I have to say, these aspects are not typically covered by the random tables of NPC descriptors I use. To help covering this gap, here is a free d44 table (i.e., roll 2d4, do not add them, and keep the first number as tens, and the second as ones).

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Physical conditions to characterize your low-fantasy random NPCs (d44):

11 Skin maladies, e.g., blisters, warts, rashes, boil (abscess).

12 Withering with malnutrition and/or ashen faced

13 Hard of hearing.

14 Vision loss, e.g., cataracts, missing eye, eye worms.

21 Severely scarred and/or disfigured.

22 Burn wounds, d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso.

23 Troubles speaking, e.g., mouth infection, swollen tongue (or throat, or neck), broken jaw.

24 d4: 1 Severe arthritis, 2 jaundice, 3 gravely swollen feet, 4 sweating & feverish

31 Abundant and very much visible parasites: Lice, fleas, or both

32 Breathing problem, e.g., severe cough, asthma, catarrh, collapsed lung. Could be consumption (tuberculosis).

33 Digestion/stomach issue, e.g., vomiting, dysentery, colic pain.

34 Open wounds and lacerations d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso

41 Broken or malformed bone d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso

42 Limb: Paralyzed, malunited fracture, or missing d4: 1 left arm; 2 right arm; 3 left leg; 4 right leg

43 Severe headache, confused, lethargic, or stupor

44 Oh, no!: Roll d4+1 times on this table; ignore this result; same results multiple times means a more severe problem

Disclaimer

This table is written for roleplaying games. It is not intended to meaningfully represent health problems, or their lived experiences, which are complex, deeply personal, and shaped by social, medical, and psychological dimensions far beyond the scope of rules-light OSR/NSR systems. The purpose here is purely to provide direct and playable ideas about NPCs, and is not a commentary on real-world health problems.

Rationale

This is a table to help having illnesses and maladies more present in the world the characters are experiencing. It helps coming up with random NPC descriptions (so mostly symptoms, not exact etiologies) in line with an atmosphere of danger, misery, and hard lives.

Intentionally omitted:

• Minor maladies, such as a baseline level of parasites, minor scars and scabs, broken nails, missing teeth, etc.

• Health problems you don’t immediately see, such as osteoporosis.

• Health problems, such as leprosy or bubonic plague, that would require quarantine or special treatment even in a low-fantasy setting, including making the NPC bedridden, thus not easily applicable to a randomly encountered NPC.

• Curses and magic, as this is for low-fantasy settings where magic is uncommon.

Thanks to:

Sumpfling, GUS L., eeldip, Salty Nick, M0ldy, Kyndurr, Phil, Sam, and Eli.

If you like this kind of stuff, here are some free resources you can check out:

Life caught up with me, and over the last couple of months I had no energy to post here. I had enough fuel to keep playing, though.

Let me explain: I have been playing a lot of OSR and NSR games since I began this blog about a year ago (OSE, Knave 2ed, Shadowdark, Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Pirate Borg). While playing, I felt like tweaking the rules to make them something that just felt right.

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Now, I do like all those games very much, or I wouldn’t be playing them so much! But I found myself tinkering and molding them to my taste until the following emerged:

• Two levels of success on the d20 roll, adding the PbtA thing “you make it, but” to the traditional crisp fail/success dynamic

• Combining attack and defense in a single roll that determines damage dealt and received

• Having more than 6 stats, separating for example what normally is dexterity into agility, quickness, and precision

• Combining two stats depending on the action for a better granularity. So using an axe might go with agility and strength, while a rapier might go with agility and precision

• Weapons with simple key differences besides the damage die

• Enemies with a super simple stat bloc, but each also capable of a unique special bad thing they do to you when you fail badly

Then I learned about the itch.io one-page RPG jam.

Yes, I do realize that most 1-pagers are simple, rules-light, and have a clear setting and focus, plus cool graphics catching your eye and imagination. And while that is totally cool, I assure you that it’s not the case here. Here the challenge was: Can I cram all the rules, guidelines, and examples of the thing I like to play in one single page?

The result is Inverecondo. It’s an Italian word. It means shameless and without dignity. Which, if you ask me, very much fits.

Download from itch.io

Download from rpgtrader.com

How did you handle the graphics, you ask? WHAT GRAPHICS? This thing looks like a science paper without figures. As it should be. Well, I did add a fancy background, but that’s about it.

Now, this is not something I planned to do. And I am not humble-bragging: I would have never ever had the mental bandwidth necessary to set up a proper manual. But the jam and the 1-pager did the trick, giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get this thing out there. So, thank you!, jam.

If you spend some of your time to check it out I will be deeply grateful, and even more grateful if you let me know what you think (what you would change, what you do not understand, etc.). I might silently cry a little if you try it.

I have been playing the playtest version of “This Means War” solo, with the goal of generating some background stories for a Into the Deep Country campaign. I bothered the author (Ben Robbins, also known for stuff like Microscope) with my first play report, and he graciously replied. It turns out I made a couple of mistakes in my first go, even if the rules are pretty simple. Well, that’s how playing new games is like. Here is how the war went, and a review of the game.

[I have not been paid nor I receive any compensation to play and review this game. I got the game and played it because I was curious.]

The war dynamic seems quite realistic

I rolled and scribbled and cursed and stopped to think and scribbled again. Bastion won the war, as expected. But it lasted almost 4 years.

Looking back, we can split the war into three parts:

1. Gurak Abut, the weakest country, kept getting small wins at very beginning, but those victories did not put a real dent into Bastion’s morale and resources, which were plentiful to begin with.

2. This led to a phase in which the war was stuck; positions danced between -1 and 1 until season 8, with 2+ needed for a country to have proper initiative. Plans and actions from both powers became less and less ambitious as the war attrition wore them down.

   There were two chances for the war to be over, for example when both countries “retreated and regrouped”, but it never crystallized.

3. Finally, Guark About’s resources got so low it began to seriously affect its rolls (seasons 10 to 15), which compounded badly with the winter seasonal modifier. This meant Gurak Abut could bog down or even win the battles in the summer, but winters took a dark turn. Even with quite some luck in a couple of seasons, resources were eroded slowly but steadily, until it cracked fast. This felt like a very real war to me.

Gurak Abut main flaw, i.e., having a weak industry, was a major factor in its demise: The effects compound at the end of every winter. If I think about a medieval setting, this could be reflected in, say, very long and depriving sieges. Again, this is just flavor to interpret the numbers; but I want to point out how easy it was for me to dress the results with a convincing reason.

You just helplessly look at how the war evolves and its tragedy unravels

Unlike other games, This Means War simulates war evolution without any decision from the players. You live through the war, but you don’t get to decide how it goes. You roll the plans and you can think about what a wise choice should be, then get the opposite result, and feel like “Oh, this is going to be real bad”. The feeling is immersive, and made me play scenes in which the characters just learned about their leaders’ decisions: “What do you mean they want us to attack? Now? On those mountains? In the middle of the damn winter?”

Importantly, the battle plans are not completely random, but interlocked with factors that tend to push the decision towards more safe or risky endeavors.

I played it solo with 3 characters

I believe this would have been easier with a real group of people, as players feed off each other stories and inputs. As a soloist, I would have loved some rules to nudge character interactions or forcing them in the same place or context. I used spark tables from Mythic 2ed (Tana Pidgeon, Word Mill Games) as usual, but I realized it would have been very cool to have spark tables related to the current state of the war (e.g., current season, current battle plans, past season outcomes). This would still maintain the high level of abstraction of the game, while helping solo players coming up with multiple stories. (It could help group players as well).

Some of the scenes were so enticing that I ended up playing them out to see what happens with Mythic 2, as opposed to just deciding it. This deviates from the original idea of the game, but what I have to say? The unpredictability of solo play is addictive.

Properly narrating all the scenes in writing would provide material for a full solo campaign, a prequel of the current one, albeit a little disconnected.

Side effect: A worldbuilding machine

Although this is not the purpose of the game, having rules to simulate a war forces you to come up with it’s theaters, the events that drive the nations’ decisions, and scenes describing the life of characters living through it, ends up being a worldbuilding exercise. Which is a good thing. And sure you can come up with interesting games with your friends, but especially as a solo player, you can use it to describe your world and its history.

The playtest version is available as PWYW here https://lamemage.itch.io/this-means-war-playtest

The game simulates war and the characters caught up in it. You don’t control the war, which evolves on its own, but you control the characters involved in it.

I decided to play this game for some world building: Let’s figure out a past war in my solo hexcrawl campaign based on Into the Odds + Into the Deep Country.

Setup of the two nations at war

We start by rolling for the characteristics of the two countries at war:

• Both were preparing for war

• Country One: Past grievance with Country Two

• Country Two: Weak industry

Alright, so Country One needs to be Bastion, the megacity-based nation of Into the Odds, which I see a sort of London in the (weird) 1800s, with an imperial thirst for exploration and trade. Here, the Institutes of Geography are militaristic organizations, and the army members are called geographers.

Country Two is Gurak Abut, a mountain kingdom with a generally low tech level. The past grievance" of Bastion is that Gurak Abut, with the aim of protecting its economy, closed his borders and commercial routes.

Setup of the war theaters

For each country we need to come up with two areas/regions, with one of them being the shadow of war, i.e., close to being directly involved. Bastion:

• [Shadow of war] Sector 19K: Rural maritime region in the Deep Country with fishing villages and lots of small islands

• Mills of the Veragan Dams, Lake region not far from Bastion with lots of hydromechanical mills

Gurak Abut:

• Mines of Shebal Payyum: Copper and iron, low quality

• [Shadow of war] Cotrosca coast: Massive production of olive oil, the only access Gurak Abut has to the sea

After this, we have to set up three other regions that are war fronts, i.e., not controlled by any of the two countries and at great risk of being involved in the war.

And at this point, I have zero ideas and would really need a spark table. Even better: Random tables for country description in terms of government, economy, etc. I use random tables from Mythic 2 (Tana Pigeon, World Mill Games) and get:

• Guascal Badlands: Ruled by local violent warlords, target for proxy wars

• Bulum Valley: Jungle and rivers, small independent theocracy with semi-autonomous monasteries administrating villages and cities nearby; confines with Gurak Abut

• Arghawat Region: Steppe with nomad people, borders with the Deep Country of Bastion

The war breaks out!

Wait, who’s the good guy here? None of them: “Nations do not have friends, only interests” (Charles De Gaulle); and “There are no good powers” (Fabrizio De André).

Season roll: Summer. I decide Bastion is the attacking nation, they have that grievance, after all. Casus belli roll: They are preparing to attack us. Oh oh oh!, I can see the Bastion newspaper titles already.

Next, we roll the nations’ stats:

• Bastion Will 12; Resources 9; Position 2

• Gurak Abut Will 9; Resources 7; Position -2

Front location roll: Bulum Valley (the jungle theocracy, see above)

Roll for the nation moves (Bastion has the initiative):

• Bastion: Surprise attack! The geographers march into the jungle with muskets, hatchets, cannons, baggage carts, and a generous supply of cheap Marvel John’s honey crunchy bars. They see the theocracy as an easy, underdeveloped prey. From there, they can invade the mountains of Gurak Abut, at the same time cutting its main land trade routes.

