The Character Advancement in the Book Should Only Be Half the Story

When you read a core book for an rpg, you get a sense of how characters will change as they gain experience. Whether that means getting more points to spend or gaining a level, characters tend to grow in expected ways: more "hit points," bett‚er skills, maybe a‚ttribute increases, new powers, etc.

And that’s great. Game designers have tended to a do a pre‚y good job plotting out the kind of advancements and increases that players can look forward to as their characters progress in the game.

That said, I think one of the coolest things a GM can do is to personalize the game by adding additions and advancements to characters in ways that are not in the books and that are tied directly to what has happened in the game as a result of player choices.

There are a few ways that characters change and grow in "power" that aren’t connected to "leveling up": magic items or special equipment being the first thing that comes to mind. Interestingly, a lot of GMs feel free to customize magic items for their campaigns, but they don’t seem to mess with the "by the book" notions of character advancement. The closest I’ve usually seen to that is characters changed by having to roll on mutation tables.

Here are a few examples of ways characters might advance that aren’t connected to the usual "level-ups":

Things That Happen in the Down Time

• A character has been spending time living among the recently discovered Hill Tribes -> the character learns their language and gets a bonus to know things in Hill Folk lore.
• A character has been working in-between adventures as a rat catcher -> the character could get a bonus to saves vs. disease, a knowledge of the sewers, or the ability to charm rats.

Things That Happen Due to Exposure

• Characters who have spent an extended period in Faerie -> their aging process has slowed unnaturally.
• Characters who have delved into the Genesis Pits of Amon Tut -> can now sense mummies and jackal-headed men with supernatural acuity.

Things That Happen Due to Trauma

• A character who just barely survived a vampire a‚ttack -> could develop perfect night vision as a result of a minor vampiric taint that has been passed along.
• A character who was turned to stone by a medusa and later polymorphed back -> could get a slight bonus to AC due to their flesh retaining some stone-like resilience.

Things That Happen Due to a Boon

• The characters do a particularly arduous task in the name of the Church -> the priests perform a ritual that gives them a permanent bonus to hit demons.
• The characters rescue the son of the Kung-Fu Queen -> she teaches them the Golden Sparrow Technique.

Customizing your game is cool. Character development and advancement is another place where you can add custom-cool.

The Common Tongue and the Tower of Babel

I’ve seen a good deal of pontificating about alignment languages over the years on forums and blogs; seems silly to me. 

What usually gets overlooked is the glorious expediency of the concept of Common as a language spoken throughout a campaign world. As anyone who has run a globe-spanning campaign set in a historical era of our world can tell you, it is a huge pain to juggle who can understand what based on where the players are and where they’re from. The presence of a Common tongue in a game setting side-steps all of that, giving a baseline of communication that lets you get on with the game.

But where does Common come from? It seems miraculous, really, so why not give it a miraculous origin? Here’s how I explained the existence of Common in my Ulverland setting, and how I plan on explaining it in Scarabae as well:

Every civilized man and woman in the world speaks the Common tongue because of the existence of the Lexicos Spire. Long ago the Spire was erected by wise Matriarchs who performed a ritual upon it that grants the world’s denizens knowledge of a shared language. Unfortunately, this shared language has done little to end factionalism and war as the Matriarchs had hoped it might.

(Obviously inspired by the Tower of Babel.)

The Grail Tomb Beneath The Church of St. Othric

Months have passed since the party killed Edgar Bolgakof, a vampire in league with the mysterious Master. 

Due to the valor and competence the party illustrated during the attack on the execution of Imogen Olashenko, as well as the mighty deed of having slain a vampire, the Church of Saintly Blood began to show a marked interest in the rebirth of faith in St. Othric that seems centered on the group. To this end, the Church sent Artem van Hoven, a member of the Choristers, to discuss bringing the burgeoning St. Othric movement into closer partnership with the Church.

Artem, a no-nonsense man of middle years, offered money and labor to build-up the Bolgakof castle that Pen wanted to reclaim for Othric (turning it into a barracks for the training of future Knights of St. Othric), the watchtower built in Sellvek's Hollow (turning it into the hub of a proselytizing mission led by Seraphine), and the Church of St. Othric where Tristan and company saw an act of miraculous healing (clearing the caved-in entrance to the lower floors so that further mysteries of St. Othric may be discovered).

In return for such boons, the Church did insist on some degree of oversight of the reborn Knights of St. Othric to make sure that the sect is in compliance with its teachings and in no way harbors heretical practices or beliefs. The party agreed to these terms, and thus faith in St. Othric re-emerges as a bastion against the darkness once more. And it is sorely needed, as reports of the ravages of the undead and cropping up now with alarming frequency.

Luka has officially joined the reborn Knights of St. Othric. Tristan has been busy organizing the rebuilding of St. Othric's grandeur (and perhaps plotting future forays against the undead). An exploratory expedition was sent into underground level beneath the Church of St. Othric, but the vanguard reported that it was extremely cold down in the depths and the atmosphere was too unnerving for them to bear for very long. After meeting with Artem, the group decided that they would be the ones to explore what lies beneath the church. Artem explained what little he could uncover; he said that the Church of St. Othric rested on the site of a Grail Tomb--a structure build by the ancient Lamians, a civilization the predated the rise of mankind. Since part of Othric's lore was his dedication to sealing away evil beneath his holy sites, what horrors might lurk beneath the church that carries his name?

