"The Greatest Secret Pertaining to the Dessert of Cha'alt" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.17

 

As the campaign winds down, I wanted to utilize one of my latest hand-drawn maps.  The color scheme was inspired by mint-chocolate ice cream (although, it could easily double as a swamp).

The players praised the map as soon as they saw it.  Thusly did it manifest the worm's share of the session.  

We almost had two new players, but things happened and the adventuring party soldiered on with Bandersnatch, Thurberus, and Tinker.

But first... I had the players do a couple things (beyond leveling their characters.  Those three are now 8th level and should have gained a new feat at 7th, FYI).  First, I wanted them each to come up with something about their character that's fairly big or meaningful or important that no one else in the party has any idea about.  And if that information is relayed to others at some point in the campaign, they'll get a point of Divine Favor for it.

Bandersnatch said that he was his own grandfather, having gone back in time at some point to have sex with his grandmother when she was young.  His new feat gave victims of his sorcery Disadvantage on their saving throws.

Thurberus told us he had an unknown type of lavender gem embedded on his body (I think the middle of his chest).  His parents never told him what that was about - it was years before he realized no one else had such a flesh-stone.  Sometimes, that gem grants sensory impressions of things happening in other dimensions and possible futures.  The v'symm priest chose the animal companion feat last time.

Tinker had been taken in by a tribe of Kha'alestinians as a youth, joining their struggle to free Kha'alestine.  This tied-in to his latest feat... that he knew their language and culture, making him a helpful guide when it came time to adventure within Kha'alestine.

Second, I utilized a trick from a blog post my friend sent me weeks ago, the heading for this part of the blog post was something like the cauldron of chaos.  I took a scrap of paper with a suggestion written on it by each player and placed it within the suggestion skull (of secrets).  Once per session, I would remove a suggestion and try to incorporate that into the game, either in that moment or soon after.  So, the players did that.  

Every session, new suggestions - any suggestion at all, for an example I said you could write down "Go fuck yourself!" and maybe I'd do an impression of Elon Musk - are added, until there's quite a few in there.  Starting this so late in the campaign, there won't be a ton by the time we've finished with this season, and I want to incorporate this from the very beginning of our 4th year of the Cha'alt campaign starting in January.

Still within the Temple of Unimagined Horrors - there's a reason, I suppose, why the horrors of this temple are unimagined.  Because, aside from dozens of impaled victims at the beginning and the weirdness of being inside some kind of gigantic Cha'altian creature, there wasn't much in the way of horrific goings on.  Basically, I never imagined them.  Clever ruse or me and my imagination totally dropping the ball?  You decide!  Incidentally, I did sit down and try to think of horrific shit several times, but kept drawing a blank... now that I don't need them, I'm sure the ideas will start flowing.

As the PCs headed towards the last few flesh-cavities yet to be explored, they came upon a grey oblong box.  Thurberus opened it to find his Gallifrey cardinal violet robes cleaned and pressed by the House of the Rising Moons Dry-Cleaners.  Alone with his robes was a scroll tied at the middle with a Gallifrey cardinal violet ribbon.  Written upon the scroll, in zoth, was the following... "Enjoy the freshness.  You, Thurberus, owe me one (1) favor.  Your friend, Garblegax"

Wearing the clean robes of that Gallifrey cardinal violet hue, they kept going.  Thurberus couldn't help but show a knowing smirk.  One day, that demonic imp would no doubt ask for something...

Pulling another monster out of my new DCC bestiary, the PCs encountered something that resembled mirror-like metallic plates covering the wall and floor.  As Tinker investigated, the thing turned into a strange mirror image of the pixie-fairy and attacked him.  Tinker used his bottle of spider milk (which melted it), Thurberus smashed it with the basket he was weaving at the time, and Bander cast an ectoplasmic webbing over the stuff that hadn't transformed yet.  Thurberus used his obsidian thorn staff to absorb whatever soul energy the mirror-metal creature released.

