Singing Sand Music Post

Another day, another Singing Sand post with a David Roberts illustration. 

 

I uploaded the Saint Kotar OST to Soundcloud myself since nobody else even noticed when it came out. It's a cool adventure game that released to basically zero acclaim. If you like Delta Green or Fear & Hunger you should try it.

Maintenance and Preservation: Clearmountain Central Services Orientation

Welcome to Clearmountain, the place where the highway ends and the Sea of Trees begins. Once a medieval pilgrimage site, then an industrial logging camp, now a college town and tourist resort. Mountains, forests, hot springs. Restaurants and clubs. Natural beauty and all the convenience of civilization.

Below that, a city of tombs and caves and ancient machines. Insulated cables gnawed clean through by beasts of the underworld. Pipes cracked open and the contents swallowed by the earth. It's all getting old. It's dying. 

Someone needs to go down there and fix it.

The Cage Cup Masterpost

The Cage Cup is an Unknown Armies adventure based on a throwaway line from the Hush Hush splat for 1e, about the suppression of the Bacchanalia in 186 BC. They use it as an example of witch hysteria and why magick needs to be kept secret from the world. I decided to make it a drinking game in the vein of The Eleventh Cup, a scenario I wrote a couple years ago for Delta Green. Eleventh Cup is a four hour investigative meatgrinder of social deduction, while Cage Cup can be completed in a couple hours or less - especially if the players are already familiar with the UA system.

Drink, live well forever.

 

The Cage Cup - Music Post

 

This is a short one since the scenario rarely goes longer than two hours. I didn't worry about picking all-original music and just picked stuff that fit the theme of each encounter.

Unknown Armies Play Report: The Cage Cup Playtest Two

Lucilla was holding a Bacchanal at her villa rustica in the countryside outside Rome. The Domina Fabia, an initiated member of the mysteries, graciously volunteered to provide the sacrificial bull for the night’s illegal festivities. That's why two of her slaves found themselves leading the stupid thing down the dirt road at the eleventh hour of the night, with the cicadas buzzing in the vines and the road of milk pointing down like a lightning bolt in the night sky to the bright shining house on the hill in the dark in the middle of the field.

 

Brennus the Butcher and Gyges the Greek yanked the beast's halter as it bellowed and stomped the earth. Their instructions were to deliver the sacrificial bull and do whatever else the Domina required of them that night. None of them were looking forward to it, either. They had never been to one of these events but they had a nasty reputation.

 

Fear & Hunger: Singing Sand - Playtest Two Part 2

 

The entryway to the tomb had been scoured of useful items, save a mostly-empty pack of cigarettes. The group heard prayers to the Revered Ancestors and the Moon God from the next room. The Sun Priest went through the door and found the expedition leader Na'Od, an archaeologist from the Sun Temple of Amon. Na'Od brandished his magical chac chac and threatened to blast the Sun Priest. The Sun Priest made some progress, explaining the contestants weren't here to kill him or participate in the Termina festival at all. Then the Student pointed his shotgun at the expedition leader. Na'Od cast hurting and blew the Student's leg off. The Student fired his shotgun and nearly caved in the expedition leader's chest. 

 

The Financier defused the situation by yelling at the expedition leader. He spent a LOT of money financing this dig, and he wasn't going to tolerate his investment going to waste. The Priest told them to get the fuck out of his sight, they could use his ritual circles if they wanted. And if they made it to the sarcophagus of the Immortal Ego himself, opening it would banish the Moon God back to space.

Fear & Hunger: Singing Sand - Playtest Two Part 1

Abyssonia, birthplace of civilization, 1913. The nation of Songhai is wracked by tensions between the Deeds Of The Fathers and the Control Faction. The Deeds Of The Fathers believe in isolationism, ancestor worship, collaborative decision making (between adult males) and banning the worship of the Old Gods. The Control Faction believes in international trade, freedom of religion, a strong military, and a form of modernizing authoritarianism based on enlightenment principles rather than the worship of deified heroes. 

These tensions only got worse with the discovery of the fabled tomb of Djoser Parahu Daoud in the Valley of the Gods. The tomb’s discovery ignited a firestorm of controversy, with factions arguing it should be turned into a pilgrimage site, excavated by archaeologists to learn more about the heroes of ancient Songhai, or left undisturbed out of respect to the legendary king. A compromise was reached when the site was turned over to the scholars of the Temple of Amon, universally respected seekers of truth and balance.

 

In their search for knowledge, the sages of the Temple immediately re-ignited the debate by inviting experts from across Abyssonia, Europa and the East to help excavate the ruins of the temple. That’s you. Whatever your personal reasons are, you’re on your way to the Valley of the Gods. Some of you are coming from farther away than others, but the trip is hard on everyone due to the isolation of the desert site, far from the lush forests and river deltas of Songhai’s more populated regions. The last leg of the journey is aboard a military truck, driven by a soldier and carrying supplies for the dig. There’s a nasty sandstorm on the horizon, but once you get into the valley you should be safe.

Unknown Armies: Favorite Foods

Favorite foods of my Unknown Armies characters - ones I've played personally, and pregens I made.