Luka and Tristan arrived at the Church of St. Othric to find a scene of bustling activity; new buildings were being erected around the church. They also found a tall, rangy man with uncanny features lounging upon the steps leading down to the church's door. After introducing himself as Kylic, and explaining that he had followed the "bones of the earth" to the Church, he offered to accompany Tristan and Luka down into the hypogean depths--he sweetened the deal by proclaiming that he had to the power to heal any wounds they might incur as they explored underneath the site.

After a quaff of ale (Luka needed to settle his head in the wake of Kylic's dazzling wordplay) and a bit of banter with one of the bandits the party had previously converted to the service of St. Othric, the trio descended into the uncovered depths via a wooden scaffold that had been built as part of the excavation. The most evident thing at the bottom of the scaffolding was the intense and unnatural cold; all three men began to shiver uncontrollably despite it being the dog days of summer above. The next thing they noticed was that the walls were covered with engravings depicting the Lamians--many of which featured grails and goblets as motifs.

Exploration happened.

Tristan kicked open a stone door, which promptly caused an explosion of necromantic energy that nearly dissolved his flesh. Kylic felt a disturbance along the skin of the world and flattened himself against a wall to avoid the blast; Luka's superior reflexes saved him.

The group discovered an inert man-like construction made of wood and iron, slumped against the wall of a chamber as if it were crying sorrowfully.

A trio of women in black lace dresses were discovered trying to open a stone door. They attacked our heroes with baleful necromancy, but were killed without mercy. The group got a key that opened some of the chambers they discovered.

They discovered two altars, one that had a carved skull atop it and another that supported an ornate mirror with a black surface. They shut the doors to those chambers without messing with either of those objects.

An ancient bedchamber was uncovered, the four-poster bed topped with golden eagles. The walls in this chamber were carved with images depicting St. Othric fighting against a dragon-like creature.
Another room was decorated with graven images that seemed to continue the story: these depicted St. Othric and a retinue of knights dragging a bound fiend up a mountain to be fed to the conquered dragon.

A shattered door opened up into a chamber littered with pulverized bones. When Kylic strode into the room and stood upon the bones, they began to rattle and vibrate, but they eventually stopped and nothing more happened. The room next door had piles of treasure--coins mixed with miscellaneous pieces of armor and weapons--scattered on the floor. The party shut this door as well, expecting a trap.

Another altar, but this one was attended by three cloaked figures praying to a glass eye upon a brass stand. Luka didn't wait for an invitation; he fired at one of them and combat began...but none of the creatures attacked the party as such. Rather they avoided the party's attacks as best they could, while simply gazing upon their foes with fiery red eyes. The mere gaze of these beings withered the flesh and shook the souls of the adventurers. Mid-combat, one of the creatures spoke to Luka, revealing a part of his past that he generally prefers to try to forget. The battle was harrowing, but the party eventually prevailed due to the curative magic provided by Kylic, whose words above about healing sundered flesh proved accurate.

After the battle, a mysterious voice reverberated throughout the chamber, saying "You have slain the last of my faithful. Who will worship me now?" In response, Luka said, "Not me" and sent the glass eyes crashing to the stone floor...which caused it to release wisps of blue haze that matched the color of the eye's iris. The voice then said, "You have served me far better than they," and then was silent.

Their resources greatly depleted and the cold quickly exhausting their vigor, Tristan, Luka, and Kylic decided to venture back to the safety of the church above and gather their strength before continuing to explore the Grail Tomb. As they climbed back up the wooden scaffolding, Kylic heard a woman's voice singing--intoning the kind of song a woman would sing while pacing a widow's walk, staring out to sea, even though she knows her love has been lost to the waves.

* * *

The Spoils
XP - 550 each

Inspiration - Kylic gets inspiration for his delightful and bewildering performance of his personality traits

Treasure - Three small books written in Abyssal, bound in black leather

BleakWarrior

Did you know I do a podcast now with my dear friend Tenebrous Kate? Here's the pitch: "Every month (or so), Tenebrous Kate and Jack Guignol cover the weirdest, kinkiest, and most outrageous fiction they can unearth."

In this episode, Kate and Jack talk about BleakWarrior, Alistair Rennie's 2016 novel in the New Weird genre that at least one reviewer has linked to black metal. Jack provides some far more accurate (and alluring!) descriptions: "as if Soul Calibur were a porno directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky" OR "as if you got your weirdest friend drunk on cheap tequila and asked them to describe what He-Man would be like if it were dirty and a bit Shakespearean." A race of super-humans leaps through time and space in search of ultra-violent battles and super-kinky sex in this sordid tale that your hosts enjoyed far more than they should have.