Easily defeated, the party moved on.  They heard the clicking and whirring of machines and saw eleven velociraptor-cyborgs walking around, protecting a towering super-computer towards the back of the cavity.

Into combat they went, Thurberus blasting 4 of the velociraptor-cyborgs with his staff, Bander slicing into a couple of them like they were warm butter.  Meanwhile, the cyborgs were blasting the PCs with red laser eyes and by the 3rd round, everyone was hurting.  Tinker came up with a rather inventive idea - he damaged and then proceeded to threatened the super-computer who eventually ordered his servitors to stand down, which they did.  

The towering computer claimed to be The Oracle, and agreed to answer their questions as long as they performed a service for him - explore his latest "dungeon," essentially, playtesting it before The Oracle met with his own gaming group.  Like any fucking boss, he GMed Cha'alt.  Various sentient machines across the planet played in his campaign.

As the PCs were both trying to come to grips with The Oracle's ask while also stammering in an attempt to let this super-computer down easy without trying his new dungeon, The Oracle zapped them into his creation.  While traveling, The Oracle told them the origins of The Frozen Caves of Mint-Chocolate!  You see, the whole thing came about via a typo when a player in The Oracle's game asked about the greatest secret pertaining to the desert of Cha'alt.  However, in the binary translations of code, it came out as dessert, and The Oracle's A.I. generated the Frozen Caves of Mint-Chocolate.

Appearing within a cave made of frozen mint-chocolate ice cream, the PCs were so they could see their breath. They walked through a tunnel to discover what was up ahead.  At this point, I offered an adventure-themed snack... mint-chocolate ice cream for anyone who wanted it.  Only myself and Bandersnatch's player partook.

Frost-bitten falcons, seemingly made of ice, flew around, occasionally nibbling on a frozen humanoid corpse.  This dude had been sliced open, nearly cut in two.  In front of the dead guy was a message written in either strawberry syrup topping or blood. "2% butterscotch ripple."

Not knowing what that meant, but believing it could be important, they filed that info away and kept going.  They soon found a shivering derelict with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, muttering to himself that the ratio was off - too much chocolate, not enough mint.  Tinker got close enough for the derelict to stab him with a mint-scorpion dagger.  It did minimal damage, but when Bandersnatch identified the magic item, it was revealed to have the power of killing an opponent who failed to save (if the top number for damage - 4 - was rolled).  Tinker wanted and took that weapon after they killed the shivering derelict.

He had some local currency, too, in a Herculean effort of vast creativity and unparalleled imagination, I came up with "mint-chocolate ice cream coins" on the spot.  Lol.  Hey, it had been a month between games; I was rusty.  However, I soon mentioned that the precision of working bas-relief pictures and text onto the individual coins affected the value... which is something.

Soon, they encountered mint-chocolate elves who were literally made of ice cream.  These were the native guardians of the frozen caves.  They asked the elves if they knew who The Oracle was.  They didn't.  The elves couldn't help the PCs escape this mint-chocolate cave system, so they went on.  But not before giving the adventurers their 3rd best warrior to guide them around.  He was named Chip.

The PCs found a cave where the worshipers of Vertoothgura'ath lived.  They were performing some sort of ritual honoring their ultra-telluric ancestors, asking for wisdom.  Based on the gestures, words, and symbols drawn upon the cave, it led the PCs to believe these folks weren't from around here.  Sure enough, these worshipers were from outer space.  They came here, persecuted for their beliefs by anti-Old One forces, in hopes of finding an ultimate weapon to defeat their enemies.

So far, they have a mint-chocolate hued box that did nothing at all.  Bander asked to investigate the box, to see if he could find a way of activating or attuning it.  The cultist asked Bander to place his hand in the box.  When he reluctantly did, the cultist slammed the box lid down upon the sorcerer's hand.  For that, Bandersnatch decapitated the cultist.  No one in the cult minded because that guy was an asshole.

