the Maw of the Mouth, including Mt. Kailash. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Bangkok.)
• The Maw of the Mouth lies within the Devouring Mountain. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Mexico City.)
• The Rift of the Maw opens only on the night of a New Moon beneath a clear sky. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Malta.)

So in Bangkok the PCs will essentially gain a big list of location names, with no way to distinguish which location is the one they want. (Note that the only mountain in the list is Mt. Kailash.) In Mexico City they’ll be told that they’re looking for a mountain. And in Malta they’ll be told when they need to be there (which also explains why Savitree failed). It doesn’t matter which order they find these clues in, they won’t be able to piece the whole thing together unless they have all three.

Second, the REVELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE was trickier to solve. The method I eventually adopted was to NOT provide clues that allow the PCs to “solve” the mystery. Instead, I designed four key concepts:

• Great power requires great sacrifice.
• Echavarria’s ritual had two layers / two purposes.
• Edgar Job played a key role in Echavarria’s ritual, but no one knows what it was.
• Azathoth was the true focus of Echavarria’s interest.

And then I layered material supporting these concepts throughout the campaign. I can then pull whatever subset of material they discovered to form the final, spiteful vision sent to them at Mt. Kailash. For example: “Edgar Jobs dragging a cigarette and telling you he was Chosen by Echavarria in 1924. The summoning of the Liar From Beyond as only one part of the ritual. Montgomery Donovan sacrificing his wife because he knew it was necessary to sacrifice great things to achieve great power. What greater sacrifice could there be then a god summoned from beyond the Great Wall of Glaaki? And what greater power than the destructive gaze of Azathoth!”

The idea is that, at least thematically, the answer was in front of them the entire time (instead of being delivered from out of the blue). The actual solution to the problem has also been tweaked, so even after they get this revelation, they’ll still need to figure out what to actually do about it.

NEW LOCATIONS

Those already familiar with the campaign will also notice that there are two completely new locations in the Alexander Remix: The Severn Valley and Axum. Both of these arose through actual play, and I’ll be discussing the role they play in more detail as they actually get presented.

CHANGE OF DATE

A final significant change I made to the campaign was the date: As published, Eternal Lies begins in 1937, thirteen years after the original ritual was performed in 1924.

I suspect, however, that the campaign was originally supposed to start in 1934 and the decision to move it to 1937 was made rather late in the design process (for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me). There are a number of subtle hints to this effect in the text, but the big one is that one section of the campaign is set during the Abyssinia Crisis, which started in 1934 and was concluded by May 1936.

Rather than try to completely rework the Ethiopia material, I decided to simply crank the clock back. My version of the campaign begins in New York on October 31^st, 1934.

THE ALEXANDRIAN REMIX

Campaign Overview

1.0 Maps and Campaign Props
1.1 New York
1.2 Savannah
1.3 Los Angeles

Books of the Los Angeles Cult – UCLA Lot
Books of the Los Angeles Cult – Echavarria’s Library

2.0 Act II – Floating Scenes
2.1 Bangkok

Savitree’s Research

2.2.1 Severn Valley
2.2 Ethiopia
2.2.1 Obelisk of Axum
2.3 Malta
2.4 Mexico City
2.5 Yucatan

3.1 Thibet
3.2 The End

After Action Report

Addendum: Airports
Addendum: Hotels
Addendum: Newspapers

You may also find my System Cheat Sheet for Trail of Cthulhu useful.

This adventure for Numenera is designed as a prequel to “The Beale of Boregal” scenario from the core rulebook. For my Wandering Walk campaign I felt the events of “Beale” would be enhanced if the PCs were already familiar with the aldeia of Embered Peaks and the peculiar properties of its numenera.

BACKGROUND

The kokutai is a hive religion made up from many different factions (each of which is also referred to as a kokutai). The kokutai as a whole is led by the Mask, a holy leader marked by his or her face: A strange, mask-like biotech growth which extrudes into a faceless visage.

