Morgan's Dead of Winter 2024 Adventures

I hadn't gone to Dead of Winter for several years due to the Covid pandemic. I did do two online DoW conventions during those years, 2020 & 2021. This was the first in-person gathering for me since 2018.

It was fun meeting everyone again. I did forget that the game times started sliding towards 1am and I'm getting too old for late nights. The game times started later and later because the night owls can't get up and get breakfast before 11am. My general bedtime is close to 10pm. I did suffer and didn't recover until Saturday the following week. So, it took me 6 days to recover. Ugh.

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SATURDAY DECEMBER 14, 11AM-5PM (game was about 5 hrs).

The Auction

GAME SYSTEM: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition

SETTING: Modern

GM: Michael Ripley

VARIATIONS: Standard rules

POWER LEVEL: Experienced characters / More worldly than starting characters

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5 

CHARACTERS PROVIDED?: Yes

TONE: Initially socializing, making deals, and bidding wars. Gives way to slow moving unexpected horror.

TAGS: Invite only auction, Unique items, Occult items, Personal interaction, Mystery behind the scenes, Murders

PLAYERS: Aaron V (Marek - Vatican Priest), Renee M (Rook - Govt Worker), Kevin S (Moreau - Investigative Reporter), Jim M (Tanaka - HK Gangster), Morgan Hua (Walsh - Aging Movie Star)

Perhaps the largest collection of occult items in the world was hidden during World War Two, locked away by the mysterious Walter Von Krebes. Now it is 2025 and he has died. All of his possessions have been left to his grandson, Manfred Von Krebes. Manfred needs money and is selling off his grandfather’s occult collection at an exclusive auction to be held at his secluded, high-security manor house in the remote wilderness of Canada. 

While Manfred does not believe in the supernatural or magic, his select group of guests are of a different mind. They each have their own reasons for wanting the arcane items that are listed in the yellowed inventory ledgers of Walter Von Krebes.

I originally thought this scenario was The Auction from the collection of scenarios called The Asylum. I heard vague things about The Action, so I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to play in it. Well, actually Mike Ripley wrote a completely new scenario and incidentally named it The Auction.

That said, I still enjoyed this game.

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PCs sort of know each other via online interactions, a loose society of investigators. The first thing we did was reveal to each other what items we were interested in. We learned we're not bidding against each other and could help during the bidding. Instead of a set amount of funds, we're using our Credit Rating and die rolls, getting a bonus die if an associate helped, but if they helped you win, they would get a penalty die later on. This takes the focus off of the auction, but I actually would have loved to do a real auction spending our Credit Rating instead.

When we arrive to be picked up by a sketchy bus, we get taken to the bottom of a gondola that takes us up to a mountain chalet. Armed guards meet us at the bottom. This sets off our alarm bells right away. We also have only 4 other NPCs with us who are attending the auction.

At the chalet, we find there's chairs for 50 bidders, but we've only got a handful of bidders at the auction. Looking around the chalet, we found antiques everywhere, making us think there's no reason for the owner to auction anything off, especially these occult items.

The occult items are in special lead encased boxes (with lead-crystal panes) and we're given the providence of each item, to ensure that the items are genuine since we can only look, but not touch them.

After winning most of our desired items, yeah, some of us didn't get what we wanted. As Manfred wheels the items to the vault (out of sight of the PCs), he's assaulted (gunshots are heard), and the vault is closed and the items are missing. Broken glass is on the floor.

Then it's 10 little Indians as guests start dying.

In the end, the PCs break into the vault, uncovering Manfred in the center of it all, sacrificing people at the auction, using the possessed doll. During the fight, the PCs recover a sacrificial knife and use it to kill Manfred.

The PCs get the artifacts that they wanted. Manfred is dead. Hook (CIA) and Moreau (Interpol?) stuck around with Interpol to cleanup. The rest of the PCs left with their treasures.

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SATURDAY DECEMBER 14, 7PM-1AM (game lasted 4 hrs, Ten Candle games generally are 4 hrs and are hard to sustain for longer than that).

Ten Torches

GAME SYSTEM: Ten Candles

GENRE: Dark Fantasy Horror

GM: Anthony Brown

VARIATIONS: NA

POWER LEVEL: NA

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5

CHARACTERS PROVIDED: Yes

TONE: Dark D&D

PLAYERS: Josh C (Hobbit - Pack Mule), J Murray (Orc - Hygienist), Alicia H (Human - Animal Handler), Kevin H (Human - Apothecary), Morgan Hua (Dwarf - Chalk Marker)

The Heroes left you in the last chamber they cleared, before going off to slay the Mad Goblin Wizard behind all the chaos of the last few months. While you were cleaning their gear and preparing to leave this foul hole in the ground there was a loud bang, a horrible smell, and the world went black. Somehow the five of you found the remaining 12 torches and sat waiting for the heroes to return.

That was two torches ago, maybe you should look into what has happened...

This was originally going to be a game run by Jack Young, his Privateer game which we've been asking him to run for us. But he had a bicycle accident and we got a replacement game. So, from high anticipation, we get a Dungeon Crawl with 10 Candles. I don't like D&D and dislike dungeon crawls. I've played Ten Candles and to me it's a pickup game and as most narrative story games, it depends on what the other Players bring to the table. So, from high anticipation, I got low, low expectations. And for me, this game was exactly what I expected. I didn't really enjoy it.

After playing this, I saw so many things, I as a GM. would have done to make this a better game.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

First of all, the GM didn't emphasize that we're going to die, so you should make this thing as interesting as possible. So, when asking for Truths we got some pretty boring ones.