But they also had a formula (the ingredients were mint-chocolate ice cream, various herbs, and zoth) for communing with the Great Old Ones.  So, they partook and I had everyone roll to see how many balls they were tripping.  Thurberus got the highest... literally, and began speaking to Vertoothgura'ath.

The Great Old One of the frozen caves was limited in that his sphere of influence was wholly comprised of mint-chocolate ice cream.  Nevertheless, he told Thurberus to charge the box with a blood sacrifice.  They also asked Vertoothgura'ath if he knew who The Oracle was, and the Old One answered yes... he was this pocket-universe's creator.  Nothing else of interest was discovered as they came back down to this plane of reality.

Using the dead cultist's heart to attune the magic box, the PCs convinced the cultists to let them utilize the box first and then hand it back to them before they escaped from these frozen ice cream caves.  They agreed, and sent with the PCs their 3rd best worshiper, Vert.

Later, they came upon a high-tech facility known as The Scoop, this was a Dha'arma Initiative station where a couple dozen humans were trying to find their own way of leaving this pocket-universe.  They came up with a giant ice cream scoop, but the mint-chocolate walls were so frozen that it needed to be heated up in order to be effective.  

Killing the guards to gain entry and traipsing around the facility, the party eventually got themselves captured.  There was one guy already in the holding cell, a janitor.  The PCs tried the box out on him as I pulled out a scrap of paper from the suggestion skull.  A vista of cobalt blue opened as the stars turned to jello.  That's what the unfortunate wretch saw just before his mind broke and was reduced to a catatonic state on the floor.  

After seeing this and being promised a way of super-heating their ice cream scoop, the dha'arma folks let the PCs go.  They continued on, finding their way to a mint-chocolate dragon... hey, if you're going to commit, then commit.  

Moving on, the PCs went into a foggy dragon's cave.  Of course, this was a mint-chocolate dragon who's breath weapon was quick-freezing chocolate syrup.  The PCs wisely decided to offer the dragon several baubles rather than attempt to slay him.  Bandersnatch unburdened himself of several items he'd been carrying around since the first few sessions, such as the origami unicorn.

Having pleased the dragon, they made their way past him to a cave containing a gigantic freezer vent.  This is where the ice-cold air was coming from, keeping the ice cream rock hard.  Seeing a swirling fan blade behind the grille, they entered the vent, blasted a bunch of circuitry (that caused the freezing cold air to seize-up and stop functioning), and passed through the stopped fan into a swirling magical portal.

The portal took the PCs back to The Oracle where the super-computer was pleased with their exploration.  He asked what they thought, and got some good feedback.  In return, The Oracle agreed to offer them a small gift of whatever they wanted, plus answer questions.  Without wasting a second, Chip (who had started to melt ever since they entered this beast's interior) hurriedly asked The Oracle for something to keep him from melting.  Almost like the Wizard of Oz, the super-computer opened up a panel and out popped, not a fake heart for the tin-man, but... a tiny pale-blue cube that radiated immense cold.  Chip swallowed it and thanked The Oracle for his generosity.

"Well played," the PCs said as they asked about the ultra-telluric glyphs.  The Great Mainframe gave them a way of attuning these special glyphs (of which the PCs had 3), telling them magic words and ingredients needed to brew a potion that must be drank during the ritual.  And I believe the PCs also asked if he knew where the Old One they released and had been tracking might be.  He's still in Kha'alestine.

There was still time on the clock, but this was a better stopping-point than most.  So, we ended it there.  Next stop would be Kha'alestine.

GMing new adventures is a bit of a high-wire act.  If you think of all the writers, prep, rehearsals, advisors, notes, re-writes, takes, and edits it requires to get a TV show or movie to the audience, it's a lot, and GMs don't get any of that.  While running tried and true scenarios, field-tested over and over again,  provides the most polish, tight pacing, and cover for all manner of eventualities, there's something about doing it live that's inherently appealing.  