Before their death, each Mask is supposed to reveal the identity of their next reincarnation in the form of a prophetic riddle. Solving this riddle (a process referred to as the Race of the Riddle) is meant to be a competition between the kokutai, with the winning kokutai (i.e., the one who finds the next incarnation of the Mask) receiving favor for their particular teachings within the religion.

The Seventh Mask, however, failed to deliver a riddle before his death. Some kokutai are interpreting this as a riddle in itself. The Bensal kokutai, however, have a different plan: They are carrying the body of the Seventh Mask to the aldeia of Embered Peaks, where it is said that the devoirs possess a machine which allows them to as a single question of the deceased. If they can uniquely receive guidance from the Seventh Mask through the devoirs, they’ll have an obvious and significant advantage in finding the Eighth Mask and securing their position of dominance within the kokutai.

THE MASK: If surgically detached, the mask functions as yesterglass when worn by another. (See Artifacts & Oddities 1, pg. 8.) The kokutai are unamused by this sacrilege.

THE HOOK

While traveling, the PCs spot the camp of the Bensal kokutai. Fassare, their leader, is concerned: Her scouts have disappeared and she has been receiving dreams of black prophecy during her meditations over the body of the Seventh Mask. She wants to hire the PCs as bodyguards and escorts to see the Bensal kokutai expedition safely through to Embered Peaks. She can offer them in payment:

• 20 shins
• Image Caster (L5 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 6)
• Nectar Dispenser (L3 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 8)
• Visual Diplacement Device (L5 cypher, see Numenera, pg. 297)

If the PCs push for more information, Fassare will tell them that she fears that they are being hunted by “apotheoite kokutai”. These false worshipers, according to Fassare, seek to find the Seventh Mask’s body and destroy it.

Alternative Hook: They could be directly hired to track down the Bensal and steal the corpse of the Seventh Mask. Their employer could be another faction of the kokutai (including those described below), a bizarre collector, or a time-traveling version of the Seventh Mask intent on creating a trans-temporal rumor (depending on how weird you want to get).

THE JOURNEY

1. BENSAL CAMPSITE: Where the PCs meet the Bensal kokutai for the firs time.

2. SCRUB BRUSH PASS: There’s a pass which cuts between the peaks here and heads straight to Embered Peaks. It has an artificial look to it and, unlike the surrounding landscape, is filled with scrub brush giving way to a brown and desiccated forest.It’ll cut time off the trip, but it gives unique opportunities for ambush.

3. GEYSER OF DUST: Going the long way around the mountains takes longer. Here you pass a geyser of dust which plumes perpetually thirty feet into the air. (It can be seen from about about 7 miles away.)

EMBERED PEAKS: Nestled in the palm of a mountain that looks like a giant seven-fingered hand (from which the town takes its name).

THE FIRST NIGHT

During the first night, the Bensal kokutai camp is attacked by six ravage bears. (This attack is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the hostile forces arrayed against the Bensal’s mission.)

If the PCs track the ravage bears back to their lair, they will find two ravage bear pups.

RAVAGE BEARS (x6): L4, health 30, damage 7, armor 1

• Movement: Long
• Might defense L6.
• Runs, climbs, and jumps at L7.
• Ravage Grasp: Grab foes with powerful arms. Victim suffers 4 points of damage per turn in addition to damage from attacks.
• Fury: If it takes more than 10 points of damage, reduce defense by one step and increase attacks by one step.
• Blind: Immune to visual effects. Olfactory effects can confuse and “blind” it temporarily.

BENSAL KOKUTAI

The Bensal kokutai was favored by the Seventh Mask. Their leader is Fassare, who is intent on retaining her kokutai’s favor during the time of the Eighth Mask.

FASSARE: L5, health 15, damage 3, armor 1.