The guest reader for this book is Degtyarov, founder and editor of Black Ivory Tower, a website and zine devoted to esoteric black metal and related musical genres. How black metal is this book? Do your hosts care very much? To what extremely obscure and unlikely things will they compare this novel? Will the guest reader be able to hold it together through the entire passage he's forced to read that contains all manner of abominable human behavior? Tune in to this episode of Bad Books for Bad People to find out!

Listen here!

The Hangman's Daughter

If you like Warhammer, boy do I have a book recommendation for you! Definitely check out Oliver Potzsch’s The Hangman’s Daughter. While it doesn’t have orcs, elves, or griffin-riding emperors, it does have:

• An early modern setting: Bavaria, after the Thirty Years’ War.
• A less-than-heroic cast of protagonists: a hangman (ex-soldier), a physician’s apprentice, and an herbalist.
• A plot concerning murdered children whose bodies show the marks of witchcraft, which leads to the threat of a witch-hunt hysteria.
• A murderous villain with a skeletal hand.
• A dungeon crawl through some "dwarf hole" tunnels beneath what will become a leper colony.

To me, that’s "more Warhammer" than any of the official game-related novels that feature vampire protagonists or magic-laden, invincible poets.

Worlds' End

Of course, after the momentous Brief Lives arc, the narrative of the Sandman Saga needs a pause to regroup before pushing forward--and that pause comes in the form of self-contained, single-issue stories that connect to the main plot in only minor ways. The conceit of the stories in Worlds' End is that each issue is a story told by a traveler who finds themselves stuck at the Worlds' End Inn while they wait out a "reality storm." The tales told, as well as the tellers themselves, are remarkably varied; we get a man who falls into the dreams of a city, a tale of faerie trickery, etc. Morpheus makes brief appearances in the stories, but none of the stories are really about him. 

And, at first blush, the stories don't seem to be about anything in particular. They don't connect, they don't cohere into a larger narrative moment. In a sense, they make the reader feel like they too are stuck in the Worlds' End Inn, waiting for something greater to happen.

But that feeling of suspended moments whiled away--in which stories told help us to kill time--might be the larger point in itself. What if, despite our best pretensions to the contrary, stories are only ever about passing time? What if all that muck about "expanding our point of view," "enlarging our ethical sympathies," and "coming to self-knowledge through the mirror of fiction" is all just empty justification for what we're up to when we give and receive stories? Maybe we're not making sense of the world at a fictional remove, maybe we're just watching the hour hand move round the dial at a glacial pace.

If that's what Gaiman wants us to realize, then Worlds' End is provokingly placed since it comes just before the big climax of his now epic-length series. A moment of self-doubt perhaps? (Why have I spent all this time working on this story if it has just been a distraction for the audience?) A dire warning to the reader? (This all means nothing, in the end. We're just passing the time, each and every one of us.) Toying with expectations? (I'm telling you this is a waste of time, but maybe the big stuff will start to happen and you'll have to reconsider the importance of storytelling for yourself...)

My money's on that last one.

Assault on Bolgakof Castle

Tobias, Tristan, Luka, and Pen were joined by Anton Sellvek as they looked upon the fortress of Edgar Bolgakof, a vampire belonging to the family responsible for the death of Tristan's parents. Malphas, Tobias's imp familiar, scouted the great hall beyond the iron bars of the portcullis, looking for stairs descending into the depths of the fortress. When Malphas reached the only visible door in the hall, the fungus-encrusted corpses seated at the feasting table rose, their heads turning toward the familiar. Malphas was quickly recalled, and the fungi-infected undead resumed their seats.

Deciding upon a more direct approach, Pen broke a window and clambered into the great hall. Once inside, Pen pulled the lever that raised the portcullis; the party took up their positions, and fired upon the monstrosities seated before them--taking one down instantly as it sat inert. The others rose and began approaching the party in response--save one who moved to the back of the room. The shambling horrors were dispatched one by one, but though Pen attempted to grapple the lone creature that was moving away from the melee it managed to reach the back of the hall and began pounding upon the bricks. After the brief battle, it was discovered that the creature had been hitting a specific brick that was a cunningly-disguised trigger of some sort.

The party regrouped and decided to open the door on the western wall...revealing three bone-pale, shaven headed creatures dressed in servants' garb, their long black tongues lolling wildly from mouths lined with sharp fangs. The battle that ensued was harder fought than the previous one in the great hall, but again the heroes were triumphant. Once the dust settled, they searched the room. An iron stove sat in one corner, shelves of dusty spices and seasoning lined the walls, and a wooden table occupied the center of the room--above which hung a number of pots and pans. The room also had three unexplored doors and a set of stone stairs leading upward to the next level of the castle.

They took the stairs, entering a room that held two large locked metal cages. One cage held a bald elderly man, slumped and broken; the other held a teenage girl with dark, unkempt hair who rushed wide-eyed to the bars of her cell when she spotted the entering party. Pen attempted to wrest one of the cage's doors from its hinges, but the metal loudly protested against his abuse and held fast. Anton nonchalantly proceeded to pick the locks, releasing both prisoners. Attempts were made to revive the old man, when suddenly the door that Pen had been watching swung open--more of the black-tongued servants of Edgar Bolgakof stormed into the room. Battle was once again joined, but this time a few members of the party sustained substantial injuries before besting their foes.