• Gurak Abut: Diplomacy (Rolled as a response to Bastion). They send stern ultimatums about the sacredness of their borders, while helping the Bulum Valley resistance.

From geopolitics to individual stories

After finding what the nations do, the game asks to introduce our character. Our man Saigarth, at the time of the war, is just a Calibrator with his shako military cap (think at a French or Russian grenadier). We also need to secretly decide if he wants war or peace. I would say he’s the kind of guy who just wants to do his job without being bothered. Not a thrill seeker. So yeah, he would rather have peace than having his ass on the line.

How does the attack go?

After the character introduction, we roll the outcome of the season. Bastion rolls with a lot of advantages, but they are capped at 3 dice with advantage: (5, 3, 2).

Gurak Abut, even if weaker, still ends up rolling 3 dice: (7, 8, 7), and wins! The jungle is a tougher terrain than expected; the locals rally behind their religious fervor and know the terrain very well; advances are slow and exposed to frequent guerrilla attacks. The nation stats are modified based on who wins and each nation’s tactical choice:

• Bastion Will 12; Resources 7; Position 1

• Gurak Abut Will 10; Resources 6; Position -1

What happens to our character?

We roll for Saigarth and we find he is in danger. The outcome is a tough decision: Kill someone or risk death. Now, I’ll be honest, I like this game so far but I do not like how this outcome plays. I think the intention is to provide a morally difficult decision, but it reads… artificial? Imposed? Too guided? Other outcomes are more straightforward, and not choices. In our case, Saigarth is surprised by a night assault from the local resistance. He is a soldier so yes, he does not hesitate to use his musket to kill people. And having chosen to kill, he does not roll on the Refuse to kill table.

Autumn comes

New season! Battleground roll: No changes. Roll for nation moves (none has the initiative):

• Bastion: Retreat and regroup

• Gurak Abut: Foreign aid. Roll for the aid: The Arghawat Region. Gurak Abut is using religious zeal (and a copious amount of gold) to convince the nomads to raid the Bastion border.

Then we go to our character, and play two scenes (it would be a bit more dynamic with 2+ players):

• Saigarth is smoking his pipe under the shade of a tree covered in moss and vines, closing his eyes in the humid heat of the jungle. He takes off his boots and hat and places them on the wet grass. He is still smoking the high quality tobacco he brought from home.

• Saigarth is ankle deep in the mud of the dark jungle, the rain is pouring, the battle is all around him. He is lost. He seems to hear the order to advance, but towards which direction? It’s hard to see if the screaming figures moving around him are companions or enemies. He hears sparse bangs: Muskets are unreliable under the rain. He makes a vow: “If I survive this war, I will give up tobacco.” He thinks it’s kind of a good deal because the good tobacco is now gone, and the cheap one provided by the army is soaked wet and unsmokable.

How does the war evolve? Based on stats and modifiers, Bastion rolls three dice with advantage (1, 5, 5), while Gurak Abut rolls two with advantage (5, 7) and wins again!

• Bastion Will 12; Resources 7; Position -1

• Gurak Abut Will 10; Resources 6; Position 1

Bastion partially retreats from the valley and fortifies its positions, as fresh troops do not arrive, beacause they are sent to deal with the nomads of Arghawat.

Finally, we roll for what happens to Saigarth: He gets seriously wounded and will be out of the game for at least one season. He survives, and gives up smoking! Hell, I am actually using this to justify why Saigarth does not smoke in the hexcrawl story.

I will stop here as this post is already longer than I wanted it to be, but I will go on playing the war. Also, please consider this is just a playtest version, and not the final game.

Did the game work? Was it useful for my campaign?

In short, yes and yes. It gave me the much needed framework to world-build and play the war, and greatly helped me define the political geography of the setting.

With minimal changes, this game could become a war simulator for my campaigns (no matter the game). In TTPRGs the rules for wars are often close to wargaming: I mean, you get to do logistics and details such as the equipment of different sections of the army; morale; etc. With some modifications, this system could present a more abstract and narrative alternative, which I would welcome, because it is something really missing in the TTRPG space.

Things I would add and change when playing again

1. Add a generic spark table with descriptors.

2. Add random tables for Country descriptors (government, economy, geography, society). Ideally, this should be blended with the nation traits you roll at the beginning.

3. Add a flowchart to visually explain the game loop, so it’s easier to follow.

4. “We should not pick a side we want to wind”, says the handbook on page 3. I just find it wrong. If you want a side to win, why not? It’s your story.

5. The game seems to be designed for wars among nations with similar forces. I would love also to have strongly imbalanced forces instead; like planning ahead a scenario instead of going random in terms of strengths, resources, etc. Many times wars are coin toss, many times they are not. I still find that interesting to play.

6. Rework the “Kill someone or risk death” outcome into two distinct outcomes: 1. you kill someone (I mean, still kind of heavy) and 2. You risk death.

   ---

PS If you are curious about the solo Into the Odds + Into the Deep Country solo hexcrawl, here is how it starts (it involves prompts from Bruce Springsteen):

Here the last episode:

IRL dynamic in academic research

In real-world research universities, the department chair isn’t the brilliant researcher running experiments at 2 AM. Au contraire, they’re the person who figured out how to navigate faculty meetings, secure funding, and befriend all the different (and many times rival!) departmental claques, and maybe the staff union. The misanthropic nerd loner, 100% invested in advancing science? They’re probably in a windowless lab, avoiding committee assignments like the plague.

This structure replicates scaling down: Consider a research lab. The head professor spends time crafting a funding proposal (i.e., a sales pitch), plans the budget, deals with admins and bureaucracy; meanwhile, the students and postdocs that do not even know exactly from which project their salaries comes from are the ones developing the actual science.

Hospitals work in a similar way. The Chief of Surgery might spend more time in boardrooms than operating rooms to keep that title. Meanwhile, the surgeon who can perform miracles with a scalpel is scrubbing in for their fourth procedure of the day, muttering about “administrative nonsense”. Brilliant practitioners might find politics tedious, and self-promotion awkward and exhausting.

What if Magic guilds or schools mirror this dynamic?

I do see a strong parallel. The obsessive wizard who spent sleepless nights to craft a new spell probably hates dealing with apprentice applications and guild politics.

The person running your Mages’ Guild is likely someone who mastered the social game: Building alliances, managing resources, understanding what different factions want. They’re likely a competent spellcasters, sure, but their true talent lies in organization and influence. So when designing mage guilds and schools, I would factor this dynamic in.

When the players need help from the best mage to investigate the artifact they just snatched from that forlorn crypt, well, they can go to the master wizard and, disappointingly, find a politician. The master wizard is all worried about maintaining the status quo and the problems that the artifact can cause: How to report this discovery to the king? Wait, are there taxes to be paid on unearthed magic artifacts?, etc. The mage that the players need, the one that would obsess over the artifact and help them understand its powers and how to control it, is likely a foul-mouthed recluse loner (and super fun to play).

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• The forest does not like to have the playing characters within it.

• There are ways to communicate with the forest.

• The Shadow King (or other occult entity/cult with followers) has cut some sort of a deal with the forest. And he does not want the playing characters there either.

We keep track of the forest fury (FF), i.e., a score indicating how upset the forest is with the characters. FF will accumulate and lead to a series of more and more dangerous encounters, peaking with a deadly one if the characters don’t leave soon enough. It is designed to cleanse the characters within a week or so.

Note that the sense of increasing danger should be palpable: Players need to know they are FAFOing in Sarkash: Temperature at night will be a factor (more on this later).

What upsets the forest?

• The characters just being there: +1 FF every night (cumulative).

• Fires: +3 FF for setting up a campfire, +1 FF for using a torch, +5 FF for a pyre or bonfire (cumulative).

• Leaving dead stuff unburied: +1 FF For each animal carcass or body abandoned (cumulative.) Shallow graves are ok.

What soothes the forest?

• A proper ritual officiated before entering the forest. -3 FF if the characters office the ritual, once per trip only. If improvising, i.e., not instructed by arcane knowledge, roll Presence DR12. A failure means the forest will be upset (+1 FF).

• Abandon something important at the edge of the forest before properly entering (-1 to -5 FF).

• Burials: -1 to -3 For a sacrifice of a large beast or equally fiery opponent, after the carcass/body is properly buried (not cumulative.)

• Hard liquor: -1 to -3 FF depending on the offer, to be poured in stumps or hollow trunks (not cumulative). Yeah I added this because, c’mon, it’s metal AF and this is Mörk Borg after all.

Learning what upsets and what soothes the forest is knowledge that should be acquired with in-game actions, not knowledge rolls. The Shadow King and his court are the ones who know most.

Pace of the encounters

Roll normally for encounters during the day. (I use Eat, Pray, Kill by Druid & Nohr; and The Monster Overhaul by Skerples.) At night, roll 1d4+FF on the table below. Higher numbers correspond to more dangerous consequences. If you roll an encounter more than once, go with the next. The manual tells us, about Sarkash: Hasn’t it grown warmer in this usually cold place? So the temperature at night indicates how close the final cleansing is.

1. Temperature: As expected; nothing happens.

2. Temperature: As expected; nothing happens.

3. Temperature: As expected; nothing happens.

4. Temperature: As expected; nothing happens.

5. Temperature: As expected; nothing happens.

6. Temperature: Slightly warmer than expected; 1d6 wandering outcasts and their deranged leader bump into the characters’ camp. These people ventured unprepared into the forest a few days ago, while running from pitchforks. Now they are lost, very hungry, and desperate. Each has HP 3, ML 5, and a club or femur (d4). Prowler stats for the leader (MB pg. 71).

7. Temperature: Slightly warmer than expected; the forest changes during the night, and the characters are lost in the morning, so getting to the place they want to go (including going back!) it’s now a challenge.

8. Temperature: Decidedly warmer than expected; rats or equivalent pests come at night to spoil all or most the rations.

9. Temperature: Decidedly warmer than expected; In the morning, characters find their path cut but rushing torrent. It’s large enough to make jumping over it impossible, and deep and strong enough to wash people away. The water is dead cold. It’s strategically located so that characters cannot go towards the direction they chose. If they are going back, or if they scouted the area before, they are sure the torrent was not there.

10. Temperature: As hot as the day; a group of Shadow King’s rangers (1d6+2) and 1 priestess find the camp. They do not want strangers to roam around in the forest. Rangers: HP 6, ML 7, armor leather (-d2), bow (d6), knife (d4). Priest: Morale 9, HP 5, staff (1d6). The priest is here to honor the forest interceding on behalf of the Shadow King. She has deep knowledge of Sarkash holds, such as the rituals described above, but she’s not very keen on revealing them; she has 1d2 scrolls which she won’t hesitate to use.

11. Temperature: As hot as a summer day; A bunch of will-o’-the-wisps float around the camp. Single roll of Presence 12+ to resist their charm: Success grants resistance for 3 rounds, so uncharmed characters must decide if to run or assist the charmed ones with the risk of being charmed. Let the players come up with clever ways to remove the charm. (Remember: We do not care about that right now.) Charmed character will follow the ill-o’-the-wisps into the night towards (1d4, each counting one encounter):

    1. A pit with 1d4+2 large snakes! Each with 1 HP, no armor, bite 1d2 damage. If at least one inflicts any damage, roll Toughness 12+ at the end of the round or get 1d6 damage from the poison.

