Satans

 

In ancient times when the codes of civilisation were being worked from the raw stuff of human sociality there were great kings and wild beasts and they ruled their subjects together, in strange and circular lockstep, as gods might rule. 

In those elden days the great kings and queens fought with monsters from the deep chaos and named them Destroyers; for whatever they gazed on, that thing died. They named them Deceivers, for they wore the skins and took the souls of men; they named them Ruiners, for they went about the world tearing down the cities and walls and great temples and libraries. After many centuries those terrible beings were slain or sealed away at great cost of life.

The monster destroys the polis that is the world.

-

Great Satan

A core extremophile with the plastic form of a person. The Great Satans were destroyed by the Kings of the World in ages now long past. They have many names in the muddied histories of the ancient days: Chaos Thanes, Executors, Serpent Men, Slaughterers, Destroyers; in the histories they make ruins of towers and walls, they poison crops and wells, and they burn armies to cinder and charred bone. 

A very tall, very thin, apparently human body slick with oil, mud, stinking gasses, and other effluvia. Wrapped around in jewels and metal chains from the centre of the world. Steam cascades from their bodies and they are surrounded by a halo of shimmering heat. The face is smiling, old-and-young, cruel, penetrating. There is a grinning, shrieking serpent between their thighs - true for male and female Satans - and another in their mouth in place of a tongue. 

HD14, Grasping Hands that crackle with the unmaking energies of the core (roll to-hit as unarmed, damage as per SORCERY, detailed below) and SORCERY, a Treated Skin wrapped around dense, liquid iron (AC 20, DR2), movement: as person who can be without a skeleton when it would benefit them, disposition: unmaker of the intelligible world. In addition: petty and cruel. 

The Treated Skin allows the Satan to maintain a glamour and appear genuinely human while it is intact. This also suppresses the great heat within its body, and all other tells of its true nature. The Treated Skin can assume the face of anyone who has invited the Satan across a threshold, or entered into any form of oath or legal agreement with it. One hit (or a turn of using SORCERY) is all it takes to tear the skin and destroy the glamour and reveal its unglamoured, though still humanoid, form. As the skin degrades further the true body of the Satan is revealed: a huge, thin, hairless ape, with skin of molten iron and a face and hands that subdivide into an increasingly fine forest of waving tendril manipulators and sensor probes. 

Twin Serpents: the serpent in the mouth can speak with anyone's voice, and knows all of your secrets. In combat it deals d6 fear damage per turn to everyone in the combat who doesn't have their ears stopped with max or similar. It can also forgo this damage to make an attack (its to-hit is +4) and a medium weapon. The serpent of the loins is a poisoner, and its venom can permanently foul water sources and fertile cropland. In combat it makes an attack like the serpent of the mouth, but in addition to weapon damage the target must save CON or die.

Dense Metal: a Great Satan can move anything made from magnetic ore towards itself or away from itself (must choose one or the other per turn) at high speed. This ability has a range of 50ft, and can pull weapons out of your hand etc. Small objects like swords or lanterns fly the full 50ft in a turn (you can make a STR save to keep your grip on them), larger objects (people in armour etc.) move 20ft per turn and must save to keep their feet. 

SORCERY

Great arcing discharges of energy, fire and lightning, reeking expanding gasses, roiling stuff of the inner hells. Sorcery is an area of effect, with the following effects on beings inside it (excepting the source of the SORCERY): 

• 6d6 radiation damage per turn, with a CON save for half.
• blinded and deafened while inside, and for d6-CON mod afterwards. 
• flammables are set alight, paper is destroyed, weapons and armour are damaged.
• corpses (including those slain by the SORCERY) are raised, and act for a single turn under the control of the one who commands the SORCERY, after which they are burnt to ash and destroyed.
• no lie can be told inside an area affected by SORCERY. 

A Great Satan may lay down any AOE of sorcery that they wish, although the whole of the AOE must be visible to them. They can lay down as many zones as they wish per turn. Each zone laid out this way takes a full turn to charge up, and then takes effect from the next turn, for however many turns the Satan wishes. You will know which zone has been designated because it will start to heat up and feel dense with energetic charge. Any adventurer will recognise that something very bad is happening, even if they have never seen SORCERY before (read: make sure your players know that these AOEs are death zones).

For every turn that a Satan uses its SORCERY (not on the charge up turn, only the turns where the SORCERY is taking effect), it loses 2d6 hp as it burns up in the act of channelling such vast energies. 

Satans do not experience interiority or selfhood, and do not fear death at all. They will prioritise killing over survival every time. If any of these terrible beings have survived to the current age they might be found in the great subterranean palaces of the Red Apes. 

Lesser Satans

Strange humanoids who occasionally venture up from the depths of the underworld. They claim to be people, but when interrogated fabulate memories from many different lives. Their origins are obscure, and they are usually killed on sight by right-thinking adventurers and other surface dwellers.

Lesser Satans are tall and thin, with exaggerated, neanderthal-ish facial features. Like the Old Heroes, they tend to inspire awe and fear in modern humans. 

Unlike most adventurers, (and like the Old Heroes and Royal Woses) Lesser Satans roll stats with 5d6 down the line. They are not balanced for 'normal' adventurer play. Their starting HP is 20 + their CON mod, and their unarmed punches hit as heavy weapons. 

Angels, demons, and any other being of Law, will attack you on sight. Pious people might also do this is they become aware of your origins. Apes (not surface converts) tend to have a wary respect for Satans. Serpents consider you an ally; perhaps even an old friend. 

Gear: a cape of strange, shimmering material; strong, light, and insulating. Usually white or a bright primary colour. Otherwise heroically nude. 

Skills: none. Amnesiac, no memories of your life before you wandered up into the upper hells of air. 

A: SORCERY, Geas, Seeming
B: COMMAND
C: ILLUSION
D: WORDS OF POWER

SORCERY: you have the command of terrible forces of the core. This functions identically to the SORCERY section in the the entry for Great Satans above, with the following differences:

• You do not need to 'charge up' your AOE for a turn, but take d6 fatigue in addition to the 2d6 damage per turn you use SORCERY. 
•  To begin with, the only AOE you can place is a 60ft sphere centred on yourself. You can spend a turn channeling SORCERY to make this AOE more precise, in the following steps: a 90 degree cone 60ft long > a line 60ft long and 10ft wide, emanating from you or a 30ft sphere AOE anywhere in your LOS > an arbitrarily thin beam that travels for 1000ft or an individual you can lock eyes with. For each template in Lesser Satan you posses, you may choose to begin this track one position further along. 

Geas: you cannot lie, and cannot willingly harm anything if you have not first informed them that you intend to do so. Shouting 'ALL SHALL FALL BEFORE ME' or 'BURN, WORMS' as you kick the door in and turn into a human tesla coil is acceptable for the purposes of the Geas. 

Seeming: you can remove the face of someone who has lied to you, invited you to cross a threshold, or entered into a legal contract with you, and make a seeming from it. This takes a day of work with the face. You can wear the seeming and appear to others as that person. Your voice and appearance, other than your face, are not changed. The seeming is fragile, and is permanently destroyed if you take damage of any kind while wearing it. 

