The Colonel's Table - Pitch Document

You know this is not how things are supposed to be. Maybe you've always known. Maybe something happened that showed you. A crack in reality that granted a glimpse of another world which made the real world of dead end jobs and shrieking alarms and medical bills look like a drug induced nightmare. Maybe you wanted more. Maybe you were afraid. You thought you could get by if you just shut your mouth and played by the rules.

 

That's what they want. To keep you weak, scared and disorganized. To keep you quiet while they take what they want. While they selfishly hoard power that could solve everyone's problems if the parasites and bureaucrats and landlords just stepped out of the way.

 

Not you. You're not scared anymore. You're going to fight and you're going to win or die trying. 

 

You're a domestic terrorist who works at KFC.

  

Unknown Armies - Holiday in Caledonia Playtest 2

Douzette

 
The year was 410 AD. The place was a veteran colony, founded by retired legionnaires in the far north of Roman Britain. For years there had been no news from Londinium in the south. For months there had been no news even from the nearest villas and towns to the frontier. This year’s harvest was bad. Winter was fast approaching. Starvation was a real possibility.

Two sixty year old Roman dads who founded the colony met in a drystone hut to figure out what to do about it. They won the wrestling match to decide who got to leave the colony and now they had to decide where to search for food while their comrades in arms held down the fort.

• Martial, Freedman and camp doctor
• Rusticus, Latinized Gothic barbarian 

The Veterans huddled over a table in Martial's drystone house and used objects to build a simulacra of the terrain around them as they made plans for the expedition. Martial's barbarian wife Saturnia poured beer and served a dish of bread and pickles. The marshes to the southeast might still have animals they could hunt. The rural villa to the southwest might have food they could buy. The rustic summer estate was only a day's march away but the Veterans rarely visited. They had bartered before, even taken their families to stay at the owner's invitation. But something had soured the Veterans on the jumped-up Romano Briton and the Freedman who ran the place for the ten months out of the year that the Caledonian highlands were too cold for southerners.

 

They decided to visit the villa anyway. Feeding their family was more important than their personal pride, and if he wouldn't sell them food they could rob him.

Riverboat Gambler - Session Seven

 

Jack, Zigar, Roddy and Datura worked out a plan of attack with Smaragdino the Grain Cleric and Alejandra the Minotaur. The cult would send the flying ship Llanera to drop off a blocking force at the Serpent Tomb (to destroy the Giants if they made it back with their prize), then head west to garrison the Tomb of the God in case that was Aldrich's target. The Gamblers would head south accompanied by one cult ship to the Tomb of the Dragon and a force of two other gunboats would go to the Shield Volcano.

 

The ship which was to accompany the Gamblers floated in a columned impluvium with a tunnel bored through the rock to access the river. The Bottle Full Of Rain, a lightweight dhow or beden which mounted a pair of swivel guns. A compliment of sailors worked to prepare the vessel for departure. The Cleric Alice Woodfingers clouted her detachment of ten Mowers aboard the boat, gesticulating with her arms of living oak and shouting that they'd overdose if she left them in charge of their own combat stims. Roddy recognized the signs of black honey addiction, a stimulant that granted extra actions but destroyed the user's teeth. The Mowers all had grills of wood, bone or gold. 

 

Alice explained the score to the Gamblers in between shouting at her troops. The Bottle could match the Last Round's normal speed under sail, and if she handed out stims the Mowers could match the steamship's blueline speed under oars. She had a gift for the Gamblers, something to mount on their ships. A group of teenage acolytes brought out six scarecrows on poles. Jack asked what they were for and all six turned and bowed at him, doffing their straw hats. Alice explained that the constructs absorbed magic spells and would protect the ship from the Giants' lightning toss power. 

 

At Roddy's insistence, Datura negotiated access to one of the ammonium nitrate "golems" for use in demolitions. The rest of the gang purchased healing potions and other necessities. The grain cult potions came in earthware jars and tasted like thick barley porridge, a marked contrast to the glowing red serum sold by Potion Addict.

The Unknown Armies Open Table?

 

I've cooled off on open table games over the last decade or so. Pacing is really important, maybe the most important part of running a game, and ensuring every game ends at a "good stopping place" where you can swap players/characters in and out is a pain. Playing with a consistent cohort who don't need everything explained to them repeatedly (not just rules explanations but repeated recaps of who they are, who the NPCs are, what's going on in the game world) is way better.

 

On the other hand, I thought about running a UA3 open table long before I got sick of running this style of game. Weekly open table games get better attendance at the RPG club than oneshots demoing new systems, which struggle to scrape together even a couple players.

In Defense of +1 Swords

Fighters need all the help they can get. It's like their one thing.

Riverboat Gambler - Session Six

Roddy and Zigar went back up the mountain to clear out the dungeon. They took the mutants Afex, Mancy and Josh with them. The monsters disappeared into the wilderness almost immediately and when the Gamblers were about half way up the path to the cave they returned with a warning: Cortez' Rangers were waiting by the dungeon entrance. There were twelve rangers with camels and rifles and they were probably waiting for someone to come out of the dungeon so they could shake them down for money. They had no doubt spotted the steam from the Last Round parked down in the river and had likely spotted Roddy and Zigar climbing the hill.

 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Thirteen

 

The balloon sailed overhead and the Company turned to pursue it along with the Companion Cavalry. They rode west out of the grasslands and into the forest. Autolykos and the Horn Knight loosed arrows at the envelope, hoping to hole it. A howl of rage came from the basket. It sounded like the Glass Knight. The Flying Swords shouted down that the pursuers ought to hold their fire, lest they kill the hostage.

As night fell they came to the base of a cliff that divided the forest, which the Flying Swords sailed over. The balloon was losing altitude but Autolykos' pony could gallop no further. The Knights left their mounts with him and scaled the cliff on foot while the Companions galloped north around the obstacle.

Riverboat Gamber - Session Five

Petzholdt

 

The Human Jack Fatherd, the Halfling Roddy Applecreek, and the Elves Aphono and Datura took the Last Round north, up a tributary river toward the mandrake plantation. The sun rose and scorpions scuttled from beneath the stones dotting the rocky hamada beyond the riverbank. A couple hours north of the rock pile the shore was studded with warning signs. RISK OF INSTANT DEATH - THIS MEANS YOU. Pictures of men covering their ears or dying as a plant headed man emerged from the earth.

 

His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash - Deep Dwarves

No true Dwarf would allow the sun to fall on his head. That’s the philosophy of the Deep Downers, a disaffected youth subculture of Underfolk who shun the surface entirely. The movement was never popular in the City due to the sheer impracticality of urban life entirely underground. That changed with the discovery of the underworld. In the ensuing gold rush a number of Deep Downer expeditions disappeared into the dungeon, vowing never to return. The bulk of them met grisly fates and came back as undead. 

A handful survived.

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.