The Bloody Marches - Session One, Part Two

Magic: The Gathering

With daylight dwindling, the adventurers took a detour down an anabranch of the Redriver. They'd heard tales of traders from the Shattered Islands in these swamps. Soon the islanders' outpost came into view, outriggers and stilted huts smelling of fish, spice and woodsmoke.

The adventurers noticed a Triton selling artefacts from his caracoa. The Saltman wore an Amulet of Airbreathing and had a bevy of magic items for sale. Godwin tried selling him some Beers of Beard Growth. Despite the fish lacking any hair follicles, the fighter managed exchange two flasks for a scroll of Continual Light.

The Bloody Marches - Session One, Part One

Arkadi Rylov

An adventuring party stood on the Brood Snatcher, a riverboat crewed by lizardmen and buccaneers. Their destination, the Bloody Marches. An untamed land of twisting waterways, dense swamps, primordial forests and dead civilizations.

• Gavel, Fighter 3.
• Godwin the Green, Fighter 3.
• Heiwae Mann, Thief 3.
• Robin, Cleric 1 of Phantom Limb.
• Burned Leaves, Elf 1 (retainer of Godwin).
• Dewyd the Pious, Friar 1 of Beer & Bread (absentee player).

Gathered around a freshly drawn map, the party noted the location of Serpentman ruins deep in the Marches. Robin, acting as their local guide, cautioned the area would be filled with superpredators, unnatural horrors and tribes of hostile monstermen. Best pursue some easier jobs first, lest they get turned inside out by an overlevelled random encounter.

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 6

William Tylee Ranney

With the playtest well underway, it's time to finish the last few hexes. I've also got a few outstanding minidungeons to complete, which should be done in the coming days. 

MEDUSA'S MANSE

This swamp hex has gravel paths made from hundreds of petrified bugs and rodents. They converge on a macabre stone hut of piled earth and calcified animals stacked upon one another. In front of the house is four "statues" of Plated Gator-Rats (CC2), caught mid-snarl.

The hut is 30x30' in size, with no windows and a crude door of driftwood and hides. The interior is 10' deeper than ground level, filled with statues of petrified humans, Orcs, Voormi, Blue-Tongues etc. Unsurprisingly it's the lair of a Medusa (OSE). The monsterwoman is unique insofar as she can undo her petrification, which she abuses to unleash the trapped Gator-Rats on trespassers.

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 5

Andrew Knez, Jr.

Penultimate hex collection post. I start the playtest tomorrow, so I'll be relying on crib notes if my players reach any unkeyed hexes. I doubt they'll get that far, but it's fine if they do. 

Full credit to Primeumaton for coming up with Uave Twice-Burnt and Izaak Compleat.

HANGTOOTH BLUFF

This hex of riverside cliffs is home to the Hangtooth, a tribe of ten Weretigers (OSE) and the four Sabretooths (OSE) they tamed. The beastmen act like stereotypical barbarians, fighting naked with chert spears, but they're just pissant dirt farmers mutated by Serpentman bioweapons. 

These posers hunt for their food, including humans. They eat plenty of animals who think and speak, so it's really only fair. The tigers accept surrender, but only if you volunteer something (or someone) for the larder. This doesn't include rations, only fresh corpses (they dislike cooked meat and violently gag at the sight of vegetables).

Three Generic Minidungeons

I need to round out my hexcrawl with some dungeons to plunder, there's too many unmapped locations filled with hordes of high HD monsters. Dungeons are a style of play with far greater options for risk mitigation.

This post uses the "Generic Maps" in the Monster Overhaul. I haven't used any of its statblocks, because I don't know how well they map to OSE and I'm already referencing three different bestiaries.

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 4

Albert Tucker

Time for a quickfire round. 

These will have titles for posterity. I'll also go through my previous posts and name all those hexes. Same with adding local encounters.

