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.

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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.

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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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