Listen to the Rain

Dramatis Personae

• Andres of Troyes, Frankish Knight
  
• Brother David, Cistercian monk
  
• Eloise of Flanders, Handmaiden to the Countess and spy
  
• Gilles de la Grave, Frankish Knight
  
• Renault of Flanders, Frankish Knight

12 April, 1204

In service to Count Baldwin of France, the separate knights and monk assaulted the walls of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. After the city was breached and their share of looting had been done, they were all summoned to the count's presence. He met them in a small room with only his brother present and laid out a secret task for them.

The count believed that the rioting in the city was evidence of a malign force present, and says that his orders to turn over the loot to the lords for distribution and not unduly harass the Byzantines have both been almost completely ignored. He blames this on a cabal of Venetians--the other major group along with the French who were on the Fourth Crusade--who seek some bizarre statue and who worship an unknown pagan deity. He bade the group seek out this cabal and destroy it, and added that there were also rumors of a monster somewhere in the city preying on the crusaders and that if the group saw it, they were to kill it. Sending the group away, he told them to head to the northern basilica, where his men are holding a Venetian priest who was rescued from the cabal, and to speak to Brother Merovac the Leper, currently on board a leper ship in the harbor, and then swore them to secrecy.

Requisitioning horses for those who did not have them (i.e. Eloise), and began their ride through the city to the north, past scenes of wanton looting. At one checkpoint set up by the French, a Greek man and his teenage son were arguing with the knights, who started to arrest them as the group rides up. Eloise and Andres intervened, with Andres questioning the knights while Eloise, who speaks Greek, asking the Greeks what they were doing. They said they were trying to leave the city, and the knights said that their orders are for everyone to remain within. Eloise asked the Greeks to be patient for a couple more days, and they agreed and left. The knights did not arrest them, and they passed on.

Near a cistern entrance, Eloise spotted a French knight being dragged down the stairs and attacked by unknown assailants, and the knights and Brother David sprang into action to save him only to learn that it was a Varangian in disguise and his four compatriots jumped to attack.

They were not very competent warriors. The only wound suffered by the investigators was a light wound across Brother David's arm, whereas two of the Varangians were killed and the others fled into the depths of the cistern. After making sure that the bodies would not fall into the water and pollute it, they continued on their way.

Just before arriving in the northern basilica, they found a group of drunken knights who claimed to have been attacked by the monster. The group questioned them, but they couldn't agree on whether the monster flew or walked or was large or small, so eventually the investigators moved on.

The knights in the northern basilica were suspicious of the investigators, but Gilles and Andres have enough presence that they eventually convinced them and allowed them in to see the Venetian priest. He was raving about keeping "them" away and favoring an empty eye socket, and it took some effort by Eloise to calm him down and learn what he had to say. He had been captured by the cabal who were seeking a ritual to use the Devil's Simulare, a statue with powers from Hell itself. The priest described the whip-with-five-tails tattoo he saw on the Venetian who captured him and the location of the ritual, where he had hidden it for safekeeping behind a statue of the Virgin, and that the cabal called itself the Unburdened Flesh. Then he screamed that he could not keep them away any longer, a red eye appeared in his formerly-empty socket, and he said I SEE YOU in a voice that was clearly not his own. Then his head exploded, showering Eloise with sticky goo.

After quickly checking herself to make sure she was not infected or injured, the investigators told the knights to report back to the count, found a place to wash the pus and blood off Eloise--though not before she took a sample of it--and then discussed what to do next. Brother David favored an immediate assault on the church of St. Mocius where the ritual was hidden whereas Eloise thought they should speak to Brother Merovac and tell him what they had learned. The others agreed with Eloise, and so Brother David acquiesced under protest.

They rode to the harbor and, with some difficulty, found a boat willing to take them out to the leper ship. On board were silent lepers shrouded in robes, who directly the investigators below decks when they asked about Brother Merovac. The Brother was almost completely shrouded in robes and greeted them as they entered, then explained what he knew--the Venetian worship a being they call the Skinless One, but they lack true understanding of it. They seek a suit of armor, ceramic in appearance, that can grant its wearer true power, and the ritual the Venetian priest spoke of is what would let them find the armor. He also spoke of a Ramaldi who led the Venetians and that the doge may be part of the cabal as well, or at least sponsoring it, and of a Turkish sorcerer named Sedefkar who must be killed. He offered to perform the ritual, though as he did so he noted that Brother David had the air of a man who was learned in mysticism, and then bid them go with G-d on their quest.

Before sleeping, the investigators went to the Count and reported what they knew. The Count thanked them for their efforts and urged them to destroy the cult with all speed, then they retired for the evening.

In the morning, the investigators assembled and rode toward the church of St. Mocius. On the way, they find a strange sight--a ranting Greek priest, hung by his heels from a balcony, and two French priests with a Venetian prostitute, all extremely drunk, sitting underneath, and three dead knights and four Greeks lying around them. The drunken priests ask the knights for protection, saying that the Greek priest is a wizard and they are waiting for reinforcements, so the investigators wait. After almost half an hour of the drunken priests mentioning the black-cloaked figures skulking around the church of St. Mocius, the prostitute attempting to flirt with Renault of Flanders but falling over instead, and the Greek priest ranting about how he is a wizard who summoned the dragon from the waters to destroy the French and Venetians, the group got tired of waiting. After some debate about what to do, they cut down the Greek priest, executed him for the crime of witchcraft, and sent the others on their way.

As the game ended, the investigators rode over the hill toward the church and tightened their grip on their weapons.


Combat!

mutantur deliberately allocated the characters such that Demir's player was playing Eloise, while everyone else who is basically useless in combat in the main timeline was playing knights and the monk. It was an interesting reversal to have combat begin and just charge straight in, weapon held high, as well not always have to worry about the authorities and how we were going to explain ourselves. We did extremely well in combat too, which certainly helped. However skilled the Varangians were, their performance didn't show it.

There should be one more session of this, though you never know with our group. We have to stop the cabal and kill Sedefkar, and while that seems pretty quick, who knows what with combat being required. And our last interlude took about twice as long as expected...

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Woken up early by the river dragon and under a cloudy sky with a steady rain, the group decided to set out early rather than try to get more sleep, so they saddled their mounts, ate a quick breakfast, and set out on the road. They spent hours on the road with sparse mushroom trees on either side, seeing no one, though Amos did see a few camome dancing among the rainclouds. The Green Knight does pause and use his sorcery to contact a tree and ask it if it saw their quarry pass by, and it confirms that it saw them "recently," but is unable to provide further details and the party moved on. It wasn't until almost lunch that they saw two amanita on horses heavily laden with baggage, riding slowly through the rain.

Bonnie hailed them as they drew near and asked them where they were going. With much glancing at each other, the amanita explained that they came from Greenwall, the village in the middle of the mushroom forest that the hollow one's serpent of smoke and fire seems to be directing the party toward, and left because a kappa warlock arrived and corrupted the town council to his will. Shining Star perked up at that and asked if the warlock has any distinguishing marks, and the amanita said that he was missing an eye--as is Kurome, one of the Dragon Emperor's former generals, since disgraced and fled into exile. They added that they hadn't seen him up close, since they had avoided him as much as they could and got out of town as quickly as possible.

This starts a brief argument among the group over way to do. Shining Star has heard of Kurome and pointed out that he's a former general of the Dragon Empire, not some two-bit hedge cultist. Bonnie was a bit star-struck by the knowledge she could gain from a master warlock, but kept it under wraps in the face of Shining Star's vehemence. Shining Star wavered, but Nyahré's dictates to destroy the unholy win out over her caution against facing a warlock, and the group decided to continue on to the village.

The amanita also confirmed that they saw Summer Rain's murderers staying at a tea house near the western gate, but didn't speak to them. With no further information, the party bids the amanita fairwell and Elaphe spurs his claw strider to a trot.