COMMAND: you have an awful majesty at your shoulder and in your eye. You can use SORCERY to command someone who can understand you instead of laying down an AOE. They can save CHAR to resist, otherwise they obey you for a turn. Anyone who has ever lied to you fails the save automatically. Does not work on royalty or priests (angels are not priests). 

ILLUSION: When someone fails to save against your COMMAND, you can inflict up to [templates] of the following effects on them, which last for the rest of the combat (or one hour if it becomes relevant). PCs and other powerful individuals may save INT to nullify one effect per turn. The target:

• Rolls to hit with disadvantage. 
• Takes d10 fear damage per turn. 
• Has their movement direction and speed both randomised or the ILLUSION wielder chooses either the speed or direction. 
• Has their attack target randomised. 
• Takes 1 psychic damage per turn. 
• Cannot attack a single target at all, chosen by the ILLUSION wielder. 
• Becomes immune to fear damage, and unable to test morale. 
• Has their melee attacks count as Vorpal. 

These effects are written for use in combat - ILLUSION outside of combat may have more subtle and long-reaching effects, to be determined in discussion with the DM. 

WORDS OF POWER: your COMMAND ability can now be used on stone, metal, fire, water, electromagnetism, and radiation. Against these targets you must expend a use of SORCERY per word of the COMMAND, which will never be contested. 

d12 Starter Jobs for Baronial Mercenaries

 

This post for the lovely Squamous, who asked for 'giant rats in a dungeon' style starter quests for baby mercenaries. I've taken this to mean adventurers, as mercenaries and adventurers are slightly different social niches in the Barony, admittedly with plenty of crossover. 

A note on levelling in Barony: I consider D template to represent a fully developed and talented professional, not a reality-warping, fate-bound hero. There are a lot of talented and experienced professionals in the world. You're not that special. You probably get your A template after something like boot camp or a bachelor's degree or an apprenticeship. 

Paying Jobs for A Templates

1. Church Fixer. The Church is constantly looking for deniable people to fill contracts - they pay reliably, often have work, will provide you with logistical support and a safe house after the fact, and are societally acceptable, even lauded. Many (even most?) adventurers get their start doing contract work for the clergy. Note that, for reasons unclear, people who go into the adventuring life have roughly five times the average chance of coming up in the proscriptions. 
2. Service in the Provinces. The petty nobility are always looking for people. You make your start in the kill teams, and if you're worth taking on could end up employed in the noble house troops. Most kill team captains have a second role as recruiters and talent scouts, so if you're good and reliable you can expect to be noticed. 
3. Mercenary Work. Actual bands of actual mercenaries are often recruiting, especially during times of inter Kingdom warfare. Mercenaries do not suffer much attrition in peacetime, but during the wars they will suddenly need large influxes of fresh blood for the foot companies. If you're big and tough they might train you as heavy infantry. If you're quick and tough (and a bit insane), you could become one of the Arditi. 
4. A tour of the Eastern City. Essentially mercenary work but tightly centrally organised and codified into 'tours', with fixed pay, responsibilities, and perks. The fight against encroachment from the Forest of Worms is endless, and the Eastern City always needs fresh people. This is a very stable form of adventurer work, but it is also very dangerous. Large worm attacks semi-regularly break through and massacre whole sections of the city. You can expect good pay and lots of professional mentorship on an Eastern tour. 
5. Merchant's Hand. The vast majority of merchant commerce in the Barony is conducted by sea, but there are small regional caravan importers who move goods from the coasts and rivers into land-locked townships and cities. As a Merchant's Hand you will be primarily a guard, but also a porter, stevedore, accountant, and often a confidant and advisor inside the operation. Particularly lucrative land-trade routes are concentrated in the Northern Barony, controlling the importation of luxury good from the mountains, and in the South, where most of the nomad clans lack harbour infrastructure to facilitate sea trade.
6. Close Protection. Personal bodyguard work is ubiquitous in the Barony. As a baby adventurer this will probably look like getting hired on as part of a staff of security professionals - people who are wealthy enough to afford bodyguards are generally looking for more experienced fighters to accompany them in person. There may be light intelligence and recon work involved, in addition to fighting and food-tasting. Close protection work is publicly considered one of the most reliable and effective ways of acquiring useable combat and tactics training. 
7. Adventuring/Undergrounding. Duh! This is the classic; what everyone thinks about when they picture an adventurer. It involves finding ingress into the underworld, venturing within, and wresting ancient treasures from the claws and teeth of the terrors that dwell there. It is extremely, extremely dangerous, but groups often do emerge with fortunes equivalent to the risks. It is not at all uncommon for a group of youths to hit lucky, and retire for life after a single delve. As such, 'undergrounding' is an evergreen sirensong for young men and women who believe themselves possessing of mettle.
8. Paper Men. A particular brand of merchant/adventurer who travels into the deep South with paper, to trade with the mentats for sugar. Southern Sugar is such an absurdly expensive trade good that you can make good money as a Paper Man very quickly, but you also paint a huge target on your back for thieves along the route. Small and terrible wars are fought by desperate people along the coasts and the interior roads, and various gangs and criminal groups do their best to extort and control the trade. It is, famously, safer to make a modest living selling gear to the hopefuls making the trip. 
9. Field Research. The academics of the capital are often need adventurers to accompany them on research trips - this can be into the earth, to the extreme edges of the world, off into dream, or anywhere that catches the questing, restless minds of those great seats of learning. Undergraduates generally do not have the funding to hire more experienced mercenaries, and many adventuring parties born from the field research of a successful graduate thesis. 
10. Dream Partisan. The Dreamlands hold many competing factions, and many dangers. Sensitive young adventurers might travel there regularly and acquire information, favours, and prestige in that realm, which can in turn be sold on or used as bartering chips in the waking world. Groups of dreamers are stereotyped as desperate addicts in Baronial society, but their services are in constant demand by the powers that be.
11. Whaling. The Western islanders are famously slow to trust, but they do occasionally take on outsiders who are able to prove themselves competent and reliable. Whaling can make you a fortune quickly, and monster-slaying is itself a route to a comfortable life in islander society. Many Baronials 'go native' on the Lantern Berth and never return to the mainland. 
12. Drifter. Not what you might think - a 'drifter' in Baronial parlance is someone who finds themselves in the strange, hazy, gravitational orbit of the White City, and who slowly finds themselves moving northwards with vague plans of acquiring citizenship there. Drifting is not a job; it's more like a pilgrimage. Drifters are a bit like dreamers. They take what work they can to feed themselves, and they head further north. Most of them travel by ship, but there are those who take the mountain passes instead, often for lack of money to pay the fare. Drifters often coalesce into small, armed bands, and are famously prone to banditry and murder on the roads. They are not hated per se, but they are distrusted in most Baronial settlements. Some of them receive tuition in the city and its customs from the citizens that man the way-stations along the route, and they are famous for playing halting rounds of 'the game' with one another as they walk, hoping to be fluent by the time they reach their destination. Drifters who do arrive nearly universally end up in the White City military, trading years of service for the citizenship that they so covet. 

