Reapers

Hell’s invasion of the moon Asphodel increased its metaphysical gravity, and some souls from other moons get trapped on the the new pseudo-hell rather than continuing to their proper afterlife. They reincarnate on Asphodel, now known as Pilgrims, remembering their death but not their judgement. Some devote themselves a more virtuous life, atoning for a past life’s perceived sins. Some throw themselves into hedonism, knowing their gift could easily shatter. Almost every Pilgrim clings dearly to their second chance at life.

The Reapers are entities dedicated to gathering up these escaped souls and returning them to their journey. They are the manifestation of powerful metaphysical forces, but they are not invulnerable, and they can be evaded. If killed or thwarted, the Reapers reform elsewhere after 24 hours but lose interest in whoever they were targeting.

Death can afford to play games. When you gamble with your life, the house always wins. (Source)

The Grim

Grim Reaper. Hooded, cloaked skeleton. Chill but not talkative. Not mean to Pilgrims, but also no great comfort. Appears in a doorway when no one is looking.

HD 8; Armor as Leather; Move 2; Scythe d12
Scythe hits everyone adjacent to the Grim at once. If damaged to 0 HP, save; if you fail, your fate is sealed and you will die in exactly 3 rounds—nothing can kill you until then, but you will die instantly.

You may bargain for your soul (if dead) or the souls of others (if alive) by playing a game with the Grim. If you win, you and any other agreed-upon souls go free and the Grim leaves. If you fail, both your soul and the others are taken to the afterlife. You can pick the game but the Grim has veto power. Rock Paper Scissors and Connect 4 are popular.

The Angel will be sympathetic as it lets fall a radiant deathblow.  (Luca Giordano)

The Angel

White robes, dove wings. Constantly attempting to comfort the Pilgrims. Its efforts would be more effective if it weren’t trying to kill them with a flaming sword. Walks up like a normal person and tries to ease Pilgrims into their second death before revealing its angelic form.

HD 8; Armor as Leather; Move 2 Fly; Flaming Sword 2d6
Cannot enter any blessed building. Also easily engaged in conversation or bribed with food.

Look, subtlety is not my strong suit, okay? Sometimes you just need a flaming skull in your campaign and that's that (Source)

The Rider

Flaming Skull Head. Motorcycle, dark clothes, lots of spikes and chains and belt buckles. Yells threats and curses and revs the engine.

HD 6; Armor as Chain; Move 10 Motorcycle; Roadkill 2d6 + Knock Prone OR 1d8 Chain Whip
Leaves a trail of fire.
Has to slow down to a stop to turn on the spot. Cannot detach from the motorcycle, so it cannot go anywhere you cannot effectively maneuver a motorcycle.

The death of a person is a tragedy. The death of ecosystems is a constant. (Marek Madej)

The Wild

Huge Humanoid Skeleton with Deer Skull and glowing red eyes, roots knotted around its joints. Plants wither of disease around it and animals lay down to bleed out. Makes a constant low buzzing sound.

HD 8; Armor as Leather; Move 1 Float; Laceration Field 1d6 (15’ radius)
Laceration Field damages all living creatures within 15 feet of the Wild.
The Wild is Vulnerable to fire; it fears and takes double damage from it.

The Deadbolt soundtrack is AMAZING and you should listen to it. The game is also pretty awesome. Seriously. (Soundtrack)

The Marksman

Bleached skull head, brown trench coat, not very large. Careful to protect its fragile, near-mortal body. Mute.

HD 4; Armor as Plate; Move 1.5; Revolver 1d8/Revolver 1d8 OR Sledgehammer 1d12
Each of the Marksman’s two Revolvers has only 6 shots.
Cover: It can hide behind cover to upgrade its Armor to Plate and Shield.
Ash: It can transform into a cloud of ash to become invincible or reach somewhere it couldn’t normally (no attacks as ash).

d5 Random Encounters with the Reapers

1. Old, old farmer pretending not to be home with a Reaper at the door
2. Ragged person sprinting across the landscape, Reaper in pursuit
3. Bandit gang facing down a Reaper on the road. The leader is terrified
4. A Reaper approaches the party and asks the players about the whereabouts of the last NPC they spoke with. They’re good at detecting lies, but not supernaturally so
5. A Reaper has caught the trail of a member of the party 

Every time I go to google Deadbolt I forget that that's also just, like, an object, and get a bunch of pictures of these (Buy It I Guess??)