All I ask is that for you GMs at home, please have a net to catch you if you fall.

That's it, hoss.  Our next session should be Saturday, October 25th.  Thanks for reading!

VS

p.s.  Fantastic news - weekend badges are now available for July 2026's VENGER CON V: The Will To Power.  Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis.  Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  

"Worm Wine Should Always Be Served At Room Temperature" - CHA'ALT Session Report 3.16

 

This session didn't start out right away because it almost never does.  Having not seen each other for a couple weeks, we like to chat about what's going on... in our personal lives and/or the world.

I told the guys about my getting scammed and how several really dumb and/or ignorant decisions on my part resulted in making an unfortunate situation worse.  In future: call a legitimate professional company rather than some guy on the internet, ask what the costs are up-front, always check with your wife, don't pay with a check.

But then we pivoted to Charlie Kirk's assassination.  Such a tragic event that's shocked our nation and will reverberate through America's political climate for years to come.  RIP, hoss.

Even though I've been beating myself up for being the victim of scammers all week, I was determined to run the best game I could, and didn't disappoint by all accounts, crossing Yog-Soggoth's tentacles.  With three players, Bandersnatch, Thurberus, and Tinker, we carried on...

Looking back at the rubble, dust, and devastation from that photon torpedo set off at the end of last session to destroy their other-colored selves who wanted them dead, the PCs checked to see how many passages out of that massive cavern were still viable post-cave-in.  Only two.

As they headed north to an unobstructed tunnel, they smelled something bad.  Bandersnatch turned Tinker invisible so he could look up ahead and see what was going on.  A couple of black robed humanoids were in a stand-off with a vengeful skunk ghost (promises made, promises kept).  The men were trying to coax the stinky apparition into a magic bottle.

In exchange for the black robes (apparently, robes are valuable on Cha'alt?), Tinker said he'd help them, which the men gladly accepted.  The party's sorcerer was nearly sprayed while trying to dominate the skunk ghost - thankfully, he used the old "By His loathsome tentacles" because he missed his saving throw by one.  Bander's spell went off and the skunk when in the bottle.

The NPCs parted ways when Thurberus attempted to gather them into the cult like folds of spotted-cow velvet.  But I rolled a natural 20 for the NPCs' internal bullshit detector, and they splashed the v'symm priest with ectoplasmic stink before running away.  

Thurberus hung back about 50' so he didn't offend his two companions as Bandersnatch and Tinker explored further north.  To the east was the sound of a bass-zita'ar, and they followed.  "Bass-zita'ar solo, take one."  Garblegax was jamming on his instrument as the PCs approached.  They talked about the Temple of Unimagined Horrors, the demon-imp mentioned Kaltha'alax, though the PCs didn't know who or what that was, they talked about the demons Garblegax wanted revenge upon, but mostly they discussed the ideal serving temperature of worm wine - room temperature.

Oh, and Garblegax magically provided a bathtub full of zama'ato juice that would clean him; Garblegax also sent his Gallifrey cardinal violet robes to be dry-cleaned.  

Heading over to the western cave, they came upon "leech-men" that sloshed around a cave full of gross, dark-purple muck (shout-out to that DCC monster book I picked-up at the last GaryCon).  After a combat where most of them were killed and the remainder ran off, Thurberus entered a strange booth that appeared when Bandersnatch had cast his missile command spell.  He's been using those energy crystals to power his spells, and I've been asking for d100 rolls on the spell side-effect table in Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise.

Sure enough, it was a nudie booth.  Thurberus didn't bother to try his Federation credits, but instead smashed the currency exchange device found next to the coin slot. 74 coins spilled out- groovy!  Inserting a couple, the curtain on the other side of the glass panel opened to reveal two beautiful women who did whatever the watcher wanted.  Upon rolling a d12, it was determined that Thurberus finished by the 10th coin.  Exiting the booth, he passed a janitor named Darrel who was the assigned jiz-mopper for that day.  But Thurberus now had his sleaze factor-five bonus and that's a good thing.