 

Baronial Cities

 

This post dedicated to the lovely Loch, who asked for information on a Baronial city that wasn't the capital. Here are four!

Santephene

The Barony's second city, about half the size of the capital, and situated further south, on the coast. Santephene is famous for producing excellent painters and architects. Its town centre is very old (pre Old Capital conquest), and built almost entirely from a white pearlescent stone, quarried locally, and built into long, thin towers that rise ten or fifteen stories above the surrounding buildings - the 'Sainted Needles'. The Needles were originally built as private or familial fortifications (Santephene of old was a city ruled by warring family gangs), but are now mostly owned by wealthy merchants and minor nobility, who purchase and maintain them as status symbols. They are still very beautiful, but also infamous for being extremely annoying to actually live or work in.

The painters of Santephene are a school or movement of their own, which, in the eyes of capital artists, is evidence by itself of deplorable provincialism. The Santephene style is significantly concerned with portraiture, but of a particular sort: when you sit for one, you give the artist implicit license to 'work out' your features. In practice you sit for a portrait, and then the artist decides if they have fully captured you. If they have not, you sit for another portrait, and the process continues. You only pay once, no matter how many layers 'deep' this goes; a point of pride in the scene. Portrait series like this usually start off as good technical likenesses (the Santephene style tends towards a flat naturalism), but after a few passes of 'working out', can become very abstract indeed. 

The architects of the city are in demand across the whole Barony - the practical school of Santephene is invite-only, and difficult to gain access to. Its graduates build 'mock needles' as graduation pieces - small, thin, fortified towers - and vie to outfit them with the most cunning defensive contrivances. The outer city houses thousands of these needles, built over the centuries from every imaginable material, and each a useable (and indeed, if well maintained, murderously efficient) bolthole for a family or individual.

Politically, Santephene is governed by the so-called Grand Old Family: the Prenox clan. The current Petty King is Prenox Prenox 4, known as a shrewd, laughing, dangerous old man. The Prenox emerged preeminent out of the seething inter-family gang politics of Old Santephene, roughly 150 years ago. Since then they have kept the various great families united through good business sense more than overt force - the streets themselves are famously impossible to police without siege equipment, owing to the unique distribution of needle fortifications. 

Prenox house troops wear bright yellow livery, and uniquely in the Barony do not rely at all on mercenary forces - they call on honour and financial debts from the family gangs in times of upheaval, and can put large armies into the field very quickly.

The white harbours and three great churches of Old Santephene (all built up in the regional style, with many tall, thin, fortified white stone parapets) are popularly held to be the most beautiful in the Barony. 

The Eastern City

Not so much a city as a territory, centrally governed and administered, dotted with fortified villages, staging posts, walls, ditches, and other military fortifications. It is called a city because its distributed population is technically higher than even the capital, and because it provides huge economic opportunity - the various nodes and strong points of the Eastern City are in constant need of fixers, professionals, supplies, etc., and many adventurers make their entire living providing services there. 

The Eastern City is, of course, a defensive position that manages the threat of the Forest of Worms. The Baronials have developed a policy of defence in depth (worms are very good at overcoming fixed defensive positions), constant vigilance, and mobile response to threats. It incorporates the fortified towns and villages and the earthworks and walls that sometimes link them, but also the logistical and farming infrastructure needed to support these. 

In the fort-towns themselves (which can vary in size from a single heavily fortified inn, to settlements of several thousand people) you will find mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, criminals, and adventurers from all across the Barony and beyond. The whole territory is administered by two separate branches of the nobility, the Greysins, who were merchants until recently, and whose ideals are mostly modern, and the Brent-Synon, who are very old, very respected, and very keen to modernise their military. The two clans of petty-royalty have a good working relationship, and their troops keep a tight handle on taxation and criminality throughout their territories. Theirs is the only place in the Barony that is legally out of jurisdiction for the Baronial Agents - an exemption bought from the Baroness with enormous quantities of silver and promises of loyalty and non-specific favours down the line. 

Brent-Synon house troops, as with many of the older houses, are superlative heavy infantry. Greysin's most dangerous forces are skirmishers, medium infantry, and sharpshooters, these latter who carry distinctive jezzail-muskets with extremely long barrels.  

Bryn

Bryn is also called the City of Angels and the City of Iron. It was built atop the largest iron deposits in the Barony, and produces and exports raw ingots throughout its territories. It is wealthy, dirty, and populous. The central city is mostly import/export offices and large and very grand municipal buildings - the smelters, blacksmiths, work houses, suppliers, and other trade buildings are further out, built in concentric rings. The entrances to the mines themselves are in the northern quarter, and the city has grown over the years to incorporate them into its limits.

Bryn is hot, smoky, and loud. Its people consume huge quantities of spirits and working drugs, and are famous for their high tolerance. The wealthy of the city take great pride in expensive public works, and throw parties and galas in the grand buildings of the centre. These are often (though not always) 'open', which means that no one can be barred entrance as long, as they are dressed appropriately. There is a tradition with the working poor of the city to pool money and collectively purchase a single suit of finery, such that one of their number (usually on rotation, or chosen by lot) can attend the 'opens'. There is a whole shadow industry of cheap-but-presentable formal wear here, including designs that can be fitted (using ties and straps) to any body without tailoring. These design innovations hold a strange allure to youths back in the capital - they are considered highly 'authentic' and practical. 

The galas themselves are riotous and violent things. They are policed by soldiers in armour, and people are sometimes killed in the revelries. There are many tales of jacked and roguish workers seducing the scions of the local nobility, of bosses beaten bloody by their employees, of employees whipped to death by gangs of drunk merchants, and of lynchings and shootings by the soldiers when order needs to be asserted. Nonetheless, the galas of Bryn are an ancient and beloved tradition by all who live there, rich and poor. An outsider suggesting that they might be dangerous or volatile will be loudly booed, sworn at, and admonished by any local who hears them. 

Bryn is also the home of the largest single church in the Barony - it is spread across multiple buildings, and the huge central cathedral is built entirely from iron. The miners and the merchants pray there in common, and the clergy are typically raised from their teeming ranks - very unlike most church posting, which are centrally organised in the capital. 

For reasons no one really understands, when angels arrive from the future, they nearly always do so in Bryn - large portions of the church complex are given over to their orientation, care, and recovery from the traumas of travelling. This is also true of demons, but this knowledge is very top secret and talking about it will get you on the Baroness' shit list. 

Vertida

City of glass, city of the setting sun. Vertida was built atop a large hill as a fortress by a forgotten petty kingdom in the southern Barony - most likely as protection against marauding steppe riders. It is now famous for glass blowing and lens grinding, and produces the best optical instruments in the polity. 