6 Hellish Hexes

I've been plugging away at Hellwalkers for a little bit now, mostly keying hexes. There are 216 on the map; my goal is to key at least 108 of them. Here are a few, not in any particular order. They're a bit wordy, but this is my first draft for personal use; I would like to polish this hexcrawl eventually to the point where other people can run it. In the meantime, check this out.

Like this but red and with a hammer and with glowing eyes (Castlevania Wiki)

C02

Demon Forge Hammer on an acropolis, guarded by a Demon Blacksmith. He will give it up if the adventurers can best him in honorable combat. The Hammer actually is the Blacksmith; the humanoid body is projected from it. He was employed in creating the chains that hold the great demon Asphodel at the planet’s core, and has no love of it nor the Order of Asphodel, which he knows was probing for the secrets of the original demon binders (space elves). In order to carry the Hammer, a person must cut off their own hand; in its place, a demonic armored gauntlet will grow to hold it. If it is given away to another person, the new wielder must also cut off their hand; the original wielder will be left with a (healthy) stump.

Demon Blacksmith: A huge hollow suit of hoplite armor, blood-red but shiny and neat. Its eyes are embers.
HD: 6, Armor as Plate, Move 1.5, Hammer 2d6
Chains From Below: Summons chains from below to restrain every creature within 10’ of a point (60’ range). The Blacksmith can restrain itself with this by accident.
During duels, won’t incur permanent injuries or kill opponents.

Loot: Demon Forge Hammer. Main Hand, d8 damage, Sapient Demon Blacksmith personality. Imparts expert blacksmithing knowledge to wielder. Throwable, and returns to its hand. Can vaporize a creature’s armor 1/day.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Q05

The Eclipse Fountain. A concrete fountain built before the apocalypse, now covered in a web of deep cracks filled with obsidian and marked by the Order of Asphodel. It has inscriptions depicting an eclipse. The water is crystal clear and carbonated. If someone drinks it, they gain a Mutation, and the rest of the water in the fountain loses its carbonation and mutagenic effects. It recarbonates and becomes mutagenic again after every eclipse (every 5 days).

(Matthias Withoos)

N04

The Graveyard of Stones (O03). There are concrete headstones from the Old World weathered to illegibility, but there are also newer cairns and driftwood gravemarkers and a few recently-carved stone headstones. Many of them have a prayer carved into them: “May your rest be dark and deep / Though your absence we may weep / Asphodel will break your sleep / Granting you new company to keep.” 

Gandalf if Gandalf had died in the first five minutes of the Lord of the Rings (DanielRound on DeviantArt)

M03

Strontium Carbonate, the Firework Wizard. He died in a Firework Accident on a medieval fantasy world before reincarnating as a Pilgrim. He’s very confused. He has an entire cart full of regular, physical fireworks. He can shoot tiny flares from his fingers and blow animated smoke rings at will. He has 5 scrolls of Firework and keeps the spell Finale safely in his mind; he is good friends with it. It is the original owner of his name, Strontium Carbonate, and he confers with it frequently. He will gladly trade a large amount of fireworks and a scroll of Firework for directions to safety.

Loot:
Firework
R: 500’ T: Point D: 1 round
Launch a firework. Casts light in a 100’ radius. Deals d6 burn damage to anyone it hits directly and lights fires in particularly flammable objects. If cast with 2 or more [dice], the firework can be animated.

Finale
R: 2000’ T: 100’ Radius Sphere D: [dice] rounds
Launch a dazzling display of fireworks into an area, in whichever pattern you desire. Creatures inside the area of effect take d6 damage every round and must Save or be Blinded. It lights fires on all flammable surfaces.

Uhhhhh have this concrete disk I guess (This Photo Website)

L02

A concrete disk 100’ across webbed with obsidian and marked by the Order of Asphodel. In the center, there’s a glass disk 5’ across set level with the rest of the disk. Under the glass, gold glints. The concrete and glass are frictionless--anything that moves onto the disk slides slowly across the entire thing. If anything is on top of the glass disk, a 60-second countdown flickers to life in the glass and mechanisms whir; at the end, the glass disk retracts, allowing access to the treasure. It resets if the pressure is released, though, like if an adventurer skids briefly across it.

