Undercroft: The Wastes

Martin

The Wastes are a place where negative energy intrudes into the dungeon from the plane of death and undead. Superficially they’re not all that different from the rest of the Undercity. The Devils help set them apart.

Riverboat Gambler Session Ten

Mayer 

 

Jack Fatherd, Roddy Applecreek and Datura the Elf led a squad of Hsigo into the mastaba. They entered on the third level and took a spiral staircase down to the bottom floor, following the tracks left by the birds. The bottom floor landing had four stone doors, one in each direction.

• North, illustrated with images of crocodiles. The door was open, the tracks led through.
• West, illustrated with a man descending into a watery abyss
• South, illustrated with a sarcophagus
• East, illustrated with a baboon headed man and a beetle headed woman.

Jack opened the southern door in hopes of finding treasure. He stopped in his tracks when he noticed a slot in the ceiling, where a stone slab could descend and trap him in the room.

Datura followed the tracks into the north room. The seven surviving giant woodpeckers stood around a pool filled with sand. They gave warning cries. Datura shot one of the wounded birds and they attacked as a flock. The east door opened and a flood of animal mummies spilled out into the landing.

Undercroft: The Mines

Parker

 

The mines beneath the City were officially closed long ago when they ran dry, and when buildings began to collapse. The opening of the Underworld has filled them up with dungeon monsters and ignited a gang war over the remaining treasure.

Undercroft: The Weald

 

Diefenbach

The Weald is a place where the natural world thrives in the lightless depths of the Undercity, defying physical laws that demand sun and rain for things to grow.

Undercroft: Dungeon Builder and The Weird

This is a dungeon builder for His Majesty The Worm. You use it a bit like the City Builder in the corebook, but for the underworld. It’s based on the one from Esoteric Enterprises, my favorite dungeon builder ever.

His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash: The Triplets

 

The Triplets are a pair of Dark Elf twins raised in a Church orphanage and a Brain Spider who “adopted” them after they aged-out of the program. They like the dungeon because nobody charges them rent or makes them perform religious rituals, and if someone hits you you’re allowed to hit them back. They’re like the Guild, completing Contracts while pursuing personal motivations. They’re tough and confident adventurers but lack emotional maturity.

 

The Great Glass Mountain Masterpost

Shishkin

 

...euhemeristic view that the Myths are exaggerations of real historical events. The Beast began as a real animal, a boar or bear or auroch that achieved local notoriety by killing a warchief. The Goblin was an outlaw or social bandit with a physical deformity. The countervailing view holds that the myths are allegories for societal ills or vehicles for moral lessons, with each chronicler adding successive reinterpretations according to the social mores of their age. In this view the mysterious arrival of the Legion late in the tale smacks of an early modern poet inserting their caricature of man under protoindustrial capitalism into the mythic setting: the herd of identical semislaves who speak only in obedient grunts and trudge forward to hack away at their foes with mass produced weaponry.

The paucity of written sources from the period when the events in question allegedly took place makes archaeological evidence difficult to interpret. The chained effigy in the chapel at Widowsgrove, which Lazenby initially believed was the actual resting place of the character from the tale, may postdate the earliest versions of the story. A tomb decorated with images of by-then already mythical heroes every child grew up idolizing and every ruler wished to emulate. The image of the Horned Knight likewise appears in later manuscript illustrations but primary source carvings are difficult to disentangle from similar images of...

-Seekers of Seekers of Myths. Messer, Ishizaka, Kadminion et al. The Archaeological Survey, vol. 55 

The Great Glass Mountain - Music Post

 

Lacombe

 

The Great Glass Mountain was named after the song of the same name from Judero. I don't usually use music with lyrics but I got to deploy that one in-game and I really liked the way it turned out. 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Fifteen

 

Schreyer

 

Queen Valenta the Chain Knight rode north out of the capitol. She rode hard and when she crossed the river to reach the woods where the Company found the Crown, she made a rough crossing that left her horse shivering so she had to dismount and wipe him down. As she toweled the beast it occurred to her that this might be the last time she did this. Anything she did now, she might never do again.

 

Riverboat Gambler - Session Nine

 

Datura, Jack and Roddy set off on their Giant Bats to recover guano from the tomb. It was within walking distance but it was still night and the Plain was covered with undead. The tomb was on a hill surrounded by a thick stand of cacti that stopped the zombies and ghouls from getting in. The Gamblers landed their flying foxes atop the mound of rock.

 

Two blue flashes over the horizon lit the plain to the north. A moment later, two more. Two double taps for a total of four. The distant sound of thunder came later, indicating the source was leagues away. Four total blasts was more than a single Blue Dragon (which they had spotted) could fire in a day. Roddy suspected there were two, who each used their breath weapon twice and held the third in reserve. But where did the second one come from?