Pelts For XP - Travel In The Bloody Marches

Nick Eggenhofer

OVERLAND MOVEMENT

A party's travel speed ('TS') is their encounter movement rate divided by 5. Mounted parties have 8 TS. Sure their mounts can move faster, but only in short bursts (e.g., during encounters). Those travelling on land vehicles like carts or wagons have 6 TS. Parties on boats have 12 TS.

Wilderness experts like Rangers, Wood Elves etc. can allow the party to move through a single hex without spending any TS, once per day. Doesn't stack with additional characters. This ability could be abused to quickly move through very difficult hexes or ford a river (which is intentional).

Minidungeon - Consecrated To Father Flint

Gwion Gwion

KNAP THE BLADES 

CUT THE EYES
SWALLOW THE COALS
CLUB THE SNAKE
STAB THE SNAKE

EAT THE SNAKE

Flintman war chant, transcribed from rock art

Even More Gods

Eucharius Rösslin

BLOODY MOTHER

Neutral goddess of midwifery and pregnancy. Deaths in childbirth are a specter terrorising every race and creed. Without Bloody Mother's loving ministrations, infant mortality would quadruple overnight. 

The Mother's clerics are wandering healers renowned for zealously defending the pregnant and the newlyborn. Some fundamentalists also punish breaches of moral law; absentee parents are chastised or beaten, rapists are mutilated or executed in cruel and unusual fashions. More progressive sects have pioneered pregnancy tests, contraceptives, abortions and caesarean deliveries. 

Religious orthodoxy states that Bloody Mother is either an aspect of the Knacker or Grain Goddess, but her worship likely predates both religions.

Pelts For XP - D6 People You Meet

Where there's a whip, there's a way!

Where there's a whip, there's a way!

Where there's a whip, there's a way!

Left, right, left, right, left

We don't wanna go to war today

But the Lord of the Lash says: "nay, nay, nay!"

We're gonna march all day, all day, all day!

Where there's a whip there's a way!

Alexander Korotich

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 3

HIDDEN TEMPLE

An exposed nunatak dominates this hex. The flat-topped mountain appears uninhabited, but careful observation discovers the remains of a trail leading up its side. The paving stones have been looted and it's overgrown with brush, but this old Serpentman road is still traversible.

Hidden behind a permanent Hallucinatory Terrain is the entrance to a mountainside temple; a pillared portico with a bronze gate and small iron bell. The doors depict Sweetsting, a regional subculture of Liberator cultists who exalt honeywine. The grinning bee man embraces Grain Goddess, who rests a sickle against the god's neck while his priapic stinger presses into her chubby belly.

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 2

Gustave Moreau

DEMON RANCH

The fields in this hex are surrounded by fences of densely woven web. Scattered groves provide shade for ten Tarantellas (OSE), domesticated herding spiders that maintain the barriers and deter predators with their dancing venom.

Within the fields is a collection of strange silk buildings and traditional timber houses; a ranch run by eighteen Drow (OSE Adv). The Deep Elves are led by a matriarch, gregarious businesswoman Antimache (Level 6 Drow) who carries a Displacer Cloak, Cream of Sunlight Resistance and Staff of Power with 17 charges.

Pelts For XP - The Bushrangers

Four horseman rode out from the heart of the range,
Four horseman with aspects forbidding and strange.
They were booted and spurred, they were armed to the teeth,
And they frowned as they looked at the valley beneath,
As forward they rode through the rocks and the fern -
Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

Ned Kelly drew rein and he shaded his eyes -
'The town's at our mercy! See yonder it lies!
To hell with the troopers!' - he shook his clenched fist -
'We will shoot them like dogs if they dare to resist!'
And all of them nodded, grim-visaged and stern -
Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

The Bush Rangers, by Edward Harrington

Sidney Nolan

Minidungeon - The Golani's Gaol

Renate Löbbecke

In a valley north of the Bloody Marches, a benevolent nature spirit has doled out free healing and resurrections for generations. But after magical plagues destablised the region, the medicine man was swarmed by hundreds of desperate pilgrims.