Loot: 500c in pre-invasion gold coins, Frictionless Boots, 3 Flasks of Ultragrease (covers 10’ radius), Scroll of Grease

Pictured: a deadly weapon, at least for this guy (Rocks)

K02

Tomb of the Blade-Proof Demon, a small concrete bunker in a cliff. It has a vault marked by the Order of Asphodel and a sarcophagus with a pentagram and an inscription. The inscription reads “An Invincible Demon guards this cache. It must be killed to access the vault. Drop blood on the pentagram to summon the guardian and learn its doom.” If the pentagram is activated, new words will burn themselves onto the inscription: “No weapon nor tool nor spell forged of mortal hands can harm the guardian.” Then the Blade-Proof Demon will emerge from the sarcophagus, non-hostile but inordinately smug. If he is killed, the vault opens, revealing the treasure.

Blade-Proof Demon: A red man in a flowery swimming suit. He’s not particularly strong or tough looking, but he is inordinately smug. He’ll dare people to attack him, just to prove his invincibility. He is easily bored and will wander away from crowded areas after a bit.
HD 3; Armor as Leather; Move 1; Longsword d8
The Blade-Proof Demon does not take damage from any weapon, spell, or other object made by a mortal person. Takes regular damage from punches, bites, rocks, falls, and other such things.

Loot: 500c, Tortoise Cloak: Crouch down to make yourself immobile and invincible, but it takes a full minute to get back up.

HELLWALKERS: the First Hellwalkers

When the demons first invaded, the remnants of the Order of Asphodel scraped up adventurers to combat their forces. Four in particular rose to become true heroes: the First Hellwalkers. They did not, however, become HELLWALKERS: the Order's forces were ruined, and though they fought on for a day and a night, they were eventually routed.

FIGHTER: Paul

Legend has it he still roams the southern badlands, cursed to hunt demons until the last infernal creature is slain. They say he can hit a bird in flight a mile away with his rifle. (He is cursed to fight one demon repeatedly, and his aim is good but not supernatural).

K11. Speaks stumblingly. Athletic. Worked as a farmhand. Crack shot with a rifle. Was conscripted by the church and rose quickly to the rank of Hellwalker. He is very bitter at his local priest, who got him conscripted and now lives in Bones (O03. The priest is deeply regretful, and will ask you to let Paul know. He will be outwardly magnanimous but inwardly take a while to cool down). He is now tormented by Babe, the demonic blue ox (it respawns but he will be grateful if you kill it and will give you his awesome rifle if you give him a replacement).

Tells the players that his mission was doomed from the start, and suspects the Order of Asphodel knew it.

I realized after writing this that this is basically Luke Skywalker if Obi-Wan Kenobi had sent him to the empire for training (from Polygon)

THIEF: Bryce

Legend has it she pickpockets the stars themselves for fabulous wealth for her eastern forest retreat. They say she stole cartloads of bread and delivered it to starving people. (She just takes stuff from dead people, and she was arrested and conscripted for stealing a loaf of bread for herself and a few friends).

Q07. Apologetic and self-deprecating. A petty bread thief given the opportunity to serve her sentence as a Hellwalker. As her fellow Hellwalkers were chased screaming into the wastelands, she made a deal for her life with her pursuers. At night and when angry, she is possessed by a huge demon, hulk-style. The deal forbids her from divulging this information. She hides out in a huge cavern full of wrecked furniture with a bedroom-less bunker in the corner. She can provide the players with refined demon blood, which grants the hulk-out.

Tells the players that the Order of Asphodel recruited people who would not be missed to fight the demons. Knew many other petty criminals who were also conscripted.

This reference was intentional. I'd use art of one of the she-hulks but it tends not to focus so much on the muscles (from Wikipedia)

WIZARD: Gladice

Legend has it she is immortal by sheer intellect, and that when she met a genie she left disappointed by its inferior magical experience. They say she can read minds at a glance. Her laboratory is supposed to lie deep in the jungle. (She is immortal by being a Cyberlich, she got some magic knowledge from her familiar, and while she has telepathy spells she’s mostly just a really good at reading people).

F02. Monotone. No emotion except faint melancholy. Escaped from the robot labs to become a Hellwalker. As the demons chased her, she sacrificed her humanity to become a Cyberlich, losing her emotion and humanity to stay alive (strength, speed, endurance, spellcasting). She has not actually been caught; she has a few safe houses she rotates between as she holds off her pursuers, possessed robots. Her familiar is an agent of the demons, but she keeps it obedient and doesn’t let it communicate with its fellows. She worked on an Ark capable of leaving the planet in B11, and can give you a map of it and how to turn off the automated defenses.

Tells the players that she does not trust the Order of Asphodel, that there were schemers in its ranks and they were very interested in studying demons. Tells the players there might be an alternate solution: to evacuate the populace with her Ark. All the Hellwalkers know she had some project she can no longer work on but should be finished and will tell the players so.