Tomas, the revived old man, told the group that he had been kept by the ghoulish residents of the castle as Edgar Bolgakof's nightly meal; Cassie, the teenage prisoner, feared that she was to be the vampire's next meal once Tomas was bled dry. The party decided to safeguard Tomas and Cassie by having them wait outside by the carriage while they took a short rest in the castle's main hall to lick their wounds. However, on the way to the great hall they discovered a trapdoor in the floor of the kitchen--now open. Stairs descended from the open hatch down into the depths of the castle.

After their respite, the party ventured down the stairs and discovered the vampire's crypt at the end of a winding passage carved from stone. The room was lit by a number of flickering candelabra, and a black coffin, its lid thrown open and its interior lined with soil, was ominously placed in the center of the chamber. A small alcove to the side had been outfitted with a metal bar--from which hung a number of articles of finery in velvet and other costly materials.

Pen sprinkled holy water upon the soil within the vampire's coffin, while Tristan set to work destroying the vampire's wardrobe (!!!). While hacking away at Edgar Bolgakof's collection of clothing, it was found that the alcove expanded behind the rack of finery, revealing three stone coffers holding the vampire's personal treasury and a number of curious items. It was then decided that merely defiling Bolgakof's coffin was not good enough; it was carried outside to the castle's moat and unceremonious chucked into the cloudy green mire.

Searching the rest of the doors leading from the kitchen uncovered a larder containing rough food to feed the vampire's captives, a "nest" of sorts used by his ghoulish servants, and a passage that led to the spire behind the castle. The first room of the circular spire was found to contain a number of partial corpses hanging from meat hooks, and a number of small tables upon which were piled hideous clumps of garish fungal matter. The second floor was lined with glass cases apparently meant for the growing of the fungi used in the construction of Bolgakof's undead servitors, and the third floor contained shelves of strange chemicals in glass jars. 

The third floor of the tower also featured a door that opened out onto a narrow stone bridge that connected the upper level of the spire to the balcony above the main hall of the castle. Standing at the stone rail of the balcony was Edgar Bolgakof, his back turned to the party. He gestured to the peasants waiting by the group's carriage and said, "You seem to have stolen my dinner." Pen and Tristan moved forward to attack him, while Bolgakof rushed toward them with supernatural speed. 

The party barraged him with halberd thrusts, sword cuts, pistol shots, magical blasts, and arrows--but the vampire seemed to heal rapidly from the wounds they were inflicted. Bolgakof also became more and more enraged as the battle wore on, clenching his fist so hard that his own claws bit into his flesh and drew blood. His attacks grew wilder and more ferocious, but his defense became lax. He grabbed Tristan and attempted to drain his life as he had his parents, but the paladin managed to break free from the monster's grasp. Ultimately, a dangerous spell from Tobias caused the fiend's heart to implode while his body rapidly disintegrated into the dust of the grave.

The remaining rooms of the castle were searched, uncovering a portrait gallery of painting of similarly-blonde vampires belonging to the Bolgakof family, as well as a defaced portrait of Countess Alcesta of Lamashtu. Bolgakof's library was also located; it contained a number of books hand-written by members of the vampire family detailing the history of their kind--a veritable treasure trove of information for those who would hunt them.

After this tumultuous trek into a ruin of undeath, Pen decided that the life of an adventurer was not his calling; instead, he would reclaim Bolgakof's fortress and turn into into a sacred site from which to continuing building upon the rebirth of interest in St. Othric.

And so, the scene ends with Tristan seated in a room decorated with the portraits of the vampires responsible for his family's demise, plotting which will be the next to face his holy vengeance.

* * *

The Spoils
XP
- 900 each.

Treasure 
- 639 gp each (in assorted copper, silver, gold, and platinum)
- A red pearl in velvet-lined box (Pearl of Power)
- A scroll of Crown of Madness in a lacquered wooden case
- An iron pendant shaped like a droplet of water (Necklace of Adaptation)
- 10 black iron masks chased with silver (worth 25 gp each)
- A library's worth of books about vampire history and bloodlines (do you let your recent acquaintance in the Sacred Butchers know about this library?)
- 13 oil paintings of vampires of the Bolgakof family (value depends greatly on who you find to buy them, if you can find a buyer)

Inspiration

- Tristan definitely gets inspiration for single-mindedly hunting down Edgar Bolgakof.