The problem was, some Players thought they were going to live and acted as cautious as possible to last as long as possible. Boring! Yep, totally boring. (That's why I hate dungeon crawls).

The GM asked me a few times to describe the next room. So, I tried to make it as interesting as possible, but maybe I should have gone way, way overboard and added crystal structures and soaring buttresses. Unfortunately, I stuck with LotR imagery. So, that was one of the issues. The GM should have had some set pieces for us with amazing scenery, to help set the tone instead of asking the Players to come up with everything. As, John said (I spoke to him the next day), there's a thin line between Player participation and GM laziness. I felt we were in GM laziness territory.

At one point, the GM gave the Apothecary an Elven light. Then he handed me a note telling me that I don't trust Elven stuff. So, in a game where each light lets us live longer, the Elven light basically breaks the game. I let it slide a little biding my time. But the GM prompted me twice to do something about the Elven light, so I then went and destroyed it in the next scene. Yeah, pretty heavy handed by the GM. Of course, I got some blow back from the other PCs (which I expected).

In the game, we're chased by some shadowy thing, so it was a race to exit the mines. At some point, we noted that there were no stars in the sky (looking up through a rock chimney). We met some Elves trying to save the day (going deeper) as we were going up and out (one of them had dropped the Elven light). A Paladin (one of the dead heroes) who was now undead trying to keep us there. An underground lake and river and waterfalls. The Apothecary kept on trying to extend the life of the torches (a few times) which only succeeded in putting another light out.

In the end, the Orc and Dwarf died in the mine and joined the undead. I'm not sure what happened to the Hobbit (he did die). The two humans got out of the mine, but found the world shrouded in darkness. Welcome to the Apocalypse.

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SUNDAY DECEMBER 15, 11AM-5PM (game was about 5 hrs including a long system intro/tutorial).

Dreamland

GAME SYSTEM: Dreamland

SETTING: A low-tech, exotic fantasy world

GM: Aaron Vanek

VARIATIONS: N/A

POWER LEVEL: 1

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5 

CHARACTERS PROVIDED?: Made at table 

TONE: Dreamland is a wondrous, sometimes scary, sometimes heavy game, set in a low-tech, exotic fantasy world, in which the players are isolated adventurers. 

TAGS: Fantasy, Word-based Mechanic, Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft, Kij Johnson

PLAYERS: Matt A (Merchant), Arthur P (Egyptian Poet), Bill L (Soldier), Josh C (Troubadour), Morgan Hua (Kabok the Cook)

Beyond time and space lies Dreamland, an ancient world formed from the hopes and fears of humanity. You are a dreamer, one of the rare few who can enter Dreamland with consciousness intact. In the waking world, you might be an artist, a traveler, or someone for whom dreams are their only escape. In the dream world, you could be a merchant, a beggar, a soldier, a queen, etc. 

In Dreamland, you go on adventures and travel to marvelous lands, on perilous roads through deserts and jungles, to the lairs of strange peoples, beasts, and dragons…or perhaps even further than this, east of the sun and west of the moon. But your dream self does not remember all of your waking life, or vice versa. Only a few Memories of your waking life remain, and these Memories are your lifeline between the real world and Dreamland. Lose all your Memories and you will be forever lost in Dreamland, leaving your waking-world body behind…

Dreamland is a tabletop RPG coming in 2025 from Exalted Funeral. Dreamland is inspired by the fantasy stories of Lord Dunsany; H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story; Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities; and Kij Johnson’s The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe. Dreamland, like Wonderland or Slumberland, is as much a land of fairytales as of dreams. Dreamers don’t explore people’s individual dreams, but a collective ur-reality of myths, legends and visions. While dreamers can alter reality like in movies such as Inception, DMs and players might find more inspiration in surreal fantasy films and shows like Labyrinth, The Fall, The Wizard of Oz, the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Keiichi Sigsawa’s Kino’s Journey and Over the Garden Wall.

I think game system description took 40 mins or so. It was a bit complex and did need the system overview. Basically, there are words belonging to 5 categories dropped on the table (15 words are always on the table and maintained by the GM). To succeed in an action, you need to beat a set number and sometimes +1d6. There are easy tasks and opposed tasks. Easy tasks, you are given the target number. Opposed tasks, you are given the range, such as 3 + 1d6. You must string words from the table. Each word is +1. If you have the right skill, you get +1d6. If you have an appropriate power, you can get 2x to words in the matching category. There are other powers which break or bend the rules.

This system was very different from most RPGs and I really enjoyed this.

The words are curated much like fridge poetry magnets. One set is Dunsany often used words. Another was Lovecraft's. This helps with evoking the setting. I still can't get over the fact that Bill was able to string his words together in iambic pentameter. WTF, Bill. You put me to shame. 😀

We first got to pick a random waking self out of 30+ envelopes with a hint (3 PC memories) of what was inside (PC's full description). I found out that this was not that important as 90% of the time we're in our sleeping selves. 10% is spent in the sleeping world. But you do have your waking world knowledge, but not the skills. We're basically lucid dreamers. What was important was the 3 memories as they define your Pillars for dream Marvels.

Then we picked various Roles from a stack of sheets (24 different Roles). We were instructed to look at a handful, find the 3 most interesting, and then pick 1. This was your sleeping self, your main PC.

We did the adventure and then woke up. Basically, the waking self is much like the Winter phase in Pendragon or the HQ phase in Vaesen. You get a short vignette when you wake up.