Gladice wasn't really inspired by GLaDOS but I'm running out of energy for this so have this picture anyway (from Wikipedia)

CLERIC: Theo

Legend has it you can hear his the screams of his torment miles away from the mountain he is chained to. They say his pain gives him the power to grant prayers. (You can hear him in the next hex over, but he can’t grant prayers. The owls will bring him news of very public prayers and do what they can at his behest, though).

D11. Speaks in Shakespearean. Righteous. Paladin of Glasswing, patron of Maces, Scarabs, and Oil. He was turned over to to his captors by voluntarily possessed Orderlies of Asphodel. Tormented by barn owls, which peck and scratch at him constantly. The owls commiserate and bring him news. His bellows at his betrayers are audible in the next hex. He can send messages through the owls and provide his mace, which can cast Grease 1/day.

Tells the players that a large chunk of the Order of Asphodel directly worships the demons, and that they betrayed him to the demons. He fears the corruption ran deep before the organization fell, and that those that remain may be the most corrupted of all.

"Man, the weather today is just awful." "Yeah, my back is killing me." "Sorry, that's actually my beak digging into your flesh." "Ah, you're fine, work is work. I know how it is. How are the kids?" (from this website)

And here, once more, is the map, for reference

HELLWALKERS: the Pilgrim’s Verse and the Crow’s Chime

Journey West, Pilgrims
Through field and mire,
Vine and spire
To the Pit of Flame.
Ring the Crow’s Chime,
Turn back time
Restore the righteous world,

HELLWALKERS

The words float on the air. They linger on the lips of the wounded; they lure the foolhardy to the gates and echo after their un-worn boots. Those who heed the Pilgrim’s Verse are Hellwalkers. They all dream of saving the world—of becoming the true HELLWALKERS.

Rumors of the Pit of Flame (B07)

Their destination is the Pit of Flame: a volcano in the Western Mountains, just southwest of the town of Bones. Rumors drift down the river Styx to the town of Stones: the people of Bones are terrified of the Pit. They whisper of a beast, the Crow, but the journey is long; merchants are few and Hellwalkers fewer. No witness has ever returned with a direct account of the thing or its prize: the Chime.

Oscar of Astora (Dark Souls)

The Lab

A concrete bunker squats in the caldera. The doorway is exploded; the great steel doors, stamped with the seal of the Order of Asphodel, lay 40 feet away. Inside are countless piles of feathers, shinies, and small treasures. Skeletons both human and demon for the floor, and blood and feathers cover shattered test tubes. In the central chamber is a single large test tube frame the size of a small house, in the bottom of which is a huge nest with piles of coins and other treasures. A vault door lies in front of an alcove in the back of the room with a pedestal in it.

Treasures: Unhatched Crows’ Eggs, 6-Second Skip Pills, 6-Second Rewind Pills

The Crow

Crows infest the lab and the caldera. Their tiny hoards dot the area. Among their number, however, are demon crows and cyborg crows (2d8: 1 much bigger, 2 flaming, 3 shadowy, 4 teleporting, 5 laser eyes, 6 feather blades, 7 jet wings, 8 electric talons). They build their nests in the test tubes of their birth. They’re smart, and they’ll test the party with gifts and caws to see if they’re friend or foe. They are the younger siblings of The Crow.

It looms up to the size of a T-Rex. A hive of dimly-lit glass eyes set in a huge metal plate dominate the left half of its face (they shoot a huge laser). It raises its wings to obscure itself in shadow fog. Feather blades line its wings. It breaths with the noise of a jet engine and moves with speed to match. If wounded, its talons ignite with electric flame. It hungers for more shinies.

The Shrieker (Darkest Dungeon)

The Crow’s Chime

A rod of steel and silicon, as long as an arm and engraved with the seal of the Order of Asphodel. It weighs more than it should and catches light from unseen sources. It is, in reality, a sort of checkpoint, set to a day 15 years ago, 15 minutes before the beast breaks containment and four hours before the end of the world. If it is rung—twisted into position over the course of a day and struck by strong steel—it will drag the rest of the world back to its anchor point. The Chime pulls everyone touching it to its physical location in the lab as well, leaving their bodies, memories, and inventories intact. The ritual that ended the world took place in the lab four hours after the checkpoint was set. It can be stopped by the HELLWALKERS.

The Chime is not on its pedestal.

The Chime is in the Citadel (I08). With no one left in the lab to claim it, the demons took it to safeguard their victory in the past.