Faces in the Sacrificial Rose Clouds

Faces in the Sacrificial Rose Clouds

Blood Ceremony - Rogue's Lot † Purson - Electric Landlady † Hexvessel - Drugged Up on the Universe † The Devil's Blood - Christ or Cocaine † Sabbath Assembly - Hymn of Consecration † Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Melody Lane † Mount Salem - The End † Jess and the Ancient Ones - Equinox Death Trip

* * *

The Broken Sword

The Howling Void - Where Once a River Flowed † When Nothing Remains - A Lake of Frozen Tears † My Dying Bride - A Pale Shroud of Longing † A Dream of Poe - The Isle of Cinder † Isa - Night-Day-Night † Fuath - In the Halls of the Hunter † Summoning - The Mountain King's Return † Lychgate - Against the Paradoxical Guild

* * *

A Funeral in the Mountains

Patrick Doyle - To Think of a Story † Oscar Araujo - Castle Hall † Trevor Jones - Whitechapel Murders † Danny Elfman - The Funeral † Wojciech Killas - Vampire Hunters † Motoi Sakuraba - Nashandra † Abel Korzeniowski - Mother of Evil † Ryan Amon - Queen of the Vile Bloods

Folk Horror, What Scares the People Who Scare Us, Kid Horror, 20th Century Horror Novels

Where to begin with folk horror (British Film Institute)

What Scares the People Who Scare Us? (Time)

We Need More Kid Horror (Blumhouse)

The 10 Greatest Horror Novels of the 20th Century (Hammer)

Just Use Bears

So, the characters in your old-school D&D game go somewhere you haven’t yet prepared and you describe some cool, weird-ass monster that you don’t actually have stats for: "At the bottom of the Bone Pit of the Succulent Orb a vast form rises from the sinkhole; its reptilian body glistens with antediluvian slime and its pteroid jaw opens, revealing rows of serrated fangs in what appears to be a most unholy welcome." In situations likes these, I just use the stats for a bear and no one is the wiser. Re-skin appearance, methods of attack, and add special abilities on the fly if you absolutely must...but when in doubt, just use bears.

The Bloodbath at the Gallows

Pen Bennett, Tobias Rune, Tristan of St. Othric, and Luka Lilithian answered the Church of Saintly Blood's call for extra security during the execution of Imogen Olashenko--the witch they captured and turned over to the Church's authority last session. The execution was scheduled to take place in a cul-de-sac at the end of a street lined with houses and businesses; a gallows had been hastily erected within the cul-de-sac. The characters were instructed to look out for anything "unusual" and to provide crowd control if necessary. Imogen stood manacled upon the gallows' platform, awaiting her demise as a priest read out the details of her conviction. The characters milled about the expectant crowd, on watch for anything that would require their attention.

The enclosed cul-de-sac provided a good deal of security from the execution being interrupted by a threat coming from the crowd, but it didn't provide much in the way of defense from an airborne assault. The sky began to darken, and then piercing screams were heard; a number of witches astride broomsticks, goats, and massive hogs descended from sky to rescue Imogen from the noose. At the sight of the witches, the crowd panicked and people began to flea the cul-de-sac. Which, of course, posed a problem for Pen, Tristan, andTobias--they wanted to make sure the execution proceeded as planned, but they would have to make their way through a stampede of frightened citizens to reach the gallows.

Pen used his shield like a plow to rush his way through the crowd; Tristan parted the crowd by invoking the authority of St. Othric; Tobias used his magic to move through the fray and take shots at the witches on the gallow's platform. (Luka was stationed on a rooftop above the chaos.) On the platform the witches were engaging the templars acting as guards in a bloody conflict to rescue Imogen. Tobias, Tristan, and Pen continued to work their way toward the gallows. An eerie black shadow began to seep from the ground around the gallows; from this writhing, shadowy emanation stepped a number of man-like things covered in garish, fungal protuberances. The fungal men staggered forward to grab Imogen and drag her back into the shadows from whence they came.

Pen, Tristan, and Tobias reached the platform. Pen and Tristan charged the gallows while Tobias turned his dire magic on the witches from below the platform. Pen attempted to pull Imogen away from the fungal men; he could not wrest her from their grasp, but he did engage in a bit of tug-of-war with the condemned's body. Ignoring the other foes on the gallows, Tristan speared Imogen through the midsection, making certain that she would not escape the grave this day. At first, the group assumed that the fungal men were allied with the witches, but as they began to engage with templar and witch alike it became clear that they were pawns of a third party.

The fungal men pummeled Pen with their fists, angered perhaps by the damage he was causing them. Luka took musket shots at the creatures attacking his friends on the gallows. Another figure appeared from the encircling shadows, a tall, thin, aristocratic figure dressed in old-fashioned finery. Tristan recognized this newcomer instantly; it was Edgar Bolgakof, one of the vampire clan who had killed Tristan's family. Strangely, Bolgakof's lip curled in malicious recognition, even though Tristan was a mere child when his family was slain by the Bolgakofs. Pen attacked Bolgakof, embedding his sword in the torso of the monster. Tristan kept the hated monster from retreating with harrying halberd attacks. Eventually, Edgar was able to slip away from Tristan and retreat into the writhing shadows with his remaining minions. The shadows receded, leaving the party on a gallows crowded with fungal-covered corpses, dead witches, and injured warriors of the Church.

The sun still shown in the wake of the shadow-magic, but strangely it seemed dimmer now, as if a veil had been drawn over its luminescence. In the days that followed, the sun remained inexplicably diminished in strength. 