• Defend at L6.
• Resist mental effects at L6.
• Gain 4 Armor for 10 minutes via a force field device implanted in her cerebellum.
• Minor telekinesis (from same device).

BENSAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x8): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: CARAL KOKUTAI

The Caral kokutai think the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a great idea… they just want to do it themselves. Their primary interest is taking control of the Seventh Mask’s body and taking it to Embered Peaks. (And if they have to do it over the dead bodies of the Bensal, that’s fine.)

ATTACK PLATFORMS (L8): The Caral have access to briefcase-sized cyphers that, when activated, separate into four parts which form the corners of a solid energy field that can be used to fly through the sky with 4-6 people.

• Energy Weapon: 8 points of damage. (The perimeter of the attack platform pulses, coalesces, and then expels the energyform.)
• Duration: 1d4 hours of flight
• Movement: Long

The Caral have three of these platforms, although they’re likely to only use two in their first attack.

MOORA: L5, health 15, damage 3, dual wields a pair of ray emitters. Moora dual-wields ray emitters.

• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L8): 200 feet, 8 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion
• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L5): 200 feet, 5 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion

CARAL KOKUTAI WARLORDS (x2): L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

CARAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x12): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: GATHA KOKUTAI

The Gatha kokutai believes that the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a sacrilegious corruption of the Seventh Mask’s body. They’re more bloody-minded than that the Caral and seek to wipe out the “Bensal apotheoites” and their “Bensal heresy”.

LIGHTNING FENCE (L5): The Gatha have four reality spikes (Numenera, pg. 293) which can be activated in conjunction to form a four-sided fence of lightning  15 feet high. Passing through the fence inflicts 5 ambient damage. (They’ll use the fence in an effort to divide the Bensal’s forces and, if possible, isolate the Seventh Mask’s Body.)

MIGALA: L5, health 15, damage 5. Attacks at L6. Resists mental effects at L6. Migala carries a bandolier of detonations. Roll on the Cypher Danger Chart (Numenera, pg. 279) once per encounter.

• 8 detonations (Numenera, pg. 284; determine randomly)
• Detonation (gravity) (Numenera, pg. 284)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARLORD: L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x15): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

CHIROGS

A local chirog tribe has become aware of the Bensal’s pyred procession. Like all chirogs, they despise numenera. Because they consider the body of the Seventh Mask to be a numenera relic, they now seek to destroy it.

The pack leader does not speak, but is surrounded by a choir of three alpha males who speak for her in alternating voices.

CHIROG PACK MEMBERS: See Numenera, pg. 235.

PACK LEADER: L4. Has a mental attack that inflicts 4 Intellect damage (bypassing armor).

ALPHA MALES (x3): L5, health 18, damage 6, armor 4.

TACTICAL NOTES

This scenario should not be run as a simple string of three mass combats. The various kokutai and chirogs should use varied tactics; retreat in the face of unexpected danger or loss; and the like. A few thoughts:

• One group or another may attempt to suborn the PCs, either by convincing them that the Bensal kokutai are in the wrong or simply promising to pay more for their services.
• A kokutai group that has been badly damaged might try to parley with the Bensal kokutai. (Or ally with the other kokutai, allowing for a joint assault featuring both attack platforms and a second lightning fence.)
• The Bensal kokutai might ask the PCs to approach one of the harrassing apotheoite kokutai in order to form an alliance against a common enemy. (For example, the Gatha might be convinced to forgive their heresy and protect the Seventh Mask’s holy vessel from the chirog. Or the Caral might be convinced to help them drive off the Gatha in order to assure that the riddle of the Seventh Mask can be discovered.)
• The Caral might launch a stealth operation to steal the body (either during the night or while the PCs are distracted by an attack from another group). The scenario could turn into either tracking them down or racing them to Embered Peaks.

If the players are losing interest, it’s probably time to launch an all-out assault to finish things up. Or go the other way and have a kokutai appear on the horizon, give a ceremonial chant of mutual respect, and then leave (signaling the permanent end of the conflict).