The Draft Room

An iron-banded oak door covered in charred claw marks blocks a side passage, or used to, before it rotted away. It was an office. Inside is a skeleton, a sturdy desk, and a small pile of opened cans, enough for two days’ worth of rations. On the desk is a one-way radio distress transmitter and dozens of sheets of paper—rough drafts of the pilgrim’s verse.

Journey West, Pilgrims, through field and forest, or grass and woodland, or sun and shade. Visit the Caldera of Knowledge, or the Scholar’s Cauldron, or the Final Volcano. Ring or toll or twist the Chime, the Chime of the Beast, or the Past-Walker’s Chime. Reclaim what was, or seize your former fate, or rewrite old wrongs right again: HELLWALKERS, or PASTSHAPERS, or PENITENTS. There is a final sheet of paper next to the radio with the final verse.

Other pages track frantic thought: “Door barred. Two days’ food. Chime remains for now. Order Asphodel ruined; no rescue. Battery for one transmission. Chime must be used to change past, but none in Order are stronger than Escapee. Must attract others.”

“Could explain situation. Broadcast openly. Too long to transmit, too much knowledge to bear. Instead: spread simple myth of Chime’s power through Order survivors.”

“First Hellwalkers—allies? [locations of two Hellwalkers] Know much. Will overburden others with strict morals. No doubt bitter. Chime must ring. Be direct. No distractions.”

“Last can. Transmission sent. Demons still outside. Chime remains. Pray they don’t take it.”

“So hungry. One day since last can. Rescue still unlikely.”

“hungry hu̸ǹg͢ry h͘ù́n̕͠gr̵̛y̡̧ h̴͜͡u̷͞҉҉n̸̛g̨̨̕͜r͠͏̵̷͜y̸̡ h̶̜̜͉̝û͓ͭ̊̿͒ͧ̌n̶̫̣͓̮̂ͯ̇ͩg̒͂ͧͦ̂̂̍ṟ͈̮̻̼ͪ͋ý̯”

MFW I'm waiting for the adventurers to Ring the Crow's Chime and Turn Back Time (imgflip)

Design Notes: Influences

Dark Souls
So, I didn’t really fight the Dark Souls influence here. As those of you who have played the game might have noticed, the Pilgrim’s Verse is directly inspired by Oscar’s Undead Prophecy in Dark Souls 1: a call to arms to visit a far-off location and ring something. The ringing of the bell in Dark Souls is so strongly imprinted in my memory that I just let that bleed through here: the Hellwalkers are also trying to ring a macguffin. The influence runs deeper than that, though—also like the Undead Prophecy, it misleads those who follow it: there is a second Bell of Awakening to ring in Dark Souls and the Chime is not in the Pit of Flame. Just like the Undead Prophecy, the Pilgrim’s Verse is a fabrication by a waning power hoping some future adventurer will restore it.

Enter the Gungeon
The quest is also inspired directly by Enter the Gungeon: in that game, the player characters are attempting to go back in time and undo their past mistakes. I think that’s pretty cool, and it makes me feel less bad about writing a world full of crappy stuff.

Doom (2016)
The Order of Asphodel works parallel to the UAC. Both meddled in demonic power and things went south. There’s some evidence of that here in all the broken test tubes, but I’m going to try to scatter more of it around the map.

Darkest Dungeon
It has a cool corvid boss fight.

Here's the map, for reference

HELLWALKERS

HELLWALKERS

Demons invaded the world! Great warriors gathered from every kingdom to drive back the infernal forces!

They died.

15 years passed.

The demons erected a Citadel. A week ago, it began firing jets of green flame into space—a sickly omen. The brave rot in the pale light, but bravery never ensured survival. Scheming hope springs up amid the mud and flame. When heroes fall, HELLWALKERS rise.

I played the modern Doom and thought it was pretty good. Haven't played the original but I hear it's good too (Doom)

HELLWALKERS is a hexcrawl/setting/campaign I’m going to write and run in a few months. The Player Characters grew up after demons invaded their world, Asphodel (a moon of the gas giant Charybdis). Adventurers—known as Hellwalkers—journey out into the burning wastes to try to learn why the demons invaded, and, ultimately, save the world from its demon occupation. After the Demon Citadel began firing jets of green flame into space, the player characters took on the Hellwalkers’ quest themselves. If they can survive the hellish environment, if they can save the world, they’ll become true HELLWALKERS.

I just finished running the first campaign that really achieved the goals I set out to achieve at the start (a medieval fantasy pastiche hexcrawl featuring feudal politics and taxes). I might post about it in the future, but today what matters is that I am ever-ambitious, and I have lofty goals for this next project.