After reconvening in the basement of their church, the characters decided to cast a wide net for further information to guide their next move.

• Tobias met with Ivara a few times. She told him that the attack they thwarted was due to her mother's coven sending witches to rescue Imogen from the clutches of the Church. She also told him that Bolgakof has likely attempted to abduct Imogen to use as a hostage to keep the coven from opposing the vampire lord--known only as "the Master"--that Bolgakof serves. The Master is, of course, the "darkness coming to Krevborna" that Ivara has been working to thwart. She provided Tobias with a map to Bolgakof's fortress when informed that Tristan has designs on killing him. She also mentioned that she could arrange a meeting with her mother if the party wanted to form an alliance with the witches.
• Pen kept an ear to the ground within the Church itself, fearing that there is some sort of nefarious connection between Bolgakof (or his Master) and a plot within Church. He only heard idle talk about how horrifying the incursion of supernatural forces in Chancel was deemed to be.
• Luka found his mentor Horace drinking a disgusting-looking hangover cure and pressed him for information about vampire slaying. Horace stressed that not all vampires are of equal strength; those from weak bloodlines can be bested by a group of skilled adventurers who are prepared for the hunt.
• Tristan made a new contact, Arleth Latunsky, a member of the Sacred Butchers--a specialized branch of the Church of Saintly Blood that is devoted to the extermination of the undead. Latunsky, an older man who now drills young recruits in martial matters, told Tristan that the Bolgakof vampires have one great weakness: they were prone to anger and when enraged were liable to fight with abandon and disregard for their own safety.

The group then decided it was wisest to pursue at least a truce with the witches before moving against Bolgakof. Pen found an ancient cemetery to serve as the neutral ground for their midnight meeting. Atop a hill, flickering lanterns placed to give them some light among the tombstones, the group spied a woman in a satin gown, smoking a cigarette from a carved holder, winding her way toward them in the darkness. She introduced herself as Nadine Olashenko, and told them she admired the steel of their spines for choosing to meet with her in such a desolate and moribund location. She quickly dispelled the fear that she might bear them animosity for the death of her daughter; she explained that she had many daughters, and to lose less essential ones was but the price of war against the invasion of the foreign Master. She was willing to consider the group allies, especially when they expressed interest in tracking Edgar Bolgakof to his lair. She told them that the use of holy power could at least momentarily halt the vampire's supernatural ability to heal himself, and wished them happy hunting.

Before departing to find Bolgakof's fortress, the group bought pistols, holy water, and a boat to strap to the roof of their carriage. They arrived at the silent fortress without incident. Tobias used his fiendish familiar to scout the outside of the fortress. Beyond the portcullis behind the drawbridge, the familiar could see a long dining table, at which was seated four fungal corpses sitting in absolute stillness. A glance in the windows of the tower revealed a workroom filled with piles of strange fungal matter and a dismembered corpse hanging from a hook on the first floor, a fungal greenhouse on the second, and an observatory of sorts on the third. Several blackened windows prevented further spying.

And there they stand, considering their options for how best to tackle the vampire's castle.

* * *

The Spoils

XP - 375 for Pen, Tristan, and Tobias. 175 for Luka (didn't arrive until after the big crowd panic)

Inspiration - everyone gained Inspiration during the big discussion of what to do next: ideals, flaws, bonds, etc. were all in motion for sure.

Renown

Death Frost Doom and the Chrono-crone

This is a repost of an old post of mine because Justin from Dragons Gonna Drag asked for it to come back. I take requests.

Death Frost Doom is one of those modules that has the potential to be a very memorable adventure, but needs a bit of modification to suit my style of play.

One of the things I like least about it (and this is a pretty minor part of the overall adventure) is the magical clock found within the cabin leading up to the accursed temple. The clock is described thusly in the first version of Death Frost Doom (I haven't read the newer rewrite of it; every time I try I just get sidetracked by how awesome Jez Gordon's art in it is): 

The clock is magical; anyone physically moving the hands forward or backward will cause a time distortion. The distortion affects only the person moving the clock hands; if two or more people try to do it at the same time, randomly determine which is affected. Moving the clock backwards will stop time for that same amount of time, and the character will be able to freely act. Objects will only move if the character moves them, so it would be possible to do things such as walk between raindrops, drop a coin, take a walk, eat a meal, and come back and catch it before it has fallen an inch (provided enough time was moved on the clock to do such things). Other people and animals and undead things will be frozen in time, unable to act. Spirits will still be active, so sleeping on the grounds will have the same effect as normal. Adjusting the clock forward puts the character forward in time by the moved amount. That character will seem to disappear if anyone is watching, and will only reappear after the set amount of time, at which point everyone other than the clock-disturber will not be aware that any time has passed at all.

What I find problematic about the clock, especially if it is adjusted forward, is that it effectively splits the party and creates a headache for the GM who now must run two adventures along two divergent timelines. (It’s also one of the many effects in LotFP adventures that makes the players less apt to touch anything that seems ”weird,” which seems contrary to the point of ”Weird Fantasy.”)