    2. Bear cave! 1 large female bear with 1d4 pups.

    3. Troll cave! Contains one hungry troll who wants food and of course considers human flesh a delicacy: 12 HP; -d2 thick skin and primitive furs; attacks with 1 large club (1d10); regenerates 3 HP/round unless damaged by fire or acid.

    4. Wolf pack! 2d6+2 wolves with 1d6 pups.

12. Temperature: burning hot as a summer day in the desert; the Spirit of Sarkash comes to cleanse the forest from strangers. First, beacons of morbid, spectral light will rise all around the camp (See the figure above). Then, the Spirit will come. If the characters survive, the forest will leave them alone for the rest of the trip.

Motherf—, you did not provide details about the Spirit of Sarkash!

Yeah, you’re right. I need some more mental clarity to come up with this. The idea about the spectral light beacons comes directly from the figure, which is truly inspiring (again, thanks IntelligentBeach354!).

Inspired by:

Odinson Games

The Forest Doesn't Want You Here

This week, I’m exploring deep themes and design elements for my bewitched setting: The Wenderweald…

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7 months ago · 52 likes · 14 comments · Odinson

Curious about why? Here. Rules? Here. Previous episode? Here.

Level up!

After completing the first mission, our Navigator-Liuetenant can increase his stats, yay! Let's roll: +1 HP (HAHAHAHA!), STR+1 goes to 8. That's it. So, the new total HP is 5. FIVE. Well, it is what it is.
(Orestes and Peri keep their stats as we consider them NPCs.)

Also, it is reasonable for them to ask the 19th Institute of Outer Geography for an armor each. But we know Madame Chart-Magistrate Elisabeth Juna wants them dead, so it's not certain. WIL roll: Success! Alright, they get the armors. Phew!

Sector II

Setup: How far is the target area? 2d6+2, 7 hexes.
Roll for the song prompt: Straight time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU7-W_EnJHY)
The prompt from the song tells me they will have to go through a prison. More specifically, a former prison in the Deep Country now controlled by dangerous people.

Day 1

The 14th Company of the Well-Garrett Academy of Cartography stops as soon as the blue waters of the river are visible on the horizon. I ask the Major how long it would take to get there, and he says, plainly: “I have no idea. I have never been closer to that god-cursed river than I am now. Good luck.” He was not sarcastic. He meant that. He pitied us.

It turns out it takes several hours to get to the river, given we are in a forest swamp. But in the end we are close enough to see the small island among the rushing waters, and the penitentiary. The island is almost fully covered by the compound. The main structure is a large, squat, dilapidated brick building. Two stone bridges connect the opposite banks to the island. According to the dossier, it is controlled by local, “unaligned but hostile forces”. It is our only way to the other side.

Oracle: Did they plan about bringing civilian clothing? Yes.

Without a word, Orestes starts unbuttoning, then he looks at me: “Shall we go on with the plan?” I nod and start undressing as well. I brought decent civilian clothes. Orestes was smarter than me, and came with worn out, ripped clothes he might have obtained from a beggar. So I proceed to make a few holes with my bayonet, and add a generous amount of mud here and there.

When it’s time to wear the armors, we realize our mistake: How can we pass for ragged travelers with the new Bastion armors? So we place both armors against a willow; then we fire our muskets against them a couple of times, from a distance. Even if the armors might compromise our disguise, it’s too risky not to wear them.

Roll for the settlement name: Blightwick. So it was Blightwick Penitentiary, now just Blightwick. Settlement size? 50 people. Oracle: Are there families there? No.

By the time we reach the bridge, the sun will be setting. I ask Orestes: “Should we spend the night out here, or go to Blightwick?”

“If we’re weary travelers in this forlorn land, Lieutenant, we should ache for a bed and a roof for the night. I say we play the part. Let’s walk fast to get there before sunset.”

So we pack the uniforms in a big oilcloth bundle, place it under a tree, mark the tree, and cover everything with leaves, mud, and branches.

The lady behind the wooden parapet screams: “ONE MORES STEP AND YOU’RE BOTH DEAD!”, and that’s our welcome to Blightwick.

“WE’RE JUST ACHING FOR A BED AND A ROOF FOR THE NIGHT! CAN WE COME FORWARD?”

She let us get closer. She is middle aged, dressed like a peasant of the old days, with a white veil covering her blonde hair. Behind her there is a tall, silent, bearded old man. When we’re close enough to see her eyes, she raises her crossbow. The head of the bolt is rusty and covered in filth. I tell her, calmly: “We humbly ask for safe passage and hospitality for the night.”

“What brings you here?”

“We are just travelers.”

“Wanderers with muskets and foreign armors from Bastion. I think you are looking for troubles.”

“But madame, you must convene that traveling the Deep Country unarmed and without protection is unwise. We mean no harm. To prove it, we are ready to let you have our muskets, with the promise they will be returned when we leave.” Orestes looks at me: He did not like the offer I made. He might be right, but I had to improvise. I talked to her the same way I would have addressed Ms. Mhor, the one teacher always looking for a reason to rap my hands with her stick.

Roll on WILL: Success!

“You must pay a toll to enter Blightwick. Leave one of your muskets behind.”

“That is not something I am willing to do, madame. But we happen to have food, and money.”

“You also happen to have tools, I see.” She is looking right at the pots strapped to Orestes’ full backpack; which, by the way, also contains the disassembled antenna and its battery. The thing we use to calibrate our position and send our signal to Bastion.

I tell her: “I fear our tools are very much needed for our survival out there, madame. But we have money. Bastion money. It can buy you good things from the geographers.”

Roll on WILL: Success!

“Money will do, wanderer, but it will cost you.” She turns towards the old man and says something. Peri barks a couple of times, Orestes is not quick enough to shush her. The woman looks back at us: “Also there will be an extra for the dog.”

We end up paying with literally all the money we have. It’s not much, but it seems enough. The inner part of Blightwick is squalid and crumbling. The gang built crude wooden ramparts around and over the walls, adapting the prison to be their living quarters. There are no kids around, no families, and no farm animals, just people with hardened faces, all carrying weapons, and all watching us. The lady and the old man are our armed escort. The old man is carrying our muskets.

We enter a yard scattered with rusty junk. A blacksmith is tending a primitive, dirt-made forge under a sheet-metal canopy covered in bird feces. He looks at us, but then the lady looks at him, and he immediately turns his gaze back to the forge. Orestes whispers: “I don’t like how they are looking at us.”

“I don’t like how they are looking at our stuff. And if things get bad, we will need to escape a literal prison.”

“A prison with very many guards, and only two prisoners.”

Oracle: Do they spend the night here? No, and... And if they leave, they will push for a forced march before resting.

While we walk through the prison complex, I address the lady: “Madame, if you allow me, I think we had a change of heart.”

She stops. The old man, behind us, stops as well. She looks at us, harshly: “What?”

“We would like to cross the river. We’ll take our chances into the Deep Country.”

“So you don’t want to spend the night with us, huh? You think we’ll murder you and steal your gear?”

I don’t know what to answer. Orestes is looking at Peri, presumably ready to order her to attack. I could jump on the old man, get the muskets. Tall walls all around us. We would likely die.

Oracle: Will they get ganked? No, but... But some of the gang members will ruminate about those fancy armors and muskets.

The old man stays dead serious, but the lady bursts out in a mocking laugh: “Do as you please! Stay in, get out, jump into the river and drown, I do not care about you two wretched numbskulls and your mongrel dog! You could be Bastion deserters with those fancy armors and guns, what concern is it to me? Just make up your mind and don’t waste my time.”

By the time we are crossing the second bridge, we’re already under the moonlight. We see only a few scattered lanterns along the prison walls. It does not seem they are following us. We march into the night.

Considerations

• I am satisfied about how social encounters like this one are alternate with raw hexcrawling.

• I could have entirely skipped this episode with one sentence: They pass through an abandoned prison controlled by a gang (WIL roll for reaction: Success; WIL roll to convince them to let them pass: Success). Truth is, I played the whole encounter under constant tension: Will the gang gank them or not? Not knowing that is what makes solo play feel so alive.

He is very elegant in his sepia suit. Could be Armani’s. Shoes are light brown leather that looks hand made. His head is gigantic, deformed; and uniformly covered in dark fur with unaligned, swollen, half-closed eyes. His mouth is spotless, with Hollywood-like white teeth.2 And he smells like piss and coconut. I know it because this is not the first time I have to deal with the fucked up guy.3

My office has a glass wall. From it, I can see the shared cubicle space, now partially in the dark. And since about 15 minutes ago, every time I peek out of the glass wall, I see him. Just standing among the desks, in the penumbra. He is looking right at my office, and me.

While I am finishing a review, I feel something akin to a fast car switching gears. It comes from inside me. Oh, shit! I mean, quite literally. This is yesterday’s night Thai food calling in its dues. I know a violent intestinal distress is next. And there is not time to drive home. I have no choice, I have to go now. So I look at the fucked up guy, open the door, and get out.

He does not move. He just breathes, slowly. He is maybe 10 meters away from me. I don’t want to look scared so I follow the same path to the restroom I would if he were not there.

Ok, I reached the restroom. Neon lights, vague fart smell, water splashed all over the sink counter. I move the metal bin against the door. So at least if he enters, I will hear him. I get into the stall, lock the door, and take the position. This time I do not feel like scrolling on the phone.

While I am cleaning up, I hear a small noise. Like metal against ceramic. The door. He is trying to open the door. “STAY THE FUCK OUT!”, I say, very sternly and loudly. The noise was too small for the door to be open, he cannot be in. But as I think that, I smell piss. Sure, it’s the end of the day, of course the restroom smells like piss. But then, I smell a hint of coconut. Oh, no. That fucker. “I SAID STAY THE F—” and while I am talking, my head spins. The floor tiles change color: From cream to a weird polka dot combining green and red on a pink background, “YOU MOTHERFUCKER YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!”, meanwhile the air is electric, I have goosebumps, the walls become acid green wallpaper from a 1970s Belfast blue collar townhouse, and camellias grow all over the floor. I have to put a hand against the wall to recompose myself, my head still spinning. The wallpaper is jagged and cold. “You win. As always. You piece of shit.”4

I hear him laughing softly. I am sure he is covering his perfect mouth with his hand to muffle it. I know because this is what he does. I was scared, then confused and upset, and now I am pissed. I hear him breathing. He must be right on the other side of the stall door. There is a transparent plastic panel on the wall, right above the toilet. It contains a fire extinguisher. I contemplate the chance for a second. I look at the camellias that are withering and dying in a quick, unnatural way. I move very slowly, and silently. I pull up my trousers. I pry open the panel and I get the extinguisher. It’s heavy as shit. I pull the pin, slowly. I make almost no noise. With much care, I slide the stall door latch.

Boom! I open the door and point the fire extinguisher at the motherf—There is no one in the restroom. The floor tiles and the walls are back to their boring cream color. I put back the fire extinguisher. You know what? Tomorrow’s hard deadline can fuck all the way off down the road and into the sea. I am going home.

A few considerations on this game

• It has an expansion where you play the role of the fucked up guy.