I am excited for the sequel. It is going to have Dark Souls style multiplayer. Also this lightsaber (Doom)

Goals

Focus on the hexcrawl. In my last campaign, the party spent several sessions’ worth of time sticking inside of single hexes, mostly dungeons and towns. It was great! But I would like to focus my next campaign much more on the hexcrawl part of gameplay, meaning less time delving dungeons and scheming in town and more time traveling overland. There will still be tombs to rob and civilized areas to visit, but there won’t be as much depth to them. The interesting bits will be in the relationships between spread-out locations.

Make a bigger map. The last map was just 8x10 hexes, and the players stayed in a very small area within it, only 6x3 hexes. They were always easily within a days’ travel of town, which reduced the pressure to gather supplies in the wilderness and heal STR damage in town. This time around, the map will be bigger, there will be fewer towns, and there won’t be as many roads.

Run an investigation. This has been sort of a nebulous goal of my last few campaigns. The players wandered around learning things, but it didn’t have any large impact and it wasn’t particularly guided. This time around, there will be major mysteries to uncover. To begin with, the players will be investigating why the demons invaded in the first place, and then, later, what they can do about it. I’ll spread known important locations and NPCs around the map to get them moving.

Run a more challenging (deadlier) game. I am a total wuss. Moonhop’s injury system is good because it removes me from the process—if the players take injuries or die, it will be mostly their fault. At some point, however, I do need to put actually-dangerous things on the map, things that the players won’t outsmart on their first try. Victory is sweeter when it comes after legitimate failure.

Give in to my gonzo science fantasy instincts. Medieval pastiche is fun, but I suspect that I am, at heart, a science fantasy person. I like cyborg, wizards, and cyborg wizards, and I intend to put all three on the same hexcrawl. I’m also going to tap into the OSR favorite Aesthetics of Ruin and try to make a really grand setting for the players to marvel at.

Watch a ragtag bunch of misfits rise to heroism or fall in a blaze of glory. My players definitely played misfits, but they accumulated power a bit more quickly than I’d like and there wasn’t ever much chance of the blaze of glory. I’m going to be more direct with this goal by setting the player goal at “Save the World” and putting deadly obstacles in their way.

On my last map, numbering started at 0, and let me tell you, that was a really dumb idea

MAP

I don’t know what all of the stuff on the map means yet. A big part of my process is putting down hexes that I think look cool and then thinking of things to put in them. I’ll try to blog about that process here. Arnold has some good words about the deep comfort of mapmaking.

I used Hex Kit to make this; it’s $15 for the program itself and a little more money for the pretty colored hexes. I recommend it. If you’re strapped for cash, I recommend Hexographer, which is clunkier and not as pretty but perfectly functional.

The seed of this campaign: “Joan of Arc and Doomguy
team up to kick ass.” (Courtesy of Dan at Throne of Salt)

DOOT (by Storm Wolf) 

Halloween in the Deep Carbon Observatory: a Challenge, a Session, a Debriefing

First: 

This is not a review. I like Deep Carbon Observatory a lot, and I recommend it if you don't have it. Most of the evaluation bits of this post focus on stuff that went wrong with the module rather than stuff that went right; that’s more due to what I tried to do with it than the quality of the thing itself. This post is more about planning out a session with DCO and reviewing what happened.

You can buy it here. The PDF is $10.00; the softcover is $13.30. 

The Setup: 

The Challenge:
I have four hours to run a Halloween oneshot for a group that normally plays combat-focused 5e. This is the opportunity to give the players a taste of wonder instead of spending four hours fighting through four rooms.

The Module:
Deep Carbon Observatory, specifically the final dungeon--the Observatory itself. It's an ancient ruin full of lethal treasure. A cruel band of NPC adventurers--the Crows--stalks the party.

The System:

You can download the version I used for the oneshot here. It's short, just 7 pages long, and covers character generation only. 

I'm working on a hack that combines Into the Odd mechanics with GLOG classes. This version is, like Into the Odd, classless, so there's way more Into than there is GLOG, but I'm going to keep working on it. The Failed Career table is based on James', and the Quirks table is a modification of one I collaborated on with the OSR Discord, which Saker Tarsos instigated and posted on his blog.