Of the games I played, this was my favorite game at the convention. You can get the QuickStart here.

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The game starts with the PCs enjoying their dream life. Then people start losing their memories. PCs investigate this and learn that butterflies where stealing people's memories. The PCs are on the case, chasing down the source of the butterflies. The butterflies land on sleepers and extract a memory through their ear, as a soap bubble with the memory displayed inside, then they carry the delicate soap bubble away.

PCs follow the butterflies (with the help of a hawk, one of the PCs spoke bird) from city to city. As the PCs venture towards the source, the memory loss of the locals are worse and worse. Some are just in memory loops, starving and dying. Animals are untended. Things are left undone. PCs also have to deal with attacking swarms of butterflies. My PC is from the 1920s, so suggested mosquito nets and another PC fashioned a magical one via a Marvel. You spend 1/2 a memory and lots of words to make a Marvel. The Marvels you can do are limited by what Pillars your memories belong to.

In the final town, we found a totally mind-wiped populace, reprogrammed to worship The Bishop and fashioning weapons for him. An army was being gathered from his newly acquired lands. Above this town was a castle floating on a pink cloud, the abode of The Bishop.

In the finale, we get to the castle via a giant beanstalk grown from a magical bean (we created this Marvel). The main baddie is some thought creature, not a dreamer. We battled its minions (soldiers and butterflies) and defeated them (with turncoat soldiers, birds, and tornadoes). Then we were given a choice of either negotiating or fighting the unprotected Bishop. I opted for a deal. It returned my 1/2 memory I used to make a storm* (in an effort to destroy the floating cloud and making the castle crash into the ground, not really suicide as we established if we died, we'd wake up), but modified, in my memory of a circus act, in the audience was the Bishop. I took back the memory in exchange for returning any surviving memories it had and to never return to our dreamworld again.

When we awoke, all in our different time periods, and our real bodies, I saw the Bishop in the circus audience (in the waking world, I'm a circus Snake Lady). It had now entered the waking world, ready for world domination.

PCs that spent or lost memories, have to do a saving throw. Only the Troubadour suffered from the lost memory and woke up Exhausted. Others recovered their lost 1/2 memories.

There's a potential for future campaign here where the PCs meet in the dreamworld, setting up ways to defeat The Bishop in the waking world. The good news is The Bishop is in 1920s, in the future of all the other PCs, spanning from ancient Egypt to the Industrial Revolution, giving us time to plant things in the waking world's past for future PCs to defeat The Bishop.

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For the storm*, I used 7 Wonder word cards which are "???" cards and you have to use nonsense words. The other players looked at me like I was crazy. I went with Bed knobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins. "Bippy Boppity Bop, spin The Bishop like a top, etc." Part of the game was a Doom clock that progressed, doing Marvels came with side effects based on how many categories you used, so it was beneficial to use only one category at that point.

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SUNDAY DECEMBER 15, 7PM-1AM (game was about 5 hrs).

A-Paw-Calypse Meow

GAME SYSTEM: Year Zero Engine

SETTING: Modern

GM: Morgan Hua

VARIATIONS: Animals can talk to each other

POWER LEVEL: Pets of Rich and Famous People

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5 

CHARACTERS PROVIDED?: Yes

TONE: Darkly Humorous (Dale & Tucker vs Evil, Evil Dead 2, Shaun of the Dead)

TAGS: Horror Tropes, Apocalyptic, Cannibalism, Harm to Animals

PLAYERS: Aaron V (Snoop Catt), Frank F (Tinkerbell), Matt R (Wild Thang), Mike R (KFC), Renee M (Byrd)

You play Jackie Chan's Squirrel, Samuel Jackson's Parrot, Snoop Dogg's Cat, Paris Hilton's Chihuahua, and Gary Busey's Dog. Your human is at some charity event and they abandon you at the hospitality suite. As the world spirals into collapse, you must work together to survive and travel to your wormiest heart of darkness.

I had an excellent, amazing, and great table and Matt R brought the most-est Gary Busey jokes and Wild Thang antics. I don't think anybody could have done better with that PC.

I laughed really hard and had a great time. Sorry, Matt Steele, I think it was 90% humor and 10% horror.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

Funny bits and Highlights:

Hospitality suite hostess shines red laser dot to amuse Snoop Catt. Catt totally ignores it. Tinkerbell grabs beef bone bigger than herself and drags it into her cage. "Polly wants a cracker?" asked the hostess. Byrd, "Say WHAT?"

Wild Thang decides the sewer outlet pipe is a safe place to spend the night. Watches stick float by which is really an alligator. PCs fight the alligator and leave the sewer. They look for another safe spot and Wild Thang spots the same sewer outlet. All other pets fail their roll. They spend the night in the same sewer outlet.

Every non-Gary looks like George Takai to Wild Thang. (George Takai had hung out with Gary Busey sometime in the past).

"Does the can have a picture of a dog on it? I'm not eating that!" Wild Thang.

After discovering leftover drinks on a bar, "That's Gary water," Wild Thang.

Tinkerbell with her magic butt and peeing on everything.

KFC with his signature attack, Tail Swirling Smack Attack (if I remember that right). KFC with his repeated Mission Impossible entries into roof exhaust vents.

Butkus refuses to leave hospitality suite and says his human will punish him. The Pets convince him to leave the room, but he doesn't leave the hotel. Later, Zombie Butkus and Zombie Silvester Stallone show up. "His human did punish him. Oops."

