Unknown Armies - DO WHAT YOU WANT 'CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE - SESSION 0

I played a superb twelve session campaign of Unknown Armies featuring ¥0, a Japanese successor conspiracy to Mak Attax from David Tormsen's upcoming Special Orders splatbook. I really enjoyed the game, and after the playtest game wrapped I felt comfortable enough with the game to run it myself, featuring my own fan organization: The Brethren of the Curb, food truck pirates with their own vision of the magickal revolution.

 

Unknown Armies 3E begins with "corkboarding", a world creation exercise where the group chooses an objective for the campaign, based on the premise set by the GM and whatever the players are interested in doing. Then the players and GM go around the table and take turns developing their characters and adding plot elements and connections to a relationship map, which then forms the basis of the action in future sessions.

We finished corkboarding in a single four hour session We had one new player (to UA, not to RPGs) and several experienced players. Everyone had spend the week running up to the game discussing their plans in the discord, and they all arrived with basic concepts for their characters, food truck, and objective, which definitely sped things up. Most of the players were also contributors to the Special Orders book, and had been marinating in the setting for several months, so they had a good feel for what the tone and setting of the game should be like.

THE TRUCK

The group pretty quickly zeroed in on the idea of a Kaifeng/Ashkenazi fusion truck. They came up with a rotating list of dumplings to serve:

• Hoshin Duck Bao
• Brisket Bao
• Spicy Chicken Bao
• Chive Bao
• Soup Bao
• Pastrami Bao with mustard sauce
• The Scorcher

They decided to call the truck BAO DOWN, PEASANTS, which according to Tormsen can be rendered pictographically in Chinese as 包下农民. They also decided that since the cuisine they were shooting for barely used milk anyway, they could shoot for a Kosher certification and just not have dairy products anywhere in the vehicle.

THE CHARACTERS

In the players' own words:

• DBD aka Deebeedee aka David ben David aka Daoud bin Daoud. Born in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank to a secular Zionist family, DBD was so ostracized and bullied by his peers he ended up hanging out with the local Palestinians who beat him up much less because they liked having him as gangly Jewish mascot. Ended up abandoning his post during his IDF service and traveling the world to find himself until he ate a spicy burger in Goa that caused a religious experience in the bathroom and made him the world's first Capsaicinurge. Having run out of his grandparents’ money, he has joined the Brethren to build up experience so he can return to Israel, avoid a prison sentence for desertion, and create peace.
• Rachel — WASP redhead with a ponytail, grew up in the house of a Boston Brahmin clan that fell into disrepair, early 20s. Part Unspeakable Servant, lived in and around New England her whole life. Wants to acquire the resources to fix American society, permanently. Wears an eyepatch over the glass eye that resulted from making her first Unspeakable Servant.
• Reba - Hong Kong Kaifeng/American Ashkenazi, nonbinary, age 35. Culinary school dropout and former Mak. They grew up in Hong Kong, but are now unable to return there after the Whisper Wars ran them out of the underground and participating in the recent protests saw them labeled as an American provocateur by the PRC. Sincerely believes that magick is a source of beauty and wonder that is neither good nor evil on its own, and that it should be spread and brought into the light to make the world a more interesting and open place.
• Tal Safdie they/them - Lebanese American, crustpunk, merman hair with a bushy beard (well, for a teen), 19. Estranged from their parents. Disillusioned by the lack of direction and goals of their fellow crust punks, so glommed onto the first group of people that seemed motivated, ideological, and vaguely lefty. Trigger Event: A female crust punk detritomancer tried to feed Tal to the pile. This probably accelerated my leaving crust punk culture

After a short discussion, the players elected Reba the captain. 

THE OBJECTIVE

The Brethren of the Curb are opposed to the tyranny of several other Mak Attax splinter conspiracies, chiefly the Court of the Burger Queen and the Colonel's Secret Coterie, both of whom have a history of forcibly annexing or destroying anyone who gets in their path. The players were interested in this type of inter-faction intrigue, but wanted a motivation that was positive and constructive in nature, rather than laser focused on destroying someone else.