Embered Peaks itself can make a good location for a final ambush. It will provide a distinct environment from the overland ambushes and encounters and you can get innocent bystanders involved and/or caught in the crossfire.

Note that the opposition presented here assumes that the Bensal kokutai will be assisting the PCs. (You may wish to use my rules for NPC allies.) Without assistance, PCs — particularly low-tier PCs — will find themselves rapidly overrun by the powerful factions seeking the Seventh Mask.

Tales from the Table: Precepts of the Seventh Mask in Actual Play

Bruce Cordell’s Eschatology Code is an absolutely fabulous introductory scenario for The Strange.

I’ve run it four times and the opening scene has immediately grabbed hold of the players, yanked them off their feet, and plunged them into a deep end of extreme excitement every single time. The rest of the scenario is a pleasant little mystery capped with a health dose of awesome.

As with Monte Cook’s Into the Violet Vale, I prepped a bunch of resources for the Eschatology Code while preparing to run it at GenCon this year. And now that this scenario, too, has been released to the public I’d like to share them with you so that you can use ’em at your own table.

MISSION BRIEFING

(click here for PDF)

We’ll start with an ESTATES EYES ONLY briefing document. You can use this to pitch the scenario to your players. Or you can hand it to them as they arrive for the game.

(Note: DL1770 is an actual Delta flight that goes from Seattle to Sioux Falls to Minneapolis.)

GM CHEAT SHEET

(click for PDF)

This cheat sheet should be fairly self-explanatory.

The OPENING SPIEL is a brief outline for introducing new players to both the rules and milieu of The Strange.

The DATE REFERENCE was designed to have the scenario dates land on the dates for GenCon when I first ran the adventure.

Most of the rest of the cheat sheet just consolidates the relevant stat blocks. However, I’ve also indicated where the appropriate HANDOUTS (see below) should be used. I’ve also added a few creepy details to flesh out the All Souls Church of Deliverance.

OTHER RESOURCES

In addition to the mission briefing and master cheat sheet, I’ve also prepped these resources:

• Cypher and Ability Cheat Sheets: These are designed to eliminate book look-ups for the pregenerated characters in the adventure. I’ve found that they save about 20-30 minutes of playing time, so their use greatly improves the pace of the scenario if you’re using Eschatology Code as  a one-shot for introducing people to the game.
• PC Tent Cards: Once again featuring the pregen characters. I prep these and put them in the middle of the table. As people approach, they can select whichever character looks appealing to them and put the tent card in front of them. It’s a nice, quick way to facilitate character selection and also means that you (and other players) can quickly identify who’s playing who with a quick glance during play. These files are designed to be printed with Avery “Small Tent Cards” (template 5302), but you could also just print them on normal cardstock. What you need to do is take each A file and then flip it and print the matching B file. (Each sheet has four tent cards, so I’ve designed the three files so that I get two complete sets of character names if I print all three (to minimize wastage). If you just want one set, print sets 1 and 2 and you should be good to go.)
• Eschatology Code Handouts: These include a blueprint reference for the 787 flight the PCs are on at the beginning of the scenario; an informational handout for the All Souls Church of Delivereance; and graphical handouts photoshopped from the scenario. (These graphical handouts are designed to be printed as 4 x 6 photos.)

Monte Cook’s Into the Violet Vale was released yesterday. This is the Numenera adventure I ran at Gencon this year. It features a nifty in media res opening that will make the adventure a little more challenging to incorporate into an ongoing campaign, but which works great if you’re looking to run a one-shot. On the other hand, it’s also remarkably flexible and non-linear compared to most convention scenarios I’ve experienced, so I definitely think it can be worth the effort. I’ve run it 4 times and found it to be delightful and mind-bending every time.

As part of my prep work for running the adventure, I put together a bunch of resources and an expansive cheat sheet that I think y’all might find useful. And now that the scenario has been released to the public, I can share them with you.