Heading south, the PCs discovered a cave where nothing was going on.  Hilariously, this, they thought, was one of the strangest experiences they've ever encountered on Cha'alt.  A cave with absolutely nothing happening?  Where were the demons, humanoids, bizarre creatures, weird colors, artifacts, crystals, tentacles, etc.?  Are there imaginary monsters?  Is this part of the Truman Show?  What is the mystery behind this empty cave?  Yeah, it really freaked them out.

Moving on, they soon came to a swirling red portal.  Thurberus stuck his sword in the portal before entering.  He heard an ouch, and found a demon tour guide ready to show them around the zig-zaggy Devil's Corridor, a who's who of Hell where nigrescent busts of important demons through history lined the lightning-bolt configured walls.  Luckily the tour guide, Zarjeet (who slapped Thurberus in the face with a fish for almost murdering him - still had my plush fish stuffy on hand from VENGER CON), had a golfcart and microphone so he could give the PCs a proper tour before taking them to a blood-red door leading to the Temple of Unimagined Horrors.

One such story went like this...

"Salzavesa was a particularly intolerant devil who impaled over a thousand lesser infernals while leading his army through Hell.  Salzavesa was eventually met by several opposing factions, but defeated them by retreating into the den of a gigantic bearded fire-lizard who he appeased with a gift of sulfuric myrrh and became his loyal pet... until Salzavesa was forced to eat the bearded fire-lizard to stay alive when Hell froze-over many years later."

Believing this was a sign that meant they shouldn't arrive at the temple without sulfuric myrrh, they asked Zarjeet where they could find such things?  Across from the red door was a black door where sulfuric myrrh could be found.  Before leaving their tour guide, they talked about worm wine and how it should always be served at room temperature - this was now becoming the running gag for the session.

Soon after entering, the PCs realized they were inside The Black Pyramid of Cha'alt.  

The first room was a matrix-like immersive video game called Cha'alt, where 5 humanoids played while hooked up to a machine.  Stealing some stuff (but leaving behind a detachable penis they found) and spilling Purple Prizm on white socks, the PCs moved on to a room containing nearly 50 mannequins who could talk via telepathy.  Discussion of insane wizard spells, purple corduroy pants, and next door alchemist labs led to retrieving the detachable penis and fitting it onto one of the mannequins.  Then, Bandersnatch used two crystals to super-size his dispel magic spell, restoring 29 out of the 50.

"How long have you been mannequins?"

"Let me ask you this... do people still drink their room-temperature worm wine laced with raspberry flavored sausages?"

"Wow, that's a long time..."

Rummaging around the alchemist lab in the adjacent room, they found a number of odd items - including beakers of various colored liquids that Tinker combined to make his own concoction (per Zeeku, he rolled a 1 on the d6 and I decided that whoever was splashed with its contents would turn into a giant scorpion version of themselves).  Bander took a bunch of magic books, a copy of Dark Sorcerer Magazine #17, and a +1 devil tongue banana-fork.  Along with the other loot, they stole a silver snuff box full of sulfuric myrrh.  Score!  Just before they were about to leave, a couple sorcerers entered the lab as the PCs hid.  Thurberus with the worst hiding place (under the table) was soon discovered, but quickly talked his way out of trouble and all three promptly left with their haul.

Going back to the Devil's Corridor and then the blood-red door to the temple, the PCs found themselves in a pink, squishy flesh-cavity within a gargantuan insectoid creature with teeth and tentacles that vaguely resembled a brain.  Undeterred by the smell of the place (maple syrup @ss-rape) impaled humanoids by the entrance, they soon found devoted cultists dominated by the demon-queen of wasps (similar, but of a more powerful and infernal quality to what they'd encountered last session).  Her glowing orange eyed slaves were entering a portal that led to a crystal-festooned cave and transporting the crystals to the demon-queen B'zzyantia.

