Esoteric Enterprises - Welcome to Salt Bay - Weekend With Good Friends Special

I ran another game of Esoteric Enterprises for the latest Good Friends of Jackson Elias Virtual Convention.

I used the same pitch as last time. I got two players, both last minute signups

• James -  Occultist with a sword-cane
• Rick - Lockpicking drug addict
  

They started off at the Love Shack, same as last time. I took the job from the previous convention off the list, which left the players with the following:

• I've got a line to a collector who wants art from the underground gallery to the North.
• Druid drugs are always a hot commodity. They've got a secret grove somewhere under the West side.
• Guy in the underground frontier pays good money for "dungeon meat". What's dungeon meat? Anything, once you kill it.
• Neighborhood Association isn't too happy about the abattoir re-opening. They'd pay big money to shut it down

The players decided to look for the dungeon druids. They could steal their stash and sell it, or just smoke it all. A win, either way. They went into the backroom of the Love Shack and descended into the dungeon.

 

The Manor of the Giant Arminius - Masterpost

The Giant Arminius is dying. Rebels have besieged his manor, fed up with the Giant’s endless raiding for food, slaves and plunder. His children and their human Soldiers mount a desperate defense. Now would be an excellent time for an adventurer to steal his treasure - before his favorite daughter Morwenna arrives to break the siege, and hear her father’s dying words. 

 

By Gustave Doré

The Manor of the Giant Arminius is a system-neutral dungeon crawl for players of varying levels. It's an attempt to correct some stuff I wasn't happy with about a module called Castle Gargantua, while preserving both the atmosphere and the part where you get to climb on the giant furniture. It's got ghouls, wizards, grotesque magical experiments, peasant rebellions, cults of Dionysus, man eating hogs, man eating hog-men, gunfights, guerrilla warfare, giant undead babies, and a whole lot of treasure to steal.

 

The dungeon isn't intended for any particular level or party size. Low level parties can avoid the worst fights by hiding, running, or talking their way past the NPCs, grab a couple giant treasures and get the hell out. High level parties can tackle threats head on, then loot whole rooms full of giant size items at their leisure.

I playtested the game with my own system called Begone, FOE. I based a lot of the stat blocks on the Old School Essentials SRD, so the game should be compatible with all your other Basic-likes. OSE, Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, etc. No promises though, since I haven't actually played those games.

 

Enough talk. Here are the links.

• The Dungeon Itself. This folder holds the scenario text with the key entries, along with both the PNG maps, JSONs for use with the RPGmap software I used, and the original sketches of the dungeon.
• Session 1 Play Report
• Session 2 Play Report
• A Weekend With Good Friends Virtual Convention Play Report
• Music Post for tracks used

The Manor of the Giant Arminius - Session Two

A second session of the Manor of the Giant Arminius, run a week after the first. Again using Begone, FOE.

 

The second session took place an in-game day after the first. The Rebels had seized the ground floor of the mansion, and carried off or destroyed all the treasure. The floor above was a battleground, Arminius' soldiers mounting a desperate last stand against the attacking Levelers. Smoke billowed from the second floor windows. If anyone was planning on robbing the place, this was their final opportunity to do so.

From The Ogre Gods by Hubert and Gatignol

 

I had the same players as last session. Thanks to the haul of treasure from the basement crypt, their characters were Level 5.

• Jack Fatherd, Sheep Handling Rogue
• Iren Benedek, Lock Picking Witch
• Aldrich Brisbane, Crusading Dwarfaboo and Ex Hoglord

The adventurers approached the manor in much the same way as last session, stealthily advancing through the brush until they reached the house. Then they walked right in through the front door.

 

FATAL and Friends Reviews

Over the last year, I wrote some reviews of games for the Somethingawful FATAL and Friends thread.

You can read the reviews here.

The RPGs I reviewed were:

• Eclipse Phase: Zone Stalkers
• Esoteric Enterprises
• Castle Gargantua
• How to Host a Dungeon
• Mothership
• Maria in Three Parts
• Think Before Asking
• Delta Green Shotgun Scenarios

The Manor of the Giant Arminius - Session One

I few months ago, I ran a couple sessions of Castle Gargantua. The players loved the weird encounters and giant environments, but did not like the random generation system for stringing the rooms together. Unlike Esoteric Enterprises, which uses random tables to build a huge interconnected world for the players to explore, Castle Gargantua generates rooms one at a time in a linear sequence, without any regard for how they all link together. Meaning the exploration element - ordinarily the most fun part of the dungeon crawl - was nonexistent.

 

So I wrote my own dungeon that used my favorite parts of Castle Gargantua, set in a map of my own design.

THE MANOR OF THE GIANT ARMINIUS

 

From The Ogre Gods by Hubert and Gatignol

 

I ran the game using Begone, FOE, my own homebrew dungeon crawling rules. All the players had played in my Anguishedwires and Castle Gargantua games, where I playtested previous versions of the rules.