As they rode down the road and the mushroom forest gets less and less sparse, Amos noticed that there were many more forest spirits watching them silently, and when he mentioned this, Bonnie stopped and brewed up a dose of spirit-flower tea for her and Shining Star. Both of them drank the hallucinogenic tea and their vision swirled with colors, but also revealed the shapes of fushigibana perched on the caps of mushroom trees, watching with them brilliant green eyes. The Green Knight consulted the voices of the forest and received a strong sense that the spirits wanted him in Greenwall to confront the warlock.

Just around a bend in the road were several vines hanging from the caps of the mushroom trees that Elaphe managed to see in time and rear his claw strider to avoid. The rest of the group followed his example, and the Green Knight grabbed a stick and threw it at one of the vines, which wrapped around it and whipped up into the forest canopy. When it didn't immediately come back down, the party started throwing more things, including Elaphe hurling his bob-omb, which sadly went wide and exploded harmlessly in the road. Eventually they were able to trigger enough of the stranglevines that they cleared a path for them to take that won't pass too close to any of them, and Elaphe led them through in single file.

Close to dinnertime they found a path leading north off the road that had been deliberately obscured, but merely marked it on their map and continued going. They settled in for the night at a somewhat secluded campsite under a cluster of mushroom trees, the rain having not let up for the entire day, and went to sleep.

That night, Shining Star prayed for guidance, but felt no answer from Nyahré.

Close to morning on Shining Star's watch, she heard the distant crashing sound that every child in Agarica has drilled into them from childhood--a walking tree. She woke the Green Knight and asked his opinion. The Green Knight said that walking trees do not hunt by sight or sound, and as long as they remain in their camp and do not bleed they should be safe, but he opened himself to the voices of the forest to be sure. He received a strong message to stay where they were, and conveyed it to Shining Star before he went back to sleep.

The next morning it was raining even harder than it previous day, something the party hadn't thought possible, but without any option than to go forward they saddled their mounts, ate some cold rations, and set out on the road. They were soaked almost the instant they left the cover of the mushroom trees.

Around mid-morning, Amos's attention was caught by a small pond on the side of the road that sparkled alluringly. Bonnie took a sample of the water and drank it, and it was some of the most refreshing water she had ever tasted. As she drank, she heard the faint sound of musical laughter. A few winged motes of light appeared, dancing over the water, and they whirled round and round until they coalesced into a woman in diaphanous garments with flowing hair and great wings beating in the air behind her. A great faerie!

Shining Star took the lead her as the faerie asked them if they were willing to stay a while and listen. The faerie waved a hand and the rain stopped a few inches above their heads, as a sign of her good will, but Shining Star said that they were on a quest that could not be delayed, but when it was finished they would come back to her. The faerie asked if she promised, and Shining Star did not do so, but she did offer up a ring with the seal of Nyahré as sureity. The faerie took it and spun it around her fingers, and it vanished in a flash of light. And moments later the faerie did as well, falling apart into winged motes and leaving soft laughter ringing in the party's ears.

As they moved back onto the road, the party noticed that the rain was still stopping above their heads, and gratefully they continued eastward.


Somewhat shorter session this time, but we still managed to fit some stuff in! This is all from random tables and provided a bunch of hooks that they'll get to...later. Elaphe's player pointed out that there's a good half-dozen things the party can investigate when they've finished their current goal, though who knows in what condition some of them will be in by the time they get back there.

This is the first session where I really started to keep track of time with the aid of an in-game calendar. I consulted the players about how esoteric they wanted the calendar to be and the answer was "not," so it has the standard seven-day weeks and twelve months. I changed the names with some inspiration from Japanese naming, though, so in-game we ended on Fireday, the ninth day of the Month of Falling Leaves. The 15th and 30th of each month (Silverday and Spiritday) aren't part of a week, but otherwise it's easily trackable. I even populated it with weather and celestial events like moon phases and comets, so I don't have to roll for any of that and can plan for it in-game! It allows some events that I couldn't otherwise track or would have to leave up to randomness, like other groups' plans being based around certain days or certain astronomical events. I did that in my WFRP game where there's a detailed calendar as well, and I like how it worked out.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Elaphe listened carefully to the rumbling, feeling the earth, but while it did grow closer, it then faded away and didn't seem to be deliberately coming toward the party's campsite.

When dawn finally came, the party awoke, ate a hurried breakfast, and then continued following the fiery serpent, only stopping when Elaphe and his mount nearly fell into a hole as the ground crumbled out from under them. It wasn't a gravecup--the inside of the hole looked like dirt, and though the light didn't reach down that far it seemed like it was part of a larger tunnel complex dug out by some creature. After some brief consideration, they decided to skirt around the tunnels, and carefully picked their way overland to avoid the unstable ground.

The next couple days were almost entirely uneventful other than the steadily more wet weather and Bonnie's miserable experience riding--at the end of each day, she'd fling herself off her mount to the ground with a sizeable Fatigue penalty. All they saw were birds and a few signs of animal life until after noon on the second day, when they entered the mushroom forest.

All forests in Agarica have a few mushroom trees mixed in, but they were now in a true mushroom forest. Vast mushroom trees rising to the sky, their trunks occasionally splitting into multiple caps. A carpet of moss and lichen on the forest floor in red and green and violet. Faintly bioluminescent sporebats floating through the trunks on their own path. The fiery serpent pointed straight through the forest, so that's where they went. And it went well for a couple of hours until Elaphe nearly rode straight into an enormous web strung between the trunks.

He pulled at the reins of his claw strider just in time and looked up to see half-a-dozen enormous spiders rushing down the web toward him. He pulled out his bob-omb and hurled it, and while it blew a giant hole in the web and knocked one of the spiders to the ground, the others escaped and continued their advance.

Elaphe's claw strider snapped at the spider on the ground, who managed to pick itself up and scuttle out of the way, while another one leapt down from above and bit Elaphe in the shoulder. He felt a burning and a brief feeling of nausea wash over him, but it quickly passed as the whole group turned their mounts about and ran. The horses were faster than the spiders, but they could match the claw strider until Amos turned in the saddle with his bow and shot a flaming arrow at the spider in the lead. It was a solid hit, and the spider peeled off and ran, with the others soon following it.

With a moment to breathe, the group dismounted and Shining Star took a look at Elaphe's wound. The poison hadn't taken, but it was bleeding freely and looking red and swollen with signs of infection, so she chanted a few words of hedge magic over it to stop the bleeding and help fight disease. When the swelling didn't seem to go down, Elaphe pulled out a poultice smelling of herbs and sandalwood and rubbed it all over the wound, and then for good measure, took out a vial, uncorked it, and drank it as an enormously spicy scent filled the air. Elaphe coughed, pounded his chest a few time, and then shook his head and waited for the hero's recovery potion to take effect.

The made camp that night and in the morning, they consulted their treasure map. It showed a road leading through the mushroom forest and a town in the depths of the forest along the road. Following the fiery serpent would lead them through the deepest part of the forest where the spirits and wild animals were thickest, but it was pointing almost directly at the town. Its fire was also starting to dim a bit and the smoke was venting slightly from its sides, so they needed to make a decision.

They decided to take the road. They went back west, out of the forest, and turned north, reaching the road in midafternoon. After a brief trip east, they saw between the road and the lake a wooden tower, four stories high, with blue-and-white cloud banners flapping in the breeze. It wasn't any heraldry that Shining Star or the Green Knight had ever heard of. They decided not to check it out, but marked it on their map since they'd be passing back that way, and continued on.

They made camp that night near the lake, trusting the road and the lake at their back to keep away predators, and went to bed. On the third watch, when the Green Knight was awaken, he went to a tree near the water and called on the power of the forest spirits to cast Whisper of the Grasses and asked the tree whether it had seen a raptok, a mandragora, and two amanita passing by on the road. The tree replied that many people passed on the road, but that it had not seen the ones the Greek Knight described. When he asked about the walking dead, the tree had seen those, heading west. The party hadn't seen any in the wilderness, though.