SPOILER WARNING

(click here for PDF)

This cheat sheet for the GM supplements the adventure in several key ways:

First, I’ve prepped a specific MISSION BRIEFING featuring three specific questions to help players orient themselves into the scenario. This is designed to retain the in media res quality of the opening while providing enough context to meaningfully inform roleplaying without requiring the players to simply listen to a big wall of text. (In practice, the answers to these questions often had a radical effect on shaping what followed.) The final question (“How are you securing and transporting Sinter?”) is designed to transition with a hard pivot directly into the opening scene.

Second, I’ve included a lengthy REGLAE REFERENCE. During my playtest, the players really wanted to tear the titular, dimension-warping flowers apart. So I whipped up some really weird, non-terrestial biological traits to reward their attention.

Third, several of my players commented that the adventure felt too “generic fantasy” and didn’t do enough to really highlight the awesome “weirdness” of the setting (particularly early on). In an attempt to address this, I’ve added some EXTRA WEIRDNESS to the abandoned camp at the beginning of the adventure. I’ve made some similar additions to Lady Weiss and her brute bodyguards.

I’ve specified FRIN’S CYPHERS. These were just pregenerated randomly, but it let me include them on the cypher cards I prepped for the adventure. (See below.) If you don’t want to use those cards, there’s no reason you can’t just generate them randomly during play.

I’ve added a bit where the PCs can theoretically MURDER FRIN and reverse engineer an alternative (but dangerous) method of escaping the valley. (This also changes the method Lady Weiss uses to help the PCs escape the valley.)

Finally, I’ve prepped NPC ROLEPLAYING SHEETS for all of the major NPCs (Sinter, Lady Weiss, Frin, and Meriod). I’ve talked about these before, but the short version is that I derived this format for NPCs from Mike Mearls’ In the Belly of the Beast. I’ve found that it makes quickly referencing their information and assuming their character so incredibly simple.

OTHER RESOURCES

In addition to my master cheat sheet, I’ve also prepped these resources:

• Handout: Grodon’s Journal: A one-page version of the handout with a fancy-looking font. (The font is SF New Republic. I use it as a kind of lingua franca in the Ninth World.)
• NPC Portraits and Graphics: These depict Lady Weiss’ Tower, Lady Weiss, Frin, and Meriod. They’re formatted to be printed as 4×6 photos. The character portraits have been heavily photoshopped from the group portrait on pg. 10 of the scenario so that you can present each NPC individually. The picture of Lady Weiss’ Tower comes from here. (Check it out, it’s pretty cool.)
• Cypher and Ability Cheat Sheets: These are designed to eliminate book look-ups for the pregenerated characters included in the adventure. I’ve found that they save about 20-30 minutes of playing time, so their use greatly improves pace if you’re using Into the Violet Valet as a one-shot for introducing people to the game.
• Cypher Cards: These are for all the cyphers that the PCs can find or gain during the adventure. (This includes the three cyphers that Frin brings them, see above.) These cards are designed to be printed on Avery 8471 business cards, but can easily be printed on any paper or cardstock and then cut out. (There are two full sets so that I could just print the page once and have enough for both of the sessions I was scheduled to run at Gencon.)
• PC Tent Cards: Once again featuring the pregen characters. I prep these and put them in the middle of the table. As people approach, they can select whichever character looks appealing to them and put the tent card in front of them. It’s a nice, quick way to facilitate character selection and also means that you (and other players) can quickly identify who’s playing who with a quick glance during play. These files are designed to be printed with Avery “Small Tent Cards” (template 5302), but you could also just print them on normal cardstock. What you need to do is take each A file and then flip it and print the matching B file. (Each sheet has four tent cards, so I’ve designed the three files so that I get two complete sets of character names if I print all three (to minimize wastage). If you just want one set, print sets 1 and 2 and you should be good to go.)