Sensing opportunity, the Druid Mafia militarised the shrine and imprisoned the Golani. They claim to be protecting the spirit and his patients, even as their violent excesses grow. Bribes, beatings and rape are commonplace. Their quarantine camps are overflowing with the sick, injured and mad. 

But who's gonna do anything about it?

Minidungeon - The Sacked Monastery

St Mary, East Somerton

A rural church is razed by a vengeful band of escaped convicts. When a squad of soldiers is sent to reopen the monastery for business, they find it overrun with maneating monsters, mutant plantlife and security constructs gone rogue.

Someone needs to clear the place out and get the agrimancy flowing again, lest there be famine.

Pelts For XP - Fort Southfur

Anglo-Saxon Burh

This forested hex has a large tract of cleared land either side of the Redriver. Straddling the bloodstained waterway is Fort Southfur, a dense collection of timber buildings enclosed by an earthwork palisade and surrounded by a collection of smaller homesteads.

The fortified burh and its surrounds have a population wavering around ~1,000, a mixture of sailors, trappers, sharecroppers, fishermen and convicts. The colony mostly exports furs, alchemical reagents, exotic plants and surplus food. The Bloody Marches are filled with old Serpentman ruins, so there's occasionally a shipment of pilfered silver or magic items as well. 

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 1

BULL'S DEMENSE

This wetlands hex is filled with obstructive plant life. Gnarled roots ensnare oars, low-hanging branches are covered in poisonous lichen and mats of aquatic vegetation clog waterways.

The hostile aquaculture was cultivated by a tribe of sixteen Water Centaurs (stats as Cyprian Centaurs, CC1) to protect their herd of two dozen cattle and buffalo (stats as Herd Animals, OSE). The buffalo centaurs are much larger than their equine counterparts. Their height lets them fight with their upper halves above water, wielding polearms and bows. 

Water Centaurs keep livestock for food and sex. When they mate with a bovine, the resulting child is one of their own. They don't view this as being strange or immoral. When someone inevitably casts Speak With Animals, they find the buffalo enthusiastically agree.

Pelts For XP - Rules Post

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

In the Desert, by Stephen Crane

Sharper Fangs, null.00

Minidungeon - The Sinking Tower

Sintra, Portugal 

With the help of a contractually-bound djinn, Ingmaind the Ascending is building his retirement tower in the Bloody Marches. Unfortunately, the wizards planted his foundations in a swamp and it's  perpetually sinking. He's already lost four levels, but just adds a new floor each time.

His genie, unhappy with the construction delays, hires adventurers to fix the sinking foundations.

Puer Delicatus - Agent TYSON's Notebook

Agent TYSON's player kindly reminded me of some details I missed during my session write up. 

Designing good play reports for investigatory games is much harder than doing the same for dungeoncrawlers. You have to balance recording all the clues so people know what's going on while avoiding an exhaustive blow-by-blow, because no one wants to read that. 

I'll find the balance one of these days.

Minidungeon - The Troll's Toll

Pont Valentré

It's well known that Trolls live under viaducts. No one really knows why (including Trolls). So when some Serpentmen found Lemuria the Green beneath their bridge, they didn't bother evicting him. Instead, they did a recruitment pass. After careful negotiation and a longpork signing bonus, the snakes had an immortal maneater to guard their river checkpoint.

Centuries later, Lemuria still dutifully mans his post. He really enjoys being a tollman, so he's not bothered that his employers have stopped paying him. Or that they're all dead. 

How's the saying go? Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

Puer Delicatus - Session 1

A half-empty section of a parking garage. JFK International Airport. Early January, 2025. 

The three members of T-Cell stood around a rental car. 

• Agent TESSA - ICE Homeland Security Investigations, K9 Handler.

• Agent TULLY - NSA Remote Device Activities Unit, Surveillance Specialist.

• Agent TYSON - CIA National Resources Division, Case Officer.

TULLY, being Cell Leader, relayed the briefing she'd received from A-Cell a day prior.

A team of American archaeologists dug up an old Roman estate in Tuscany, Italy. They shipped the artefacts to the Museum of Natural History for an exhibition. All their finds were digitally categorised prior to transport. Our people intercepted their communications and flagged several items as being potentially hazardous. 