 

In attendance:

• Jack Fatherd, Sheep Handling Rogue
• Iren Benedek, Lock Picking Witch
• Aldrich Brisbane, Crusading Dwarfaboo

We began play with the characters approaching the manor through the forest. They had the following briefing to draw from:

The Giant Arminius is dying. Rebels have besieged his manor, fed up with the Giant’s endless raiding for food, slaves and plunder. His children and their human Soldiers mount a desperate defense. Now would be an excellent time for an adventurer to steal his treasure - before his favorite daughter Morwenna arrives to break the siege, and hear her father’s dying words.

Up ahead, the wedge shaped bluff rose out of the ancient wood. Atop its hundred foot peak: the Manor of the Giant Arminius.

Esoteric Enterprises Political Compass

 

Based on the Cow Town and Coal City campaigns.

ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session Two

I ran a second game of the legendary fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES using my system Begone, FOE. In real life, a couple months have passed since the first game, but I set the game a day after the last run.

Two parties of adventurers and a maniple of the Brazenkragg City Watch have disappeared into the excavation at the base of the old tower. Rumor says that a single survivor returned alive, carrying fabulous riches and telling stories of the treasure that awaits in the legendary dwarven fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES.

I had two returning players, both of whom brought new characters since their previous ones had died. In attendance:

• Jack Fatherd, Neutral Thief and brother of the deceased Thomas Fatherd
• Olga Benedek, Lawful Cleric of the Grain Goddess

I decided they had been briefed by the only survivor from the previous expedition, so that the players wouldn't have to pretend to "discover" a bunch of stuff they already knew out-of-character, and could proceed to exploring the areas that hadn't already been mapped and looted.

Like last game, I elided the trip across the river, and let the players begin outside the dungeon entrance.

The players knew that Level 1 had already been looted, and didn't spend much time there. They descended the stairs down to Level 2 right away. They paused in the checkpoint, Olga listening at the door to the staircase while Jack searched the room for hidden compartments. Their caution was rewarded by the patter of tiny feet, coming up from the staircase to Level 3. They hid in the space behind the door, and waited quietly as three ratmen came into the checkpoint. They decided an ambush was in order, and sprang into action.

They quickly killed the first two rat-people before they could draw their hand-crossbows. The third fired, missed, and ran out of the room. Jack felled him with a sling bullet, but didn't kill him. Olga moved to finish the job, but the rat man spoke intelligibly in common, asking them what they were doing and why they were killing him. Olga insisted that rat people ate crops, which he vehemently denied. He broke his hand-crossbow into useless pieces as they argued. The rat offered to lead the adventurers to a map of the fortress, in exchange for being left alive. The players agreed. He took them down the stairs to the Fortress Planning office on Level 3, and true to his word, there was a wax tablet there with maps of Levels 1 through 4.

They let the rat guy go, with a stern warning from Olga not to eat any more crops. She was really convinced the guy was after the crops.

ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session One, Part Two

 (Continued from part one)

THE SECOND DAY
The next day, Monty caught the morning ferry across the river, and hiked out to the tower again. He moved carefully enough to get the drop on a trio of thugs going in the same direction. The three goons were obviously hung over, and obviously headed for the tower. Monty followed them stealthily. The bandits rolled up on Kamilla and Thomas. They were looking for the same group of adventurers as the militia were, but for a different reason: they owed Trade Warden Jan Estoc a cut of whatever they found on the expedition, and the goons were here to remind them of the obligation.

Thomas and Kamilla hadn’t seen any adventurers around. They were just here to pick up a few silver pieces themselves. That was alright with the thugs, but since the whole place belonged to the Trade Wardens, there was the little matter of the tax they owed. Just hand over whatever they were carrying, and the debt would be paid.

Monty struck from surprise with his rapier, but flubbed the attack. The bandits sprang into action, with one striking back with his falchion while the other two pelted Thomas and Kamilla with arrows. Kamilla cast her freshly prepared Sleep spell, but all three thugs made their saves. One of the thugs took Monty’s arm off with a lucky swing, before Thomas got stuck in with his two handed maul. Monty and Thomas killed two of the bandits in retaliation. The third ran away as fast as possible, vocally rescinding his request for their hard earned treasure. Thomas caught up with him and bludgeoned him to death, to ensure he couldn’t tell anyone the party had killed two of the Trade Warden’s goons. The team took a few silver pieces off the bodies, stripped and dumped them in the woods for the owlbears to scavenge.

ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session One, Part One

A couple months ago, I ran a session of ANGUISHEDWIRES, a dungeon I created while doing a FATAL and Friends readthrough of How to Host a Dungeon. Dungeon is a solo game by Tony Dowler. ANGUISHEDWIRES was an experiment, to see how much work it took to convert a map from that game into something playable in an RPG. The answer was “a lot!”

I used my own system for the playtest. It’s my attempt to preserve the stuff I like about old school dungeon crawling, while stripping out the parts I find tedious. In addition to playtesting the dungeon, this was also an opportunity to playtest the rules.

