Unknown Armies Playtest - The Lone and Level Sands

Elihu Vedder

1799. Following an outbreak of bubonic plague at Jaffa and a failed siege of Acre, French forces retreated from the Holy Land, endlessly harassed by Mamluks as they marched through the desert on their way back to Egypt.

Four frogs woke up in the shade of a huge pair of legs, all that remained of an ancient statue swallowed by the desert. 

• Dr D'Hubert, Savant
• Eugen, Grognard from Tolosa
• Jacques, Grognard from Bordeaux
• Louis, Grognard from Paris

They were alive and in pain from the pustules on their lymph nodes. They felt dry and desiccated and they were surrounded by blue-tinted corpses. The Armee D'Orient was nowhere in sight, tracks long erased by blowing sand. The Doctor realized that they all had the bubonic plague and had just survived an opium overdose. The Little Corporal had tried to euthanize them.

OSE Encounter Activities Test Drive: Fumigation of the Escheated Wizard Tower

After the death of the Monarch, the assets of his supporters were seized and redistributed to benefit the victims of his tyranny. The tower of the wizard Cloudkill, one of the Old King’s archmages from the College of Wands, was given to a pair of mutants who fought alongside the rebels. The retired partisans hired mercenaries to clear the “squatters” out of their dream home. The magical monsters are more than the hired guns can handle.

OSE Encounter Activities Test Drive: Shadowdance of the Lizard Corsairs

Walter Martishius

Lizard pirates sail to a secluded cove and hatch a sinister plan at an ancient temple. The local wildlife doesn’t cooperate.

Creature Cache Test Drive: Honey Trap of the Planeswalking Soulmaster

The Hanged King cynically founded numerous enclosed orders of nuns, drawn from the widows and orphans created by his endless wars, whose sole purpose in life was to be sacrificed to him and increase his magic power. The Elixir of Life religion was created as a ploy by the Tower of Pain, one of the newly founded Commonwealth’s largest religious corporations, as a ploy to absorb these directionless death cultists who no longer had anything to die for after the King was killed. It was impossible to talk that many religious fanatics into moving on with their lives, the best the Tower could do was offer them a more prosocial cause to die for.

Creature Compendium Test Drive: Volcanic Vent of the Pukwudgie Potentate

Our story takes us north of the Thousand Lakes, to the great ice sheet which covers the Cursed Mountains. These enormous spires lie frozen under vast glaciers, summits periodically exposed by magical fire events, deliberate excavation, or natural geologic activity. The melted peaks draw explorers to the extraordinarily hostile frozen wasteland in search of the ancient treasures concealed therein. As magic and science advance, so to do adventurers into the frozen north, drawing ever closer to the heart of the ice.

His Majesty The Worm - Session 4

Four adventurers hiked up Hangman's Hill for the Elite Underman Excavation Company's next adventure.

• Breadrick Bravebelly, Halfling Rogue
• Constantina Leadcutter, Halfling Duelist
  
• Gyrfalcon "Gary the Mage" Hakkapeliitta, Human Mage
• Hyacinth "Cindy" Hakkapeliitta, Human Brewer
  

Their destination was the Kick at the Clouds, a historic tavern where condemned prisoners once received their last drink before going to the gallows. The Troll Witte Boiledsyrup had a job for him. The Red Claw gang, a Guild of Orcs, were squatting in his basement. Not only did they refuse to leave, they drank wine from his cellar without paying. They must have found treasure or an entrance to the undercity down there, because they had enough money to pay prostitutes and food vendors who periodically visited them. If the Undermen got rid of them they could keep any treasure they found in the basement, aside for the booze which belonged to Witte.

Gary negotiated an increased fee for the job and the Guild took a look at Witte's map of the cellar. As long as they were down there, the group decided to pursue Cindy's personal quest and search for alchemical reagents to enhance her lackluster attempts at homebrewing.

Monster Overhaul Test Drive: Silent Swamp of the Stoneskin Jaeger

 

The Chocolate Coast at the edge of the Lost World. So called because of the vast quantities of chocolate which flow from Iron Cup’s inland plantations out to the trade fort at Isle of Sweat, and from there to the rest of the world. Further inland: Forest fens of giant cycads and ferns. Flooded pampas infested with enormous dinosaurs. Canyons filled with monstrous insects. Volcanoes that periodically disgorge great lava flows. Further still, the Gunpowder Empires of the Giff.

This is the context in which we place the Silent Ranch, a patch of swamp on a minor tributary of the River Sweat. Surrounded by prehistoric forests where hadrosaurs splash and giant sloths graze on primitive trees. Far away from sneering nobles and idiot wizards and trading companies and ravenous greed and murderous armies, for now. Nested atop a hideous secret that, if she’d known about it, the owner would have thought twice before locating her ranch there

His Majesty The Worm - Session 3

 

Matul Bentgirder net the Elite Undermen Excavation Company by the hospital outside town.