The Plan:

1. Players generate their characters. Hopefully a half hour or less. Could be ten minutes if people arrive on time. 
2. Read starting blurb about ancient kingdom with great powers, do best possible Cate Blanchett impression. 
3. The players start outside the observatory proper. They were headed to Carrowmore; it was flooded. They ventured upriver to find the source of the flood. They were not the only ones (stragglers as replacement PCs + Crows). Eventually, they arrived here: A deep, black pit, with mirrored towers surrounding it, perfectly dry. At the bottom is a gate. Cue the music. 
4. Run the observatory proper. The Last Thing is in room 39, as suggested. The Crows harass the PCs and try to steal their stuff. Hopefully they release the Last Thing and die horribly. 
5. In the event of TPK before session end: Run Isles of the Dead (this step is implicit in all my sessions). 
6. In the event that the players actually survive the Observatory and lose the Crows and the Last Thing, they can venture toward Carrowmore. 

They are not as spooky if you kill their friends before meeting them (Scrap Princess)

The Crows: 
Hooloch can reload and fire on the same turn and gets two melee attacks. Zolushika has a derringer (d8, exploding 6-8, 1-in-6 reload, melee range, last resort). The Snakewood Staff takes 1 Max HP/use.
They arrived a few hours before the PCs, opened the gate, scouted out the first room, then left and waited for someone else to come by and venture down. They will harass with zombies and special arrows every night, or attack in the Observatory if they see an opportunity.


All of that was written before I ran the session. No plan survives contact with the players.

I don't really want to do a room-by-room session report, so just take this player map instead

The Debriefing: 

In Summary: 

1. Into the GLOG is a solid foundation
2. I’m bad at horror
3. The Observatory is not suitable for a single 4-hour Halloween Oneshot
4. All the talk of randomly generated abilities encouraging player ingenuity is absolutely correct

Self/System Evaluation: 

1. The Character Generation Packets (the Into the GLOG document above) were a resounding success. I printed out six copies and put them on the table; each player had their own. We were able to start playing in just a few minutes, and the characters were fairly interesting. The players definitely read the Player Advice page, although I don’t think they processed it fully. 
2. I’m happy with HP calibration. Monsters get HD*8 HP and each “level” of Armor grants 1 Damage Reduction (see the rules doc for player HP). Monsters felt tough without taking forever to kill, and players were clearly in danger (two died, there were a bunch of lost fingers and one lost hand) but not unfairly so. I’ve struggled with balancing monster and player toughness for the entirety of my time GMing OSR stuff (about the last year), and this system was the first to feel really good. 
3. I tried classic “both sides roll a d6, whoever rolls higher goes first” initiative, and I think I still prefer the GLOG style of “everyone rolls an initiative check; anyone who succeeds goes before the monsters.” I’m already fairly lenient in terms of allowing players to ambush things, so having every player act at once even in regular combat is too swingy for my tastes.  
4. I don’t really know how to handle players asking to attack things outside of combat yet. I had them just roll for damage like regular Oddomatic attacks, which worked out okay, but didn’t feel great. I probably should have allowed the players to just execute the guy in the Razored Lock, but I had them roll for damage twice instead, which was weird. Screwing with the ooze automatons led to a couple of similarly difficult rulings on “fighting without entering combat”: How do I handle the automaton grabbing for a jar out of a backpack? How about players shooting the jar out of its hands? What I did was have the player make a STR check to avoid being grabbed, and when they failed I had the automaton just take the jar out of their backpack, and that felt alright. When they wanted to shoot the jar out of its hands, I just said “you shoot it and it shatters,” but in retrospect I should have given it “Damage Reduction 3, HP 1” or something to model the automaton trying to protect it. 
5. I forgot to implement reloading for pistols, which in theory makes them a decent chunk more powerful than regular melee weapons and much stronger than bows, but in practice--in the context of a oneshot where players didn’t have the opportunity to shop--it didn’t really matter. People who started with guns used them; people who started with bows or daggers used those. 
6. I’m not confident enough in sad/scary things to run them well. Specifically, I feel awkward describing things seriously instead of in a lighthearted tone; I’m not confident in my descriptive abilities. Hopefully I'll be able to practice this and it'll help. 
7. Using a speaker for music didn’t work out very well; we were playing in a room with 5 other groups (it's a large club), so the background noise basically forced me to keep the music down in order to be heard. The playlists were also a bit short. 20 minutes of exploration music probably isn't enough. 