Broken pottery with furry toad-gods on them, papyri making reference to hypergeometric formulas, old glassware covered in exotic chemicals, the list goes on.

Homeland Security already has a man on scene, Special Agent Hassam Abdullah, due to reports of artefacts going missing. Some of the papyri scrolls and a fancy glass cup. This whole situation reeks of trouble. Get yourselves involved. Get us answers. 

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Music Post

I'll give it a shot. 

I did prepare music for this dungeon, but by the fourth session I couldn't be bothered to be the game's live DJ. Since Discord nuked all the music bots to comply with Youtube's TOS, I've been using Watch2Gether - a website for playing synced videos that other people can listen along to. But you have to remake your playlists every time you want to use it, unless you cough up the subscription money for a permanent room. 

Put simply, it was a pain in the ass.

I ended up just posting Youtube links for my players to listen to at their own discretion, which seemed to work alright for everyone involved. I've been informed that there are a few good music bots still knocking around, so maybe I'll use one of those for the next game I run.

Either way, here's the soundtracks I used. It's a mixture of dungeonsynth (that isn't AI slop), OSTs from my favourite video games and some songs suggested by my players (thanks Doubloon!).

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Masterpost

 A low-level dungeoncrawl complete with murderous Dwarves, undead Serpentmen and a fountain of infinite healing that definitely doesn’t have awful side effects. Designed for Old School Essentials.

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 6 & 7

The four adventurers stood outside the cave entrance for the last time. After weeks of exploring, they were ready to root out the undead snakes and their Dwarven allies. Once more, from the top:

• Gavel, Level 2 Fighter.
• Godwin the Green, Level 2 Fighter.
• Haisam, Level 2 Necromancer.
• Heiwae Mann, Level 3 Thief.

Accompanying them were two retainers, both in the employ of Godwin:

• Burned Leaves, Level 1 Elf.
• Ditch-Twitch, Level 1 Halfling.

Rounding out the party's equipment was a comical amount of holy water (purchased in-bulk from the Church of Fat Sun) and a pair of lichhounds. These small but vicious dogs had a bark so fierce that, once per day, it could turn the undead. After Heiwae Mann trained them to bark on command, Godwin packed them into a padded pouch for ease of transport.

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 5

Heiwae Mann kicked his feet from the edge of a large bathtub, his legs too short to touch the ground. A half-naked bathhouse worker stared at him incredulously as he told her to put her clothes back on. The thief wasn't here for sex - he wanted information.

Softwaters Bathhouse was a staple of Fallowfields, purveying the world's oldest profession under the guise of public sanitation. It had previously been on the colony's eastern side, but the brothel's pimp, Gangolf, had transplanted it to the (once polluted) northern river. 

It was a savvy business move - the fungal blight had dropped property prices and the newly blessed river did wonders for the "constitution" of his customers. 

Roman de Mélusine

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 4

After a few weeks of well-earned downtime in Fallowfields, three adventurers mounted their freshly purchased horses and set course for the underground temple.

• Gavel, Level 2 Fighter.
• Godwin the Green, Level 2 Fighter.
• Heiwae Mann, Level 2 Thief.

With Haisam busy, the party needed a spellcaster to operate the Staff of Opening. Godwin contracted a magically-inclined retainer, a theological litigator from the Tree of Life.

• Burned Leaves. Level 1 Elf.
  

After a day riding across open fields they arrived at the dungeon. Having bribed Wanamingo in libations to protect their camp with illusions, they stashed their mounts inside the phantasm and entered the cave.

AD&D Dungeon Explorers

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 3

Deep underground, five adventurers debated whether to continue dungeoneering. Godwin and Heiwae Mann, demoralised and injured, called it quits and went back to base camp. 

The remaining three, eager for more glory and gold, chose to stick it out.

• Haisam, a Necromancer.
• Gavel, a Fighter.
• Lalo, a Cleric.

