Scourge of the Scornlords: Meatlandia Book III by Ahimsa Kerp and Wind Lothamer

This entry is part 26 of 56 in the series 2022 Reads

As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts go anywhere from a few weeks to a month after I’ve read them. I read this particular book last week, though!  Before I begin, some disclosures: Ahimsa Kerp is a longtime friend, and I’ve gamed with both him and Wind Lothamer in the past. I was one of the playtesters for this book. I’m currently working on a project with them.  So, with that out of the way: Scourge of the Scornlords is a supplement for old-school RPGs from the Meatlandia series by Knight Owl Publishing. It’s been out for …

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Fish F*ckers by Kelvin Green

This entry is part 24 of 56 in the series 2022 Reads

As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts go anywhere from a few weeks to a month after I’ve read them. I read this particular book last week, though!  This is a module containing a seaside town called Innsmouth, where a cultist has set up a lucrative situation: Deep Ones are fornicating with villagers, bringing gold and offerings of fish. The villagers are conflicted about this setup, but they’re actually the abusers, while the Deep Ones are forced magically to do this, and dislike it. (The poor monsters want this magical binding to be ended so that don’t …

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The Cursed Chateau by James Maliszewski, illustrated by Jez Gordon

This entry is part 17 of 56 in the series 2022 Reads

As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts go anywhere from a few weeks to a month after I’ve read them. The Cursed Chateau is an adventure set in a castle in the south of France, haunted by the ghost of a sadistic maniac and many of his victims. This is an adventure that James Maliszewski had published previously: there’s a Rogue Games edition listed online from 1999, and the author mentions having run the game many times over the years and noted player responses and feedback. The edition I’m looking at is the 2016 edition.

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So, You’ve Angered a Sea God…

So, I’m playtesting my contribution to the Deluge zine that is part of Knight Owl Games’ Aquatic Adventures Kickstarter, which you should totally check out. My contribution, “So, You’ve Angered a Sea God…” is inspired by The Odyssey, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the story of the whale ship Essex (which inspired Moby Dick, though I haven’t read that). It includes a system for generating a minor deity who was somehow angered by someone in the crew—possibly an NPC sailor who messed up at the last port, or possibly the PCs when they ransacked the deity’s old, ruined …

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Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon

This entry is part 9 of 56 in the series 2022 Reads

As with other posts in this series, I’m posting about books sometimes weeks after reading them. In this case, I’m actually waiting to post this until after I’ve played the game, since I happen to be playing in a one-shot trying it out this weekend.  Wanderhome is a relatively rules-light, fantasy RPG featuring anthropic-animal player characters who wander around, expressing and enacting care towards others, expressing their personality while keeping their secrets and staying attentive and open to the world and to those who cross your path. It’s cozy, pastoral, rules-light, and… has no mechanics for violence. If you’ve played many …

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Running Sur une rive, au clair de lune for The Fall of Delta Green

I recently posted about my impressions after running a multi-session one-shot with The Fall of Delta Green, and said I’d follow up with a post about the adventure itself. I used Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Fall of Delta Green adventure On a Bank, by Moonlight. By the way, the original PDF of the adventure is available from the Pelgrane Press website, for free. Downloading it is probably helpful if you didn’t manage to snag a print copy back in 2018, like I happened to do. (Ah, man, remember Free RPG Day events?) Anyway, as I was saying, I ran this adventure, but …

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Running The Fall of Delta Green

I recently ran a short multi-session (five or six sessions? I’m not sure) run of a Fall of Delta Green adventure for the Sunday night game group I play with. This writeup will discuss my impressions of the game itself, and my thoughts on the Gumshoe system more generally. I’ll follow it up with some notes on the adventure I ran, some resources for those who might want them, and also some thoughts on the spin I put on the game concept, since it was a bit unusual.  

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Guttershine Beer Run, Part the Sixth

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series Adventures in Bastion

When we last left off… the group had fought their way out of the Warehouse with a hard-won barrel of beer, only to discover South Guttershine overrun by small mechanical scorpions in a frenzy of self-replication (and tearing apart anything available for construction materials)—white-furred flying lizards had been released into the city through a portal inside the Warehouse, and one of them had snatched up Rampling Haddleshack and borne him off into the night—Heihachi had plunged through the portal momentarily, and returned with a nasty infection that was causing yellow gunk to drip from his eyes—the characters arrived at the …

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Guttershine Beer Run, Part 5

This entry is part 14 of 15 in the series Adventures in Bastion

When we last left off… Heihachi, Emmeline, and the Mockeries were in a hallway in the Warehouse they’d infiltrated, with two barrels they were trying to roll out of the building; Haap Zouka and several explorers, newly returned from an icy place through a mysterious portal, guns pointed at the party and shouting for them to stop. The beer, after all, is needed to extinguish the electrical fire in the warehouse’s control room.   Heihachi, Emmeline, and the Mockery Gang were eager to avoid more bloodshed, so after a brief hesitation and some stern words from Haap Zouka: … about how …

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Guttershine Beer Run, Part 4

This entry is part 13 of 15 in the series Adventures in Bastion

When we last left off… Heihachi had just opened a door to reveal a pair of machines facing him, in the interior of a dark room, their whirring and clanking suddenly silent.  Heihachi’s response was, surprisingly, to step into the room slowly and carefully, at which point he discovered the machines were not murder-guardians. In fact, they were somewhat brainless automata that didn’t seem to register Heihachi wasn’t supposed to be there. A little experimentation revealed that they were busily transferring tins of whale blubber from the shelves on the west wall onto shelves along the east wall. They “taught” …

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