The playtest game had three players

• Thomas Fatherd the Mercenary
• Monty the Loveable Thief
• Kamilla the Witch

The setting was the colony city of Brazenkragg, on the frontier of the Commonwealth.

The job was simple:

Sam Sump, one of the Trade Wardens of Brazenkragg, meets you on the balcony of his cafe in the upper shambles. Sam is an old school criminal, utterly ruthless but honest. He is considered a safe person to take jobs from, provided you plan on completing them.

“Look, it’s simple. Some people went digging on the West side of the river, by the old tower. Southwest of the logger camp. Then a couple days later I get a courier with a shopping list and a down payment on some items. So I need you to take the stuff back across the river and deliver it to them, then bring back the rest of the payment. Delivery goes in, 1,000 silver pieces come out. Then I give you 100 of those pieces and we’re square. Maybe more work waiting when you come back.”

I elided the journey through the wilderness, other than telling the players a little about the route they took (a ferry to the logger camp, then a two hour hike through the forest to the tower). The game began as they reached the adventurer camp by the base of the tower.

The camp was abandoned. All the valuables were gone, but the tents were still up, and there weren’t any signs of violence. The biggest tent had a six foot diameter hole in the ground, perfectly circular, which descended into a smooth tunnel. Monty and Kamilla recognized this as the work of a shamir - a magic worm that burrowed on command. The adventurers had obviously dug this. With no other prospect of finding their meal ticket, the players descended into the dungeon.

Esoteric Enterprises - Angels

Have you ever taken something that didn't belong to you? Have you eaten while someone else starved? Have you broken your word? Have you killed another person? The Angels know what you did. They’re going to hurt you as an example to other people.

Bayonetta by Platinum Games

In a world of occult criminals, Angels are the ultimate cops. Except they can’t be bought off, or convinced to let you off with a warning. The only way out is to pay what you owe. And everyone owes something.

August Delta Green Scenario Triple Threat

Three Delta Green scenarios from August, recently added to my Delta Green master list.

Sir, This is a Wendy’s A chance encounter in the lobby of a fast food restaurant 

The Devil in a Forest - A Nazi anti-partisan unit heads into the woods to burn Belarusian villages

The Eleventh Cup - Agents hunt a mystery guest at an exclusive wine tasting

Gencon Online - Delta Green - Who Killed the Case Officer

My final Gencon Online game was a run of Who Killed the Case Officer. The Agents were summoned to investigate the ritual murder of a Delta Green Case Officer: Norbert Hammerstroem, former AFSOC. Hammerstroem was found dead in his home by police after failing to respond to several communications sent to his Delta Green smartphone.

Briefing thus issued, I opened up character selection. I had four players (my only full house during Gencon Online) and they selected the following characters:

• Agent STUART, USPIS, forger, accountant and computer scientist
• Agent SHALIMAR, FBI, master of disguise
• Agent EASTER, National Parks Service, archaeologist and occultist
• Agent EISENHOWER, Green Berets, killing machine with a talent for languages

According to Delta Green's dossier, Colonel Hammerstroem was a real hardass - active duty AFSOC before DG moved him to a desk job at the DIA. He had no family outside a sister, who’s in Berlin and won’t arrive to identify the body for at least a day.

Norbert took an ultraconservative approach to casework. Wiping out anyone who knew even a single spell, ordering just-in-case killings of witnesses, turning agents over to the Security Director or Research wing if they behaved strangely or cracked under pressure.

Norbert’s main working group was RAIN WHISPER - comprised of agents RENE, RICARDO and ROBERTA.

• RICARDO: Deputy Lon Fujimoto, US Marshal.
• ROBERTA: Elaine Eck, nurse practitioner
• RENE: Lieutenant Tam “Grit” Robinson, MARSOC. Recently dead of heroin overdose (presumed unrelated to current case)

The house in Portsmouth, Maine where Hammerstroem's body was found had been cordoned off by local police, who handed the scene over to the Agents. The players stepped through the door and entered the crime scene.

Gencon Online - Delta Green - Blood, Pus and Vinegar

This was my second Gencon Online game. A run of Blood, Pus and Vinegar. The original scenario is a meatgrinder of tactical combat, whereby the Nationalists hold off a Republican assault on a mysterious nunnery where all is not as it seems. I ran the fast play version, which flips the script and gives the players the role of Republican fighters headed to purge the church of Fascist resistance.

I gave the group a little context on the Spanish Civil War, the makeup of the popular forces (who they'd be playing as), and the mission they'd be undertaking. Then I gave them the list of pregens. We had three players, and they selected the following characters for the mission:

• Pvt Tommy O’Connelly, International Brigades (Northern Ireland)
• Miguel Zapata, Photojournalist for Spain and the World.
• Jose Esquella, Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

The squad (all of three men in size) had a vague idea of what to expect at their destination: The Chapterhouse of the Zelatrices of the Algedonic Devotion, a nunnery famed for its delicious wine, rumored to now be a staging ground for Nationalist fifth columnists.

The popular forces had a vague idea of what to expect.

With their objective clear, they shouldered their rifles and headed into the mountains.