 

After some deliberation, they found a mission statement that encapsulated what they were interested in:

MAKE SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS THE NEW TORTUGA

 

They further broke the objective down into several milestones - concrete goals they'll work towards over the course of the game.

1. Make unspeakable servants to keep the peace (Intense)
2. Figure out who burned down the KFC (Petty)
3. Guarantee the local Mak's independence (Intense)
4. Change local fast food ordinance (Intense)
5. Build solidarity among local food trucks (Petty)
6. Keep cataphracts out (Intense)
7. Create a local occult pirate council (Petty)

 

THE CORKBOARD

Rather than give a blow by blow, I'll just describe the final result. Here's a screencap of the finished board (the software doesn't have an option for a high resolution export).

In detail:

• THE BREAD AND ROSES FESTIVAL: An annual festival in Lawrence, MA, celebrating a historic strike. Both the cabal's food truck and Forty Winks, a friendly truck also affiliated with the Brethren, are in attendance there when the game begins.
  
• BRAHMIN OCCULT SOCIETY: WASP Bostonian elites, fascinated with occultism, theosophy and the mysterious East. Somehow allied with Endemic Spice. Not friends with Granny Ethel. Mentor to the dissolute aristocrat Rachel.
  
• THE BURNED KFC: The KFC in Lawrence, MA. It burns to the ground during the Bread and Roses festival. Nobody knows why. The players suspect the crew was associated with the Colonel's Secret Coterie, a militia group trying to bring about the magickal revolution by force. Local occultists blame the players' food truck, because everyone thinks DBD is a "pyromancer".
  
• THE COURT OF THE BURGER QUEEN: A monarchist burger conspiracy, led by a major player from the old Mak Attax group. The cabal hasn't fully mapped the Court's presence in Salem, but they're known for offering to buy out rival operations before crushing them with overwhelming force. Their shipments of magickally charged meat are guarded by the Pentarchs - badass trucker mages. That hasn't stopped the Forty Winks crew from ripping them off.
  
• ENDEMIC SPICE: A crew from Mak Attax India, a branch of the original burger conspiracy which survived on the subcontinent. Here to observe DBD, whose transformation into the world's first spice wizard they may have kickstarted. On good terms with the Brahmin Occult Society. At least one of them knew Reba when they lived in Hong Kong.
  
• FORTY WINKS: A fellow Brethren crew, and the Bao Down truck's primary link to the broader organization. An unmarked white van that illegally sells alcohol in the parking lot outside clubs, sporting events, and public gatherings. They have no way to generate magickal charges themselves, and rely on begging, bartering, or stealing them. Especially the last one, and especially from the Court of the Burger Queen.
  
• GRANNY ETHEL: A "local Charger" in Salem - a powerful mage in the underworld scene. Somewhere between Granny Weatherwax and Old Mother Apocalypse. Runs an herb store. May be an aspiring avatar of the crone. Likes Reba, doesn't like the Brahmin Occult Society.
  
• HARMONIOUS REPOSE SLEEPER AGENT: Tormsen just put a picture of an Orthodox child on the board and told me to read Hush Hush, a splatbook for Unknown Armies 1e. Stalking the New Maks for unknown purposes.
  
• JIM: "Boldly going where no gremlin has gone before." That was the only information Tormsen put on the board about this guy. His face is supposed to be a photoshop of William Shatner.
  
• THE NEW MAKS: A Scottish Rite cell, the straightforward successors to the original Mak Attax cabal. A separate conspiracy from the Brethren of the Curb, but their heart is in the same place. Nobody in the group is old enough to even remember the Whisper War of '03. The Bao Down truck wants to protect them. They'll have their work cut out for them.
  
• THE POOL DUNGEON: A mysterious flooded labyrinth below Salem. A place of unease and fear.