Apologies and Apocalypse

Well I was hoping to have another post up about my Numenera game but it looks like real life happened a little bit this week. Two of my players could not make it in time to play the session so it looks like I will have to hang on a week until I get the next session off the ground. Mind you, that does allow me to get the plot better refined and allow me to plan out what I have in store for the characters a little better, so that's no bad thing.

On a slightly different note, one of the things that really attracted me to Numenera when Monte Cook first described it on the Kickstarter was the fact it was, in part, a post-apocalyptic game. This is a genre I have always enjoyed but never had enough of a chance to run games in. Back when I first started running games twenty years ago, I ran Twilight 2000 by GDW. This was a pretty straight forward scenario (not necessarily a straight-forward game mind) that was set after the world has slid into nuclear war one step at a time in World War 3, and the survivors are left wondering what to do come the year 2000, in the immediate aftermath. I have no idea now if I was running the game right (I suspect I wasn't) but it always captured my imagination, and set me wanting more post-apocalypse in my gaming.

Twilight 2000: no sparkly vampires in sight, but so very 80's in its art.

Fast forward a few years and D20 Modern comes out. This was a game I got hold of as soon as I heard about it (pretty soon after its release) and set about collecting almost everything that got released for it. One of the supplements was D20 Apocalypse: well this was exactly my cup of tea so I snapped it up, only to realise I needed D20 Future to get the best out of it. Later, when at university I finally got hold of a copy of D20 Future (in around 2010) and started to think I might finally be able to get that post-apocalyptic game I have always wanted off the ground. As of this date (31 July 2014) I am still waiting to get going! For what ever reason I have never managed to get enough players interested at the same time, whilst also not having something else running to really get this game going. I have had to satisfy myself playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas instead, but console games are a pale imitation of a good rpg (no matter how enjoyable they are to play) in my opinion.

D20 Apocalypse: I still want to use this! One day, one day....

So all this brings me back to Numenera: now I have another system, but with it's own setting, that I could use to satisfy my post apocalyptic craving. Whilst it does have that ability I think, I think I still want something that is more immediate in its apocalypse, something that has that Fallout, Book of Eli, Mad Max feel about it. This has set me thinking that perhaps I could look at a Cypher system hack in which I could get the game I want. It is certainly something I am thinking about...

The Nightmare Switch: part 4

In the first light of the morning, the companions left the cave behind them and resumed their pursuit of the creators of the tracks, heading westward toward distant hills. Cannis was leading the others, and they made excellent time through out what was an otherwise uneventful day. As the light began to fade in the early evening, the party came upon a small series of small low hills, forming the start of the hill range they had spied earlier in the day. The trail they were following led into a narrow valley between two of these hills. Sharp eyes and smart thinking quickly brought a sentry to their attention, positioned just below the brow of the nearest hill, and indicated a small column of smoke rising from the valley floor. It looked like they had caught up with their track-makers! It was decided that they should stealthily make their way across the desert floor, passed the valley entrance and attempt to climb the low hill to the west of the camp; this would allow them a better vantage point over the camp and also allow them avoid the sentry on the eastern hill.

It took an hour or more of careful movement across the desert, avoiding the sentry's gaze, before they made their way up the side of the hill and crouching down amongst the broken boulders and scant foliage over-looking their quarry's camp. The sight that met them when they looked closer was not what they expected. Instead of a small band of Aeon Priests, it was in fact a larger group of abhumans, Margyr to be precise. The bestial abhumans had set up a camp and looked like they were preparing their evening meal (which looked a lot like two human legs...). What is more, they had a number of items laid out on a blanket which appeared to be the band's loot, and one of those items looked to be size and shape of the missing cylinder. The leader of the group was huge example of a Margyr, twice the size of the rest and bellowing orders to the rest. The companions quickly discussed what they could do to get hold of the cylinder. The cooking legs pretty much ruled out diplomacy, and so taking it by force seemed to be the best option they had, using their cyphers to even up the numbers somewhat.