• It’s a nice little game. For the price point of $1, it is worth it. (I got it from a bundle.)

• I feel I might want to play this again, but I would need to come up with sort of more rules. The extreme freedom of action and the vagueness of the rules are both a strong point and a flaw. But again, there’s only so much you can get from 2 pages.

1. Rock to vomit. You turn the volume of a large door or statue, if made of rock or similar solid material (bricks or cobblestones, yes; soil or gravel, no), into vile vomit. The vomit is as dense as mud and reflects aspects of the last thing you ate. While keeping the volume more or less fixed, you can change the affected shape. For example, you can obtain a waist-deep small vomit pit right below the feet of a target enemy. Roll on Presence for details and finesse if you want to be artistic and play around with the shape.

2. Arrow in the knee. Up to Presence target creatures (minimum 1) near the caster get the effects of an arrow in the knee, suffering 1d6 damage. Armor applies, but if damage is not completely absorbed, and assuming they only have two legs, the targets collapse and are unable to stand for 1d4 rounds, during which you have +4 to attack and defend from them.

3. Taranta’s kiss. Send an air kiss towards a target creature very close to you (melee distance). Your lips get colored in vivid blue, and will stay that way for about a day. While keeping consciousness and awareness, the target begins to dance crazily and cannot perform any action except moving a few steps in random directions; babbling nonsense; or screaming. The effect lasts as long as you keep clapping to an upbeat rhythm. Attacks to the target are at +4.

4. Jagged mirror of Nechrubel. You reflect back one attack or power that will be used against you in the very same round this spell is launched.

5. Door to door deflection. While heavily knocking on a door, you teleport to another door that you can see, on the side that you can see.

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6. Dhalsimism. Extend one of your extremities (neck and head included) as a monstrous, flexible, tentacle-like, 2-meter-plus-long thing. You can use it to grab or tie stuff, including your enemies. If you use it to crush them, once hit they cannot act. Strength DR10 to keep them that way and inflict 1d4 damage/round. Ignore armor unless it’s something very solid like plate armor. This lasts for one scene.

7. See through solids. For about 10 minutes, at will, you can see through a solid surface you touch up to 1 meter thickness, including stone, bricks, wood, etc. You cannot see through living things.

8. Slap of the Laughing Thunder. Your hand crackles with sparks for 1d4+1 rounds. During this time, the first time you manage to slap a target creature in the face, the blast of a thunder will occur, and the spell will end. Slapping an unwilling creature in the face in combat is hard, so you will hit at -2 to -6, depending on the circumstances. The effects of the slaps are as follows: Inflict 2d8 damage to the target ignoring armor; all creatures nearby, including yourself and the target, must roll on Toughness DR10 or be deafened for the rest of the scene/fight. The thunder will be heard from far away.

Rationale/Design

The goal is to obtain mortal, flexible, and silly effects by mixing the macabre attitude of Mörk Borg with the clever spells of Knave 2, and/or twisting OSE classics. See through solids, for example, can be also used to discern who is an undead in disguise. Rock to vomit is a more Borg version of Rock to mud, albeit of a much smaller scale because scrolls in Mörk Borg do not have levels, and can be launched multiple times as long as you keep rolling high enough.

1. Forcefully answer some questions with: “We do not care about that right now.”

   1. Corollary: You do not need to think in advance how to solve the problems you present: The players will come up with something anyway.

   2. Corollary: You don’t need all the answers; actually, you do not want them. Allow yourself to be surprised! To an extreme, this leads to a GM-less co-op if in group, and solo play otherwise.

2. Use generators for maps and prompts, but only when needed.

3. Use a simple system for quick stats (e.g., OSR, PBTA, NSR). I use Mörk Borg here since this is actual prep for my campaign. (I know many times the system is not a choice; let’s say that the more you know a system, the quicker the stat design is, obviously.)

Hands-on example

By the time this post is over, you’ll have a full dungeon ready to go: The filthy lair of the sorcerer beastman.

Assumptions

• The characters are looking for a mythic egg. Yeah, our MacGuffin.

• The egg is in some dungeon.

• And it’s guarded by a degenerate beastman.

Simply put, this is all I knew at the beginning. I had no idea about the details. Wait, but what’s exactly the power of the egg? We do not care about that right now.

First let’s get a map

I suck at drawing; so blessed be Watabou’s One Page Dungeon generator:

First things that come to mind

• The egg must be in Room 11

• The beastman lives in the East section (Rooms 2-5)

Now we need to know more about the beastman

I roll 2d100 on the default action table of Mythic 2 (Tana Pigeon, Word Mill Games):

86 Struggle, 73 Portal

Here is my reasoning, in sequence:

1. The beastman is literally struggling to open a portal to the nameless demonic abyss he came from. Why? Maybe to go home, maybe to summon an army of demons? We do not care about that right now. Did he come here on its own volition, or was he summoned? We do not care about that right now.

2. So the beastman is also a sorcerer.

3. The beastman made this his lair for a reason: This is an abandoned temple with a magical aura.

4. It is the egg to produce such aura.

5. The beastman has no idea the egg is there, and he is not the egg guardian.

I want to underline how a simple prompt of two words made it very easy to come up with this (and what follows, below), saving me a lot of time and mental stress.

Beastman stats

Again, I am designing this for Mörk Borg.

Beastman from a nameless demonic abyss

HP 16, ML 7, D4 armor (matted fur and leather scraps).

Attacks: Yew primitive bow (d6, short distance only); sturdy battle axe (d8 when used by the beastman, otherwise d6); or charge with horns (d6), easy to dodge (DR8), but if hit STR DR12 or fall prone.

Skilled hunter: DR16 to detect him when sneaking.

Once per fight:
- Summon malodorant fog: Blocks view, effect area large, makes you cough and waste your round if you fail TOU 12 (useful to escape). The beastman is immune.
- Cry of the inner beast (can be used only if severely wounded): Roll PRE DR12, failure means target runs in fear for d4 rounds.

Keying the rooms

General structure: The temple is dug underground. Floors, ceilings, and walls are stone blocks fixed against dirt, with overgrown, old roots protruding through them. Multiple tracks of the ungulate beastman’s feet, both fresh and old, are present throughout the dungeon. There is a foul smell of rotten food, smoke, excrement, and medicinal plants.

1. Entrance. The beastman covered the floor with gravel, small rocks, and dry leaves, so walking here will make noise. Make sure the players are well aware of that. Noise will alert the beastman and likely cause terrible sounds of barks and growls from Room 8.

2. Trapped corridor. There is a steep step made of rock blocks at both ends of the corridor, that is, before the intersection with Room 1 and before Room 3; the stone of these steps is chiseled poorly and different from the rest. Between the steps the ground is covered by an ankle-deep level of muddy filth. The beastman set up the steps and deliberately filled the corridor with slush to hide a bear trap (d8 damage), buried in the mud. He will use this corridor to escape, either towards the exit or to barricade in Room 4. The “door” to Room 3 is a deer pelt. I did not know how to properly characterize this corridor, so I rolled for a prompt:

   93 Trap, 44 Illusion

   Putting some literally illusion here did not seem in line with the barbaric nature of the beastman (even if he knows magic!), hence the mud instead.

3. Laboratory. Smells weird. The equipment for sorcery is extremely rudimentary. Old clothes are sown into crude sacks and filled with sorcery components, from bone meal to dried plants and herbs, to mummified human remains. Stolen and scavenged metal tools are mixed with stone-age utensils the beast man made. Gold and silver are ground and smelt for rituals and experiments, but the equivalent of 250 sp. can be salvaged, if you’re not too choosy. The “door” to Room 2 is a deer pelt.

4. Private room. Mummified heads and body parts are exposed here as trophies. Doors are primitive but functional, nailed planks covered in animal skin. They can be barred from the inside with sturdy wooden sticks and latches (not sturdy as metal, but not that easy to pry open). The beastman sleeps on a pile of blood-stained clothes. If cornered, he will summon the fog, then open the door to Room 3 and charge to run away, avoiding the bear trap of Room 2.

5. Temple room. Smells like a butcher shop and a crematory. There is a statue representing an old deity, but it is ruined beyond recovery. There is a fire pit in the center of the room. The beastman officiates horrible blood rituals here.

6. Submerged corridor. This is the beastman water source. Following the stairs, the corridor is quickly submerged in ice cold, pitch black water. The submerged door to Room 10 is a heavy stone door, a vestige of the original structure. The characters will need to figure out how to move ahead. How? I don’t know, I’ll let the players think about that. And if you say: “Well, just cast light”, I remind you this is Mörk Borg, so no. And even then, you have to open a heavy stone door while underwater. I thought they could find a way to drain the water? Trap some will-o’-the-wisps in a jar for underwater light? We do not care about that right now.

7. Decrepit corridor. Smells like beasts, but different from the East side. The wolves in Room 8 will go crazy scratching and howling if they hear noises. The door to Room 8 is a remnant of the original temple made of stone. It is propped with wedges.

8. Wolves! These beasts are only partially controlled by the beastman through sorcery rituals. They are confused and want to go out and hunt and eat. They will generally protect the beastman, but they won’t properly respond to commands.

   Two large wolves: HP 11, no armor, ML 6, Attack bite (d6).

   The entrance to Room 9 is blocked by stacked wooden poles, which can be removed with some work. I had no idea initially about what to put here, so I rolled again for a prompt (see above) and I got:

   7 Assist, 35 Friend

   Hence some friend of the beastman, assisting him? Ah!, WOLVES!

9. Dump area for things so disgusting, poisonous, or dangerous that the beastman does not want to dump them in the forest. Some human remains here have been accidentally reanimated by failed sorcery rituals. They constantly utter groans and cries of pain and desperation.

Accidentally reanimated human remains: HP 3, 4, 5; ML -; Attack bite/claw (d4). They want to kill all living things. They move pathetically slow.

10. Dead clerics. Partially submerged room. The non-submerged part is elevated via steep steps: There are located the remains of the two clerics who brought the egg here. Who were they? Why they died here? We do not care about that right now.

11. Here lies the egg. It must perpetually be submerged in water, or it will wither. This room has no regular floor, but natural, uncarved stone, very uneven. The floor rises gradually until it emerges from the water. The egg is abandoned there, partially submerged but clearly visible.

How to get to the temple?

The beastman needs to hunt for both food and creatures to sacrifice. Locals do not know his den, but they know some areas of the woods must be avoided. This will likely be the first clue for the players. He also looks for sorcery ingredients such as rare plants. All these activities leave traces and clues to reach the den.

How did you balance the encounters?

I did not. Fuck it!, the world is what it is and does not care about balance. For this campaign I have two players with characters with no more than 7 HP each and crap armor. If they do not prepare, if they don’t fight dirty, if they don't reason about how to take advantage of the situation, they will very likely both die. They know this. I am on their side and cheer their success, but this is no place to fuck around. The world is dangerous.

What does the beastman need to open the portal?

We do not care about that right now. If the players will be cunning enough to convince the beastman they can help with this, or insane enough to actually help open the portal, we’ll figure it out.

How long did it take to make all this?

Writing this post, working on the art, polishing it, etc., admittedly took quite some time. However, the proper note scribbling for actual game prep, all included, took about 20 minutes.

Curious about why? Here. Curious about the rules? Here. Previous episode? Here.