Zombies are smelly old people who shuffle slowly, but they're "Rough Petters" as per Wild Thang. "Stay away from the Rough Petters."

Byrd sees Alf through an upper story window and totally loses it laughing. KFC climbs the ledge and sees Alf and totally loses it. Byrd and KFC can't describe Alf to the other PCs. PCs plan an ambush on Alf. Snoop Catt meows outside of Alf's door. "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty." Then the sound of a can opener. "Don't fall for it," shouts Byrd. Alf opens the door, all the other Players lose it and laugh. PCs combo-attack Alf and he falls down the stairs, breaking his neck.

Catt fails stealth roll and gets attacked by Cocaine Bear! Wasn't a pretty sight. Wild Thang gives Cocaine Bear the Medusa Stare and it dies from a heart attack (3 damage, the exact amount of damage to finally take down the bear). Probably too much cocaine. 😀

Catt licks frozen Snoop Dogg and gets his tongue stuck.

Byrd walking around and talking to other birds. And Catt sneaking up on birds.

Byrd realization, "Those cats had us do all the dirty work for them." Which was true. What did you expect from cats?

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Morgan's Illusion Horror Con 2024 Excellent Adventures

The free online horror convention. They have raffles of physical and digital prizes. The raffle money goes to various charities.

I bought several Kult books, but I can't get my weekly gaming group interested in playing, so this time, I signed up for all the Kult games possible. And ... I got into no Kult games. But later, I got into two Kult games via the wait list.

After playing more Kult. I think the 2d10 PbtA system is a neutral system for Kult. What I mean is, if you play Alien RPG, the Stress & Panic system adds greatly to the game and supports it very well. Kult's PbtA system doesn't add nor subtract from the game play. It's just there. The system is serviceable, but what differentiates Kult from other horror games is the setting.

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12/6/24 Fri 10am-2pm (4 hrs)

The Blizzard's Teeth

System: Kult: Divinity Lost

GM: SpoJino (Joseph)

4 Players: manbeartroll (Lucie the teenager - Brian), yashtruna (Fergus the muscle - Dominika), rocinate_on_focus (Eve the hunter - Robert), Morgan Hua (Jacob the leader)

Pregens: provided

Content Warnings: Body horror, Loss of agency, possible PvP

Strangers eye each other across the frosty courtyard of the mountain compound. Outside the blizzard howls. The horrific storm has seemingly claimed some of your companions already who had sought a way back to rugged mountain roads. Communication with the village below has been spotty at best, and only getting worse as the blizzard gets stronger. Everyone has their own reasons for being here, as the CEO’s mountain retreat offers more than shelter from the raging storm. You have not all arrived here together, nor are you all known to each other. What you do know is that this place should have had, at most, a minimal staff presence to maintain the compound during the harsh winter months. At the moment, it’s unclear if the greater threat is the growing storm outside or the suspicious faces around you.

GM said this was a fantasy survival horror scenario written by Scott Dorward which he reimagined as a modern Kult game. We had a good table of Players and I really enjoyed this game.

This game wasn't designed for Kult, nor really used the Kult mythos, so even though the game was good, it wasn't a Kult game in my mind.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

There's 3 groups of PCs. The gang of kidnappers (Jacob and Fergus), the "kidnapped" girl (Lucie) who's working with the kidnappers, and a group of "lost" hikers (Eve).

The kidnapped girl is in on the kidnap plot and suggested the scheme to the kidnappers, also suggested her dad's mountain retreat as a hideout. The kidnappers know each other, but are strangers to the girl. The lost hikers aren't lost, but are looking for evidence of Satanism at the mountain retreat.

Something "out there" is killing the kidnappers in a grisly fashion, but they're all trapped in there by the raging storm. The something has also killed some of the hikers.

Jacob is waiting for the money to be transferred into a Swiss bank account. In the basement, Fergus murdered the staff and hid their bodies. Tina, the tech person monitoring the money transfer is dead, frozen in a bedroom. A little girl shows up, afraid of Fergus as she had witnessed the murder of her parents. Jacob finds the bodies, but locks her in the basement anyway.

The hikers search the resort and find a ritual room. Eve connects with the altar and murders the other hikers, hoping to take the power for herself. She must also kill Lucie to take her power.

Fergus is convinced that this was all a setup and trap by Lucie and that she must die.

In the end, there's PvP as Jacob tries to escape the retreat with Lucie (who has supernatural powers and had healed Jacob). Fergus and Eve shoot at the car Jacob is driving. He crashes open the front gate, but bullets take out his tires and the truck goes off the road. The camera pulls out as we see a helicopter veer towards a helicopter landing pad at the back of the resort. Jacob screams to Fergus that this isn't necessary, that they've got the money. The screen fades to black and the credits roll.

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12/6/24 Fri 4-8pm (4 hrs)

Bad Apple

System: CoC

GM: J. Michael Arons (jarons20)

4 Players: JohnLapoint (Dennis the laborer - John), JustinLapoint (Evelyn the doctor and Arthur's daughter - Justin), Morgan Hua (Arthur Ashmore the Scientist)

Pregens: provided.

Content Warnings: Infertility, Sexual Violence

1920s, England. A Town suffering a bad harvest. Can the Investigators find the cause and end the corruption?

This was a play test and an interesting scenario, but I felt the pacing was a bit too slow for my tastes.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

What's interesting about this scenario is that it's Mythos-tinged, but the PCs approach this via the scientific method and in the end, the PCs solved this via science!

The trees aren't bearing fruit, the cows and sheep aren't conceiving, nor are the women in the township. There's a taint in the soil and water. This is found through investigation.