Vertida is built in a tiered structure of stone walls, each with its own defensive gate. Stretched out around this central stone superstructure are the workshops and towers and glaziers and gunsmiths. It is called the city of the setting sun because the tops of the houses in the centre looks out over the Forest of Worms, and the steppe in the South, and from their rooftop gardens one can watch the sun drop down into them and stain the world red. The traditions of the city put great attention on eating together on the roof while the sun is dropping. There is a story that says that the first telescopes were built in Vertida to watch the sunset, but the locals will laugh at you if you mention this. 

The city is actually governed by a mercenary company - they were under contract by a Petty Kingdom who vanished form the records about 100 years ago in mysterious circumstances. The official line is that they were wiped out by rivals in a war of assassins, but most locals will say (with  touch of pride) that the mercenaries, sick of mismanagement and lack of pay, killed their employers and bricked the bodies into the walls of the city.

The mercenaries are called The Paragons, and they are wealthy and dangerous fighters. They have constructed fearsome magnifying lenses into the city towers, which can burn buildings and even people and horses at a great distance on a sunny day. Their arms and armour are the red-orange-yellow of the sunset. They are keen students of the methods of total war practised in the North, and reportedly great favourites of the Baroness. They watch the stars at night, and the arcing of the planets, and their temperaments are luminous and calm and fey. 

Gustave Moreau, The Triumph of Alexander, oil on canvas, 1873-1890

Music for the Setting :)

 

By demand of beloved Bamzo, the top secret Barony playlist.

1. Bravos in the Capital on summer afternoons, getting drunk and high and fooling around and maybe getting into a fight or maybe trying to steal someone's boyfriend or maybe just hitting the bath house. 
2. The dragons at the centre of the planet, those who faithful converts who live in filth, whose Word is poison, whose Word is annihilation. 
3. More Baronial Capital, artists and poets and university days - recruiters and mercenaries trying to secure the talent early, making their pitches. 
4. Adventurers doing their thing. Serious people having a good time trying to make piles of money together.  
5. Out in the wilds, in the provinces, with the brambles and the church squads and the old provincials who hate city people. Maybe out near the forest borders. 
6. What entities sound like when they're optimised to cut people into ribbons and nothing else.
7. For some reason this was what Fenor Pach from Castle Delusion sounded like to me (lol). 
8. Bravos, duh. Coded for fun - I love this band. Also wrote DESTROYER nearly entirely listening to the B52s. 
9. As above. 
10. This is sort of what the north (yes, the whole north) sound like the Baronials - some notes of the White City War Drone in here.
11. As above. 
12. The Forest of Worms.
13. The steppe country, all the way to the end of the world.
14. Pre-settlement Baronials. 
15. THE White City War Drone track. This is the shit that make your ears bleed, and they play it for weeks and months at a time, and you can still hear them breaking teeth through it. 
16. Academics. 
17. Artists on their bullshit.
18. Baronial adventurer campfires. 
19. Dreadful Combat in the Centre of the Planet. 

Naming!

 

Sundered has asked how people name things in their games and paracosms, and many have answered the summons with good and useable advice.

I get quite weird about names - I didn't use them in my fiction at all until quite recently (maybe in the last two years) and defaulted to the old anonymising technique of referring to characters by letters and job titles. You can see this legacy in Barony - there is I think exactly one (1) place name that is not simply descriptive (Rantine). I think it has something to do with my great hatred of canon and nailing specific things down too much.

Nonetheless I DO have names in Barony, and I DO have a process for generating them, it's just nearly wholly vibes-based and as such not really scalable like the methods that a phlox or a loch would use. I don't have the history or anthropology training and interest that many of the glogcrew do, but do I intuitively know the correct and incorrect answers to questions like 'What is this adventurer called? What would they be called is they came from the Southern Steppe or the Northern Hinterlands?'  

• In the first instance, I enjoy using simple and common names - in the Barony mostly period English names. There are lots of Thomas' and Rosemarys and Ellas and Charlies in the Barony.
• I like non-name names: Tuesday, Range-Finder, Zero, etc.
• I like plays on common names that sound vaguely derived from them - Selinae/Selanon, Pheltigor, Perin, Tinter, Bellagratis, Gloran, Greysin. This is by far the majority of names in Barony. I don't really have a method for them, I just try combinations and permutations until something fits. 
• I like stealing names wholesale: Executioner Smaug, Rom the Strangler, Beren (the useless camp follower), Ajax, whatever. Steal names. 
• I like throwing sci-fi sounds into this mix: Syrax, Tenser, Pentax, Cyclon, etc. etc.
• Fun titles. Dame the Vivisector!

This mix is the one I use for the Barony proper. It it modulated, but not wholly supplanted, as you move North and South. As you move South, they get a little more French/Welsh, and Arthurian sounding (one of the funs things about the current campaign has been formalising this with stuff like Ysolde and Gwynnfainn - I think the Southern Nomads use the very French Stuff, and the Northerners use more Welsh mixed in with Baronial classics. Lots of culture-mixing on the steppe borderlands). The sci-fi titles start sounding more like villains as well. You'd probably find Southern Mentats called shit like Drax Isabeau or Zardoz. 

As you move North, you get into citizen names - in the White City they all call themselves Citizen, and tend to have short, one and two syllable names attached, which are widely used. You're expected to be able to indicate who you're talking to using subtle context clues, and it's rude to refer to someone by name and allow ambiguity to remain. Citizen names are a little bit Italian/Spanish (Alfon, Pedar, Luza, Marin, Bucet, Primyn, Cresca) - in a reserved and tasteful way, unlike the bullshit fake Italian and Spanish names of the Ape Academics of University, who are called things like Don Remmazzio Delatonarre, or Don Simmoniaccaria Zanzidor.  

Bravos have one word hunting names, that they think sound tough: Shin, Stoker, Thorn, etc.

Mountaineers, angels, demons, and the clergy (and quite a few normal Baronials) use virtue names: Lucidity, Clarity, Deftness, Distinction, Targeter, Courage. 

Old Capital names are fake (and sometimes just lifted real) classical Greek and Roman: Kyton, Bacchon, Aximander, Penelope, etc. 

I think that's it! I once (actually quite recently) tried to write name lists for Barony and it made my eyes bleed - never again. 

Oracular Practice

 

The other day I wrote a bit about running my current game - one of the things I discussed very briefly was the introduction of controlled randomness into a storytelling space. In our hobby this is done with the simulational machinery of the game world - the dice form the foundation, and are spun out into tables, matrixes, resolution mechanics, etc. What distinguishes games writing from prose writing? For me it's the way it introduces bounded regions of indeterminacy into a text. An adventure location or module is explicitly nearly entirely indeterminate states, to be 'completed' by the characters as they navigate it. Character creation may have randomised elements - the bounds are set by the writer, who defines a range inside which this 'type' of being is exposed to this or that variety of gear, abilities, circumstances, etc. We are good at pattern recognition - we read the indeterminacy textually, and it tells us something about the world we are all inhabiting together. 