As the Green Knight thanked the tree and turned away, a river dragon lunged out of the water, its teeth snapping on the air and just missing the Green Knight by inches!

Elaphe awoke and scrabbled to his feet as the Green Knight moved away, bowing to honor the predator who had almost got him. As the Green Knight grabbed his lance and made to mount his horse, Elaphe hurled a bob-omb, which exploded on the river dragon without doing much apparent damage. The bob-omb's explosion woke the rest of the group, and when Shining Star chanted the words of the Chains of Searing Light and the river dragon barely even slowed down, they decided to just get on the move early. They quickly broke camp, mounted up, and left while the river dragon turned and went back into the water.


PCs ran from not one, but two fights?! Stop the presses!

It was probably a good tactical call. The giant spiders were pretty fragile but had higher dodge and accuracy, which also describes a large chunk of the party, and a couple members of the party were suffering from fatigue penalties from riding in armor. A fight would have been very risky, with the possibility to swing either way on one or two bad rolls, and with no obvious reward from winning. Unless the spiders had a stash of treasure from others they had eaten, but who knows now? The river dragon would have been bragging rights, like the time that the PCs fought an ox-dragon and won in the last Warlords game I ran. Of course, I learned from that experience and modified thunder lizard stats accordingly. I don't think the PCs could have beaten the river dragon except by pulling back and shooting arrows at it from range, and it probably would have ran back into the water before they killed it.

I'm actually really happy. I see a ton of threads online about GMs running hexcrawls who want to let their players know that the encounters aren't scaled anymore and there will be fights they probably can't win, so don't always fight to the death, but can't figure out how to convey the knowledge because of ingrained player habits. I don't have to worry about that. And that's good, because my random encounter tables are not scaled to level.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

While Onyx the "Void Witch" (as the players called her) bonded Elaphe's claw strider to him, Bonnie haggled over the formulae for two new recipes for the Lesser Path of Alchemy, and the Green Knight communed with the spirits of the forest and learns the remaining first circle spells of the Briarwitches, Amos Burnham wandered the streets of Blueash. The alleyways were packed with refugees, children in tow, chuzan and mycon and amanita all walking around aimlessly or sitting wherever they could find a free space. An occasional patrol of guards with the cow's head of the Kingdom of Fontina on it moved through the crowds.

Amos bumped into someone as walked and apologized in Floral, and when he looked he realized it was a Silent One. The Silent One's body wasstrangely rubbery, and for a moment it felt almost like Amos sunk into it before rebounding back. The Silent One apologized as well, and Amos was drawn into conversation, asking it about the plague of walking dead and how things were in the surrounding villages. The Silent One told him it was down from tower town on business, but that it hadn't realized things were getting this bad, and that it had heard that the king had sent for a group of witchhunters from the Temple of the Holy Flame to deal with the problem. And with all the refugees in the cities and abandoned farms, the crops are rotting in the fields without hands to harvest them and winter will not be kind. Amos listened to all of this and agreed, and then bid farewell to the Silent One and continued on his way. He took the few coins he had on him out of his pocket and gave them to a family of mycon he saw by the side of the road--not much, but enough to pay for a couple days of food--and the mycon profusely thanked him. At least, he assumed that's what they did since Amos doesn't speak Muskalan, but when he walked away, he saw one of the mycon head toward the market and smiled that at least one good deed was done here.

When the rest of the group arrived at the south gate looking for Snow, they found Amos sitting there watching people come in and out of the gate. Elaphe learned that Snow's shift started in an hour (he rolled a 10 on zero dice, bumped up to 1 die with a 10 required. Don't ask a murderhobo assassin to gather information for you...), most of the group waited, Shining Star and Amos discussing moral philosophy, while Bonnie headed back to a plaza they passed with a pipe in the center of it and a scaffolding of stairs leading up to it as well as a sign saying that the pipe has stable transit to B'rabt but there's a toll collected at the other end. Bonnie sees a few people going in and out, and when a chuzan with sandy-brown fur and longer legs than the Muskalan chuzen, she runs over and interrogates her. Through gestures she manages to convince the chuzan, named White Lotus, to tell her about B'rabt in accented Muskalan and talk with her in B'rabti long enough that Bonnie was able to surreptitiously cast the Language-Learning Ritual and imprint the knowledge of B'rabti in her mind. Currently, she has 20 motes of Essence out of 24 committed to maintaining language knowledge. She also revealed her full name when introducing herself--"Bonnibel."

Also, this is the point where we learned that Bonnie's player had written down Muskalan on her sheet as "Ratspeak." Rude.

Speaking to Snow, they learned that the bandits had gone through the south gate, a little over a week ago, and they decided that it wouldn't be prudent to pursue them at night. They rented floor space in the common room of a tea house at grossly inflated prices and settled down for the night, Elaphe considering and then rejecting robbing the other patrons while the Green Knight meditated on the rooftop, and in the morning they set out for Rockfort, the capital of Fontina.

They made good time on the road, passing a lot of refugees and a few farms here and there. At one point they passed a group of amanita merchants bringing bread and food to Rockfort, but decided not to buy anything and kept going. Just after lunchtime, they arrived in Rockfort. True to its name, it's built on a small mesa overlooking a large lake, with dirt ramps leading up to the walls. Unlike Blueash, here the gates were open and the party went in without much incident, though they were unable to ask the guards more than if they're seen the bandits because of the line of refugees waiting. The guards had seen them--they arrived four days ago. But Blueash was only half a day's ride away. What were they doing in that time? Hmm...

Bonnie immediately scoured the streets looking for any sorcerers in residence, and after a relatively short search, she found a familiar shingle that says "Onyx, Disciple of the Abyss." When she looked inside, it was the exact same room, with the exact same tea table in the center, and the exact same curtains on the windows. Bonnie talked with the hollow one for a moment and Onyx seemed surprised until she realized that oh, they came from Rockfort this time. Bonnie asked if the hollow one can track down anyone who is lost, and she replied that she could if she had something more than just "A mandragora, a raptok, and two amanita," so Bonnie went off to find her companions and get the shield that Summer Rain is currently possessing.

Me: "You step across the threshold-"
Elaphe's player: "Deliberate word choice there."

Everyone except Elaphe refused to enter the witch-haunted house, but Bonnie and Elaphe went in with the shield and Bonnie relayed the information from Summer Rain. When it is done, Onyx spins her arms behind her, opening a hole into a void darker than that which lies between the stars. She turns around--Elaphe's player was surprised she turned her back on them--and pulls something out, and a twenty-foot-long serpent of heatless flame and roiling shadows explodes out of the hole in realities and exits through the front door. "Follow it!" Onyx shouts, and Elaphe and Bonnie hasten to do so.

The group all mounts off and gallops through the streets of Rockfort, not encountering much difficulty as the people all scatter out of the way of a party of galloping murderhobos pursuing a flying, sorcerous thing. They ride hard for several hours until Bonnie is nearly falling off her horse and the horses themselves, and Elaphe's claw strider, are panting and obviously exhausted, and then they make camp. As they sleep, the serpent of fire and shadow circles over them in endless loops and spirals, casting the camp into alternate light and dark.

When it's almost morning, on Elaphe's watch, he hears something faint with his keen chuzan hearing and feels the ground rumbling slightly. Something is coming nearer.


Yes, everything in the petty kingdom they're in is named after cheese. One of the players suggested Fontina and I ran with it. This is serious sword and sorcery, but it's also based on Mario, which has places like "Vanilla Dome" and "Donut Plains" and "Beanbean Kingdom." A small kingdom with names like cheese is nothing.