 

The courtyard outside the tomb, surrounded by the cacti, had a weathered statue of a jackal headed man. Jack took a silver ring off the stone sentinel's finger and pocketed it for later identification. He detected Cactus Cats hiding in the teddy bear cacti. The adventurers headed inside.

 

His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash: Cave Hulk

Cave Hulks are enormous burrowing mantises with a confusing gaze attack. They straddle the line between endurance and ambush predators. They burst out of the wall when you least expect it and attack you. If you’re on your guard they follow you, burrowing out of sight and waiting for a moment of weakness. Their favorite time to strike is during the Camp phase, especially after following you and building up an appetite.

 

His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash: Dark Creepers

Dark Creepers are dungeon thieves who live to steal magic items. Dowries of arcane treasure are an essential part of Dark Creeper marriage proposals. Creepers who don’t steal are condemned to bachelorhood/spinsterdom, giving them a powerful incentive to rob adventurers. Turn out the lights, grab the goods, run as fast as you can.

 

The Colonel's Table: Special Orders

Magick is a force for liberation.

 

It could be. It should be. The people who have supernatural power don't want to share. The people who have mundane power don't want to compete with supernatural power. Together they engage in a tacit conspiracy to suppress the magickal revolution through the coercive apparatus of the state and through organizations operating in the occult underground.

 

Undercroft: Books and Papers

Grutzner

 

Draw from the Major Arcana to get a book.  

 

Number, title,  

author

language, media, 

description.

BFRPG Field Guide Omnibus Test Drive: And May You Reach The Moon

Cabrera

 

Following the death of the Slave King, the resurgent Mountainhomes sent expeditions to restore the far flung fortresses of the old Dwarven civilization. HANGEDSCEPTRES wasn’t on the list. It was was remote, strategically useless, and based on the available records, poor in minerals. The Dwarves needed quick wins to show everyone the project had legs.

Early reclamations were a smash hit. The underkingdoms caught fortress fever, sparking a gold rush to reoccupy the remaining sites (and establish new ones). The first scouts to HANGESCEPTRES reported an infestation of Wyverns circling the peak, along with smoke and snowmelt indicating the site was already inhabited.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Fourteen

Friedrich

 

Outside the Great Glass Mountain, the Glass Knight asked his wife Valenta how many of Alexander's men she let into the castle with him. Two bands of mountaineers, all of whom were allowed to keep their weapons. The King nodded. He could work with this. He told the others to follow his lead, except for Valenta who wouldn't be part of the deception. The important thing, if things got violent (and it wasn't guaranteed that they would), was to never present Alexander with more than two opponents at once. That would keep his War Knight powers from kicking in. The War Knight knew that, and would try to fight his way out and engage the whole group. That was why Shoat was in charge of the entrance. In his Siege Plate nothing could move a door if he braced it. 

 

With the plan figured out, he entered the Great Hall with his entourage, stopping only to give instructions to Charcabol's men at arms.

 

Riverboat Gambler - Session Eight

Jack, Roddy and Datura supervised the excavation of the debris obstructing the ships. They mounted up and used the shallow draft of their vessels to skate over the thin layer of water covering the rock fill. Grain barges coming down the river would be in trouble, but they were on a mission to pursue a dangerous fugitive and couldn't wait.

The Mowers held funeral games aboard the Bottle Full Of Rain for the four dead cultists. They wrestled one another and challenged Alice Woodfingers. She denied them catharsis. The strength of her biomechanical arms was given by the Goddess, it wasn't fair to pit them against the strength of men. One man responded that an unfair contest between man and God was the essence of life itself. Alice nodded and tossed him into the river.

 

BFRPG Field Guide Omnibus Test Drive: Into the Cheese Cave

 

The Old King jealously hoarded his Wishes. He raised a head of Cow Dragons and accumulated a strategic reserve of their Wish granting cheese in hidden caves. When he wanted to make a Wish he gave precise instructions to an expendable cultist screened for absolute loyalty, then fed her bite after bite until she either got lucky or instantly died (at which point he called up the next victim in line). This proved unreliable because the cultists came from enclosed orders who revered him as a God. As much as they wanted to do what he said, they couldn’t resist wishing for what they actually wanted, which was usually “be impregnated by the King” or “be lifedrained by the King in a moment of timeless sustained ecstasy.” It took a lot of work and a lot of dead cultists and he only messed with it when there was no way to get what he wanted through cunning or brute force.

During the rebellion the Cow Dragons were slaughtered in their kraals by a strain of psychic encephalopathy brewed in the plague pits of the Goblin alchemists, bringing an end to the whole program.

Or so everyone thought.