You can do this in prose writing, but in vastly less efficient ways. You could literally say something like: these types of people are largely predisposed to this sort of activity, but there are some exceptions that instead prefer x and y. You can also try to invoke the feeling of the indeterminate state of specific character: it's not well documented who these people are, their practices and origins are mysterious; sometimes they are described as x, sometimes y, and more rarely as z. There is some sense that keeping a natural voice (instead of breaking out into a table, or dice notation) stops something from rupturing - you are still inside literature (that is, you will compose and be read under a certain heuristic, or with a set of very widely-disseminated and agreed-on shared assumptions), and not inside games writing. I think this is probably true, but I find it interesting to think about the artificiality of the distinction. 

The Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani talks often (in my reading of him, mostly in Cyclonopedia) about 'infection' or 'implication' or 'opening oneself to' or 'complicity with' an outside. The complicity of the book's subtitle is of this sort - one enters into (reader or writer, there is a sort of levelling process here - the writer is already fully complicit and so cut away or damned; the reader is given a choice as to how far they want to take things by continuing to read) a 'complicity with anonymous materials', and in so doing, opening themselves to the inhuman (as in literally inhuman, not inhumane or bad or cruel, though they do certainly have their cruelty) logics of the outside. This is a radical and ungrounding movement - elsewhere he talks about 'pure intelligence' in similar terms, as something one might move towards and be opened up by, by the practice of reading (and crucially, thinking) philosophy. 

The cruelty (or danger, if you are the writer or reader) of a Negrestanian 'outside' or a 'pure intelligence' is not a directed, reasoning, torturing one (although he has some fun with thinking about what that might look like in Cyclonopedia, when he talks about the sentience of oil/the Middle East) - it is systemic, pattern-based, unreasoning, and non-sentient. You cannot 'think philosophy' effectively if you are unwilling to open yourself up to the logic of pure intelligence (which of course has nothing to do with people being more or less 'quick' or 'smart' - it's a total state of cognition, and in my amateur reading it feels comparable to but crucially distinct from something like computation), but in so doing, you necessarily expose yourself to ungrounding and cutting up and dissolution. These things are not good for humans to be exposed to (gung ho young men proclaiming their own mastery of or closeness to cruelty/pure intelligence/whatever verbiage they've picked up recently are one of the most unpleasant parts of reading philosophy at university, and also one of the surest tells of individuals not yet having been exposed to the forces under discussion), so exposure to the logic of philosophy must be carefully managed (even managed with kindness).

There is a section in Deleuze and Guattari's 1000 Plateaus where the authors explicitly state: 'now is the time to multiply practical warnings'. They say it while discussing how one might build themselves a 'Body Without Organs', which I always pictured as a sort of thought-pattern-machine by which one could live alongside and manage exposure to an outside, without too much damage being done. It is telling that they care to warn you against a gung ho approach - one of the many things I love about these two writers - because they know that being all-in about something like this can lead to. I have a couple of friends who've confided to me about psychosis and other difficulties that were exacerbated by attempting good faith engagement with this type of thought - it's no fun (although reading about it an be enormously fun and very sexy), it's work. For D+G I suspect (again, I am an amateur reader) that it was work against capital, and against capture by its sense-making - fun doesn't really enter into the discussion, although love and joy (as examples) certainly do. 

This is all to say that an outside, or a logic of ungrounding, is a potent and extremely interesting material to work with in writing - probably(?) the best approach to doing so seriously would be philosophy, but I write fiction, and find my enjoyment using the tools I have to circle around these things. To bring things full circle, I suspect that the 'region of bounded indeterminacy' that games writing hinges on with its tables and resolution procedures is an interesting technique for managing contact with an outside, a non-human (or non-linguistic) regime of sense. Combinatorial logics, infinite series, structural repetition - all of this can be described in prose, but not efficiently. We actually have the tools to do this efficiently ready to hand. I have no idea what this means for writing OSR games (lol), but it has been on my mind. 

After the post on Brythwin, Weird Writer put up a very interesting piece of writing about oracles. In my post I had mentioned the theory that oracular practice can lead to better decision-making, by systematically opening up the mind to interpretive solutions and unexpected first principles. In her post, WW gets to the point immediately - you don't ask an oracle for a second draw, or a second prophecy. To enter into the oracular contract/logic, you are tying yourself to that logic - you submit to the bounded indeterminacy that the system has cultivated (because all oracles work within a system of referent images - you are not 'purely' ungrounded), and also submit to its primacy. A hero might be clever with the prophecy, but a hero would never simply roll again if they didn't like the response. There is something in here about cowardice, dignity, fortitude, virtue - I suspect that AI chatbots and algorithmic content feeds and many of the other artefacts of our current moment that feel so sinister are created by people that would see no issue in simply rolling again on the oracle, if they thought no one was watching. It's amazing to me that someone could not see the absolutely abject failure here: you don't fail when you get a bad prophecy (though it may destroy you), you fail when you lack the courage to genuinely open yourself to its logic - if it's only risk when convenient, you've already failed.

When discussing in the Rainbow server, WW further mentioned an artist (I have embarrassingly forgotten who this was exactly it was Austin Osman Spare!) who had an idea: that everyone ought to draw their own tarot deck. A wonderful idea, and one that got me thinking in broader terms: how might one invent one's own oracle, or oracular system? If submission to an outside is a good thing in controlled doses (and I believe that it is), how would one go about controlling the dose?

It seems to me that what you need is a picture language, and a mechanism for generating semi-random states (shout out to this lovely post, which, among other things, talks about how to roll a dice in prison, where dice are not allowed). 

A picture language: this does not need to literally be a set of images or pictures with meanings, a la the tarot. It could be a series of states (as in the Book of Changes) with correspondences between them, a cast of characters (if the liver looks this way, then Hera's mood is such and such), or whatever you like. I think the important thing is that it comes from you yourself - that it has personal significance, and that you can elaborate on it in your own time. I would also say: that you can trust it, and trust yourself not to simply change it when it tells you something you don't want to hear. This probably means that the images in the language will need to find purchase at the level of human truths - love, alienation, ageing, fortune, labour, friendship, etc. Anything above this 'level' (I suspect) will be too specific to be usefully interpreted. 

A mechanism: dice, a deck of cards, the ways the birds fly, the liver of the sacrifice, anything you wish that gives randomised, structured feedback, and which can be associated with this or that image or state from the picture language. The combinatorial machine - the bounds that you set on this will limit your exposure to its inhuman logic. If you desire to create a mystical attachment to your own interpretations, you could use something fuzzy or difficult to cleanly demarcate. If you desire to create a pattern game, and have the interpretation come later, something like dice or cards are probably more appropriate. 

My sense is that it does not matter at what point in the process the interpretation happens, except that this style of interpretation suits you personally, and has been developed by you for your own use. Fuzzy images or fuzzy relations - both of these will work fine, and each will have its particular savour. 

The point is to develop something true to yourself; one might seek guidance or tuition (and I think that one should - no human society in history has failed to develop an image of a wise mentor), but the work must, ultimately, be done in isolation. You are the only one responsible, for the very good and potentially also the ill. 