I'm a bit surprised that everyone really wants to track down these murderers, but if that's what they're going to do, then that's what the game is about. Elaphe's player mentioned wanting to go through the pipe to B'rabt and change the whole plot, and I replied that the plot is whatever the characters do, so I'd have to scrap some of my notes and work on desert-based random encounters, but it wouldn't derail anything.

I would drop some rumors about the plague of walking dead happening out east, though. And if they treat that as background danger, that'll still be what happens.

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

Having successfully escaped Milan, the investigators continued on the train toward Venice, their next stop on their way to Constantinople. While most of the group rested, Countess Durnovo and Demir found a woman in mourning clothes in the salon car and went to speak with her. She said her name was Maria Stagliani and that she was returning to Venice after the sudden death of her father, who had slipped while walking along the canals and died of pneumonia he couldn't shake. The countess did her best to be comforting, and around dinner time, the train arrived in Venice and the investigators alighted.

Venice in winter is, well...here's what mutantur read to us:

"Venice in winter is cold, still, and vaporous. Days of rain, rain, rain, and fog alternate with spells of sunny brilliance, when ice crackles on the fringes of the canals. Nights are tomb-like, the houses wrapped in shrouds of mist, lit only by occasional somber pools of lamplight. You can walk for miles at night and hear nothing but the echo of your own footsteps, the sad slapping of water on a tethered boat, the distant clang of a fog-bell, or the deep boom of a steamer at sea. In Venice, on a foggy winter’s night, it feels like day will never come."
-E.V. Lucas, A Wanderer in Venice, Methuen and Co. April 1914

Awaiting Maria were a group of Blackshirts led by a older man wearing a military uniform, who immediately approached her and began speaking to her, growing increasingly insistent, as Rosaline and Gianni noticed a younger man lurking on the corner of the square and staring intently at Maria. As he started forward toward the Blackshirts, the countess sprang into action, approaching Maria and "reminding" her of the dinner invitation, which Maria gratefully accepted and excused herself from the military man. The younger man broke off and fled into the crowd, and the group began walking Maria home.

On the way home, Maria told them about the older man, Alberto Rossini, who wanted to marry her but who she was disgusted by, and the younger man, Giorgio, who she loves but had neither wealth nor power. A tale as old as time. When she reached her house, a chance remark by one of the group reminded her of her father's death again and sent her into tears and she hurried inside, her maid following her. With nothing else to do, the investigators went back to the train station, picked up their luggage and checked into the Hotel Danieli near the Piazza San Marco, performed a few minor tasks before bed, and went to sleep.

They hadn't slept long before they woke up in the Dreamlands.

While it had been a couple days in the waking world, almost no time seemed to have passed in the Dreamlands since the investigators' last visit. Aphorat was the next stop, and it wasn't too long until the train stopped there and the group departed to look around the pleasant port town. There wasn't much there of interest to non-sailors, though the professor did look for a cafe serving sandwiches (prompting Rosaline's player to comment, "You're so French!") and found a cafe serving...something almost but not quite entirely unlike sandwiches. Rosaline looked into the bazaar and bought a souvenir--a strange brazier that when hung did not swing in entirely the way a brazier should swing. When she tried to pull some francs from her purse to pay, she found strange coins with unknown faces on them, which seemed to change appearance slightly each time she looked at them, and was happy to hand them over to the merchants.

"What is the childhood memory-to-francs exchange rate?"
-Me on the Dreamlands economy

After the short stop, the group got back on the train and continued on their way toward Thalarion, home of the eidolon Lathi.

(There's a Dreamlands map here which doesn't look exactly the same as the one in the Horror on the Orient Express, but is pretty close. We started in Ulthar and then traveled south along the coast and then west)

On the way, they were drawn again into the dispute between the Sarnathi and the beings of Ib. The two sides were planning to present their case to King Kuranes, but wanted to come to some sort of agreement beforehand. The beings of Ib had three demands:

• The payment of 10,000 rubies and sapphires so they can rebuild Ib.


• An apology for the original atrocity perpetrated on them by the Sarnathi.


• The return of the statue of Bokrug the Great Water Lizard, which was used in the ancient and secret rite in detestation of Bokrug by the Sarnathi, and upon the altar which contained it, the high priest Taran-ish had scrawled the mark of DOOM.

The Doom That Came to Sarnath actually mentioned that the statue had vanished and I wondered if that was going to come up, but it never did. The countess handled the negotiations with the Sarnathi and managed to convince them to make the payment of gems by appealing to their reputation for generosity and the apology by pointing out that it would be a excellent opportunity for them to demonstrate their erudition and skill at sarcasm and dissembling. The professor spoke to them after talking to the beings of Ib, who said that the most important point was the return of the statue, but that they weren't that concerned because if the Sarnathi did not agree to their demands, DOOM would befall them. The Sarnathi were not particularly interested in talking to the professor, but by making his argument in Latin he at least got them to listen. They agreed to consider the return of the statue at some point in the future to be negotiated later, which seemed to satisfy both parties. Then the train arrived in Thalarion.

Henri warned the group that he was only stopping here to pick up lost dreamers and that they should under no circumstances leave the train. The station was in a vast, shadowed chamber, and as the gangplanks extended, movement could be seen on the far end. A terrible corpse-apparition, with burning red eyes and twisted limbs, floated up to the train and demanded entry. Henri rebuffed it, saying that it had already ridden and could not board again, but the sorcerer stared into Henri's eyes, ensorcelling him, and floated past him until encounting Demir, who did not look into its eyes but did clothesline it. That seemed sufficient to deter it, and it floated away.

While this was occurring, the countess noticed Madame Bruja watching the undead sorcerer with an expression of unholy glee, though she fled as soon as she noticed she was being watched.

Before Henri could snap out of it and board the train, another shape was visible through the shadows. A flash of white limb, of glittering eyes...

The eidolon Lathi had come.

Most of the group were disturbed but able to maintain their composure, but Rosaline was overcome and madly ran toward Lathi. Heedless of Demir and the professor's attempts to stop her, she broke free with demoniac strength, dodged the tentacle the train sent after her, and vanished into Thalarion just as Henri returned to his senses.

The group related what had happened to Henri, and he seemed very flustered, but assured the group that Rosaline would return and asked them to go to their chambers, which they did--except for the countess, who had gone to speak with Madam Bruja and ask her about the sorcerer. She was not very forthcoming, but she reiterated the sorcerer wanted the heart and she was adamant that he was unable to board the train, at least at this time. When the countess returned to the chamber, Henri brought Rosaline along, who remembered nothing of her flight other than a vague impression of eyes in the shadows.

The train went on toward Zura, another stop where Henri warned them not to debark, as it looks paradisaical from a distance but close-up the charnel stench gives away the true horror that lies beneath the pleasant-seeming facade. Along the way, the group dozed, ate, and those who had failed the first time to create a talisman to cast into the Gulf of Nodens tried again. The professor succeeded (with a 01!), creating a beautiful quill pen and iridescent ink, which he used to write out his regrets and asked Henri to place them around the broken crucifix he had previously used as his talisman.

Here Demir noticed Karakov the arms dealer speaking with the beings of Ib and the Sarnathi, and when speaking with Karakov got nowhere, he tried to physically prevent the man from entering the Sarnathi quarters. They were outraged and summoned Henri, who said that he understood Demir's concerns, but the Sarnathi and Karakov were paying passengers as well and had the right to conduct themselves as they saw fit.