• Aethelbald, Earthblood Orc Rogue
• Candella Panthercoppered, Dwarf Fighter
• Hyacinth "Cindy" Hakkapeliitta, Human Brewer
• Mikado Open-The-Belly, Gnome Sniper 

Rather than offer a job for pay, the undermobster offered them a bag of freebies to put the hurt on the Fire Giants as payback for kidnapping his distant relation. 

• Fungus Purgit, for dissolving melted stone
  
• Oil of the Frost Wraith, for adding ice damage to weapons
• Potion of Flash Sweat, for immunity to fire damage
  
• Shrink Bomb, for negating the size advantage of a roomful of monsters

There were effectively two ways into the Forge. Go back down the stairs under the Temple of Swords and directly confront the Giants, or follow the underground river south into the Stone Garden and use the Purgit to dissolve the melted stone blocking the passage. The Guild took the long way around, excited to explore a new area. They also decided to take on Aethelbald's personal quest to retrieve a magnificent horse from the dungeon.

 

Unknown Armies Playtest - The Rose and the Nightingale

Lecomte du Nouy

 

1798. General Napoleon Bonaparte led the Armée d'Orient into Egypt against the Mamluks, a military aristocracy of former Ottoman slave-soldiers. In the Nile Delta, the French stormed the castle of a Mamluk Bey. Artillery smashed holes in the walls. Fusiliers stormed the battlements. The defenders surrendered or fled. The Bey and his wife stepped into his secret escape tunnel. The castle was hit by French artillery and the happy couple were immediately killed by a piece of falling masonry, leaving five Eunuchs in command of the harem and his palace.

• Agha the Gardener 
• Baybar the Physician
• Faisal the Librarian
• Hassan the Guard
• Malik the Bath Attendant
  

They debated what to do about the impending French assault on the harem. They were split between their desires to escape, protect the Bey's concubines,  loot the place, or do some combination of the three. The palace was surrounded and even if they could get out, they'd be penniless, friendless and without protection in a land being invaded by foreigners. They needed a plan.

 

His Majesty The Worm - Session 2

 

Fresh off their victory over the Vampire Voivode, three adventurers stripped down for a soak at the thermae, and to meet their next client.

• Breadrick Bravebelly, Halfling Rogue
• Gyrfalcon "Gary the Mage" Hakkapeliitta, Human Mage
• Candella Panthercoppered, Dwarf Fighter

The Dwarf mobster Matul Bentgirder lounged nude in a private bath with a handful of huskarls, sturdy bodyguards who didn't need weapons or armor to deal lethal damage. He was happy to see the Undermen Breadrick and Candella, and to meet the human Gyrfalcon. He had a job for them, a rescue mission in the Fire Giants' forge beneath the Crypt of the Vampire Voivode. It was a favor to a relative, to rescue the human Leupold Hakkapeliitta from Giant captivity. For this he'd pay out 150 gold pieces, provided the prisoner was brought back alive.

 

The Fire Giants were a hot topic in the adventuring community. Weapons that looked suspiciously like Fire Giant forgework were regularly seen in the hands of brute squads from the Temple of Swords, leading to rumors of forbidden commerce with the Giant slavers.

 

The Guild debated whose personal quest to pursue alongside the rescue mission. They decided to get a piece of fine art for Candella's tomb, since the Fire Giant Forge would probably be full of fine metalwork and jewelry. There was the little problem of the Vampire Voivode, his wives, his servants and his pets, all of whom were pissed off at the Guild for their conduct on the previous delve. But it was nothing they couldn't handle, provided they moved fast. All they had to do was move fast to the drain in the floor of the mulch room, which led down to an underground river that fed the Fire Giant Forge.

 

His Majesty The Worm - Session 1

 

Four adventurers stood in the entry hall of the Crypt of the Vampire Voivode.

• Breadrick Bravebelly, Halfling Rogue
• Chelicera, Cave Elf Bard
• Gyrfalcon "Gary the Mage" Hakkapeliitta, Human Mage
• Candella Panthercoppered, Dwarf Fighter

Their mission, given to them by a Gnome crimelord in the Hangman's Quarter outside of town: Enter the Crypt and pluck an Avern, a special moonlight flower used in Elven monomachy. Breadrick had personal reasons to descend into the vampiric tomb, which the rest of the Elite Undermen Excavation Company agreed to help him with: he needed to find a special bottle of wine as a courtship gift.

All that remained was to choose a direction to explore first.

Creature Compendium Test Drive: Widow's Grove

A trio of Elf Druids has broken away from the See of Trees and built a hideout in a mesa overlooking Hogman's Plain. To the sorceresses of Widow's Grove, the scalphunters and sandbusters and shipping magnates and self righteous Clerics sent by industrialized civilization are nothing more than prey animals to be devoured.

Creature Compendium Test Drive: The Marsh on Mogart's Creek

moxica

 

The River Hog is the fastest and safest way to traverse Hogman's Plain, right up until you hit a snag. Adventurers, colonists and scalphunters aren't the only creatures drawn to the cool flowing water, which protects travelers against the searing sun and swarming undead alike.