I don't know how I would approach this myself - I think that it's probably one of those things (like any practice worth taking seriously; writing, painting, whatever) that ends up being the work of a lifetime. We have high visibility examples of people who have developed a system for themselves and successfully marketed it to others - my wager is that doing this creative work yourself, setting the appropriate bounds, managing your exposure, managing your relation to the picture language etc., is more fruitful that reading someone else's attempt. The very great systems in history are guides and foundations, and I imagine that the very great oracles had personal relationships with those vast and sprawling edifices of tradition and procedure. 

I could attempt a quick list for a personal picture language:

• A human torso, with the frame cropped such that the limbs are not visible.
• A 'net' of jewels, that can be placed in front, or behind, any other thing.
• The sharp point of the needle that slips beneath the skin.
• A human face with its eyes and teeth opened too wide, a sort of demon.
• The sun, the sunlight.
• The image of loneliness, distinct from a second image of alone-ness.
• Death, of course.
• The interior of the body, opened up by illness - a sort of red landscape of sores. 
• Smoke, steam, fog, mist - like the net of jewels, a framing image
• The shared meal, distinct from a second image: the solo meal.
• Chemical stimulants.
• The whole body, understood as a sort of sorting or processing engine - its flows easy and uninterrupted, and its various limbs, organs, and metabolic systems working as they should. 

I've found these over many years of writing and paying attention to what coheres and what remains in the wake of this or that particular attempt. I suspect that I will need more to build my oracle. 

As for the mechanism, I haven't found a good one yet, and so am at the mercy of my own preconceptions, desires, wants, obsessions. Discovering a semi-random mechanism to slot into the image language feels like a worthwhile project. I never used to like the Oulipo adjacent experimental groups, but as I get older I suspect that this is the sort of thing they were interested in and gesturing towards in their very self-conscious formal play - there are plenty of painters that end up here as well.

Thank you beloved Weird Writer for prompting this set of thoughts! 

Bring Me the Head of Sapphon Delayer

 

CW: femicide

The capital is abuzz - rumour says that the poet Sapphon Delayer has murdered his wife, the poet Tinter Briar, in a drunken argument over royalties. 

Sapphon has been heard admitting the deed with his mercenary companions, but publicly he denies it, and claims that his wife has abandoned the capital with one of her lovers. Tinter herself is nowhere to be found. 

The great poetess' friends and allies understand the truth of the situation: that Sapphon is too well ensconced in the military and political machinery of the capital to be vulnerable to the investigations of the Baronial Agents. While proof of murder remains illusive he is legally untouchable, and knows it. 

Tinter's publisher, Elder Wass, has collected 2000 silver pieces from those who loved her, and put the word out among the poets, artists, and bravos of the city. The lucre will go to the one who can: 

BRING ME THE HEAD OF SAPPHON DELAYER

Sapphon and Tinter lived together just outside the capital, in an aging and decrepit stone house gifted to them on their wedding night by a wealthy patron. The house is well known to the delinquents and aesthetes of the capital; the parties, readings, and shows thrown here were the stuff of minor legend. It is no fortress, and the ancient stone walls will not seriously inhibit any attempt to gain access to the grounds.

It is around 10pm, and Elder Wass' proclamation was made this very evening. In addition to the PCs, the following groups are making an attempt on Sapphon's life, and angling to get that head:

1. Euron and Phelter 
2. Bliss
3. The Telamont Boys
4. Fia's Party

One of these groups, determined randomly, will be already present when you arrive, squatting behind the stone wall at the back of the property, and whisper-arguing (unless it's Bliss, who will be here alone) about how best to handle the assault. 

Each d10+5 minutes after game start, another group will arrive at random, until all are present at the house, searching for Sapphon and trying to take his head. Their temperaments and gear can be found in the Dramatis Personae section. 

The House

The house is two stories tall, and has thick stone walls, glass windows, and wooden doors. All doors and windows are unlocked. 

The front garden is long grass and brambles - out the back are tilled vegetable patches, two old fruit trees, and a freshly dug grave. You won't be able to excavate it without being heard by the inhabitants of the house. The whole property is surrounded by a low stone wall about 4ft high, with two wooden gates in it - one at the front, and one at the back. The front gate is watched at all times by Balder the sharpshooter, who is currently posted up on the roof with his musket, invisible in the darkness. If he spots you approaching, the sharp-eyed will mark the glow of his slow match as he takes aim. 

Inside are the rest of Sapphon's mercenary friends, who he has called to his side as protection until the 'little drama' blows over. The mercenaries are detailed in the Monsters section. From the outside you can see black silhouettes moving within - if you fire on or otherwise attack one, randomise its target from those available.

The layout of the house is as follows:

The House, 5ft squares. Ground floor on the right, upstairs on the left. Click to make it bigger!

Rooms:

1. Reception/Main Room. Large windows to the north and south, and well stocked bookshelves installed around the walls. Poetry from all over the world, but also novels, plays, technical books, and religious literature. A large wooden table in the centre of the room, with six comfortable chairs. 5 Baronial Mercenaries and 3 Arditi are sitting or standing around the table, drunk, gambling with dice, and counting and recounting a small pile of coins: 314 silver - the royalties from Sapphon and Tinter's collection.
2. Study. A beautiful desk and plush chair, installed beneath a large bay window. Inside the desk, good quality paper, ink, quills, and an expensive steel pen imported from the White City - worth 35s, and useable as a -1 light weapon if you want. The desk is sticky with blood - this is where the mercs killed Sapphon this morning. 
3. Cots. Barracks-style cot bedding along the walls, enough to sleep eight. Large windows to the east and south. The furniture is well-made, but spartan. This is where their guests slept when the guest room was filled. Four Mercenaries lie on their backs, trying to catch up on some sleep before they all leave tonight - out of armour, but with their weapons close to hand. 
4. Kitchen. A large iron stove, wooden surfaces and boards, several well-used knives, a small pile of timber for the burner. A pot of oil, a jar of salt, a small glass bottle of expensive imported red wine. Two Arditi in here, smoking amphetamines and cooking up some fry-meat on the stove, arguing about what to add once it's finished. Blueberries? Fig? Pickles? They really can't decide. 
5. Greenhouse. Large room with a glass ceiling, full of plants in terracotta pots. Not many of them are useful or edible, they appear to be mostly ornamental flowers. Two Mercenaries in here, high and giggling and making out with one another, blissfully unaware of the world around them. 
6. Dry Store. Large sacks of grain, hanging cured meat, spices, dried fruit, oil, salt, spirits. About 35 rations in here, none of which will spoil. Otherwise empty. 
7. Landing. A large and mostly empty room with glorious floor to ceiling windows, and paintings on the walls. The poets had many artist friends in the city, and some of this collection might be worth something. There are sixteen paintings, and each is worth 10xd4! silver if you spend a day in the city finding a buyer. You have to spend the day before you get to roll on the price. Alternatively, Phelter could accurately appraise them for you right here. 
8. Guest Room. A large double bed, a night stand, a wardrobe (empty). Officer Senet sits on the bed, unnaturally still, watching the window. 
9. Bedroom. A smaller double bed, a night stand with some chapbooks on it, a wardrobe that contains 8 jackets and various other nondescript bits of clothing. The bed is absolutely sodden with blood, and the smell is overpowering. This is where Tinter was killed. The empty pistol is still on the bed. A Mercenary sits slumped down with her back to the wall and her head in her hands - a single Arditi lies beneath the saturated bedframe, becoming slowly covered in gore. All physical damage in this room also deals equivalent psychic damage. 