The train stopped in Zura and Henri again tried to prevent a traveler from boarding--a ghoul clutching a tattered ticket. As the group approached, they saw it was Guillaume, who they had met in the catacombs below Paris. The professor asked Henri to let him onboard, saying that they had spoken before and come to no harm, and Henri eventually agreed, though he asked that Guillaume be placed away from the other passengers. As they showed him to his quarters, the professor asked Guillaume about himself. He said he had been born in 1692 and when he was an adult, there was a famine. There had been no food, and, well...now he was "Le goule." The professor asked him if he knew of the Comte Fenalik, and Guillaume said that he did. The Comte gave "us" the remnants of his entertainments, and he had a statue carved of white marble that he used to caress like a lover. Guillaume was convinced that if the statue was taken, the Comte would pursue its thieves to the ends of the earth, even from beyond death. A cheery thought.

At this, the professor remembered the voice that Rosaline and Gianni had heard in the Paris art gallery, and the footsteps that had seemed to be following them in the streets...

The next stop was Aira, spoken of by Iranon in his tales, but which had died when his dreams died. The train stopped here to bury the body of little Blackjack, before continuing on to Sona-Nyl, where King Kuranes and his knights boarded the train. After a fantastic banquet, King Kuranes listened to the beings of Ib and the Sarnathi and ratified their agreement, and then after some confusion, the matter of the murder of Blackjack was addressed. One of the cats that the group hadn't seen before spoke on the criminal's behalf, and King Kuranes eventually ruled that he would be returned to Ulthar to be tried, where they have a remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hatheg and discussed by travellers in Nir, that in Ulthar no man may kill a cat, but they also have a law that provides leniency for those who are under the compulsion of sorcery.

The train stopped in the cloud-city of Serannian and King Kuranes debarked, though not before telling the group that he was impressed with their discernment and if they had need of assistance while in the Dreamlands, they had merely to write to him and seek an audience and he would provide his help. Mac, the man traveling with the briefcase handcuffed to him, also made to disembark, but a few words from Demir convinced him to go all the way to the end of the line. Henri spoke to the group as well, telling them that if they continued they would never be able to return to the Dreamlands Express and asking them if they wished to continue. Demir was hesitant, but the rest of the group was resolute, and so the train pulled away from the station and passed on into the clouds...which took the shape of a skeletal face with blazing red eyes as the train passed into its maw.


Well, it's like Ibn Schacabao said:

Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.

We talked a bit about keeping the Dreamlands Express as a refuge for us, but mutantur pointed out that if we rode it again from the beginning, the other passengers would be different. With that and that Gianni, Rosaline, and the professor were committed to riding to the end, we decided to stay.

There wasn't much here that was difficult, other than schoolpsychnerd's dice failing her when the countess tried to convince the Sarnathi the first time. She's running pretty low on Luck, too (I think she has like 9 points left?). I was worried when Rosaline ran off into Thalarion, but fortunately Henri came through. Though are there any lingering effects? Hmm...

I don't remember anything about Venice at all. We think there's a leg here, because there's always a symbolic effect of the simulacrum and Maria's father slipped into the canal, but we didn't have much time to explore the city. I'm sure we'll learn what's wrong with everything next time, in the daylight.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

This session was mainly Dungeons & Dollars, with much of the first part taken up by economic dickering.

The band of murderhobos came into town and set themselves up in a private room at an inn, where Bonnie and Shining Star analyzed the shields using their knowledge of sorcery. They found that the shields weren't enchanted, but that they had been made using sorcery, binding the steel and whatever other material the trow had used to make the reddish-gold metal. They couldn't quite understand its function, but it gave Bonnie an uneasy feeling, like the tingling when a limb has been asleep and is just waking up. Thus confused, they went to sleep.

In the morning, Elaphe took all but one of the swords, one of the spearheads, and two of the shields to sell, after first taking a trow spearhead to a blacksmith and asking them if they knew anything about it. The blacksmith examined the spearhead, tapped it a bit with their claws (they were a mycon), and said that it was trow work, pretty valuable, and seemed very excited that there were more. Elaphe came back with Bonnie and the rest of the loot and got down to haggling, coming out of it with a tidy sum of money that they immediately spent on a riding horse and cart.

Unfortunately, Bonnie rolled very well to sell the trow weapons (6 successes on the Bureaucracy roll, where each success shifts the price 5%), but failed on the horse roll and got swindled. Not to the point of getting passed shoddy goods, but they paid about 10% more than they had to. Still, it let them move the broken automaton onto the cart and head out of town, though not before Bonnie wrote a letter and sent it back west with a runner for the caravan to see if they would be interested in buying a trow automaton, mostly-intact.

The trip down the road toward Etemenanki was mostly uneventful, though Bonnie ran into a group of Chaian kappa from one of the tribes that crossed the Turtleback Mountains into Chai generations ago coming from the tower and, when she heard them speaking in her native tongue, excitedly stopped to talk. She learned that they had left their tribe to see the world as is traditional among their youths, and signed on with a Silent One who had determined he knew a secret route into the tower. He died, crushed by a falling block along with the crystalline cube treasure he found, and several other chuzan mercenaries he brought with him fell victim to pit traps, whirling flame whips, shadow monster, or terrible protean abominations that slithered along channels and absorbed their prey. Two of the kappa had died as well, and the three survivors were making their way back to their tribe. They snapped to attention when Bonnie revealed her rank--as an Auspicious Orator, she's a member of the mandarinate, albeit a low-ranking one--but she waved it off and they parted after a brief time.

That night the forest drew close to the road, and following the Green Knight's urging, they went off the road and made camp in the shadow of the trees. They all went to sleep--even Amos, who could see the fushigibana sitting on the branches and staring down at them--but were awakened by the Green Knight during his watch when he heard a crashing in the distance, a sign that all of them recognized as the tell-tale sound of the walking trees. The Green Knight told them to flee for the road and went off into the woods to find a wild animal to wound, since walking trees are drawn to the scent of blood. He found a deer, but it noticed him just as he snuck up on it and evaded his attack, so with no other recourse he wounded himself and ran. Fortunately, while walking trees are enormously powerful and their tenacity rivals the Terminator, they are not fast and will rarely leave the forests, so he managed to outrun them and make his way back to the group when Amos launched an arrow from his bow which burst into flames and worked as a flare.

The next day was mostly uneventful. There's a mandragora and her entourage that the band of murderhobos ignored, and they camped near the road, which was edged with stone to help keep the forest away. The next day they exited the forest and saw Etemenanki filling the horizon to the southwest and a group of people with armbands with towers on them who asked them if they're going to the tower town and if they know the rules. Elaphe said yes and Bonnie said no, and after a suspicious look the guard told them don't kill, don't steal, don't fight, and it costs one monme to enter the tower paid to the excise office, then they were waved on.

They spent half the day walking down the road, with the tower getting larger and larger, until around sunset, with the whole landscape in shadow because the tower blocked out the sun and several cloud kingdoms visibly orbiting the massive structure, they entered the tower town.

While there's nowhere in Agarica that's racially homogeneous other than the Scarlet City, the tower town was the most eclectic place any of the group had ever seen. There were amanita and mandragora and kong and mycon and kappa and chuzan all rubbing shoulders, a group of raptok goes by chatting in their hissing language, and there was even a kremling in a green robe and his two bodyguards. Amos thought he sees another human, but when he got closer he could see that they had wings. Truly, tower town is an amazing place.

Moving through the streets, Elaphe found the group an inn with the sign of the three fishes and decided they would stay there, and as they entered, I told them there were a few people inside, it was dimly lit in the back but there were larger windows in the front, and then I hit play on Shadow's Theme and mentioned a kong and a raptok drinking tea together in the corner. And we ended there.

This session was mostly dice-driven, with the guards, the walking trees in the forest, and the mandragora and her entourage all spawned from random encounter tables. I will need to come up with something for next game, though, since the murderhobos have a hot tip for a secret portion of Etemenanki. I could probably run the whole rest of the game as a megadungeon set around the tower--an idea I've had before--but that will depend on the party's decisions.