My hack for this is simple: moving the hands on the clock cause the room to suddenly go dark...an outline of a door appears against a wall in fearful luminescence...and out of that unholy portal steps...THE CHRONO-CRONE.

Chrono-crone Hag
Chrono-crones are women whose appearance is bifurcated lengthwise down their bodies; the left half of their bodies is withered and old, while the right half of their bodies is youthful and blooming. Chrono-crones are often magically linked to enchanted clocks. If the clock is tampered with—for example, if the hands of the clock are moved manually—the room first goes black, is then filled with eerie, spectral light, and then the Chrono-chrome appears. Chrono-crones summoned in this way will offer to strike a bargain with a group of adventurers, such as providing the effects of a Haste or Time Stop spell when they most need it, because any tampering with the orderly flow of time does honors their
strange, otherworldly masters.

Move: 120’ (40’) AC: 14 HD: 10 Attacks: 2 (AB +10) Dam:1d4 (claw) Mor: 6
Special Abilities:
Stasis Touch – anyone hit by a Chrono-crone’s claw attack must make a successful Saving Throw vs. Petrify or be struck with a
Hold Person effect.
Mistress of Time – A Chrono-crone can cast Haste and Slow at will,
Passwall, Dimension Door, and Teleport three times per day, and Time Stop twice per day.

* * *
The way I play it, the encounter with the Chrono-crone isn’t about combat unless the players force the issue. (At which point they’ll likely be slaughtered given the crone’s magical abilities.) Instead, it’s a chance to tempt the players into a Faustian bargain: perhaps the crone will offer to use one of her abilities to the party’s favor in return for a little of their "time" (effectively taking some of their youth). The first time I ran Death Frost Doom the players called about the crone to cast some much-needed Haste and Dimension Door spells so they could make good their escape from the zombie hordes.

Of course, the characters are free to not enter into a bargain with the crone. The last time I ran Death Frost Doom the players politely declined the crone’s bargain at first, but made a bee-line for her as soon as they had the vampire in tow in his casket. They made a case to the crone that the vampire’s eternal life was an affront to the flow of time to get her to deal with the vampire so they didn’t have to–which I thought was quite clever, actually.

The Hand of the Driftwood King

Word was circulating around Chancel that the enigmatic Rue sisters were looking for a few adventurous souls to investigate a strange bit of green parchment that had come into their possession. Pen Bennett (a warrior and acolyte of St. Othric), Tobias Rune (a scholar with an interest in "scientific diabolism"), Tristan (avenging proselyte of St. Othric), and Luka Lilithian (trigger-happy urban ranger) answered the call. The group met with the sisters in a tea house, where the sisters agreed to pay the adventurers 1600 gp to investigate a bit of rich green parchment that read: '“Samuels is dead. Watch your back, they will be after you next. Meet me in the Manticore Club Green Room on the 27th night, at nine. Bring the hand, and be careful. May the Saints have mercy on our souls.” -- Donnelson.'

After accepting the job, there was some interesting conversation among the group--the more pious members of this party were a little leery of working with someone using fiendish power, as Tobias was. (Side note: as a DM, I love that potential for inter-party strife and conflicting character goals and methods--as long as it doesn't break out into some weird PvP scenario.)

The name of the Manticore Club was familiar to a few members of the party; they recognized it as a gentleman's club catering to men of standing in society. The premises were identifiable by the large bronzes sculptures of three-headed beasts that flanked the front entrance. The group hailed a carriage and began to drive across the city to the posh district in which the club was located. On the way, a carriage pulled up next to theirs; inside was a woman with dark hair in a green satin dress who gestured for them to roll down their window. They rolled the window down--and the woman threw something large and wriggling into the party's carriage. Pen managed to catch the thing--it was a many-fanged eel--and Luka had the foresight to knock it out of his hands and into the street.

The interloper's carriage began to pull away, but Pen and Luka leaped onto the back of it. Tristan and Tobias attacked carriage-to-carriage while Pen grappled the carriage's driver from atop the moving vehicle and Luka engaged the woman inside (who turned out to have a few potent dark magics at her disposal). Luka managed to knock the woman unconscious, and Pen tossed the driver off the carriage and brought the vehicle to a halt on a side street where Tobias and Tristan's carriage caught up with them.

They decided to forego the trip to the Manticore Club for the present and instead took the woman back to the basement of Pen's church for questioning. As they chained the woman to a plinth, a few of the group noticed that she bore a striking resemblance to someone they knew--she looked like an older, slightly stockier Ivara Olashenko. Noting the connection, Luka set off to fetch the young scholar for whatever help she might be able to provide in this situation; the others began to process of dredging information from their captive. Her name is Imogen, she belongs to a coven of witches, and she attempted to waylay the party from reaching the Manticore Club because her witch-sister believe it is essential that they should be the ones to find "the hand."