PLAYER CHARACTERS

Adrian Lebarge: Salami on white w mustard

Alice Alcazar: Camarones
Nixon Rudiment: Fritos
Yoshida: Hot tsukemen w pork

Esoteric Enterprises: Maintenance and Preservation Player's Guide

I've been thinking about running Esoteric Enterprises in person at a game store. The amount of paperwork necessary (class reference sheets, huge equipment list, huge spell list, starting tomes, starting gods...) put me off at first, but the Maintenance & Preservation concept lets me discard all that and fit everything on a single double sided page. That plus a character sheet with some info pre-filled in (like saving throws) gets us most of the way there. I have no idea what resonates with normal people but I know the "blue collar urban exploration horror" concept has been popular lately in games like Lethal Company.

I ended up not converting the skill system to d20 roll-under because I want to limit how much of the base game I rewrite. 

Fear & Hunger: Singing Sand - Playtest Part 2

 

The car was equipped with big sand tires and glided over the dunes, down the wadis and up again. The Financier drove the group North past the excavation pit, up the valley to the explosive storage tent marked on the map in the foreman's office. They passed the weird looking vagrant they spotted earlier, who yelled incomprehensibly at them as they sped by.

 

The explosive storage area was an earth dugout lined with sandbags. There was a single dead man outside, brains blown out and acacia flowers growing from the wound. Most of the dynamite in the pit proved to be useless, the nitroglycerin inside had "sweated" outside the sticks and would explode if handled. The Technician was able to salvage a few sticks that could be carried safely, and distributed them to the team. With the bombs in hand, they got in the car and drove back to the pit.

 

Or tried to.

 

Fear & Hunger: Singing Sand - Playtest Part 1

 

Abyssonia, birthplace of civilization, 1913. The nation of Songhai is wracked by tensions between the Deeds Of The Fathers and the Control Faction. The Deeds Of The Fathers believe in isolationism, ancestor worship, collaborative decision making (between adult males) and banning the worship of the Old Gods. The Control Faction believes in international trade, freedom of religion, a strong military, and a form of modernizing authoritarianism based on enlightenment principles rather than the worship of deified heroes. 

These tensions only got worse with the discovery of the fabled tomb of Djoser Parahu Daoud in the Valley of the Gods. The tomb’s discovery ignited a firestorm of controversy, with factions arguing it should be turned into a pilgrimage site, excavated by archaeologists to learn more about the heroes of ancient Songhai, or left undisturbed out of respect to the legendary king. A compromise was reached when the site was turned over to the scholars of the Temple of Amon, universally respected seekers of truth and balance.

 

In their search for knowledge, the sages of the Temple immediately re-ignited the debate by inviting experts from across Abyssonia, Europa and the East to help excavate the ruins of the temple. That’s you. Whatever your personal reasons are, you’re on your way to the Valley of the Gods. Some of you are coming from farther away than others, but the trip is hard on everyone due to the isolation of the desert site, far from the lush forests and river deltas of Songhai’s more populated regions. The last leg of the journey is aboard a military truck, driven by a soldier and carrying supplies for the dig. There’s a nasty sandstorm on the horizon, but once you get into the valley you should be safe.

Unknown Armies Monster: Surgeon Bug

She was deep in the Lexington Necropolis when she saw the angel. It looked like another animal-headed mummy among the countless shriveled corpses that lined the alcoves of the cave. But rudeMechanical had seen it before. The black hood and the beaked skull. 

If anyone else drew near it they would die. If they followed it they would be struck suddenly and dragged away. But she knew it wouldn't harm her. If she wished she could stroke its robes. Touch its face. She was beloved of the Depths and the angel staring at her from the end of the gallery filled her with a reassurance that she was loved. 

 

Painnawire scowled from her perch on the othernaut's shoulder.

"S'justa bug."

rudeMechanical picked the racoon up and deposited her on the floor, because if her familiar was going to be like that she could walk the rest of the way. Piannawire wrung her paws.

"Get'is hair, maka nice coat."

The bird turned and glided away into the tunnel, cane waving from beneath the robe to probe the earth beneath its feet as it departed. It forgave rudeMechanical for her trespass and declined to stalk her for food. Could she catch something for it? She met a man earlier in the inclined gallery. He seemed suspicious of her and it was possible he had been joined by the people he was waiting for. People who would pull him out of any trap he fell into. Drag him to safety if he fell to the ground kicking and writhing and stopped almost immediately because he was paralyzed by strong venom.

She stopped making excuses. She would repay the Goddess' generosity. She had to.

Unknown Armies NPC: Kurta the Androgyne

Everything Kurta knows about transvestism they learned at age 16, in the trenches at Passchendaele. Playing the male role under the bombs and shells of the Englanders, and the female role under their own lecherous unteroffizier - plus his friends when he owed them a favor.

Weimar Berlin has all the blood and sex of the trenches, plus bars and drugs and jazz and fast cars. You can throw a grenade into a crowd of protestors, walk two blocks and sit down for drinks in a bondage club, all without getting your shirt muddy or your shoes wet. The rest of the world calls it the most wicked city on earth. Kurta calls it paradise.

Unknown Armies Pregens

I made some pregenerated characters for Unknown Armies. I wrote a couple shotgun scenarios for the 2023 Unknown Armies jam and I thought it was a good idea to make some characters who could be easily dropped into a wide range of adventures. They can also be deployed as NPCs if you need to quickly spin up a team from one of the metaplot factions.