PCs enter through the old growth forest and found a pile of rocks created when the farmers cleared the land hundreds of years ago. This area seemed heavily contaminated. There, Arthur spots a Dark Young, and tells everyone to run. They flee, hearing something large stalking them, finally escaping by putting a river between them and the Dark Young.

Research brought up that the current lord's family had accused another family of witchcraft and the witch was hung and the land taken by the lord's family. The land taken was closest to the old growth forest.

Soil samples and water samples point to a fungal contaminate. The only thing that would kill it is uprooting all the orchards, adding a fungicide to the soil, and burning the old growth (in a controlled burn) that is the source of the fungus. This is reported to Lord Heatherton, the land owner. The lord precedes to eradicate the fungus as advised.

The burning wood emits a harsh black smoke, affecting the health of the town. 12 women claimed they were raped by a devil and gave births to malformed children. The land never recovered and was turned into an airfield in WW2. Unknown to the PCs, a descendant of a witch had returned to the town and summoned dark forces. The lure of a cure to infertility was used to create her new coven. Those women lost their minds when they saw Pan (an aspect of one of the Elder Gods) and were raped by him.

The PCs (Arthur and Evelyn) left after the controlled burns were started. Dennis worked the controlled burns and plowed up the land. Other than Arthur seeing the Dark Young (other PCs didn't see it), there was no other indication of anything supernatural. Stories of witches 300 years ago was just folktales, greed, and superstition.

I liked how the scenario tied in the Mythos to aspects of witchcraft.

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12/7/24 Sat 11am-1pm (2 hrs, game was in a full 4 hr slot, but GM told us it was a short game)

Getting the Band Back Together

System: CoC

GM: Scott Dorward

4 Players: EerieLunarose (Perry St James - guitarist), ghost_crystal (Moxie Mutter - manager), automeris_io (Robin St James - bassist), Morgan Hua (Aubrey St James - singer)

Pregens: provided.

Content Warnings: Body horror, violence, harm to animals, possible PvP

Massachusetts, 1928. This latest tour has not been going well for your band. Interpersonal tensions are running high and the band is on the verge of splitting up. Maybe a nice stay in the country is just the thing you need to rebuild your sense of togetherness.

This was a very fun game, but it's more of an incident than a full scenario. Thus the 2 hour run time.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

Scott gave us a list of grievances PCs had against each other. We were supposed to pick and choose and confer and agree. I said, can we just wing it, and use those things as we see fit, then let the other Player decide if the accusations are true or false? We can just play it out. Everyone agreed.

I wound up having an alcohol problem. Another PC smelled and used too much cologne. Etc.

PCs start off arguing in their van, then a tree shows up in the middle of the road and we have an accident. The PCs wake up in a single bed. Wearing only a simple nightshirt, covered in ointment.

We discover the all so helpful Agnes and Frank. They had rescued us, but Agnes had to cut off our clothes to tend to us. Agnes gives us tea and soup. Moxie has a rash, maybe an allergic reaction to the ointment. While outside, trying to wash off the ointment in the rain, there's some odd tortured animal sounds that Moxie hears. Moxie finds something growing in the pustules on her flesh and screams. Aubrey goes to help Moxie and sees a multi-goat-blob in the animal pen during a lightning flash. All the PCs eventually see this.

Aubrey and Robin start to merge via ropey flesh that burst out of their boils. Agnes explains it's a good thing for the Mother. Our flesh will heal her. There's a fight and eventually, all the PCs start merging, but they had surrounded Frank and their merging flesh crushed Frank to death. Also using music and rhythm, the PCs were able to corner Agnes and murder her. Both Agnes and Frank were "woody."

The PCs leave and run into a walking-talking tree that asked us to follow it. The PCs comply and find a clearing surrounded by Dark Young chanting a ritual. Aubrey uses his singing skill to subvert their song and take it over. After a very lucky Luck roll, the ritual energy, instead of entering and transforming the PCs, enter the Dark Young and unprepared for this, they explode.

The Audrey St James Band, now a Siamese Quadruplet oddity, performs hidden behind a white bedsheet. If you're in Dunwich, drop by the venue they're playing in. It's a hoot.

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12/8/24 Sun 10am-2pm (4 hrs)

The Twins

System: Kult: Divinity Lost

GM: mrtnj (Martin)

2 Players: deviliciouz (Sam-antha Anderson, mom and programmer - Setheus), Morgan Hua (Ian, boyfriend and drug councilor)

Pregens: In-game character creation.

Content Warnings: harm to children, losing family members, self-harm, drugs, drowning, puberty, parenthood

The twins were, as one might expect, inseparable until that night. You are their parent and the new partner of their parent. Will you literally tear reality apart to get your kid back? One-shot game for two players. Character creation in game, aided by a questionnaire.

Characters are created in-game. We have a few questions to answer about the twins, ourselves, and our relationship.

Wow. Excellent Player and GM. When there's only 2 Players, everyone including the GM has to bring their A-game. No one slept on the job. A very, very enjoyable game.

This game definitely used the Kult mythos. We rarely rolled dice which was good as we mainly roleplayed. I think the system neither added nor subtracted from the game, it was neutral.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

Here are the first 3 questions from character creation:

The Parent (Sam):

• What are the twins’ names, and why did you choose them? Eva & Lilly
• Which twin do you love the most, even though you know you should love them equally? Lilly
• What is the one thing you can admit is concerning about the twins, even if you love them more than anything? They have this look of pitying sorrow when they look at you.