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

Due to being sick last game I didn't attend, but I did get a rundown of what happened. The group arrived in Milan, where they found that Caterina Cavallaro was missing and the whole city was under a mysterious malaise because of it. One could say that they were sick at heart. The rooms at the hotel were still available, and the investigators got a tour of the Teatro alla Scala, including backstage. They were sure that the torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum was there, but they didn't have time or opportunity to search for it. That night, the professor stayed up late reading the Sedefkar scrolls with the aid of an Arabic dictionary while the others went to sleep, and when they awoke, they were on the Dreamlands Express.

The first stop was scenic and picturesque Dylath-Leen, where two groups got on--a group of Sarnathi and a group of beings of Ib, who took up places on opposite ends of the train. The Sarnathi spent time tormenting the beings of Ib, squashing them into walls and talking behind their backs, and generally condescended to everyone within speaking distance. There was also a madman, who the group tried to feed moon wine to to wake up, which went poorly and caused him to be confined in the padded car near the beings of Ib.

After lunch, Rosaline saw something strange in her compartment, opened up a trunk, and found the body of the kitten Blackjack, foully murdered!

Around this time the professor's eyes began to give out and, putting aside the scrolls and the book, he went to sleep and woke up in the Dreamlands, where the rest of the group filled him in. Henri asked them to investigate the murder and offered to accompany them with some of Ulthar's cats, who were obviously interested in determining the culprit. Before they left the room, the discovered strange claw marks near the window, as though something had climbed from outside the train. Strange, since the tentacled monstrosities that bore the train along should be able to protect against such a thing...

Demir unfortunately had been contaminated by peeling a being of Ib off the wall (and OOC his player was absent), so he retired to the bath house while Professor Durand, Gianni, and Rosaline went to question the beings of Ib and the Countess went to question the Sarnathi. This didn't really get anywhere--both of them were convinced the other one had did it because of their inherent duplicity, savagery, and vile nature, etc. The being of Ib squashed near the investigator's compartment door hadn't seen anything and the Sarnathi really didn't care that much. The madman merely babbled without ever providing a straight answer and the cats had seen Blackjack before lunch, but pointed out that Blackjack was a curious kitten who loved humans and so went wandering off frequently. As such, the investigators decide to question the travelers individually.

First they went to Karakov, who was seen leaving lunch with an injured hand. At first he stuck to his story, but with further questioning he admitted that he had been spooked by the sound of the guns (none of the investigators could hear them) and returned to his room for the saber he keeps under his bed. In his haste, he grabbed it by the blade, and cut himself. His injuries matched the wound, but when the cats sniffed the blade, they determined that the blood there was not human...

Second was Madame Bruja, who I'm pretty sure at this point is [REDACTED]--which if true is good, because the [REDACTED] in [REDACTED] never made any sense in a Lovecraftian context--and Gianni and Professor Durand waited outside while Countess Durnovo and Rosaline questioned her. She was convinced that her mysterious enemy had sent a proxy onto the train to work against her and that it must be his work, but other than that her answers were all spite and old feuds and didn't actually provide any answers. The cats indicate that she smelled of old loss and bitterness and death, though they discretely waited until the Countess and Rosaline left the room before mentioning it.

Third was Monsieur M--he had a name, but none of us ever remembered how to pronounce it--where a series of revelations gave him away. The 58-year-old eagle eyes of the professor noticed a series of claw marks near the room's window, and though Monsieur M said he hadn't seen anyone coming or going, the professor also noticed that the rugs he was sitting on were strangely crumpled. Monsieur M moved when requested, and there was a small spot of blood on the rug underneath. The cats sniffled it and meowed at Henri, who exclaimed that it was cat blood, causing Monsieur M to transform into a hideous crustacean monster! It did not attack, though. It simply retreated to the other end of the room. When questioned it admitted to killing Blackjack, but seemed unable to answer any other questions.

Henri wanted it thrown from the train immediately, but the professor talked him down, reasoning that if they could not get any other answers they would never know the circumstances of the crime. Henri assembled all the passengers in the dining car, and the professor explained the crime and that Monsieur M would be confined in the padded car until a further solution would be reached. Henri suggested that either he could be extradited to Ulthar to be tried under Ulthar law--where, if you may remember, there is a remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hatheg and discussed by travellers in Nir which is relevant to these circumstances--or that it be confined until King Kuranes boarded the train. The king's wisdom is legendary, and when asked, the cats accepted that decision.

Then Henri suggested that it was time for the investigators to...wake up.


Because of mutantur's out-of-game circumstances, this was a shorter session than normal, only running about an hour and a half. As mutantur also pointed out, the murder isn't really that difficult to solve, especially with the cats sniffing around everywhere. Once I got the idea to use them as bloodhounds, it was just a question of making sure we knew where to point them. Or where to ask them to go and hope they did it. These are cats, after all.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

We started off west of the town of Tannin after the heroesprotagonists left to avoid the election-related violence occurring, possibly just ahead of a riot. They spent most of the day riding west toward the Etemenenki, the enormous Predecessor tower visible on the horizon, passing peasants on their way too and from their fields, a few traveling merchants, and watching the villages grow smaller and further apart until there was some grass growing in the burned patches on either side of the road and the only signs of civilization were some scattered homesteads. Around dinner time, they went off the road to find a camp site, rolling adequately on their Survival roll and choosing Concealment and Sustenance.

Brief aside on the survival rules: I'm borrowing Dungeon Fantastic's camping rules, though I use Comfort, Concealment, and Sustenance instead. Comfort means that they heal wounds and recover Essence normally, Concealment provides a benefit on nighttime random encounter rolls, and Sustenance means they get free food and can save some money on rations. Five+ successes on the Survival roll gets all three, 2-4 gets two, 1-0 gets one, and a botch means all campsites are terrible.

As they settled down for camp in a hollow out of sight of the road with a small, fish-filled pool, Elaphe spotted a partially ruined house to the south, further away from the road, and determined to go after it. Shining Star decided to follow him, and the Green Knight went as well. Leaving their mounts behind, they snuck through the prairie grass to the house, hearing a few noises but not encountering any wildlife on the way, and when they reached the house Elaphe immediately started casing the joint and looting everything he could, grabbing a good pair of shoes sized for an amanita, some loose change, and some mostly unburned candles.

While he was filling his sack with loot, Shining Star tried to figure out why the house was abandoned. She conducted her own search and found lines of salt across the doorway and the windows, but noticed that the line on one of the windows had been broken. Salt is used to ward off wraiths, and as she glanced out the window at the setting sun, she realized that they needed to leave. Now.

Howls pursued them back across the grassland as they ran to the campsite and warned Bonnie and Amos about the wraiths, which led to a standoff where Shining Star demanded to know what Elaphe took from the house and Amos sticking his musket in Elaphe's face (roll Manipulation + Firearms!). The second trick worked, and Elaphe gave Amos the money as the first wraith crested the hill, a horrible parody of an amanita running on all fours with a too-wide mouth filled with jagged teeth. Two more quickly followed it. Elaphe hurled a bob-omb at the wraiths, and while one managed to dodge out of the explosion, the other two were caught in it and seriously hurt.

One wraith charged after Amos, who started running as Bonnie ordered her iron jaws familiar to attack it. One of them charged the Green Knight, who set his spear in the earth and awaited it, and then other ran toward Shining Star, who began chanting and chains of light appeared around the wraith, but to no effect. In its frenzy to get to the Green Knight, the wraith leaped on the spear, skewering itself but getting close enough to slash through the Green Knight's armor, leaving him bleeding.

Realizing that he wouldn't be able to pick up his bow before the wraith reached him, Amos turned and blasted it with his musket, causing its attack to miss him as he dropped the musket and reached for his bow. The Green Knight tore into the wraith on his spear as Shining Star called up another set of chains around the wraith attacking Amos, binding its arms tightly to its sides and searing its flesh. Bonnie ran toward it to add to her own attacks, but was woefully ineffective.