Sector I, continue

Days 5-6

High winds make traveling difficult. The wetlands dry and become thickets. 

Day 7

Unseasonable warmth. Encounter: Amlir (3), distant. According the Into the Deep Country: “Nocturnal segmented predators with too many legs”.  Both Saigarth and Orestes succeed on DES, so they see them from afar.

While we walk through the greenery, Peri starts acting restless, and not even a piece of Marvel John’s honey crunchy bar from Orestes’ pocket seems to calm her down. He tells me, “It’s some smell she is sensing. Must be something dangerous. That Lady of the Backwaters business we had still sets my nerves on edge.”

We gain the top of a little hill nearby and stand in silence to observe the dense growth of shrubs. The horizon is cut by lines of pines and chestnut trees. Then, we see them: Three abominable centipedes, each the length of a horse, are creeping around the tangled underbrush. Just looking at how they advance makes me feel uneasy, as if they ought not to be real. I hear Orestes mumbling, under his breath: “From what Hell have you crawled?”

We quickly decide to move away from the area. We look at the map and plan an ample detour that will add hours to our trek. Who cares!, the main objective is to avoid those things.

We roll a night encounter, medium distance. Oracle: Is it the amlirs? Yes, and… and they are hungry! Saigarth, Orestes, and Peri, well, they ALL fail on a DEX roll, so they will be surprised.

I wake up hearing Peri barking like crazy. Orestes is pointing the musket in the direction Peri is barking at, but there’s only darkness. It must not be long until dawn. I grab my musket and start loading rapidly. I hear a snapping sound from my left, but when I turn it’s too late. They are already on me.

The damn dog was barking to the wrong direction.

Let’s assume the Amlirs will all attack the closest prey. Rolling randomly, it turns out it’s our Lieutenant-Navigator Saigarth. Damages: 1, 3, 2. As per the ItO rules, multiple attacks on a single target deal the highest dice rolled, not their sum. Saigarth is down to 1 HP.

Orestes can’t fire, otherwise he would wound Saigarth as well (blast), so he drops the musket and impales the first amlir (Am 1) with his sword (4 damages). Perri bites the second (Am 2; 3 damages). Saigarth fires point blank and hits all of them: 7 (Am 1), 1 (Am 2), 4 (Am 3). We let him use the blast effect as they were all attacking him. Also: These damn amlirs also have 1 point of armor! Fortunately Am 1 is down, fails its STR roll, and is dead.

Am 2 and Am 3 put other bites into Saigarth’s flesh, Saigarth goes to -2 HPs, rolls on STR 5, fails, and goes down.

There is not a single rational thought in my head. Perception takes it all: The sound they make when they crawl, Peri barking, the smell of gunpowder, the feeling of the blood pouring out from my leg, and the dread of having one of these things eating my own flesh. I feel pure terror as I faint from shock and blood loss.

The dog deals 2 damages to Am 2, and Orestes 3 to Am 3. Am 3 goes to 0 HP and fails its STR test: Dead. Am 2 rolls for morale, fails, and runs (crawls) away.

Day 8

I wake up and smell coffee. I am still alive, and I feel curiously relaxed and well. It must be late morning. I look at my leg: The uniform is torn apart; Orestes stitched up and disinfected the wound, apparently, before making coffee. It still looks pretty bad, but does not hurt. Orestes sees I am awake. I smile at him. He smiles back: “The laudanum is working wonders, huh?”

Overcast drizzle. Nothing to report.

Day 9

Unseasonable warmth. The wound is getting better. With one day of food left, they push through with a forced march and reach the target area. They set up the antenna and manage to send the signal. Sparks and crackles confirm the signal is received.
Exfiltration roll: Success! Mission accomplished.

Next Episode:

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Sector I, Arrival.

Let’s roll for stuff!
Prompt song: The Newcomer (Springsteen, 1995). Target area distance: 8 hexes, NE. Season: Fall. Weather: Unseasonably warm.

Oracle: Where are we? Dilapidated port. Is it abandoned? Yes, but... But there is a corpse.

I look at the barge moving away on the river, against the current, the Bastion flag sagging on the flagpole. Two tired oxen are slowly pulling it via ropes and nets along a trail on the river bank. They are followed by a silent man, a farmer the pickets recruited for the mission. “You’re coming with us,” that’s all they had to say, and he left his yard with his oxen to follow us. I think he hates us, and Bastion, and it’s not hard to see why. Now the pickets are making sure the barge does not get too close to the bank, pushing with two long pikes.

They insisted on leaving as soon as we disembarked. When I asked about the protocol, they said “Last time we were here was four weeks ago. Like last time, we’ll report no contact from the garrison. They don’t want to know more.”

Orestes and I walk around the small, abandoned harbor. Peri reaches a small shack, sniffs around, and barks. Orestes walks towards her, while I check the barracks. Many windows are broken. There’s a dormitory inside. All the beds but one are made. A rusty kerosene lamp lays on the ground, near a few small books scattered around. Everything is covered in dust and cobwebs.

Orestes calls me: “Lieutenant, come here!” The shack door is closed from within. I can peek inside from a gap between the boards. I see the silhouette of a person sitting at a desk. Even from the small gap, the smell of rot is vile and vomic. Orestes asks: “Shall we leave this be?”

“Why would you even want to go inside?”

“So, is it up to me?”

I leave Orestes and I go to inspect the few, derelict small boats docked at the pier. They seem very old, none properly maintained. A couple of them are partially sunk. I hear a few hammer blows: Orestes has broken the door. I see him entering the shack, eagerly followed by Peri. He emerges a minute later, holding some papers: “A letter!”

The sun is setting. We are sitting around a fire we started with some kerosene and one of the ragged mattresses of the dormitory. Peri is already asleep, curled up near Orestes. No one felt like spending the night inside, plus the weather is being kind to us tonight. I tell Orestes: “The Lord only knows how you could get in there and not throw up.”

I am assuming in Bastion the religion is some sort of reformed monotheism, as opposed to the cults of the Deep Country.

“No need to ask the Lord,” says Orestes, “After all those night shifts guarding the bodies of the executed, dripping stuff and all, it does not trouble me in the least.”

“So… our good fellow in the shack, how did he die?”

Oracle: Did Orestes find out? No, but... But the letter says something interesting.

“Can’t say how. The body is too far rotten. What does the letter say?”

Of course he did not read the letter. Not the fanciest reader, Orestes Barbedos: He would have read aloud each syllable, following the words with his finger. I tell him: “It does not read as if written by someone of sound mind. It’s signed Frank. No date. Hear: They all left. They heard the call. They did not decide, proper. They just had to follow.”

“Which call?”

“It does not say.”

And I have no idea either! But I would love to characterize this with some Cthulhu-like cult.

“Who’s the letter for?”

“His father, apparently.”

“Well, the envelope was on the desk. I have it. Address written over. We can deliver it when we’re back to Bastion.”

“If, we get back to Bastion.”

This follows the prompt from the song: Frank's body, "Nothin' taken, nothin' stolen". A family far away. General misery.

Days 1-3

Navigation rolls fail, but they end up more or less in the right direction. The only encounter is with a giant hare, which is minding her own business. Oracle: Is the giant hare psionic? No. Damn, that would have been interesting. Orestes rolls on WIL to keep Peri from hunting the hare: Success! They move on.
They end up finding an old fishing station, again abandoned, and hunker there for a day because of the horrible weather.

Day 4

Cold mist. Navigation: Fail (Third time in a row!). Encounter: Hollow men: "Empty husks following unknown orders". So they must be the garrison who left the port, described in the letter. Range: Far. Disposition: Actively helpful(!). WIL to recognize them as soldiers: Orestes fails, Saigarth succeeds. Saigarth rolls WIL to perceive their intentions: Success again!

Peri does not sniff them yet, but we see them: Five human figures, slowly emerging from the mist, ankles deep in the mud. Orestes is ready to fire, but I stop him with one hand. They move weirdly, yet they have something familiar. The one leading wears a shako with cord and straps. The others behind him carry muskets. More specifically, they hold the muskets by the butt and are literally dragging them through the mud. But I recognize the shapes. They’re Bastion-made.

“Who goes there? State your business!,” I say sternly, and I raise my musket. They all look in our direction. “In the good name of Bastion! Stop or I’ll shoot!”

They stop. Peri starts growling, but Orestes shushes her with a single look.

We cautiously advance. Yes, they are soldiers of Bastion. Geographers, like us. I can’t say exactly from which Institute, because their uniforms are tattered, smeared with dirt, and water-soaked. The leader is a calibrator, and the followers are pickets. Their eyes look cold, calm, and empty.

“Gentlemen,” I say, “Are you lost? Please tell me you are all just lost.”

The calibrator answers, slurring his words: “You are wrong. We are not lost, but found. We are those who have answered the call, and crossed.”

Orestes looks at me with wide eyes, finger on the trigger. Peri is tense, ready to attack. I force myself to speak slowly: “Whose orders are you following?”

“Our Lady of the Backwaters is our sole commander. And she does not want you here.”

I made it up. Let's go with the cult thing.

“Trust me,” I tell them, “We do not want to be here, either. And we too, follow the orders of a lady, albeit a different one: Madame Chart-Magistrate, leading the 19th Institute of Outer Geography.”

They all keep staring at me with their hollow eyes.

I continue: “Let’s consider our converging interests. I suggest for you to most kindly indicate the direction for us to reach our target area. So we can send the signal to Bastion, and leave this place quickly.”

I lower the musket, put my big backpack on a patch of wet yellowish grass, and get the map out: The not-so-good map they gave us along with the sector dossier. I put it in front of the calibrator. I have no idea about what kind of curse hit this husk of a man, but there still might be remnants of a calibrator inside him. I say, emphatically: “You see this? The fluvial port? You should know it. You were stationed there, right? Well, from there we should get here,” and with the finger I describe an arc along the map till our target area.

The calibrator moves slowly, and indicates a direction with his pale finger, pointing at nothing in particular in the fog. It’s not the direction we were going. “Thank you,” I say. And then: “You’ll appreciate that under normal circumstances, I would have to accuse you of desertion and either escort you to Bastion, or execute you right here. But these are not normal circumstances.”

Orestes finally lowers the musket, and adds: “I’d say it’s really hard to see clearly with this fog. Hard to tell if these are really our uniforms, or even uniforms at all.”

I nod at Orestes, and tell the calibrator: “You are free to go.”

“You are wrong again,” he answers, “We are not free to go. We just go wherever Our Lady commands.”

“And so do we, my dear fellow,” I tell him, “So. Do. We.”

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Next Episode:

Disclaimer: I am not paid by Kerova, and I gladly bought this game (and other stuff, all great!) with my own money.

Especially if you would like to play solo, but have troubles coming up with ideas and scenes, and hate to get stuck, Tome of the Pyromancer is designed in a way that will push you through your own adventure with its solid structure and loop.

I can tell you this from my own experience: I used it for my first solo actual play here on Substack. (Go check it out! It’s dark, sad, and at times extremely violent.)

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Main characteristics:

• It is an all-in-one, self-sufficient book. I never had to plug in any other resource to play it. It has all the oracles and rules that you need. So if you want to experience solo for the first time, it is literally the only book you need.