Closing the portal, but not before Bander could get in there and create a purple labyrinth portal for himself (oh yeah, another spell was cast and the side-effect was an aspect of Tsathoggua spit some hallucinogenic bile on an NPC causing him to see visions of [I asked the players to come up with something] Shania Twain as a sexy, degenerate night-clown), they marched on towards a massive demon-hive.  The wasp queen exited, realized these intruders were not gods (to her credit, she did ask first... of course, Tinker, knowing what to say when someone asks if you're a god, was not recognized as such by her), and blasted them while her guards flew towards the PCs in attack formation.  I rolled 4d6 for damage as Tinker failed his save, and got three 1s and a 3.  

Tinker closed the distance asking that if he wasn't a god, then why did she roll mostly 1s (I gave him Divine Favor for breaking the 4th wall), dropped his magic potion (made in the lab) on her, and I gave him the bad news.  She was now a demon wasp-queen scorpion.  Nevertheless, he wanted to rip her head off before she could sting him.  This immediately gave me an idea for a face-off contest.  The sort of battle that was one-on-one, but meant to be quick, decisive and extremely bloody.  This needed a new way of adjudicating death-duel.  I had each participant roll a d6, highest roll is the winner and winner takes all.  Tinker's player rolled a 2 and quickly reached for his recently acquired Divine Favor fuchsia stone, and then rolled a 5.  

I rolled for the queen and told everyone I rolled a 6 as a ruse, a second later revealing the truth - I had actually rolled a 3.  Tinker ripped the queen's head off.  Had she won, Tinker would have been stung by her newfound scorpion tale and probably died.  Maximum drama!  I'm going to formalize this process and come up with a few additional details, but happy with how things turned out.

With their queen dead, all the demon-wasp guards swarmed each other in a Highlander-esque "there can be only one" way of restoring order by starting fresh with a new hive.  One guard went completely crazy - "I'm gonna stick my demon-wasp dick in the mashed potatoes!"  As everyone was murdering each other, Bander and Tinker went inside the blue flame hive.  Tinker found a demon queen egg, which he took.  Bandersnatch found a magic sword suspended in an energy field.  He tried grabbing it, but got shocked and couldn't hold on.  Grabbing it again, he got shocked again but was able to keep his grip and removed the blade from the energy field.

The sword had infernal glyphs (this was indeed Kaltha'alax).  Instead of stats, I told the sorcerer that as he swung the enchanted blade at three demon-wasp guards to clear the exit, that Kaltha'alax went through them like warm butter.  Bandersnatch's player asked if he should write down game mechanics for the sword or simply go with "like warm butter."  For now, I said, let's just keep the sword's abilities / bonuses at "like warm butter."  We'll worry about numbers next time.  

Unable to fireball the hive, they left once most of the wasp guards had killed each other off.  I need to remember that next session, Bandersnatch is basically cursed to be a lightning rod for unfortunate events due to yet another gonzo side-effect of casting spells via Cha'alt crystals.  It was about quitting time, and I was mentally exhausted and emotionally drained (as usually happens after a successful session).

Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoy all the craziness.  And be careful out there, this world, too, is full of horror!

VS

p.s.  Fantastic news - weekend badges are now available for July 2026's VENGER CON V: The Will To Power.  Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis.  Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  

VENGER CON V: The Will To Power

 

Yep, it's that time... VENGER CON time!

Number 5... wow.  It's gonna be a challenge to outdo last year... but I know we can.  We have the power; we always did, hoss.  

I got the promotional materials from Kort'thalis Publishing house-artist Monstark a couple days ago.  Love how it turned out... now, let's fucking destroy last year's record of 35 attendees.  If I have to call upon all the demons of darkness to get there, that's what I'll fucking do.

Right over here is the convention's landing page where weekend badges are already available.  

If you've got any questions or suggestions, let me know.  I should know by Halloween who the Guest of Honor is... maybe multiple people?