Here Elaphe sprung into action, drawing his starmetal dagger and attacking the wraith that Shining Star had just bound in chains, ripping open its back and causes it to fall apart into ectoplasm and black ichor. At the same moment, the Green Knight reached out with his wooden claws and tore another wraith's head from its shoulders. The wraith near Shining Star swiped at her, but she dodged backward out of the way as Amos grabbed his bow and shot the wraith, which burned a hole straight through it. Soon after, the chains that were still wrapped around it burned it entirely away, and it fell to pieces which decayed into nothingness.

Shining Star looked at the Green Knight's wounds, using hedge magic to slow his bleeding--the players were especially happy at the delta-like hand gesture her player made--and Elaphe looked for the money that Amos had thrown away. The next morning, everyone rode south to the house and looked around, finding a root cellar and, in that cellar, three patched of turned earth. Buried underground were three desiccated amanita bodies, and the group took them upstairs, Shining Star conducted a brief eulogy over them, asking Nyahré to guide their souls to the Star Road, and then Amos muttered a few words and called up flames. They then rode away, the house burning behind them.


We had a bit of a late start this time, but it still went well! This session was almost entirely driven by random rolls and players asking what was out there, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I've been thinking that low-power Exalted would be a perfect system for a sword and sorcery hexcrawl, and this is my chance to prove it. So far, it's working well.

This session was primarily an introduction to combat, since one of the players in this game is new to the system. Since it was three vs. five (six counting Bonnie's iron jaws), I'm not sure I gave a proper introduction to how lethal it can be. But I'm really happy that the PCs ran from the house! I keep hearing stories about PCs that won't run even in the face of utter annihilation, so running in the face of a threat is a good sign. If random rolls determine your opposition, not all battles will be winnable.

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

We started off heading to Charenton to check into the Comte de Fennelik's confinement there, only to find that the new director had little time for us and his secretary thought we were an imposition at best. While a donation got us access to the records, we ignored mutantur's overtures to commit larceny and ended up nearly being thrown out when the secretary saw Rosaline holding records from the previous asylum director, but the Countess and the Professor had enough clout that they were not only ushered down to the archives, they were left alone there. After a search turned up little, Professor Durand and Gianni went up to ask the secretary about further records and managed to get the name of the asylum's former historian (and Abbadelli snatched the record book while the secretary was looking) while Demir prowled around the asylum, eventually finding a room where it seemed someone had been walled in. Comparing it to the entries in the former director's logbook, it seemed to imply that a patient who had been walled in had been excavated and was somehow still alive...

The investigators also spoke to M. Mandrin after finding him leaving work, but they learned little, other than that the "new patient" had been treated with electroshock therapy--the cause of Dr. Delplace's death after a fault in the machine--and had not died. Curious.

After heading to the asylum historian's garret apartment and finding him long-dead, with a knife in his chest and a scrap of skin pinned to it with the Turkish words "The Skinless One knows" on it, the investigators headed out to Poissy, where the Comte's villa had been.

This is where I pulled a bit back from the game because I remembered exactly what we had to do down to the smallest detail, but the investigators spent the night in the local hotel and then went to the town hall in the morning, found the land use records and managed to deduce the location of the count's villa and that the land is currently owned by a Dr. Lorien and his wife, so the investigators headed out there and arrived after dark. They were able to use their new cover story--Professor Durand is writing a history book, Rosaline and Gianni are his research assistants, the countless is his...ah, "traveling companion," and Demir is her servant--and when they mentioned the statue, Dr. Lorien handed over a letter from one Edgar Wellington of Lausanne, Switzerland, who also wrote to inquire about the Sedefkar Simulacrum, but the good doctor hadn't had the time to reply.

After some time determining exactly where on the land the entrance on the villa's plans might be, and noting that all of the Loriens suffered from various ailments of the left arm, the investigators left and came back the next day, where they commenced to digging. They found the cellar and the terrible prison chambers within, and in the farthest chamber from the stairs were roses that glowed in a riot of colored light (and mutantur had rigged up his wifi light fixture for this occasion, which was wonderfully evocative) and the glowing left arm of a life-size statue. When the arm was removed, the roses all died and the Loriens' ailments seemed to get better.

The next day, the investigators boarded the Orient Express and spent the evening drinking with Caterina Cavallaro, who performed an aria from her upcoming performance of Aida and invited the investigators to attend her performance in Milan in three days. Then, as the first light of dawn tinged the sky, everyone staggered back from the salon car to their beds and fell immediately to sleep, and when they awoke, they were somewhere else....

Also, we have props! Collect the whole set!


Not visible here is the magnet in the statue, which will allow us to assemble it as we get more pieces. Half-visible on the left side is an artist's rendition of the rose chamber, with the vines weirdly entwined around skeletons and the blooms shedding their unhallowed light. And mutantur says there's more coming, since he backed an entirely separate kickstarter of HotOE props.

I actually wasn't looking forward to this session because I had very clear memories of what was going on and what we had to do. Fortunately, I only remember the broad strokes in Milan and I don't remember Lausanne at all, other than the [REDACTED] that happens in [REDACTED]. And the Dreamlands must be new! So like the previous new section in the 1890s, it'll all be a surprise to me.

Yesterday, we met for the last session of the flashback in the Horror on the Orient Express game. It went at somewhat of a hurried pace, since we wanted to finish the whole thing up in one game, but we managed to decipher T̝̻̲̲̲̣̃ͯ̅h̬̭̱̖̝̺ͨ̒eͬ̓̅͐ ̰̩͠W̞͔͇̲̘̲h̢̝͕͆ͅi̇̓̏ͫ̋͏̗͚͕͉s͒̊̓ͥ̐ͭ̉p̭̰̓͆͛e̬͖͖͉rͦ̍ͦ͂͟i̲̩͚n̮̩͉͓͍͛g̯̝̝̤̭͍̠͊́ ̷̘͚̉̄́ͦ̃̑̆F̠̹̙ē̶̱̠͍̬͋ͅz͚̲͇̑̉ͧͯ͌ and get Menkaph ejected from the train at the Niš stop. Professor Worth (filling in for Dr. Polat, whose player was absent) used his knowledge from the book to arrest the decline of Mr. Meyers, though it required him to put on a fez himself, adding additional urgency to our quest.

We arrived in Constantinople and met with Professor Demir and learned that his son had been kidnapped, which sent us across the city to find out where he had been taken. While Professor Worth went to the library, Captain Barrington, Mr. Banks, and Miss Meadowcroft visited a man who called himself "the Frenchman" and had an audience with the sultan, eventually learning that the so-called "Children of the Blood-Red Fez" were holed up on the Island of Doomed Princes, a secret tenth of the Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmara south of Constantinople. Professor Demir knew a fisherman, a "Nine-fingered Abdullah," who knew of the location and could ferry the investigators there, so under the cover of night, they traveled to the island and rowed out to land there.

On the island, the Captain and Miss Meadowcroft distracted the guards by provoking the goats while Mr. Banks climbed the crumbling walls of the tower at its summit and pulled the eunuch guarding the cult leader out the second-story window. In the chaos, Professor Worth dashed up the stairs and engaged the leader in a battle of wills for ultimate control of the fez, eventually winning despite her attempts to dissuade him otherwise. As the fez was destroyed, her head exploded, and the party managed to get Professor Demir's son, and the other prisoner, a Prince Ramazan, out of the tower. Hurling petrol bombs behind them, the party made their escape and went back to the professor's house. At that point, the game time was basically over, so we wrapped things up and went home. Victory!

And the Captain proposed to Miss Meadowcroft, so they or any children they have could be backup PCs if any of the 1920s-era characters dies. Mr. Banks would also be willing to come back for one last hurrah, but Professor Worth's player mentioned that he probably went home, forgot anything like this ever happened, and refused to speak to Professor Smith ever again. Not that I blame him.