• It’s a souls-like game where you play a pyromancer trying to accumulate magical knowledge. This is going to streamline your solo play: Thanks to the premises, it is extremely intuitive to set up who you are, find an objective, and know where to go. For these reasons, it is truly enjoyable even just as a solo game without any journaling.

• Actions and stats are simple and based on 2d6, bonus/malus, and advantage/disadvantage. The mechanics are simple but offer lots of variations with many spells and weapons with different properties and effects.

• There is a clear, well-defined loop to follow in your journey, which will keep your game going like a good engine never losing steam.

• The setting descriptions are incredibly helpful to avoid getting stuck when you have zero ideas. It’s the right amount of information: Quick to read, enough to start, but not too much to strangle you.

You want the proof? We have the proof! We have many actual play reports based on this game, and they all are very different. Besides mine, you can check the ones by Adventure Coast, or Whiskey, Blood and Dust.

Is it a perfect game? Well, of course not. None is. For example, I would have loved to have rules for hirelings. There still a lot of room for adding a few more critical details. More examples could also help. Some tables could be expanded. But again, especially for this price point, it is a true treasure for solo gaming. And Kerova is a fantastic one-man army doing the writing, editing, layout, and art. Tome of the Pyromancer is a true work of love for solo gaming.

So go buy the book!

I am walking along 15th SE Avenue, better known as the Neck, as here is where they hang criminals to the lampposts. Some of the lampposts still work, but it’s pitch black where they don’t. The Neck is pretty busy during the day, with all the workers around and the curious people attracted by the hangings; but it’s deserted now, at night. There’s a curfew in this area, but I have my uniform on with the patch of the 19th Institute of Outer Geography, so the hell with them.

I have this letter with me, in my pocket. I spent a lot of time writing it. Ink is no longer cheap here in Bastion, with the trade war and all, yet I wasted so much of it. I drafted it many times; in the end, I opted for just a single page. There’s no need for many words in situations like this.

After a long stretch of broken lampposts, where I had to walk slowly in the dark, I finally see three lampposts working, each with a hanged man, the crude gaslight illuminating their black husks. They put wooden signs on their backs, with the list of the crimes Bastion decided they were guilty of. There’s a makeshift guardhouse, raw timbers on the dusty sidewalk. Orestes Barbedos is stationed there, and as soon as he sees me coming out of the shadows, walking straight towards him, he quickly readies his musket, finger on the trigger, and he barks: “State your business!”

I expected no less than the barrel of a gun pointed at me. Orestes has always been a man of extreme temperament. But he is an excellent picket. He was in the platoon I commanded. I am proud of him. I tell him: “At ease! It’s me.”

“Saigarth, is it you? I could have shot…”

“They told me you are stationed here until morning. Not the best assignment, I reckon.”

“Poor bastards...”, Orestes tilts his head towards the hanged men, “They leave them here all night. The worst is at dawn, when the mothers are allowed to come.”

“Speaking of dead people… or better, of soon-to-be-dead people: I take you already know Madame Chart-Magistrate is sending me out there, right? Into the Deep Country, alone?”

“Yes. It’s a big gossip at the Institute. She must really hate your guts… But you won’t be alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I volunteered to join your mission. All ten Sectors. You and me. Like in the old times.”

“The old times? It was me and you, and the rest of the platoon.”

“They accepted my petition.”

“And what about Peri?”

“Peri,” he says, “is coming with us. I can’t leave her alone here. She has only me.”

“How the Hell did you get the paperwork for Peri?”

His voice is calm and accomplished: “As I am sure you know, Peri has been trained as a service dog for the Cartographers, certified for Ventures of Great Danger and all.”

“Orestes,” I ask, and I am surprised, flattered, and upset: “What did you had to do to get that petition accepted?”

“I guess they don’t like me much either.”

I am at a loss. And while I think damn you, Orestes!, I tell him: “You know, I even wrote you a goodbye letter, proper. I have it here. For you. Took me a while to write it.”

“You can read it to me on the way.”

Stats for the team

Alright, with this piece we can get the story going. The very first episode was out three months ago. It described how Navigator-Lieutenant Saigarth was tasked with the exploration of the Deep Country. Why so long ago? It needed to be released that exact day! It was the thirtieth anniversary of the release of The Ghost of Tom Joad, a music album that will provide prompts for this solo playthrough of Into the Odds (Chris McDowall, Free League Press) and the hexcrawl Into the Deep Country, by Whiskey, Blood and Dust.

We didn’t roll very well when generating our main character:

Navigator-Lieutenant Saigarth:
STR 7, DEX 10, WIL 11. HP 4. Musket (d8 B), Bayonet (d6), Mutt with telepathic link.

Since Into the Odd is not exactly a game where survival is easy, we will not send him out there alone, so let’s have his dear friend volunteering to join him. According to the manual, hired mercenaries have 2d6 HP and all scores at 10. Let’s go with that:

Elite Picket Orestes Barbedos:
STR 10, DEX 10, WIL 10. HP 7. Musket (d8 B), Sword (d6)

We also need to solve the thing about the telepathic mutt. This might be perfect for the original Into the Odd setting, but it’s a little far from the nineteenth century tech we’re envisioning here. Let’s go with a mutt, Peri, that is superbly trained. Barbedos can guide and command her just with the right look:

Peri, the mutt trained as a service dog, certified for Ventures of Great Danger:
STR D10, D6 bite (per the manual). Let's add the rest as we will need it: DEX 10, WILL 6, 1 HP

What I want to get out of this

• My first play of Into the Odd, learn pros and cons of the system.

• My first play of Into the Deep Country, as above.

• Train my skill as a non-native English writer.

• Explore different formats for solo-play blog posts.

Rules of the playthrough

• Up to 10 Missions, each in a different map (Sector)

• For each mission, an hexcrawl:

  • Roll a d12 to select a track from The Ghost of Tom Joad. The song will be used as a prompt to describe the area of the mission.

  • Choose a direction, and roll 2d6+2 for the distance of the target hex.

  • Once in the target area, the team will set up an antenna and send a signal to Bastion for the geographical survey. (If that sounds too advanced in terms of technology, think Maxwell came up with his equations in the early 1860s.)

  • After that, roll for exfiltration (WIL). Success means the mission’s over. Fail means the team has to travel back to the entry point.

• Forced marches are -1 WIL per day, cumulative, recovered the first day they rest.

• Every round PCs are downed (0 HP and failed a STR roll), -1 STR until death

• Hunting/Foraging: Movement halved; Roll DEX, get 1d4 rations if successful.

• Starving is a cumulative condition. The second day PCs do not eat, they are deprived. They also lose 1 HP per day if they cannot drink. At 0 HP, lose 1 STR every 2 days.

• Into the Odd does not care about much equipment and encumbrance, so we won’t either. We just note we have rations for 10 days (grains and seeds, salted pork), which sound reasonable to carry.

• When not sure about who has the initiative, we roll DEX.

Next Episode:

EDIT 07/08/26 Revised the rules after playtesting, V2 is out.

Itch.io https://kindofold.itch.io/mork-borg-perma-damage

RPG Trader https://rpg-trader.com/products/5383/mork-borg-now-with-permanent-damage

I like OSR principles. However, I am not completely cool with how super squishy the characters are, especially in Mörk Borg. Why? Because if they do not die after a couple of sessions, you tend to develop a bond with those monstrous, cheating, heartless, cheap good-for-nothing bastards. What do you say? Mörk Borg should be all about 1-hit deaths and oppressive feelings? Yeah, point taken.

The Mörk Borg manual gives you a simple d4 table if you go to exactly 0 HP. That’s too simple for me. You can find add-ons and variants such as “Death and Dismemberment”, with tens of random effects, also depending on the type of damage. That’s too complex. So here is my alternative. (Simple rules to adapt it to OSR systems other than Mörk Borg are provided below.)

When at 0 HP or less, roll on Toughness. No omens allowed.

• With 17+, you’re alive at 1 HP. Still, you need to roll Toughness DR12 every round to avoid passing out.

• With 11+, Roll Toughness DR12 every round to avoid passing out. You should stop the bleeding or otherwise stabilize the wound, or you die in d8 rounds. You get an automatic success if attempted with proper medical instruments such as belt, rags, hook + line, red-hot knife, etc. Otherwise, Presence DR12.

  Roll on the permanent wound table below to find the body part affected.

• With 10-, you’re dead.

Permanent wound table (d8)

Disclaimer

This table is written for a game. It is not intended to meaningfully represent permanent injuries or their lived experiences, which are complex, deeply personal, and shaped by social, medical, and psychological dimensions far beyond the scope of rules-light OSR/NSR systems. The purpose here is purely to provide a direct and playable consequence of wounds with streamlined mechanics, and is not a commentary on real-world disability.

1. Hand is gone: Unable to use 2H weapons and tools. Use of shield without penalties. Use of a prosthetic hand can allow for 2H weapons and tool use, usually at DR+2. If you already lost one hand, lose the whole arm instead.

2. Arm is gone: As above, but also shields are out question. Some tasks have incremented DR, from +4 to impossible. Use of a prosthetic arm mitigates the effect. You also lose 1 max HP. If you already lost one arm, choose to lose the other arm or reroll.

3. Foot is gone: Some tasks related to balance, jumping, or running are harder, usually at +4 DR. Use of a prosthetic foot alleviates the problem, usually to +2 DR. If you already lost one foot, lose the whole leg instead.

4. Leg is gone: As above, but some tasks became impossible. Use of a prosthetic leg mitigates the effect. You also lose 1 max HP. If you already lost one leg, choose to lose the other leg or reroll.

5. Eye is gone: +2 DR to use missile weapons and for tasks requiring depth of vision. If you already lost an eye, choose to lose the other eye or reroll.

6. Face is gone: A disfiguring wound. Most NPCs in Mörk Borg settings will be familiar with disfigurement. However, in some specific situations, it will give you a penalty (+2 DR) or bonus (-2 DR) to Presence for rolls involving how you look. If already disfigured, no further effect.

7. Bad head trauma: -1 Presence. Cumulative.

8. Spine/muscle damage: Lose 1 max HP, and -1 to both your carrying capacity. Cumulative.

These effects cannot change the minima: min 1 HP, min -6 Presence, and min 5 object of free carrying capacity (estimated from character creation rules).

With Pirate Borg and other Borg games:

• Should be good as it is.

With OSE:

• Roll CON, target numbers stay 11 and 17.

• Result 7 will affect INT or WIS, player’s choice. Lower the actual ability and not its bonus (Reason: abilities do not grow with experience).

• Result 8 effect on carrying capacity: OSE, add 200 coin as permanent encumbrance, cumulative up to 600; LotFP, count as +1 encumbrance points, non cumulative.

With Shadowdark:

• Roll CON, target numbers stay 11 and 17.
  Remove the death counter as it is embedded here.

• Result 7 will affect INT or WIS, player’s choice. Lower the actual ability and not its bonus (Reason: abilities do not grow with experience).

• Result 8 effect on carrying capacity goes cumulatively down to 5 max.

With Knave 2

• Roll CON, target numbers are 16 and 20. This is because in Knave 2 you have HP plus wounds; and stats range is [+0, +10].

• Result 7 will affect INT.