The Partner (Ian):

• What do you think is worrying about the twins’ behavior? They bury things in the backyard.
• What is the worst thing you have done to a child? Accidentally broke my nephew's arm while discipling him.
• What is the reason you don’t want any children of your own? Fear of loss of freedom.

Sam has twin girls, aged 6. Ian is the new boyfriend of 6 months. Game starts in 2014 with everyday life and then Ian having a nightmare. Sam wakes up and finds Eva upset and Lilly missing. Elements of what Eva witnessed were also in Ian's nightmare, a specific song, glowing green lights. Lilly is never found. There is no sign of abduction.

2022. The girls are now 14. Lilly is still missing. Ian has dreams of Lilly. She is growing up like Eva, but emaciated, wearing tatters of what she wore when she disappeared. Eva goes to a nearby woods and does a ritual to rescue Lilly, but it looks like a suicide attempt. Ian snoops around and finds Eva's journal which also describes her dreams of Lilly and a ritual that requires something of Lilly's, drugs, and sudden physical shock.

In the end, Sam goes to the woods (where Eva was found) and downs alcohol with sleeping pills. Ian goes to the living room (where Lilly disappeared) and takes a measured amount of sleeping pills and teaches Eva how to hit him with an anti-overdose drug. Sam and Ian arrive on an oil platform. They find kids hiding from a monster. Ian faces the monster and gets grabbed. Sam tries to hamstring the monster, but in doing so, all three of them (Ian, Sam, and the Monster) fall off the oil platform. (Ian and Sam both failed their die rolls).

Sam's body is found in the woods. Eva failed to bring Ian back. Eva is put in a foster home. Six months later, Lilly returns and so are a number of lost children around the world, all this relatively unnoticed.

There were a lot of cool moments. I think one was Ian having installed a GPS app on Eva's phone (Sam was against this, but he did it anyway), so he was able to find Eva in the woods (he lied and said that he's seen her go there before, so he'll go and see if he can find her there). Another time, again, he wanted to go through Eva's stuff after the suicide attempt and Sam was against it. He did it anyway and brought Eva's journal (and her hidden knife) downstairs to show it to Sam. He wanted to talk to Eva about the similar dreams, but Sam didn't want it, so Ian snuck a note into the journal telling Eva that he had similar dreams and to not tell Mom that he told her this. Of course, at one point, when Sam wanted the ritual, she found Ian's note in the journal. The nightmare Ian initially had was quite good, using various elements we had made up during character creation, going into the backyard, following footprints weaving between snow mounds that looked like graves, taking the shovels from the girls, chasing Lilly and accidentally breaking her arm.

Pippi Longstocking doll as an introductory gift to the girls for the win! (Yeah, totally uncool and I only brought one for the two girls).

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Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery - Review

This 104 page book (including endpapers and such) consisted of 4 unrelated scenarios; each set in a different season. No pre-gens were provided.

A Dance with Death (spring)
Fireheart (summer)
The Devil on the Moor (fall)
A Winter's Tale (winter)

On the maps for each scenario, I've circled Upsala in green as a reference point. Red is the destination.

Most of my sessions are 3 hours long. Different groups take different times, but my run times are here for comparison purposes.

I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.

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A Dance with Death

Season: Spring

Location: Nusnäs, Sweden
Pages: 20
Run Time: 1 session
Hook: Two cows drowned, police won't help, person suspects something supernatural did it.

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Plot: Lisbets Boel and The Neck have tricked Gustav into luring farmgirls into Lake Siljan to drown them. Gustav drowned two cows, with the magic he learned from The Neck, but chickened out when he tried to drown Pers Ida. The PCs must banish The Neck before Gustav is bewitched by The Neck, uses The Neck's fiddle, and lures all of the farmgirls into the lake.
Vaesen: The Neck (p.144 core book)
Location of Note: Lake Siljan. A fäbodvall, a summer farmstead. Kulning, Swedish herdcalling.

I watched JC's video: https://youtu.be/ZnLn9lm_4eY?si=CY8wY5QJS_SVHy9p
and downloaded his digital assets: https://1shotadventures.com/more-vtt-assets/

I found a webpage about fäbodar, summer pasturing: https://www.hhogman.se/summer-pasture.htm

I also watched some videos on Kulning, Swedish herdcalling:
https://youtu.be/MTjlM8_KLwk?si=_ON9Rfi8hAIUQRTC (interesting documentary)
https://youtu.be/KvtT3UyhibQ?si=hHA6t0dBBUJhalct (tell the PCs that's Lisbets Boel kulning)
https://youtu.be/nc7F_qv3eI8?si=5JwxApFrJmcWTCcM

Lake Siljan

Water Lilies

Vallkulla from Dalarna

Swedish Brown Bear

Each time the PCs went into the Forest, I had them roll Vigilance or run into the bear. If they succeeded, they would spot the bear and avoid it. The bear is also why the cows and goats are brought in at night. This also explains the bear trap (hidden by leaves and staked down) in front of Gustav's cabin. Otherwise, the bear trap makes him seem paranoid and crazy.

I decided that The Neck needed the human sacrifices to extend the life of Lisbets, so she would be immortal, so they could be together forever. Each life sacrificed extended her life for 5-10 years. I also noticed that it looked like The Neck wanted female sacrifices, so I decided gender likeness was required.

Swärds Jenny did suspect something supernatural because of the tapestry in the dining cabin, now missing, and stories of people drowning in the lake. Why else call The Society for two drowned cows?

