Maintenance and Preservation - Session Three

A warning light came on in an old control room at the Clearmountain Central Services headquarters. The one-legged boss didn't know what it meant, but he knew it signified something bad happening in the undercity. Someone needed to go down there and fix whatever was wrong. That someone was veteran maintenance men John Benson and Professor Ethan Boule, assisted by three new hires: Charlie, Pepper and Yana.

The group checked the approximate position of the problem sector against the underworld locations the veteran explorers had already visited. The zone in question was on level two of the undercity, which they knew how to get to through the geothermal caves. But one of the new hires heard there was also a hatch in the underground frontier which led further into the depths, which would shorten the journey significantly. The closest entrance to the frontier was the suburban house used by the mobsters. The boss told them it had been filled in. They suspected he might have been given some bad information, and decided to check it out. They got into the work truck and drove across town.

Maintenance and Preservation - Session Two

The Necropolis by Eric He

 

Three technicians met the one-legged boss on the roof of the Clearmountain Central Services building, under the arched glass that enclosed the grimy tiled roof.

• Professor Ethan Boule, disgruntled lecturer at Clearmountain College
  
• John Benso, experienced maintenance worker from a long line of cowardly adventurers
  
• Kovie Fauxer, nonverbal engineering student at Clearmountain College
  

The mission was this: Tectonic activity in the tunnels beneath the university had severed a fiber optic cable. The maintenance crew had to find the damaged cable in the limestone caves, descend into the next level of the undercity and link it up to the other end of the cable.

 

Based on the zones Benson explored on the last job, the closest underworld entrance to the caves was the necropolis. There was a mausoleum with a staircase leading down into the tombs. They tossed their gear in the work truck and set off across town.

 

Unknown Armies: In Defense of Milestones

 

In Unknown Armies 3e, the players and GM create the characters and setting together at the beginning of the game, all pointed at a shared objective chosen by the group. The player created objective is supposed to have GM created "milestones" that grant percentage point increases to the score when accomplished during the course of play. 

 

Fear & Hunger: Singing Sand Masterpost

David Roberts

 

In the year 1913, archaeologists, scholars and financiers from across the Old World descend on the Valley of the Gods in Songhai, Abyssonia, where researchers from the Temple of the Sun Amon have just unearthed the tomb of the legendary New God Djoser Parahu Daoud. 

 

An adventure in the style of The Mummy and Raiders of the Lost Ark, set in the world of Fear & Hunger. Contains the rules and mechanics necessary to play, along with the pregens, scenario documents and maps.

• Scenario Folder with all necessary files
  
• Playtest 1
• Part 1
• Part 2
  
• Playtest 2
• Part 1
• Part 2
  
• Bonus: Music Post

Maintenance and Preservation - Session One

In the basement of the Clearmountain Central Services building, the sweaty one-legged head of the Maintenance & Preservation laid out a job for his newest hire: a drain in the undercity had become clogged. The new guy needed to go down there and unblock the flooded chamber before the whole storm system backed up. He warned the new hire to be careful of deadly traps, wild animals and unfriendly underworld denizens - he wasn't a police officer or social worker, he had a job to do and an important part of that was not getting killed.

The closest entrance to the undercity was in the garbage dump in the northwest. The new hire locked and tagged out the trash mincer and climbed inside the machine, slithering down the handholds into the depths below.

Dungeon23 Recap

Jean Béraud

 

Besides my other RPG stuff, I completed five "dungeons" in 2023. 

1. The Temple of the Crying Buddha - Unknown Armies 3e. During the 1937 Rape of Nanking, a squad of Japanese soldiers are sent to retrieve an artifact from a hidden temple mysteriously untouched by the looting.
   
2. The Mountain of the Mad Marquis - d20 fantasy. The legendary bandit Gorrister the Great was last seen descending into the ruined DeCavalier estate on the edge of civilization. There's a price on his head, but the real question is what he went looking for.
3. Dungeon Crawling Double Feature - Unknown Armies 3e. The Four Adventurers descend into the underworld in search of occult power, then use their discoveries to raid the Old King's fortress and topple the Monarchy.
4. The Cage Cup - Unknown Armies 3e drinking game. In the year 143 BC, a party of Slaves is caught in the Roman Republic's violent suppression of the Bacchanalia. Their only hope to escape the bloodshed is the power of the wine god himself.
5. Singing Sand - Delta Green dungeon crawl in the world of Fear & Hunger. Feature complete, awaiting a third playtest. The year is 1913, the place the ancient land of Abyssonia, where archaeologists have just uncovered the lost tomb of a New God.

My next project is a hex crawl.

 

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.