 

Undercroft: Small Change

Knaus

More treasure tables for His Majesty The Worm. This list is here to fill lesser dungeon room and the pockets of low level slobs. For big ticket items use the previous Undercroft tables.

Undercroft: Treasures For His Majesty The Worm

Lagrenée

 

I'm working on an Esoteric Enterprises style dungeon generator for His Majesty The Worm. In order to do that I made some treasure tables for stocking the generated rooms.

 

THE TABLES 

In the below tables, a single card drawn from the Minor Arcana list yields either a magic item, a magic weapon/armor, or treasure worth 90ish gold pieces. Use that to calibrate when/how often you want to draw when filling up chests, hiding things in rooms, filling the pockets of the scariest monsters...

 

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.

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 One

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.

 

PROVENDER: Dharmapala

 
PhD student Lara “Lagartija” Schliemann came to Buckshaw Island with her UNLP biology class to catalog the island’s unique plants and animals. Buckshaw is sometimes called Ultima Thule for its position one island south of Thule, in the Sandwich archipelago between Argentina and Antarctica. The last update from expedition mentioned a “crashed submarine” found in a sea cave. Ominous glowing slime smeared in frozen streaks around the site prompted the professor to evacuate the cavern. He had a devil of a time stopping the rambunctious doctoral students from sneaking back to take pictures and snatch “artifacts”.

Months later, search and rescue ships found their shelters and equipment intact but abandoned. There was no sign of the researchers or the mysterious cave they found. The search was called off due to encroaching ice which would have trapped Naval Prefecture rescue team on the island. The Argentine government blamed the UK for the disappearance.

The second group to disappear was a shipload of salvagers from Ushuaia. They never told anyone where they were going, afraid someone would loot the site before them.

 

Riverboat Gambler: Hex Travel and Ship Travel

When Diogo saw the column of ashes upheld the wind he thought the land was being scourged. The land was always being scourged. It was scourged by the undead and it was scourged by the hogs. The barge of giants scourged it when they passed by and the Threshers chased after them with literal scourges in hand. 

The column of ashes came out of a boat that came around the bend. By that point he was already hiding in the reeds. Discharging his musket would sound the alarm, if nobody else had already seen the smoke. It would also let them know where he was hiding. So he waited to see what happened.

The boat was propelled by a pair of huge discs that rotated to churn the water. The discs spun by themselves. Diego imagined that inside the boat was a very strong and very fast monster who ran in a wheel. The boat drifted toward the riverbank and stopped close enough to let down a gangway onto the solid part of the bank. Down the plank came the first member of the shore party. She wore a buffcoat and a belt with a small disc shaped shield and a knife that looked like a short sword on her hip. Over this she wore an apron with an image of a goblet clasped in a merciless fist. She carried a metal urn that steamed. A human followed her. He wore his apron over mail and carried another urn in one hand and a folding table in the other. He deployed the table and on the table the urns. The half-woman returned with cups of lightweight metal.

The Clerics had taught Diogo to read. He could make out THE LAST ROUND on the side of the boat but he was too far to read the embossed characters on the sides of the urns.

 

The smell hit him and he almost fainted. His first instinct was to spring from cover, no longer afraid, and beg for a cup. The Goddess was good and brought fourth things to nourish man. Nothing that smelled so good could be poison. The ones who brought it could not be evil. 

 

Riverboat Gambler - D6 Bounty Hunters and Their Ships

Mather Brown

 

By night the Great House of stone with its many statues poled its way up the river. Inside the old man leaned on his short staff in front of the altar and sung the story of the Despoina in the halls of the Hoard King. He told the story to the statues and he told it to the wind and the night creatures. It was an old story and a long one but he remembered it word for word by striking the staff on the ground at regular intervals to keep the meter. He spoke to the idol and hoped she liked the story, since it was about her sister who she had not seen in a long time. The wood was so old and so stained with soot from countless burnt offerings that it was almost shapeless. The shadow cast by the flame was sharper. He could just make out her shield and her helmet.

 

Something flew into the temple. As he had done in a thousand ambushes he flung himself to the floor and crawled toward his panoply. He counted on the bronze statues of the temple to keep the intruder busy until he could gird himself with domed shield and curved sword. The bronze men rested their bronze bows at their sides and did nothing. He looked up from the floor and saw a little owl perched on the statue.

For a moment he let himself hope. But it wasn't her. It couldn't be her because she would have appeared sooner if she had the power. If she had the power to send the little owl to listen to the story then she wouldn't have left him alone with only her shadow.

 

He stood. As he often did, he told the bronze men to burn him on the altar when he died. The bronze men said nothing. The owl said nothing. The stone women pulled the Great House up the river one handful of water at a time.