Monsters

The Mercenaries

Old war buddies from Sapphon's days as a soldier. He left at a young age, but his friends went career - none of them really like or respect him much any more. They are from several different companies, and in the capital for their own various reasons. Impassive, violent, and calculating men and women, heavily armed, professionally armoured, and completely used to killing other people over nothing at all. 

The mercenaries inside the house are expecting an attack, and will have their armour on and weapons to hand unless specified. 

Baronial Mercenary

Humans with HD1+1, medium warhammer and shield or heavy sword, light dagger, 50/50 heavy and plate armour, 1 in 3 carrying a pistol or musket. Disposition: good morale and hard to spook or intimidate, but not willing to die for the coin in the house. 

Arditi

Professional light infantry, often used as terror troops and infiltrators. HD2, medium fighting knife and buckler, light armour, 50/50 pistols or a single firebomb. Arditi carry climbing ropes and hooks with them, and are famously good climbers. They also carry stimulants for use in the field. Disposition: aggressive, vain, and dashing fighters - still not willing to die, but very easy to provoke. 

Balder the Sharpshooter

An unarmoured Arditi fighter armed with a musket, a medium knife, and climbing gear. A very good shot - rolls with +1 to hit. 

Officer Senet 

Senet is a large, lean Baronial of indeterminate gender, dressed in expensive plate and wearing a full face of professionally applied cosmetics. Senet is completely hairless, including eyelashes and brows. Their teeth have been replaced with sharp crystal dentures, worth 60s if you could pul them out in one piece.

HD4, bite as light, or as heavy in a grapple (this attack can be made freely in a grapple), plate armour. Disposition: calculating and ruthless. Thinks of people in terms of use value. 

Dramatis Personae

Euron and Phelter

Euron and Phelter are old friends of Sapphon and Tinter's. They can't quite being themselves to believe what's happened, and have come to confront Sapphon and learn the truth. If he confesses the murder to them, or can't give satisfactory explanations, they will kill him and claim the bounty. Neither is expecting a hostile reception from the mercenaries - this is all just a big misunderstanding. 

Euron has HD1, carries a medium hangar sword, is unarmoured, and shares his body with an entity he has has never revealed the name of. The nameless entity can blind everyone that it can see through his eyes, for as long as he can see them - note that it blinds everyone that he can see, he cannot pick and choose targets for this ability, though he can switch it on and off.

Phelter has HD3, carries a medium cane sword and pistol, and wears medium armour. She deals an additional 2d8 from ambush in melee. 

Bliss

A poet of some standing in the city, and one of Tinter's best and most trusted friends. Bliss has a strange, wrinkled, bestial face, enormous strength, and beast-like fangs and claws - she is a beast, or fast becoming one, which is very strange because she has never been a soldier as far as anyone knows. She writes poems with a famously detached and precise style, and is well respected in capital society. She is here for revenge, which to her means hurting Sapphon before she kills and eats him, and, as a wealthy woman, doesn't care at all about the head or the money attached.

HD4, claws as light weapons, bite as heavy weapon. Light armour worn beneath expensive, fashionable clothing. Roars when she kills something, which forces a morale check on enemies in combat. Has 1DR against weapon attacks. 

The Telamont Boys

Fanboy bravos and themselves amateur poets, here to do a good deed and make a bit of money in the process. The Telamont Boys are spear-affiliates of the 52 Girls, and not well established. They study literature at the university. All five of them are here: Tenna, Burr, Belit, Sisoon, and Poulindred. They are clever and capable fighters, but seriously out of their depth against the mercenaries. Bicker constantly with one another, and are genuinely courageous and heroic.  

HD1, light cross knives and medium steel clubs, light armour, harlequin half-capes, white ape masks. Skilled in acrobatics, stealth, and climbing. Disposition: somewhere between The Warriors and the Scooby Gang. Will freak out if comrades start dying. 

Fia's Party

Fia is a professional, and will approach the problem of getting the head without sentimentality or over-complication. She and her crew will set fire to the house, and shoot whoever comes out - if they can, they will block the doors from the outside before they do so. They have bought oil and guns for the purpose. They do this sort of thing a lot. 

Fia has 3HD, a heavy spear, a musket, and heavy armour. She is also carrying 2 petrol bombs. 

She is accompanied by 8 bandits with medium spears and medium armour. Four have muskets, and the other four have a single petrol bomb each.  

The Truth

Sapphon really did kill Tinter over the royalties. He always considered his writing superior to hers, and convinced himself over several bitter weeks that he was the sole reason that their collection sold at all. When Tinter laughed at this he shot her dead. 

In the days that followed he became panicked, remorseful, and delusional (he maintained that she had made him do it), and gathered the mercenaries for both protection and emotional validation. After a few days of putting up with him they cut his throat and buried him with Tinter in the back garden. That was this morning. Now they are getting ready to strip the house of valuables, including the (meagre, as it turns out) royalty payment, and leave for the southern petty kingdoms later in the night. They don't know about the bounty on the head, but fear the vengeance of Sapphon's many enemies. 

This post is courtesy of beloved Xeno's 'Baronial Poets' prompt.

Some Reflections on Running Brythwin

 

I am currently 8 sessions into running this campaign for some people on the glog server. It's been eye-opening running games again, and I thought I'd do some reflection on how it's going, to get my thoughts in order. 

The first thing to say is that I don't consider myself a skilled DM - this is not self-effacement, I've seen really good DMs run games, and I don't have that type of fluency in my own approach. I think of myself as a writer and artist, and have spent more than fifteen years developing those practices professionally and in my private life - I'm confident with them, I can trust them completely, I understand that whatever I'm trying to get at with creative work, those two things can get me closer to it. Not so with running games. 

Why am I doing it? I've been asking this question of myself quite a bit (not because it's making me miserable, because I think the question is interesting), and the answer that I keep swirling around has an odd flavour to me - I think it's because I think there is something extremely specific and interesting (and I think really unexplored compared to more straightforward prose writing) about games writing - using writing, dice, procedures, tables, and the other tools of design, to define a space with varying quantities of simulational logic and affective picture-making. This answer feels much truer than, for instance, 'I enjoy it' or 'rules come alive in play' or 'world-building is completed in collaboration' - I hear these a lot from other people, and none have ever resonated with me. Simulational logic to me simply means anything that introduces controlled randomness into the 'space' of the writing - that's the only difference between a game world and a book of prose. You define procedural spaces, and attach images to them in sequences, and you give your players and DMs the tools (dice, procedures) they need to navigate those spaces. 