Gustav's Magic is only 2, good luck with his Trollcraft spell DANCE (Observation). With two dice against the PCs having Empathy + Observation dice, the spell probably won't work. You might want to add Gustav's Empathy of 1, so give him 3 dice with the spell. I also had the PCs roll save throws each round Gustav played his instrument (vs Gustav's 3d6). Once you failed a save throw, you were entranced.

In my game, the PCs (in Countdown 1) followed the enchanted PC to the Lake and ambushed Gustav, knocking him out and took away his knife. They presented him and the tapestry they had found in his cabin to Swärds Jenny. The PCs prepared a trap made of wooden boards painted with Christian symbols and steel, and convinced both Jenny and Ida to help (expecting them to lift up the boards at the right time). They had Gustav call out to The Neck. The Neck showed up, but he made Gustav play his fiddle. Only Ida was entranced, and started walking into the lake, so the PCs stabbed Gustav's knife into the ground between Gustav and Ida breaking the spell on her. The knife symbolically cutting the link between them. One of the PCs shot the fiddle, destroying it. The Neck, pulled out another musical instrument (an instrument one of the PCs had gifted The Neck in an earlier scenario, years ago) and started playing. With Magic 12d6, that enchanted everyone. The Neck made Gustav walk slowly into the lake and drown. Once that was done, The Neck transformed into a fish and dove into the water. The PCs never figured out Lisbets involvement. But the PCs told Jenny to put up a fence facing the lake and put Christian symbols on it. This basically solved the mystery. If the PCs did manage to fence in The Neck, I was going to have Lisbets come out of hiding and free The Neck, but that didn't become necessary.

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Fireheart
Season: Summer

Location: Lake Hären. Smolandia, Sweden
Pages: 22
Run Time:  2 sessions
Hook: Brother is influenced by an evil preacher-woman, a servant of Lucifer.

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Plot: August Härenstam is actually influenced by Dragon (gold) Sickness and so is Beata Gideonsdotter, the preacher-woman. August stole dragon gold to start his ironworks and uses eternal dragon fire to run his blast furnace. The dragon has started to wake up and will notice his missing gold. The PCs must appease or get rid of the dragon before it lays waste to the countryside.
Vaesen: Dragon (p.45, Seasons of Mystery)
Location of Note: Lake Hären

I found the timeline a bit odd. In the background story, August stole the dragon fire and gold ten years ago (p.25) and was slowly affected by the Dragon Sickness (p.31). Beata had shown up a few years ago (p.36) and was affected by the Dragon Sickness after given a coin. Why does it affect Beata and the PCs so easily (p.31, Dragon Sickness)? Also, some of the gold must have been spent to start the Ironworks, so not all of the gold in the strongbox is from the dragon, it must be a mix of dragon gold and new gold. One explanation is the awakening of the dragon, increased the influence of the Dragon Sickness. But I decided to compress the timeline. August, through desperation, due to the drought, returned to the cave. He bought the failing Ironworks a few months ago with the dragon gold. With the hotter (dragon) fire, he made higher purity iron ingots, and has made the Ironworks profitable. Beata had shown up two weeks ago. Soon after, Alfred had a falling out with his brother. Then a week later, his parents died. And so he contacted the Society.

PCs wondered if there was something sexual going on between Beata and August. I had Alfred infer that that was true, part of her unholy influence. I did come up with a funny scene, but didn't get to use it. If the PCs had snuck into the Director's Villa, they could overhear August and Beata in the master bedroom making ecstatic sexual sounds, but with the odd occasional clink of gold coins (they're actually just fondling the coins).

PCs also wondered if Beata was a descendant of the sorceress who called down the rainstorm (p.28, Excerpt from Myths and Folk Tales of Smolandia). Otherwise, why would she have an obsidian knife and the Lexicanum Draconicum? (p.39, Clues). This may also explain why she showed up, but unluckily got Dragon Sickness.

p.42, The Dragon's Cave, map. It looks like there's water in there. Maybe it's dried mud from when the lake flooded the entrance, but with the dropping water level, the dragon can fly out of the big entrance to Lake Hären. I made the crevice to the small opening a tight squeeze, nothing the dragon can get through.

I also had Alfred know the location of the dragon cave entrance, but he never saw the full dragon or gold. He saw part of a scaled serpent (to keep it a secret that it's a dragon) and fled. At that time, the cave was more water logged.

In my run, the PCs split up into two groups. One got work at the Ironworks and snooped around. The other group looked around the lake. Eventually, they got Alfred to show them the cave. The PCs entered and talked to the dragon. It demanded its missing gold and interest payment. "If you don't fix this, I will." During the evening sermon, one group snuck into the Villa and stole the chest of gold. The other group joined the sermon and Inspired (multiple successes) the Ore Boys into going to the dragon cave to get the gold horde. August tried to stop them, but was unable. Beata and August followed the mob, but hung back. In the cave, the dragon easily heard the mob and breathed fire into the small tunnel, setting Ore Boys on fire. The surviving Ore Boys fled. Outside, the PCs with the stolen gold arrived. August and Beata confronted the PCs and in the fight, August was knocked out and Beata was picking up the gold (one of the PCs dumped the gold on the ground). Inside, the PCs told the dragon its gold and the thief was outside. Outside, the PCs dragged August's unconscious body away and made sure they were far enough away from Beata. The dragon showed up, breathed on Beata and ate her. It took all the gold (old and new), warned the PCs to leave it alone, and returned to its lair. The PCs took the unconscious August to his brother. When he regained consciousness, the Dragon Sickness was gone and he acknowledged his unreasonable behavior and agreed to sell the ironworks and go to America with his brother.

