The Great Glass Mountain - Session Twelve

The Company sailed west out of the Screaming Seer's sanctum. They moved thrice as fast as they did on land and by midday they had circled the shining tower in the center of the inlet. Further west a monumental arch emerged from the beach, green and shining where the patina hadn't covered the silver beneath. They came upon a narrow boat carrying a scribe and his assistant. 

 

The Learned Numerator Alfger ceased his observations of nature and hailed the Knights. He told them to rejoice because the time of order was close at hand. The Apparatus was nearing completion and once it was done the Knights would be liberated from the Seers and their nonsense. The Knights were skeptical that a machine would provide better instructions than the Seers. The Numerator told them they were welcome to visit the spire where the Apparatus was under construction. He knew they were busy burying their friend and didn't want to bounce from quest to quest until they had completed the one.

 

By night they set down the anchor off the coast and dreamed of a war in the shadows, lit only by the clash of weapons against an unseen foe.

 

Riverboat Gamber - Session Four

 

Roddy, Jack, Datura and Zigar shopped at the Potion Addict. They bought food, reagents to make hand grenades, and contemplated buying a Potion of Water Breathing. If someone swam under the Destroyer cult boat with an explosive charge they could detonate it at the same time as Roddy cleared the blockage in the river, letting the Gamblers proceed without fear of pursuit. The Bullywugs dissuaded them. The narrowboat was pulled by huge marine worms who would smell intruders and attack them underwater.

 

The Gamblers waited until dawn when the sun scraped the rubble pile clean of swarming undead. Roddy and his team planted the barrel while the adventurers at the bar, the Blackmath cultists and even the tribes of the plain looked on in anticipation. The blast created a big wave and a plume of water and debris, which the cultists eagerly sped into aboard their narrowboat, urging the worms into the spray and accepting minor casualties from the falling stones as the price of doing business. The Last Round spooled up the propellers and raced after them, taking the three mutants rescued from the Barbican along for the ride.

 

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: Grand Supreme

The Entropomancers of Level Die get a letter.

To the sorcerers of Level Die

A challenge:

Come to Caesars Atlantic City and I will kill you.

I have a spectacular Roman cage cup dating approximately 100 years before the fall of the Republic. Its value is incalculable. Since I only charge using vessels I make myself, you are welcome to it. Come to the Toga Bar. I will be waiting there to take your skulls. If you survive the goblet is yours.

-Three Bear

It’s an obvious trap. That’s what makes it fun.

Unknown Armies Halloween Jam 2025 Feedback

 

It's time for another Unknown Armies 3e jam review. The event ran from October 7th through October 23rd and the specifications can be found here. The event received fifteen submissions. The ones shaded blue are my own.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Eleven

The Company traveled east from the Screaming Seer's Sanctum and followed the river into the mountains. Their quest was for the Beast but to reach it they had to travel up treacherous mountain paths and places where there was no path. There were places a man could jump but a horse could not be induced to leap and land safely on the other side. Autolykos led them through places that looked impassible and turned them back when it looked safe but really wasn't.

 

In the mountains the water pooled at the bottom of a waterfall. Bones whirled in the water and hogs dragged the corpse of a mountain lion ashore to gnaw it. Whatever killed it was at the top of the waterfall, so that's where the Company went.

 

At the top, the opening in the rock face was large enough for a bear and then some. Auckland recognized it from his dreams. He was used to seeing it from the other side, looking out. The Knights didn't want to enter the cave and fight the monster on its own turf, so Tiber taunted it to draw it out.

 

The beast leaped from atop the cliff and fell on top of the Salt Knight. It had been waiting for the Company to go inside so it could trap them. 

 

Riverboat Gambler - Session Three

Aphono, Datura, Jack, Roddy and Zigar got in a longboat and crossed the river to the cliff where the red energy blast had opened a hole into the dungeon within. They rowed and hiked and climbed up the talus pile formed by the explosion and when they got to the hole they found tracks leading inside. Someone had beat them to it as they crossed over from the Mastaba. Two groups of humanoids.

 
Someone shouted from deeper in the underground complex. Another muffled explosion followed it, making the cliff shake.