I remember reading ages ago (about ancient prophetic practices) that introducing controlled randomness into decision-making can lead to people making better decisions. The logic is that when you are given unstructured input from a semi-random 'oracle', you are constantly engaging interpretive thinking processes, and potentially approaching problems from positions that you would never have thought to start from. 

Introducing simulation into writing feels a bit like this to me. It is fantastic fun to have my naturally controlling tendencies (which are entirely appropriate to writing in isolation, but not very appropriate to running games) scope 'in' and 'out' - from prose description and poetics, out to encounter tables, hex and dungeon maps, stat-blocks - all the artefacts of simulation writing. 

In my mainline writing practice I like to keep things under control. I have a working theory that serves me quite well in my own prose (it's almost a trick, I picked it up reading Bolaño) that the more that you work at denying yourself, the crazier the images get when they leak out of you (as they inevitably will) - a sort of edging logic in writing. I like to make use of this method in games writing as well - when I speak about Barony being 'grounded', as I have once or twice, I think what I mean is that I try to write it 'normal'/'down-key'/'grounded', such that when things inevitably do spiral out of control, they hit harder and realer. The more interesting ideas develop inside you as you write the normal stuff, and the normal stuff has its pleasures as well. 

While running the games on Brythwin, this training and these impulses have served me less well. You really need a lightness in play with others; if you get too neurotic you start to attach yourself to other peoples' ideas and play experiences in an unhelpful way. When you're writing, the lightness can come and go, and the moments of heavy neuroticism have their place and are actually just as important. In play it's hard to find a good use for the heaviness. In one example that stuck in my mind, one of the PCs asked me if they could have a particular ribbon skill on campaign start - I said no, because their class didn't specify that they got a skill to start with, but it was the wrong call. It would have been easier and better for the health of the game to say yes and let the character breathe in the way that the player wanted them to. In general, my control-processes mean that I am over-present in policing what people can and can't do, and, since I have less experience as a DM than basically all of my (21! lmao) players, I often lack the courage of my convictions when calling on way or another. Not at all an issue when writing - you just sit with it until you know what the correct decision is - but a big issue when running a game with others in real time. I'm certainly better with this stuff than I used to be, but I'm not sure that I want to be worrying about it in the time I put aside for my hobby. 

I'm used to treating studio and writing time with a sort of ferocious seriousness (the type that you give up work for, or pour your own money into), and my brain ends up trying to treat everything in the game with that same seriousness. Because it's not practically possible, I end up not being able to put emphasis in any particular place. This has lead to a sort of same-ness or stamped-out quality that I've started to notice in the world I've invited my friends to inhabit. I'm consciously aware of it because the adventure is actually written around that feeling to some degree, but I really notice it (in a negative sense) in play recently. It's also resulted in me running some of the encounters with NPCs and monsters quite poorly - forgetting rules, mucking up stat blocks, etc., because I can't prioritise focus efficiently. One of the things I can genuinely say that I love in myself (it's taken a while!) is that I understand my own speeds and rhythms, and can adjust my life around these such that I can produce creatively. DMing has been a very interesting experiment in stepping way outside those comfort zones. 

This is all very maudlin and makes it sound like I'm not enjoying running the game, which is not true - I am having fun, I absolutely love my players, I absolutely love their characters, and I am pleased with myself on a few fronts: 

• The Barony classes, by and large, work well in play. No one is more shocked than I am. There are a few bits here and there that need tweaking, but the ones we've used so far are completely functional and, by the sound of it, good fun to play. The animal classes need a buff. I'm particularly pleased with fighters (fucking nasty in a fight, in a delightfully concrete way), bravos, errants, fairies, and academics. 
• Lethality is on a knife's edge, which I think is wonderful. I gave everyone top level gear on game start, which has lead to some interesting encounter dynamics - plate armoured characters (we have a lot of them) as very, very tough in melee, while the scattered lighter-armoured characters are significantly endangered even against extremely weak enemies. Even in plate, a single hit slipping through can put someone down instantly. We haven't had a death yet, but three characters could very easily have died in the last few delves. I think I get more scared than the players do lol.
• I tend to have good first instincts, and bad second thoughts. I won't get into the specifics here while the campaign is ongoing, for opsec reasons, but it'll be good to break it all down when everyone dies the Swallows emerge from the depths victorious. 

Things that need tightening up:

• I need to get better at keeping thing like characterisation and information between sessions consistent, and relying less on the murky atmosphere of the adventure to carry me. This is another one of those things that I like and cultivate in my writing, but there is definitely such a thing as an annoying amount of misty strangeness, especially when a group of people are trying to get something done. 
• I need to get better at remembering how my own rules work. Normal baby DM problem, but it means that encounters that could have been more dynamic end up feeling rote and boring because interesting and scary abilities get lost in the muddle of rolling and adjudicating turns.
• I need to get better at writing with clarity and usability in mind. Especially the earlier stuff on the blog is written without any contact at all with actual play, and bits of that show through. Some specifics: monsters probably need morale scores, damage needs to be unified under the light/medium/heavy rubric, or always specified as [dice]+[modifier] for finer control, I need to delegate prices to lists that make sense, I need to write up rules for ranged weapons instead of just assuming everyone knows what we're talking about, etc. etc. etc., there's actually lots of these, and I suspect they will take some time to coalesce after the game finishes. 

The Attendants in Second Printing

 

A quick post to note that my story collection The Attendants has entered a second printing, and is now once again available worldwide from Waterstones, the publisher Ma Bibliothéque, and the distributor. 

If you enjoy my writing here, there's a good chance you'll enjoy the pieces in this collection :) They're all about art, and most of them were commissioned by galleries over the first four years of my living in London.

The image below is the cover art, used with the generous permission of artist and friend Xavier Robles de Medina. 

Magic Mountain, 2016-2017, graphite on paper, 18.5 x 12.5

Mask 35: Beholder Mask

 

Previously on mask relay: the lovely Vivanter. 

Next on mask relay: TBC!

Beholder Mask

Tin mask with ten eyes engraved into the forehead, each fashioned from a differently coloured gem: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, indigo, white, jale, and ulfire. 

Each gem fires a thin beam of its colour that sets a target you can see alight (burns for d6 per turn until extinguished). Blue, violet, and indigo additionally deal d4 fire damage, and white deals d6. Jale and ulfire respectively set the mind and soul alight instead of the body - for jale, the affected creatures loses d6 MD, spell slots, mana, or whatever your wizards use to power their spells, and for ulfire they lose d6 of (work your way down the list, all results stack):

• their purpose.
• thier ambition. 
• their joy.
• their faith. 
• their name.
• all memories. 

Gems recharge in sunlight - each takes a full day after use (12 hours if you need to get precise with it). 

May additionally cast Turn Adventurers on any adventurers seeing it for the first time, per the rules for clerics.