PROVENDER: Three Rites of Death

Mowry

 

After the sun fell down the view was nonexistent. Black mountains, black sky, black clouds, black stars. I was exhausted after the plane and the shuttle and the endless forest service roads giving way to private gravel driveways. All I wanted to do was sleep. But the festivities had already begun and I didn't want anyone narcing to my boss that I had skipped out on the first training. Better to merge with the crowd and slip away once I'd been counted present. 

 

The venue was a handsome alpine lodge, mutilated with modern decor that gave it the feel of a hotel conference room. The facilitators wore slippery yellow robes like raincoats. They smiled like you do when someone takes too long in front of you in line. One shoved a table and folded the area rug back in place with a foot. It had been misaligned. The other listened at the door. It was performative because we could all hear it.

 

bam bam bam bambambam bam bam bambambam bam bam

 

I couldn't tell if the heavy wooden element at chest level was a handle or a bar to hold the door shut from the outside. He pulled on it and it opened without a sound.

 

It took me a second to understand what I was looking at. Bodies packed so tight they couldn't possibly move but moving nonetheless. Thrashing and stomping. Carried forward and being carried in turn. A swirling dark pattern to fill the windowless and almost unlit space. The whirling ant mill implied an eye of the storm at the center but promised annihilation to anyone who tried to swim through the mass and reach it.

  

There was a little light from somewhere. There must have been or I couldn't see it. There was enough that I recognized someone in the crowd. I remembered her from the ride up, the only person in the van who listened attentively to the concierge's excited lecture. Something about a dolmen beneath the lodge, preserved in its original condition in a high ceilinged chamber beneath the original structure and still enclosed today a century later. She had gone up ahead of me and now she flashed before my gaze. Bruised face slick with drool, bedroom eyes half lidded. She snapped away into the human current and I was back on my uncle's farm. Watching him slam the emergency stop a moment after the farmhand disappeared beneath the grain. Like it could reverse the arc. Bear the man up out of the silo. Un-collapse his lungs.

I turned to yell at the raincoats. To do something. Pull the fire alarm. Call a time out. Like hell was I going in there.

I didn’t see who shoved me.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Nine

 

The Company recovered from injuries sustained in the tournament. They noted a strange woman who treated Tiber's wounds. They couldn't get a good look at her face and said something that convinced Tiber to leave with her. 

Per tradition the Glass Knight opened the Feast of the Stars by distributing accolades to those who had best served the realm. For retrieving the Crown and restoring his faculties, the Glass Knight promoted Tiber and Auckland to his council. He thanked Ada for taking care of him for many years but couldn't promote her because she was already his right hand. He also thanked the deceased Pearl Knight Lauder for saving his wife from the Underworld and his daughter Gert for taking over the holding at Cuganscove. 

 

Riverboat Gambler: Keyed Map

No more fiction. What happens next will be decided by the actions of the players.

 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Eight

The Knights made the most of the time between summer and autumn. 

• Auckland explored the southeast of the realm in search of the beast. He found no tracks but knew it was around somewhere, dormant for the time being. He did find the abode of the Screaming Seer, a shepherd's hut and a dune full of quicksand. 
• Tiber got lots in the woods to find the Goblin and his apprentice Kemp. The Goblin forgot how much energy twelve year olds had. Kemp could already be in two places at once and used this power to regale the Salt Knight from both sides with a list of lost items he collected. He could visit his family any time he wanted but was distracted with the new powers of Goblinhood. The Goblin admitted he would have tried to kidnap Valenta next, but didn't have to worry about that now. He had his succession secured and soon he would go down into the earth never to be seen again.
• Valenta went to Cuganscove in the Southwest and asked her daughter Gert to send caravans to Sparenot's orchard to buy her cider. When she visited the orchard she found the remaining family clearing the last fruit off the trees. A pear fell down and scared a kitten who was hiding among the roots. The animal assumed the green fruit was a snake. 

With all that handled they arrived at the Glass Mountain the night before the Feast of the Stars. Valenta remembered a patch of exterior wall that concealed a sally port. She hammered on it with the secret knock and a servant let her in. She asked him to take their horses around to the main gate while the Company went to talk with the King.

 

Into The Odd: The Unquiet Tomb

 

The Brilg and Spowegg expedition to Hogman's Plain was going great. The desert was lethally hot by day and infested with undead by night, but the gunboat cared not for either as it motored up the River Hog. When three of the crew disappeared in the night, the Captain of the Rent Seeker wasn't fazed. He sent three of his top explorers ashore to follow the mysterious tracks into the cliffs above the river: The Janitor, the Pistoleer and the Grenadier.

 

The footprints led to an opening in the rock, tall enough for a man to enter at a crouch. A heap of scorched human and humanoid bones lay outside the entrance. The space inside was dimly lit by a red glow from the passages beyond. The shore party entered the tomb.