Riverboat Gambler - Session Two

van der Poel

 

Aphono, Jack, Roddy and Datura sailed up the River Hog through the night. The night brought Ghouls who howled from the riverbanks at the blue glow illuminating the steam from the reactor, thinking it a third moon. Dawn brought giant scorpions out from under the rocks on shore. By day they came across a Grain Cult gunboat, shorn of its mast and anchored by the muddy riverbank. Captain Belkin of the Bread Box explained to the Gamblers that Aldrich's barge of Giants had crippled their vessel with a thrown lightning bolt from extreme range. They were patrolling the river for him and for other hazards, such as the Blue Dragon flying overhead or the savage tribes infesting the desert beyond. The Gamblers hitched the Bread Box to the Last Round and towed them upriver to the nearest village. The Iron Cup outlet served coffee and the Halflings played marching songs with Datura.

PROVENDER: A Parka Worn Backwards

thefirsttinghewasawareofwashisownhandexploringthecontoursofthebonesinsidethemaninfrontofhimandallhecouldfeelwasajoythathnowhewasaliveandadesiretoknowthefaceofhisfatherbutthefacewasobscuredandhisfathercasthimawayintothedarkandemptyspaceabove

PROVENDER: From These Dreams You Don't Wake Up

Marc rolled his mousewheel and chewed through the backscroll since he last visited. It had been hell finding the page. There was a chance every time that the server had been nuked and his account with it. 

Not much discussion. The usual debate about whether it was the real thing. It was an interesting discussion but it wasn't the point. The current streak was still twelve nights in a row, but the guy had stopped posting.

Enough dicking around. Pinned messages.

He fullscreened the webm and it played automatically.

Fighting Fantasy Introductory RPG: Into The Nest

Enormous burrowing insects have exposed the entrance to an ancient tomb. Only a greedy fool would descend into the bug infested hole to pillage the treasure therein. 

 

PROVENDER: False Retreat

Dune predicted that any genuine discovery of the New Age would be co opted by The Man. Psychedelic drugs, tantric sex, yoga, the human potential movement, it would all serve the interests of billion dollar corporations and government conspiracies. 

 

Today instead of maintaining adequate staffing levels, companies use "mindfulness" to fight burnout. Programmers microdose LSD to make themselves more productive. And Movement Medicine instructor Edwina "Ed" Christ holds ecstatic dance retreats to help employees of billion dollar firms open their third eye.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Ten

Tiber the Salt Knight stood outside the grotto at Eldermass, the Conclave of Seers. The Screaming Seer leaned against the cave entrance, not screaming. It looked like he was crying but when he saw the Salt Knight he got it together and passed him a note.

 

Riverboat Gambler - Session 1

Five adventurers gathered on the deck of the timberclad gunboat Last Round as it sailed up the Hog delta and into the mouth of the river proper.

• Aphono, Elf
• Datura, Elf
• Jack Fatherd, Coureur des bois
• Roddy Applecreek, Mad bomber
• Zigar Kneecapper, Reformed thug

Their mission: to hunt down and kill the criminal mastermind Aldrich Deathsbane, human king of Giants, and claim the bounty on his hide. With them, a crew of nineteen Halflings and a single human. Survivors from Roddy's village or the surrounding farms destroyed by the Giants during the Marriage of the Giantess Morwenna. They brought muskets, magic spells, a pair of swivel guns and a cannon mounted to a rotating turret. They sailed under steam, powered by a slime that heated water poured into a boiler. 

The land around the river was cut with wadis and arroyos, channels where the river once flowed. A caravan of wild camels came to the shore to drink, drawing curious Halflings. Distant mountains gleamed marble-white to the southwest. The chaotic terrain gave way to flat plains and an oasis where the adventurers watched a crimson death worm ambush a wallowing wildebeest, then fall beneath the hooves and horns of its fellow ungulates. Most life on the Plain was concentrated around the river and after the wildebeest came herd of elephants. The Hobbits were astonished. Some pointed their guns, afraid that they might shoot fire from their trunks or launch their tusks like flying spears. Jack reassured them. Elephants were herbivores, gentle and even kind unless roused to a killing frenzy by a threat to the herd.

 

The elephants thought the boat was another elephant. The calves trumpeted and the adults flicked their ears in a futile attempt at communication.