Cane Threadington, his argumentative tattoo of his ex-wife, and his blood, which is spiders

DCO Evaluation:

1. The Observatory itself isn’t really scary. I know that information is in the module, but I foolishly thought I could make it scary and it wasn’t. It’s a series of rooms full of great dangerous toys and NPCs, but without the context of the trip upriver and the dam and the lakebed I don’t think it had a properly eerie feel. Player feedback indicated that, too; there were a couple things that were a bit creepy, but the players mostly just attacked them. They didn't reach the Last Thing. 
2. The Observatory itself is too long to run in a oneshot, at least for me. We got a bit less than halfway through in about 3.5 hours of play. They explored most of the right stalactite, ending at the Book Elf Woman. 
3. The players killed the guy in the Razored Lock and the mushroom dudes, which may have damaged the horror feel early on. 
4. My mapping player was able to map the vertical dungeon fairly well, but I think the players' vision of the space they were in was harmed (I’m not good enough at description to improvise the horizontal layer, I don’t think). 
5. As far as I can tell, the Observatory does not/should not have random encounters. Without random encounters, I didn't think to track light-time, and without tracking light-time I didn’t think to track light-radius, which is itself made worse by DCO’s vertical map. This was a oneshot, so ultimately all of that was fine or even good, but I think it’s still important to note that all of those concepts are strongly linked. I need to consider them together in my regular campaign. 
6. My players LOVED the scales. They spent maybe about an hour real-time goofing around with them. They used them to identify ghar’s crossbow bolts, figure out their own character traits, compare how cool two PCs were (had to be settled by IRL arm wrestle), assess the magicalness/dangerousness of various objects, and probe the moral opinions of the scale (they learned that it doesn't think very highly of souls or freedom). 
7. They obsessed over the Cervit ceramic plates for a while without discovering what they actually did, and they didn't think to ask NPCs what they did. 
8. I ran the Crows in a somewhat forgiving way, since with Oddomatic attacks and a party used to direct-combat 5e the players would have just been crushed. They were able to ambush and kill Ghar and Zolushika, but the other two are still at large. The players were a little bit creeped out, but without the history of the journey upriver I don’t think the Crows were anywhere near as scary. 

Roxas Carter, Pirate King, who can mix oil and water, with an animated zombie hand taped to his right stump, wearing a crabclaw over that, wearing a shield, holding a magic arrow. There's another guy borrowing his eyepatch. And he has viking horns. And two peg legs. And a gun. Honestly, there's a lot going on here. 

Player Stuff:

1. Using the Scales to identify Ghar’s crossbow bolts. They were able to get keywords like “hallucinations,” “ensaring,” and “scrying”
2. Using the quirk “you can mix oil and water” to mix oil into the water-based automaton oozes and burn them for lots of damage
3. Ghar shot one of the players with his eyeball-seeing arrow, and then that player took another player’s eyepatch and put it over that eye for no reason in particular, allowing them to ambush the Crows. They then found the mirror, displaying fabric (they thought it was the inside of a pocket), and then later when they checked on the player’s eye I told them that the mirror was showing what he saw (over the course of a couple exchanges). They were amused that they had accidentally thwarted the spying attempt.
4. When they found the alien plant biospheres, the only player in the room said “I drop it on the ground at my feet.” 5d6 damage, Save for Half: They lived through that incident with 2 STR (and some lost fingers) but later died.
5. Welded automaton fingers to the iron palms of the person who dropped a bomb on themselves. 
6. Animated a zombie hand, tied it to the stump of another person who lost a hand, put a crabclaw on top of that, and put a shield on the whole thing
7. Two characters died during direct combat with the silk golems/silk tapestry, because they basically just traded blows and lobbed alien plant biospheres (and rolled poorly).
8. One of the players—someone new to TTRPGs—walked in like a zombie, and said “I feel like crap, guys, so I might leave early.” As the session went on, however, she perked up, and played the whole time. Furthermore, she was one of the people whose character died, and after the session was over, she said “I really liked switching characters in the middle.” The OSR Works™.

Left to right: Uliczny Magik, Sometimes Invisible Street Magician; Black Brady Barnacle Butt, Iron-Palmed Pirate (Deceased); and "Tinman" Smith, Telekinetic Forester. There were some other characters, but these are the ones with art. 

Plans for the Future:
So, this group is probably not coming back to DCO. We normally play 5e with a different DM, and we only have a few sessions left, so we're probably just going to keep playing through that campaign.

If I run DCO again in the future, I’m going to expand my music selection, run it in a quieter room, and run the entire module. If I run another Halloween oneshot, it'll probably be something campy rather than scary.

Otherwise, I’m going to keep working on Into the GLOG, write up some classes, and go back to running non-horror stuff with my regular group.

It turns out that posting weekly is too often. Things will be sporadic.  If you want to hear about stuff early, hang out on the OSR Discord.