Now that I'm playing an official Call of Cthulhu adventure, I can see why Trail of Cthulhu changed the mechanics of investigating. The stakes are often "Do this thing or the world is doomed," and then whether we even know what thing to do comes down to Library Use and Persuade and if we fail those--and this is a percentile system, so that's likely at some point--the GM has to scramble to find some way to get us back on track or else the world ends. It's why I'm glad that mutantur laid out the paths for us to take instead of letting us flail around for a while. We did a lot of flailing last session, though we eventually worked things out!

My solution for this is generally to have lower stakes and let the PCs fail--I'm reminded of the time I ran Operation COBALT SHADOW (aka "A Victim of the Art") in Delta Green, where what I thought would be a relatively quick opera took four sessions before F Cell screwed things up so badly that MAJESTIC swept in and they had to extract themselves--and that may happen someday. I mean, it's not for no reason that we have possible backup PCs. I think that since this was a flashback that had to end in a particular way because it "already happened" it exacerbated that problem, though.

I am curious if we'll seriously screw up a leg of the journey. Next time, France!

Last session was a bottle episode! Though in a sense, every session that takes place on the Orient Express is a bottle episode.

We knew that Hieronymus Menkaph was a villain and a fiend, and the conversations he had with the party clearly indicated that he knew we were there to thwart him, though he was villainously overconfident that we would not be able to do so. And indeed, for most of the first half of the session, we faffed around and didn't accomplish much. The copy of The Whispering Fez we were looking for was not in his room, our attempts to determine what was wrong with the shrouded and sickly Mr. Myers did not go as planned, and about the only things we did accomplish was to get Henri, the Belgian conductor in our car, on our side--which turned out useful later--and for Amelia Meadowcroft the tomb raider adventuress to get the chance to speak to Mrs. Myers without the presence of Menkaph.

Around halfway through, we finally got the ball rolling. I drew Captain Barrington's cabinmate Dr. Sirach (one of the other possible PCs that mutantur left out because he figured we'd need more combat potential) into our mission and asked him to check into Mr. Myers, which also didn't work but did get Mr. Myers out of his room. George Burns the ruffian used this opportunity to lockpick the Myers' door, though when he saw the living shadow coalesce out of the air he went mad and ran screaming through the car. The player of Dr. Polat the Turkish history then came up with the idea of causing a dreadful row in the salon car, relying on Henri favoring us over Menkaph to keep us from mundane reprisal. After a few failed rolls with Menkaph himself, Dr. Polat switched to shouting at Kapok, Menkaph's hulking-yet-wiry Turkish bruiser, and a declaration that his mother would be ashamed of him hit home.

As Kapok laid hands on Dr. Polat, Captain Barrington and Miss Meadowcroft barged into the Myers' compartment with a lantern they had acquired from Henri. Barrington held off the shadow at great risk to his own hit points while Miss Meadowcroft dove onto the bed, finding a copy of The Whispering Fez beneath the pillow! She retreated down the hall while Barrington swung at the shadow until it slipped out into the hall and vanished into the many shadows therein.

Dr. Polat returned to his room and Miss Meadowcroft gave him the book to read, while Burns drank in the Salon car. When Burns tried to return to his room, he saw two moving shadows in the car detach from the wall and come toward him, and he decided that getting blind drunk on an expense account was a much better use of his time.

We ended when a steady pounding on Captain Barrington and Dr. Sirach's door awoke most of the train car, and in the hall was Mr. Myer, who declared his generic rage and took a swing at Barrington--and as he drew back his fist, curtain.

Oh, also [REDACTED] showed up in Vienna and boarded the train, which I suppose is just foreshadowing to explain why [REDACTED] happens later? The whole sequence in [REDACTED] definitely seemed weird to me in the actual play I heard, though maybe the new version of HotOE integrates it better. Admittedly, it's not as weird as [REDACTED] showing up outside Belgrade, which is horror, but not mythos horror.

This reminded me of our Delta Green games, where I'd assume that the PCs would finish in a session, maybe two, and then it took them four sessions before they had to flee the city when MAJESTIC swept in. I'm hoping we can convince Henri, who already really dislikes Menkaph, that he's a terrible influence and get him thrown off the train. And next session, Professor Worth's player won't be absent, which is good since everyone should be there for Menkaph's downfall.

Maybe we can literally throw him from the train. I can hope!

Last night was another session of the Warlords of the Mushroom Kingdom short-run game I'm doing. There was another session in between this one and the first one I wrote about, but I didn't have anything insightful to say about it and I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow recounting of this game, so I skipped it.

I'm writing here because this was the first session where we had actual combat. Part of the reason I wanted to use the Exalted system, even with all the ill-will it has on the internet, is that I'm convinced the base of the system is an interesting, crunchy timing-based (as opposed to round-based) engine and all the problems come when dozens of Charms have to interact with it. Also flurries. And the combat we had would seem to support that conclusion. It had seven participants, ran about half an hour--almost no one had played in an Exalted 2e combat before, so a lot of that time was explaining things--and went pretty smoothly.

Rather than use a battle wheel to keep track of timing, I used some glass counters I bought specifically for the purpose a while ago. Every time anyone took an action, they took counters equal to its Speed, and then I'd say "tick" and everyone would throw a counter in the pile. It made it obvious when people got to go again and kept things moving pretty well. I just wish that Daiju had gotten to participate, but he failed a Temperance roll, went off to investigate some pretty lights, and got beguiled by a faerie.

I did love my players' expressions when I said, "Faerie blood heals wounds. Just sayin'."

Since each player only had five or six Charms to pick from, all of which were from a single martial art and so focused on a particular combat style, there wasn't a lot of dithering and pouring over long lists. Chi used sorcery to link the group closer together so they could make group Stealth rolls, and then opened the battle against two kappa and two mycon bandits with Binding Filament Strands to take a prisoner. After that, he mostly just hid. Miyamoto leapt into the middle of the remaining three and laid about him with fists and feet, knocking one of the mycon out and getting a few hits on the kappa, though most failed to do much damage against its thick shell. Kabocha used her sticky tongue to snag the other mycon and chewed on it, eventually biting it in half. The final kappa ran after the other three bandits were incapacitated and Miyamoto and Kabocha chased it down, tackled it, and killed it.

Things I realized I forgot to do

• DV Tracking: Uh. Oops. I forgot to penalize people's defenses for the actions they took. It was mostly just attacking without anything complicated, but DV is an important part of the rules and if I really want to see how well the combat system works we need to track it.
  
• Combat Tactics: This is mostly because our printer is broken and I couldn't print out the reference sheet for actions, but I really should have had the sheet in front of everyone with the actions and DV costs on it. It would have helped people decide what to do.
  
• Knockdown: I forgot that checking for knockdown is based on the raw damage of the attack, not the post-armor and -soak damage. There were at least two attacks Miyamoto made that were reduced to a one or two damage dice that should still have checked for knockdown (kappa have 8L/8B armor just from their shells).

I did remember to track most everything else, including movement. I found a blank sheet of paper was fine for tracking all the of the enemies they were fighting. No extras, either--everyone had full stats. And I didn't have worry about bleeding, chance of infection, or disease, because none of the PCs even got hurt. The only one who got attacked was Miyamoto, and he handily dodged every attack directed at him.

The PCs also followed a trail the bandits hadn't done enough to disguise and found out their their camp is apparently within the boundaries of the Forest of Shadows. How are they surviving in there without drawing the wrath of the forest spirits or the carnivorous flora? Mysterious!

Things I need to do for next time--get that combat actions sheet printed out, stat up walking trees and forest spirits, and come up with a set of rules for Shaping combat (Chi is planning to use dream sorcery to interrogate/brainwash their captive) that aren't 1) overcomplicated and 2) terrible.