• Effect 8 reduces CON by 1 (and with it, removes one slot from the carrying capacity). Cumulative up to 5 max.

Rationale/Design

• I love the Face Death move in Ironsworn: the player is rolling the final character’s fate, instead of, say, the damage roll by the GM.

• I hate when critical damage tables go like “Lost a leg, -4 DEX”. C’mon, I can still pick locks equally well without a leg! Instead of fixed penalties, I’d rather have the GM decide on case-by-case basis.

• These effects can spark new adventures to find magical ways to “heal” the wound, Mörk Borg style:

  • Attach a limb from a corpse with necromantic magic

  • Animating magical prostheses via demonic possession

  • Curse/Bless form eldritch horrors growing tentacles or other aberrations in lieu of the lost body parts

Why didn’t you include effects on the groin or breasts? Because it’s not cool.

How can fire/punches/a small knife do these effects? Reskin them as infected wounds or badly broken bones that make the limb immediately unusable and will eventually require amputation.

What about “normal” broken bones then? Why isn’t that on the table? GO PLAY GURPS OR ROLEMASTER AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

Inspired by:

I CAST LIGHT!

DEATH & INJURY, TOO

While you are planning to carve up the turkey 🦃, here’s how to carve up 🔪 PCs…

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9 months ago · 12 likes · 1 comment · Warren D.

And:

The Daydream Engine Journal

Staying Solo: The Rick Grimes Rule (Why you shouldn't kill your PC)

Spoilers ahead for Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ comic book, not the TV show. Compared to the comic, the characters of The Walking Dead TV show have it way easier…

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9 months ago · 32 likes · 9 comments · Daydream

The Index Card Role Playing Game (ICRPG) strikes a rare balance, simple yet surprisingly immersive. It’s an ideal starting step game for new players, especially if you need to play via VTT, and online.

The core mechanic is super easy: Each scene has a single difficulty (a target number to succeed) that applies to all rolls, with a fixed modifier only when the GM calls for it. The system is d20-based with the usual, six damn stats. So first-time ttrpg players will familiarize with mechanics common to OSR or D&D or Pathfinder. (Also, the system uses the full polyhedral set, so again, first-time players will be exposed to all our favorite weird dice.)

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Character creation is streamlined without being restrictive. The GM curates a list of abilities and powers based on the setting. For absolute beginners, an alternative to pre-generated characters is to use a short list of powers and abilities of your choice, designed for the specific setting/scenario. So, unlike, say D&D 3.5, Savage Worlds, or GURPS, there won’t be any analysis paralysis.

In terms of setting the scene and spatial representation, ICRPG blends basic aspects of traditional grid maps with theater of the mind. This flexibility makes it perfect for virtual tabletops and online play. You can use tactical choices, such as your powers or abilities, but you do not need a proper map.

ICRPG is fit for bombastic games that are great for casual players. I played a Die Hard scenario with barrels of helicopter fuel rolled down stairs and exploded via gunshots. The GM prepared the rooms with pictures (some were adapted from frames of the movie!) such as a locker room, a hallway, and a roof with a helipad.

It felt immersive, sometimes surprisingly more immersive than what I get when playing with a detailed map with lights, distances, marked doors, etc. You play cards that represent important aspects of the scene, special effects, etc. And these cards, just being there, somehow help you focus on what’s really important, and it feels more real. Because, in the end, when you’re there, you do not see the room from above and optimize tactical decisions based on complicated rules. When you’re there, in the action, you scream and you shoot your gun.

(By the way, nothing wrong with maps and tactics, I like the maps and tactics and I am damn nerd; but this game felt more immersive.)

You can download the Free Quickstarter (~150 pp.!). It has everything you need to play.

In the gym I met this older kid, he might have been 17. He was kind, he did not like bullies. So I looked up to him.

Months went by and I got to know this guy better, as we chatted at the gym. I was playing Hero Quest and reading gamebooks. Back then, my friends and I were already introducing RPG elements in our games: We made up our own lore in Hero Quest, drew the map of our town and fortress, and narrated what was happening between missions. But we did it instinctively, because we had no idea RPGs even existed. The Internet was not a thing yet. (RPGs would have been discussed on mainstream media only a few years later, when echoes of the last, sad wave of the satanic panic eventually reached my country; but that’s another story.)

This older kid was telling me about this game he was playing, called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. His character was living such incredible adventures! I remember my mother being pissed because it took me too long to get out of the gym after the karate class. This was because I stood in the hallway listening to my friend’s tales of magic, treasures, and slain monsters.

AD&D was not translated into Italian, and I did not speak English. So that Christmas I got BECMI D&D, i.e., the only translated RPG I could get in my small town’s toy shop. I mean, the red box. I remember spending Christmas day learning the game, being mad at fucking Bargle for killing Aleena (names, of course, I terribly mispronounced). A few days later I GMed two of my friends. We were unsure about how many of the mechanics worked and we made a ton of mistakes; but we had a blast, and I was hooked.

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Many, many years later, I was lucky enough to play a session with BECMI’s author, Frank Mentzer himself. I felt blessed.

Tonight I am going to play Old School Essentials for the first time, and reading the handbooks made all this stuff come back. (Yeah I know OSE is cloning B/X and not BECMI; it hit my neural correlates nonetheless.)

I stayed in touch with this older kid through the years. I left the small town, he stayed. He died in 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic. It felt like a punch in the gut. I realized I never told him how much I owe him. So, I am telling you instead.

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Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Gryorg is running away into the dark tunnels. Amina runs after him. The intimate, warm sensation spreading from her Flame-blessed hands has turned into pain: Her hands now feel sore and dirty. The Flame demands disciples, and, well, her one disciple, her very first follower, Gryorg, lasted an hour at most before betraying her and stealing the Tome of the Erudite Flame.

I ask the Oracle: Is Gryorg going back to the same way they came in? Answer: Yes. He uses the embered bones as a light source, per the last episode. He is wearing heavy armor. Even if he has more stamina than her, and is reinvigorated by the Flame, Amina has the chance to roll to see if she catches up.

Roll to follow him: Enhanced success! I decide that in this case, the enhancement means she can manage to drink down her (last) healing potion, going from 4 to 7 HP.

Gryorg is asking himself why he did it. But he has no time to think now. The Tome was there, and he could not control himself. The greed was sudden, illogical, bestial even, and caught him by surprise.

I roll for both of them to cross the lava stream. Both succeed.

I ask the Oracle: Will Gryorg get tired? No and... And he will set up a trap.

He finally can see the light of the day outside, a far away circle of light at the end of the narrow, jagged tunnel. In the silent cave, he can hear the faint sound of her steps somewhere behind him. He remembers that at one point the opening is so small he will have to crawl. He knows that he is dead if she catches him with her fire, from behind, while he is crawling.

Amina is short of breath when she sees again the dim, embered light ahead of her. He is close, close! She summons her energies for a last sprint, and with a sense of relief she calls the Flame. When it comes, her hands no longer hurt; instead, waves of good warmth and pleasure radiate from her fingertips to the core of her elbow bones and down her spine. She is burning stuff, again.

The fireball lights up the walls while crossing the tunnel. It reaches its target, the luminescent bones. But the bones are no longer in Gryorg’s hands. He gently leaned them against the wall, and left them there. She watches the fireball impact the bones and shatter them,1 and the momentary burst of flames shows her where Gryorg actually is, sprinting into the darkness towards her, holding his warhammer high.

Gryorg has the initiative. She rolls to dodge: Success!

The hammer crashes against the wall, cracking the rock and sending a booming echo along the empty cave. Amina frantically calls the Flame again.

She casts Fireball and hits! Damage 5, -2 armor, Gryorg is at 4 HP.
She rolls to dodge: Success!

She casts Fireball, and fails! Inner Fire goes to 5.
She rolls to dodge: Fail! The warhammer hits, she goes down to 3 HP.

She casts Fireball and hits! Enhanced success, and I roll a 6 with the die! The Flame is watching over her. Gryorg bruns to death.

The wind is howling under the volcano. Amina emerges from the Basalt Caverns covered in scratches, bruises, and dark ash marks. Every breath is pain. She feels her ribs moving unnaturally where the hammer hit. She lost her hat2 somewhere in the cave, but she’s too unsettled to notice. The Tome is in her hands. She holds it too tightly, as if she risks losing it at every step. Fixed with a belt on her shoulder there is Gryorg’s large warhammer. She is muttering: “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…”

Now, per the background, one should look for mysterious old Sages that can help decoding the secret of the Tome. However, it is clear to me that Amina is not the kind of character that will have time for that. She will attempt to read it herself. It's so obvious I don't even feel like asking the Oracle about it.

Attempting to read the Tome would bring the Inner Fire to 10, killing her. So I think it is fair to have her crawl into one of the many crevices under the volcano and rest.

She consumes one ration, and one is spoiled (4 remaining rations).

Roll for night encounter: No.

She meditates and her Inner Fire goes down to 4.

She rests, curled up in her hole like some sort of scared, wounded animal, as the Relic Hunter would have said. She is agitated. Sleep comes out of exhaustion. When she wakes up, the sun is up out there, but it’s pitch black in her small cave. She opens the Tome on her lap. The flint and steel glows, the light is sufficient for her to read. She is surprised she remembers how.

When she begins reading, she gets a +5 to her Inner Flame, which goes to 9, dangerously close to self-combustion. Since it reaches 6+, let's roll for the Flare Up: Momentary Full Body Flame up. This means her long, dirty, matted hair goes up in flames. Bonus: All the parasites on her body are dead. Cool, cool. 

Roll to learn: Success! She reads it! She levels up (Spirit 2, +d6 HP, +spell Fierce Wall of Flame).

Now I must roll for the consequences of reading the Tome. Normally it's the Sage interpreting the book who takes the risk, but here it's Amina.

I roll 2d6+2 and I get 5 and 5, for a total of 12. Awww fuck: According to the rules, that will kill her. She will burn to a cinder from within.

There is this rule I never applied, Eternal Flame Intervention (page 10), that allows a reroll once per session. So of course I use it! I get an 8, which means she gets into a dreamlike state... until she gets a visit.

Reading the Tome of the Erudite Flame fills Amina with an intense, burning emotion of inner peace and balance. The words of the Tome wash through her mind like molten rock, torching along its way all the residues of her pain, deep fear, loneliness, half-hidden guilt, and dark thoughts. She does not need anything else, not water, not food, not company. She truly feels blessed. She reads through the whole Tome. Then, she closes her eyes: She is home.

So, that’s it?

Well, this seems like a good time to take a break. I already have ideas about when and how Amina could awake. And I have many unanswered questions about her past and her family, and about the flint and steel: Did she know the dire consequences of taking it with her? I hope the answers will be consistent with the story so far: Twisted, macabre, violent, and sad. Haha.

Regrets (of course!)

This was my first journaling of a solo playthrough. I experimented with different, inconsistent mixtures of narration and dice-rolling reports. I hate the damn typos and grammar errors, which I always catch too late. I am also unsatisfied about how I represented Amina’s Flame addiction, it still misses something.

Thanks to

• All the good people who read some or all of this playthrough

• The other solo players on substack who have been a fantastic source of inspiration and motivation

• My wife who is the person I end up telling these stories first

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Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Our girl is inside the Basalt Caves. So we go neatly into the Tome of The Pyromancer delving mechanics: Less narrative, more rolls.