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The Devil on the Moor
Season: Fall

Location: Jutland, Denmark
Pages: 22
Run Time: 2 sessions
Hook: An engineer asks for help suspecting dark forces.

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Plot: Something's been damaging the steam engines at the moor. The Chief Engineer believes it's locals dealing with black magic, summoning vaesen to do their dirty work. Instead it's two local boys doing the sabotage. But the Chief Engineer is carrying Sandemann's journal and had disturbed the bones of a murdered baby, Sandemann's illegitimate baby. This gives rise to the Myling bent on revenge against Sandemann who is long dead, but its misplaced focus is on the journal and whoever is carrying it. The PCs must put the Myling to rest before it kills too many people.
Vaesen: Myling (p.142, core book)

Here's some stuff I had to infer and invent to make sense of some NPC motivations:

Signe Andersdotter was spinning tales to keep Sandemann interested in her. Making up stories that confirmed Sandemann's wildest imagination. These fantastic stories wound up in the journal.

The journal's handwritten entries and close proximity to Sandemann made it his treasure and imbued some Sandemann-ness to it, making it the focus of the Myling's hate.

The Jensen brothers had approached the Moreland Society's camp and were turned down as laborers, as the Moreland Society have their own experienced workers that they trust. This embittered the brothers and was the spark for sabotaging the equipment, making them unintended geniuses where they would claim that the draining of the moor would destroy their people as there would be no more peat to dig, justifying their actions.

I had Granny Thea collapse to her knees in tears when the PCs showed her the photo of Signe. The locals who were sharpening scythes approached menacingly, but Granny waved them away.

I made the steam engine and pumps noisy, so there was a lot of shouting. For meal times, they idled the equipment, lowering the noise, rang the dinner triangle, to call all the workmen to the dining tent which held long tables and shared benches. Massive piles of food would be put on platters and the workmen ate like machines.

The baby was drowned, so the crushed skull was just from being buried for so long in the bog, not from violence, but inspecting it is inconclusive. The damage could also have happened when it was sucked into the steam engine.

Instead of a Heron, I went with a large black raven as it seemed more like a common form used by various Vaesen.

In my run, the PCs told Granny about the infant's bones and if they are her grandchild's it should be buried with her daughter's body. Granny agreed to attend the interment. The PCs told Preben they needed the bones to put the vaesen to rest. Preben wanted to salt and burn the bones, but the PCs convinced him to hand it over, but Preben tells them if it doesn't work, he'll dig it back up and salt and burn it. Granny's not sure the bones are of the right child, so the PCs did a seance to call the infant's spirit. The black bird shows up instead, faces the PC who has Sandemann's journal and says, "Sandemann, burn, burn, burn." PC realizes the bird is staring not at his face, but at where the journal is. PC burns the journal and the bird's hate disappears and turns into a baby and it then melds into the bones in the small casket the PCs brought. Granny agrees to give her name, Thea, to the baby. And she would just be called Granny from then on. The PCs bury the baby in Signe's grave. One of the PCs is a priest and he consecrates the grave. My group did an excellent job. For flavor, when the PCs returned to the camp to get the baby's bones, I had a commotion in the camp where someone had found Jens face down in the bog, drowned.

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A Winter's Tale
Season: Winter
Location: Russia, near St. Petersburg
Pages: 20
Run Time: 2 sessions
Hook: PCs are invited to a meeting of people who know of the supernatural.

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Plot: This is a bait and switch, instead of having a scenario at the supernatural convention, the PCs suffer a coach accident and are stuck in an inn surrounded by deathly cold. Father Frost is kept out by a Nisse that is upset and withdrawing his protections. The Winchester Brothers are also at the inn and act as foils and making things worse. There is a ticking clock as Father Frost encroaches on the inn. The PCs must figure out a solution before everyone freezes.
Vaesen: Nisse (p.148, core book), Father Frost (old man winter, no stats, force of nature)
Location of Note: St. Petersburg

I watched JC's video: https://youtu.be/Bu6OeYaQtSk?si=hkmQyeUN05QnlTX0
and downloaded his digital assets: https://1shotadventures.com/more-vtt-assets/

As the above video noted, Storytelling Night is a bit heavy handed. Having the NPCs tell story after story (info dumps) is horrible. I instead would rather have this information come out when the PCs talk to the NPCs.

I made Axel and Ester husband and wife and added a love triangle. The coachman Ilya Ermakov was having an affair with Ester. I also accidentally made Imre and Krööt Trygg's children instead of the cook's, when I was running the game, I forgot who's kids they were.

I made Axel a budding casino owner, wanting to bring in entertainment in addition to card games, hoping to make his inn a destination spot instead of a stopover.

Greyfoot, the Nisse, generally appeared as a cat inside the inn and when someone tripped or had an accident, the cat would be underfoot each time. In the kitchen, the cat is fed, but not its favorite food that Ester used to give it.

In the stable are the Campbell brother's midnight black horses. In the carriage house should be the brother's black colored buckboard wagon. I'd make the wagon too small to carry everyone to safety.

In my run, the PCs cut a deal with Greyfoot, offering him a home back in the old country in Castle Gyllencreutz and a promise to show him due respect. They also cut a deal with Father Frost, giving him the inn in exchange for safe passage. As the PCs leave with all the surviving NPCs (the Trygg family with new jobs at the castle), an avalanche destroys the inn.

My Old Man Winter

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