When Ivara arrived and saw her sister bound and defeated in the basement of the church it may have looked like she had to turn away in sorrow at the sorry sight before her, but...it turned out she turned away to laugh into her hand. Apparently there is no love lost between these siblings. Ivara was able to fill in some crucial details: she said that she had many sisters of "varying degrees of witchiness," that the hand was a part of a devil called the Driftwood King and could be used to free him from his undersea prison, and that she didn't care much about the ultimate fate of her sister. Authorities from the Church of Saintly Blood were summoned, and Imogen was taken away to be "put to the question" under duress.

Carriage chase and interrogation interlude over, the party made their way back to the Manticore Club to engage in a bit of surveillance. Loitering upon the street showed them that the door to the club was tended by a muscular bruiser with close-cropped red hair who was stationed to let men of prosperous aspect with the proper club credentials inside. Tobias's scientific diabolism came in handy; he used his familiar to get a view of the club before the party infiltrated personally. The familiar observed that there was a smoking lounge, a billiards room, a dining room, and a locked door where everything beyond the keyhole appeared to be green. The men inside the Club didn't seem to be discussing anything more weighty than the profits from their investments and the casual intrigues of their mistresses. 

Meanwhile, Luka had sought out Martinus di Rosalba to see if he could help them gain entrance to the club, but sadly the dandy had no connections to that particular club (he views the members of the Manticore Club as boring old men with no interest in the latest fashions). However, it turned out that all the party needed to do was wave the strange green parchment obtained by the Rue sisters under the nose of the doorman to find the door opened for Luka and Tobias. (Tristan and Pen decided to wait in a carriage with the group's stockpile of weaponry.) Inquiring after Donnelson revealed that he had set and meeting for nine o'clock, and of course the Club's Green Room would be available for the meeting.

Come nine, Tobias and Luka allowed themselves to be admitted into the Green Room, a circular chamber with a green carpet, a green painted ceiling, and decorated with green wallpaper. A green circular table stood at the center of the room with a green lamp upon it. Twelve green upholstered chairs were arranged around the table like the numerals around a clock face. After entering, the door was locked behind them. 

As the duo searched the walls for tell-tale hollows that might bespeak hidden passages, the door to the Green Room was unlocked and a well-dressed man with a big gray beard was admitted. His eyes went wide when he realized that Tobias and Luka were not who he had expected to meet. He pulled a pistol, held in a shaky hand, and Luka pulled his as well. A combination of persuasion and intimidation eventually got the suspicious man to lay down his firearm and discuss the matter rationally. His name was Pierce Morrison; he had helped fund an expedition to a mysterious jungle land to the south with Donnelson and some other members of the Manticore Club; one of their "discoveries" was a strange temple that they looted; one of the treasures taken was a hand that seemed to be carved of driftwood, but Morrison swore that the hand left him feeling uneasy and he swore he once saw it move of its own accord.

The green parchment that the Rue sisters had found was a letter from Donnelson to Morrison; Morrison has unwittingly left it behind in a carriage. Donnelson believed that the members of their expedition were in danger; an idea given weight by the fact that the other members of the mission had already met with dubious ends. Unfortunately, before receiving the green parchment arranging the meeting, Morrison had already sent the hand to Donnelson's home via a courier. Morrison then realized that if Donnelson hadn't yet arrived for the meeting he had scheduled in the Green Room, he might then be in danger. Since he was a man of means and the men in front of him appeared capable, Morrison offered them money if they would accompany him to Donnelson's home to search out his missing friend. Luckily, Pen and Tristan were already waiting out front in a carriage with all the weapons and armor the party habitually uses in its war against the darkness.

Donnelson's home was located in a section of Chancel that mostly housed wealthy businessmen. There were no lights in the windows and the door appeared both locked and impervious to Pen's attempts to kick it down. Not to be stymied from breaking things, Pen crashed through a window instead (!!!) and unlocked the door for the rest of the party. The group then commenced a room-by-room search of Donnelson's house by splitting into two parties: Tobias and Tristan began searching the ground floor, Luka and Pen began searching the upper floor. This led to two separate melees breaking out: Tristan and Tobias found a woman rifling through a desk while Pen and Luka were ambushed by an invisible witch in the library upstairs. Tobias and Tristan seemed to have an easier time of things; oddly, the combination of holy might and infernal power brought their foe down without much collateral damage. Luka and Pen were also triumphant, but Luka took a fairly sound beating...and ended up ambushed again when Pen left him alone upstairs. (Morrison cowered near the stairs the entire time.)

After the combats, continued search of the house uncovered a wooden hand left on the bed in the master bedroom. Sensing a decoy, they found that a window in the bedroom was broken and outside a figure was stealing away into the shadows. Luka's urban tracking abilities and Tobias's familiar helped locate the trail of the fleeing woman who had a wooden case tucked under her arm. Using his magic to catch up to her, Luka was able to get close enough to drop her with a shot through the back. In the wooden case was the real hand of the Driftwood King. Piling into their carriage and leaving the scene before the night watch arrived, the party returned to the church to store the hand in the tombs beneath the edifice. Donnelson has yet to be found and is now presumed to be deceased.

The Spoils

XP - 806 each

Treasure -

• 600 gp each
• the hand of the Driftwood King

Renown -