The loop is as follows: When you enter a new area, roll the Usage Die (UD). If the result is 1-2: Decrese the dice size. If the UD is a d4, the final boss room is reached. We are already at D6 considering the last episode. If the result is *not* the final boss, then roll for what's in the area.

- Entering the 2nd area:
UD: Failed! Area type: Encounter: Embered Skeletal Soldiers (3). HPs 5,; Armor Attack d6 with weapon; morale: Death.

They see a dim orange light filtering around a bend in the tunnel. They approach in silence. It’s a burial chamber: Three skeletons rest against the dark basalt walls, their glassy bones faintly glowing with an amber color. Their armors are rusted through, their weapons corroded to jagged stumps, what remains of their skin is tight parchment over the embered bones. They hear a noise. Something is being dragged against the rock. They see the arm of a skeleton moving. It’s the arm wielding the sword. They take a step back, but it’s too late, as all the three skeletons rise together in an instant, metal clinging against snapping bones.

Embered skeletons: HP 5, 3, 2; Armor 1; half damage from fire (ouch!) 

I decide to give Gryorg +1 to Str and Dex rolls, and +0 to the rest. He attacks with the hammer: 1d6 damage with advantage. Armor 2, HP 7.

Round 1: Amina and Gryorg have initiative. Amina burns the third skeleton, Gryorg hits the second. Amina dodges, Gryorg gets hit but the damage is absorbed.

Round 2: Amina fails her spell (inner flame goes to 3), Gryorg hits and destroys the first skeleton. Amina dodges the attack of the second skeleton.

Round 3. With a combination of fireball and hammer attack they destroy the two skeletons.

They leave the smashed and burned skeletons far behind, but not all their bones: They pick a few bones and they are using them as torches, as they are far better than the meagre light of the magical flint and steel.

Roll for exits: 2. They take left.

- Entering the 3rd area:
UD: Failed! Area type: Hazard, Dex. I decide it’s a hot lava stream. Roll for Dex to jump: Both succeed. Roll for exits: 1. They press ahead.

- Entering the 4th area:
UD: Failed! Area type: Boon: Shortcut, we go down to d4 for the UD. Roll for exits: 1. Ahead they go!

- Entering the 5th area:
UD: Success! So this is the boss room.

As they keep walking, the cave warmth slowly fades. The tunnel slopes down, curving away from the dry heart of the volcano, and spiraling into the earth’s moisty belly. Soon they find the air humid, and scanty waterdrops drip somewhere ahead. Then the glimmering bone light shows pale threads on the rock, thin as spider silk. They look at each other: It’s mycelium. It spreads across the stone ahead in delicate patterns. Twenty steps more and it thickens. Fifty steps and it now covers walls, floor, and ceiling like a soft white carpet of fungal growth. The stone disappears beneath it. They walk on the hyphae and mycelium now, and they yield under their feet, spongy and damp. It smells rot, earthy, and old.

Finally, the tunnel opens into a chamber. The fungus is thick here, hanging in curtains from the ceiling, pooling on the floor in horrid mounds. The air is misty and filled with spores. Gryorg is extremely cautious, and ready to go back; the Pyromancer is going straight ahead instead, with feverish certainty, led by her flint and steel. The treasure of the Flame is too close to stop now.

The ancient pyromancer has been embedded into the mycelium wall for time immemorable. He is dead and long gone, and yet he awakes, utterly disturbed by the presence of the intruders. He is a husk of carbonized flesh dominated by the fungus growing through his ribcage, and wrapping around his skull and body. Clutched in his hands, and clearly visible through the fungal threads, rests a book, the Tome of the Erudite Flame.1

Undead Fungus Pyromancer (UFP): 8HP, armor 1. Per the manual, he casts Flame Blast. I can't find the spell description, so I blend two spells with similar names: d6+1 damage with area effect.

Round 1. Given the situation, UFP has the initiative. UFP attacks and both have to defend, since the area effect. Both dodge! Amina fails her fireball (Inner flame goes to 4). Gryorg engages the boss with the hammer and misses, but at least now they are separate and won't be subject to the area effect.

Round 2. UFP attacks Amina, and she rolls an enhanced failure! She gets 7 damage and goes down to 4 HP, plus she is staggered (all checks at disadvantage for 1 round). She attacks at disadvantage nonetheless, gets a hit, but the damage is absorbed. Gryorg attacks and smashes the hell out of  UFP!, who is now down to 3 HP.

Round 3. UFP attacks Gryorg, but Gryorg dodges. Gryorg attacks with the hammer and misses. Amina casts a fireball, succeeds, and completely fries UFP!

The undead pyromancer lies twisted on the ground, burned black: Dead, again. The fungus that webbed through his rotting flesh is charred and brittle, still smoking faintly. The strong odor of burned stuff is filling the room. He still holds the Tome in hands: Thick leather binding, dark metal clasps. The flames licked around it but did not damage it. Of course they didn’t. Gryorg moves closer to the corpse.

Amina’s voice cuts through the smoke: “Is it still there? Do you see it? Is it intact?” She is still ecstatic and shivering after casting so many spells, her hands bursting hot flashes of pleasure and calmness through her arms to her brain.

Gryorg does not reply. He kneels beside the corpse, grabs the Tome, yanks it free. The dead flesh and mycelium tear and give way easily. Then he runs.

In Episode 5, the Oracle decreed that Gryorg will "do something bad" to Amina. He is now a disciple of the Flame. He wants the Tome. So I asked the Oracle: Will Gryorg attack Amina? No, but... But he will steal the book.

Next Episode

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

She did not sleep well. She was, and is, too excited and anxious. (Also, there was the giant drake bat who woke her up by sinking its filthy teeth in her chest while she was sleeping.)

But the sun is up now, the campfire burned out and died during the night, and the Basalt Caverns stand in front of her, at the bottom of the volcano. And there are tens of them! Mouths of ancient empty lava tubes, some large as burrows, some twice her size. All half-buried in ash. The flint and steel, warm against her ribs, pulses with a quiet urgency. She chooses one narrow opening just tall enough to crawl through. Better to say, she feels that she should go in there.

Alright, we go with the delving rules of Tome of the Pyromancer.

Test the UD d8: 1! Great, this means our next roll will be a d6. We’re getting closer to the tome.

Roll for exits: 1 exit, so I envision a corridor going straight ahead.

She takes her hat off and drops onto her stomach and drags herself inside. A few steps inside the cave and she feels the warmth of the volcano. She shivers, her bones rattled, after some many long night sleeping out in the cold. The rock is sharp; sometimes she scrapes against the jagged walls and cuts herself, leaving thin lines of blood on her elbows and thighs.

Roll for area type: NPC. Humm...
Roll for NPC: Knight. Not good.
Reaction roll: Neutral/cautious. That's better! Now I need to figure out why a knight is in this cave.

I roll on the Descriptor, Action, and Spark tables, and I get: Strange, Question, Settlement. Ok, I have enough.

I decide this is the exact same knight the Pyromancer met on Episode 2, who was looking for her. She could hide back then, but not anymore. And this guy can have only *one* reason to follow her and not be hostile. (The only thing that sucks, narratively speaking, is that she already had the Relic Hunter following her in Episode 4; so this is the second person to come along. But dice have spoken.)

When the corridor finally widens she gasps in relief, kneeling on gritty basalt. Her breath echoes strangely. Then there is another sound, behind her. Soft at first, then unmistakable: something crawling behind her, dragging metal against stone. A human voice: “Wait!”

She runs. Foot wraps slapping ash. The glow of her flint and steel throws monstrous shadows along the tunnel walls. She reaches a split in the ancient tube and turns left. Instantly she feels along her spine it’s the wrong choice, but it’s already too late, as she hears the footsteps following her. Then the corridor ends abruptly, and she is trapped. She turns around, and watches an armored figure holding a torch.

She is running for narrative reasons, but for the game, she is still in the NPC area. For the same reason, I put her in a cul de sac. The other corridor at the junction is the one exit I rolled earlier.

She knows him. The knight from the swamp; the one she avoided, the one whose eyes were already wrong. The same deep green eyes, though glazed now with thirst; the same chainmail, clotted with old dried mud; the same monstrous warhammer. He tries to smile, and raises a hand to greet her: “My name is Gryorg.” His teeth look crooked, his skin is dry and cracked. He seems tired. It seems his own armor is weighting him down.

“Did my mother send you, too?”

“Your—what? Your mother?” Her voice cracks with disbelief.

He shakes his head. His voice is deep and fatigued: “No. I heard there was a pyromancer in the swamp. The same pyromancer who burned treants along with half the forest. Everyone fled. But I followed your fires.” He swallows with difficulty. “I followed the fancy guy who was following you. Asked about you, at the village, when people were packing. He always walked faster than me, always knew where to go. I wanted to warn you. But I found his corpse. It was all burned. I see you have his hat.”

“Gryorg, what do you want from me?”

He steps closer: “Teach me. Teach me how a small girl, alone, unarmed, survives Thennborg and Carthagien. Teach me how to find the fire.”

Her fingers tighten around the flint and steel: “It wasn’t me,” she murmurs. “The Flame itself found me. There are venerable sages hidden in these lands. They could teach you. Not me.”

“There must be a reason you crawl into this cavern. You are headed somewhere. Let me help you.”

“So,” she thinks out loud, “I don’t want to burn you. And you won’t leave. And the Flame desires disciples. So I’ll tell you: I’m looking for a book. A book with the knowledge of the Flame. The flint and steel guide me like a dowser’s rod, but for fire instead of water. This quest is sacred.”

Based on what she said, Gryorg is considering he could smash her head with her hammer, steal the flint and steel, and find the book himself. Because he *knows* what she is capable of; however, he *sees* an unarmed, frail girl covered in filth in front of him.

I roll Presence for the Pyromancer: Success! He is convinced to follow her.

The knight drops to his knees. Stone scrapes his greaves: “Please, bless me! Allow me to follow.”

A sound escapes her—half sob, half breath. She holds her tears, surprised by how strongly this stranger moved her. The Flame desiders disciples. She reaches out with the flint and steel towards his bowed head.

Gryorg asks, wild-eyed, voice trembling: “Can I hold it?”

“No. Never.”

“Then… Can I at least touch it? Just once?”

Will she? Roll for the Oracle: Yes, and... and the Flame will give Gryorg something.

She hesitates, then nods.

The moment his fingertips brush the warm metal, agony rips through her. It feels as if someone is draining her lymph and blood through invisible wounds, as though a deep cut in her womb were pouring out a bucket of warmth. She gasps, clutching her stomach. The knight’s breath hitches. His iris shifts—green swallowed by dark crimson, unnatural and beautiful. His skin tightens, drying even more, darkening to something like leather.

Gryorg is being possessed and changed by the Flame. Does this drain her magic? That is: Did Gryorg steal part of her power? I ask the Oracle: No, but... But he will do something bad to her. I will keep this omen like a chip to play in the future.

Gryorg rises reverently. He no longer looks tired. His voice is filled with maniacal hope: “Thank you. My soul belongs to you now. Our pact is sealed. How should I address you?”

“I was called Amina, once. But it does not matter anymore.”

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