The party, with their flask of snake ambrosia, cured the Leper-Chaun. He introduced himself as Wanamingo and sheepishly revealed the bear trap hiding beneath the pile of illusory treasure. As payment for their help, the fairy gave the adventurers valuable intel - the spores were a weapon employed by a dwarven clan of necromancers and slavers. 

The dwarves were clever, preferring technology over magic to control their undead. With hypersonic whistles and bizarre talismans, whose geometries reflected their zombie's echolocation, they trained friend-foe recognition into their reanimated slaves.

In the common tongue, their name was "The Deadlifters". A killteam of the halfmen was in the dungeon, spraying bioweapons and dispatching fungal revenants to flush the fairy out.

The Weekly Roll

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 2

With bodies rested and bellies filled with sheep's cheese and hardtack, five adventurers journeyed back to the ancient temple. 

• Haisam, a Necromancer.
• Gavel, a Fighter.
• Godwin the Green, a Fighter.
• Heiwae Mann, a Thief.
• Lalo, a Cleric.

The rope they'd secured up the rapids was still in position, untampered with since their last delve. The party climbed into the dungeon's flooded central chamber, unspiked the waiting room door and dispatched Heiwae Mann to scout ahead.

The Serpentmen's Sacrament - Session 1

The colony of Fallowfields has suffered a sudden blight. Crops wither and animals die. Some of the dead livestock rise from the grave as fungal monstrosities.

A group of shepherds, braver than most, have tracked the sickness to a fouled river. Its source is a mountain-side cave three days walk from the settlement. They say they found something inside the grotto - a pair of ancient bronze doors, embossed with decorations of strange men with the bodies of serpents. 

The colony's financial backers have posted a reward of 2,000 gold pieces for whoever stops the blight. The merchants won't pay anymore, make the reward bigger and it'd be cheaper to just abandon the affected farmland. Thankfully, there's always the "graverobber's fee" - first spoils on any treasure found within.

The Grug In The Dark - MCA

Choose rockbanger. Choose berrypicker. Choose black fur and matching war mask. Choose flint tool stolen from shaman with wide range of fucking attachments. Choose bang away at mind-numbing, sanity-crushing thing from beyond stars, wonder whether grug better off stuffing rock in own mouth. Choose Chieftain in Yellow and wake up wondering who grug are. Choose 9 kilogram retirement plan. Choose go out with rockbang at end of it all, PGP-encrypting last message down securely laid smoke signal as Rust Covered Arrowhead wetgrug bust into cave.

Choose one last Night at the Bunga.

Choose Moss Covered Arrowhead.

By Fee Fi Fo Fin, on Blogspot

Manor of Montecruz - Session 2

Four adventurers stood in the Manor's hidden basement. There was no doubt that this place had become a den for smugglers. There was treasure to be had in retaking it.

Before they could push onwards, a nearby crate flew open and a filthy man tumbled out. Once bound with coarse ropes, he'd been freed by the gnawing of a trio of rats. Seeing the adventurers, the man introduced himself as "Vermin-Tongue", but hastily amended his title to "Vee" upon seeing their scornful reactions.

"The Lonely Rat Boy", from Dishonored

Ghost Town Gunfight

Fallout: New Vegas

Four federal agents stood on the eastern side of Rogers Dry Lake, shivering in the freezing cold of the Mojave night. Agent Smith doled out freshly milled bullets of nickel and iron, a crude imitation of the “sky metal” their quarry was weak to. Allegedly. 

Agent Deacon memorised the antiquated Japanese needed to summon the entity to their location, from wherever it was currently hunting hapless Californians. Meanwhile, Agent Thorn busied herself with a hastily assembled binding ritual, greedily hoping to establish control over whatever her coworker manifested from beyond the veil.

Finally, Agent Leon dug an entrenched position for the conspirators’ insurance policy - an M2 Browning he’d liberated from the base armory with bogus paperwork. As far as Edwards AFB knew, this was all just a live-fire exercise on the lakebed that they weren’t cleared for.