The game in progress over Google Hangouts

The initial assault on the abhumans was marked by the use of Nord's gravity detonation cypher, thrown into the middle of the group to try and think their ranks. When the dust settled from this, 5 of the Margyr had vanished and their huge leader was flat on his back, struggling to recover from the unexpected attack. Nord the proceeded to start firing arrows down on the leader as Cannis moved forward to engage a clutch of the abhumans who were advancing up the hill side to attack with their spears and axes. Six positioned himself so he could use his esoteries on the advancing throng but failed to get a blast off. Further problems were thrown up when the attacking abhumans were able to bring Cannis down (a 1 rolled on Cannis' speed defense, resulted in one of the spears tripping him... I love GM intrusion!). A thrown detonation cypher from the Margyr leader exploded at the feat of Nord and Six, but they were able to leap aside, avoiding any damage from it. Nord replied with a called shot to the giant's eye (a difficult shot, which Nord managed to get a 17 on the roll of and inflict a wicked wound upon his enemy), which dropped the leader, and eased the pressure on the companions. Cannis made light work of being prone, slashing and stabbing at the warriors in front of him and reaping damage upon them whilst they inflicted several wounds back on the redoubtable Glaive. Six managed to blast once or twice with Onslaught, but when he failed with one attempt (again rolling a 1!) the sentry from the far hill appeared behind him, having advanced whilst the party were distracted. Now alert to this danger, Six attempted to bring this sentry down but once again failed to hit with his mental blast; in addition he received a nasty wound in return from the sentry's axe. Nord seeing his friend in danger bull-rushed the sentry, knocking him aside and bruising him in the process. The following turn saw Nord dispatch the sentry with a thrust of his two bladed weapon, allowing the companions to focus on the warriors facing Cannis.

With their leader dead, the remaining Margyr were in a blood-lust fuelled rage, and pressed their attack heedless of the tide turning against them. Cannis was able to get back to his feet when his friends joined the fight, and with the numbers more or less even, the two Glaives and the Nano were able to use their superior training and abilities to overwhelm their opponents, dispatching them quickly before surveying the battlefield. By the end of the fight, all the abhumans lay dead, whilst the companions were cut and bruised but alive. Exhausted but exhilarated, the companions cast their eyes over their spoils, seeking that they had indeed recovered the missing cylinder, and also confirmed that the Aeon Priests had meta grisly end (their remains being some of that which was cooking over the fire). Nord decided that the skull of the leader would make a fine trophy, much to the consternation of his friends, and set about "recovering" it. Meanwhile, Six and Cannis discovered that the abhumans had an artifact in their possession, a pair of rods which when combined together created a blast of lightning. This was perfect for a Mechanical Nano who Rides the Lightning, and Cannis was happy to have the dangerous thing away from him! The abhumans also had 3 aneen which they used as pack animals, and the party decided to use them as mounts after a period of rest, so that they could return to the Faceted Dome and replace the burned out cylinder quickly.

By the following evening they were back in Redstone, having fixed the damaged machine in the dome, and hopeful that the nightmares would now stop. Upon telling the mayor of Redstone this, they were greeted with cautious optimism, which the following morning turned to stupendous joy after a night's undisturbed sleep. This joy was tempered somewhat by the news of the death of the Aeon Priest clave but was still worthy of celebration. Deymish was paid for his cargo by the mayor in thanks, and in turn the companions got their pay for being riverboat guards.

This brought about a close to my first Numenera adventure as a GM, which had taken a mere 2 sessions to run. However, it has now set in place ideas for a continuation for the three characters, as it the game was extremely enjoyable for all involved. Hopefully this means I will be able to write up some more sessions as and when they are run.

Numenera: first fumblings

So this evening I will be launching my first campaign using Numenera, the first game from Monte Cook Games. I was a Kickstarter backer and have had the books since their release last August. So far I have managed a very short one off, where my players created characters together and we played through a part of the starter adventure from the main book, The Beale of Boregal. This time around I am hoping to run the Kickstarter exclusive adventure The Nightmare Switch, which is a nice compact adventure in which the players try to save the village of Redstone from their nightmares. The adventure itself looks suitably weird and fun filled and I have a few ideas to try and make it stranger still, if the opportunity arrives.

The Nightmare Switch: my first Numenera campaign

The campaign starts with characters arriving in the village of Redstone, in Seshar which is a land in an area of the Ninth World called the Beyond. The locals have all been afflicted with a plague of horrifying nightmares that keep on recurring and slowly they are driving the village mad, depriving them of sleep and driving them to abandon the village or to suicide. Can the players uncover the source of these nightmares and stop it? Or will they too fall victim to the strange nightmare plague? I like the look of this adventure as it shows the weird geography of the Ninth World, with the oddly straight, deep canals that dominate Seshar both a striking feature of the map, and the start point for the adventure. This adventure also allows for the display of the Ninth World's strange technology level, with the majority sitting at the same level as the Middle Ages, but also with a selection of anachronistic tech and a smattering of ancient, advanced tech left behind by the people of bygone ages.

Seshar, in the Beyond with its weird canal system. Just one of the lands of the Ninth World

This campaign is going to be something of a casual affair, run with which ever players from my play group can make it. To facilitate this ease of play it is going to be run over Google Hangouts, a medium I have used before in conjunction with the Roll20 app for Pathfinder and found it to be a great way to keep gaming when I cannot get my group together. For tonight's first session, it looks as though I will have a Graceful Glaive, Who Carries a Quiver, and a Nano (whose Descriptor and Focus I cannot remember at present). Once I have run the adventure I intend to do a write up and detail how the players did, and furthermore, I hope to string this together into an ongoing campaign for the next few weeks, so hopefully there will be more write ups to come after that.