Oh yeah, if you want to chat about all things VENGER CON, this is the link to the Kult of Kort'thalis community on X.  Or join to hang out with like-minded TTRPG enthusiasts.  I've got plans for a virtual VENGER CON in January, and information is already up over there.

I really hope you can make it, as it's going to be legendary.  Thanks for supporting and participating!  

Enjoy,

Venger As'Nas Satanis
High Priest of Kort'thalis Publishing

p.s. Next weekend I'm launching another Kickstarter.  The rewards will be a PDF about how I run my game, focusing on play-style with practical tips for adhering to my approach + a whole bunch of my hand-drawn tunnel and cave maps.

"23 Virgins in the Afterlife, but they're all Blue-Haired Feminists with Nose Rings" - CHA'ALT Session Report 3.15

 

The last couple sessions were kind of a "bottle episode."  The PCs were playing themselves but from various dimensions.  Now, it was time to get back on track...

However, the two slightly diverging storylines have pretty much all meshed together in everyone's mind, and I realized at the end of the day, it didn't matter what color they were or what universe they originally hailed from - adventure awaits!

Given the choice, we started the session with purple H'ork, purple Bandersnatch, a Russian "commie" Tinker (everyone enjoyed the Russian accent, which was better than his Jamaican), original Therberus (having gotten tired of the shake-weight, he wanted to get back to that old-time religion of dead cows and suicide cults), and purple / original Black Francis.

Yes, we had a full compliment of 5 players... but since that's so rare (usually one or two can't make it each session), our home game is still looking for a sixth. 

The most significant aspect of the campaign (this third year of it) had been the release of the Great Old One Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak and the promise of ultra-telluric glyph attunement within the Temple of Unimagined Horrors.  The PCs found themselves not knowing exactly where they were but in a system of tunnels and caves below Kha'alestine.

I decided to go with an idea I improvised in one of my latest videos on story-now, here.  Garblegax, the half-demon, half-imp trickster decided to help the PCs because it would help himself.  He was on the run from the blue-raspberry bastards (the PCs from another dimension) led by a tangerine Isithar, the dark-elf who swore to take revenge upon the purple bastards from several sessions ago.  

But the main reason why Garblegax told the PCs that a foursome of demons were in Kha'alestine and magically subduing the Great Old One the PCs were pursuing was that Garblegax had been fired by one of them for not chilling the blood wine to one of the infamous four's satisfaction.  Soon after, wandering the frozen lake, the mischievous demon-imp was captured by slavers and forced to work a series of lowly data entry positions until he escaped.  

With his trademark "Za'alutations," Garblegax detailed the who's who in Hell that were helping the Kha'alestinians, but obviously not out of the goodness of their heart - Zevdub the archduke of the fiery pits, Kreznok leader of the Principalities of Darkness, Senyvo Demon Lord and heir to the circle of heresy, and Baelzyroth 1st Lieutenant of Kort'thalis.  These infernal beings had a plan, and Garblegax wanted the PCs to interfere, which would also benefit themselves and Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak.

However, the infamous four were too strong.  The PCs would need to find one or more artifacts within the Temple of Unimagined Horror before they could face them - including rumors that the witch-haunted Necronomicon was housed there, as well.  This temple could be accessed by walking a couple miles east.  So, the PCs set off to explore these caves on the way.

Before leaving with his box of wine, Garblegax gave the PCs a bag of holding.  I got the idea (from a member of the new X community here) of such bags being registered and accounted for by a serial number.  Being in a whimsical mood, I made it a cereal number, instead.  Bandersnatch put his hand in Garblegax's bag in order to pull out the magic bag he had in there.  He rolled a 5 for the Fruit Loops bag of holding.  The bag of holding had its own chameleon circuit and looked like an actual cereal box, rather than a bag.  Yes, I've been watching a lot of vintage Doctor Who lately.

Now on their way, the PCs soon crossed paths with a fancy gentlemen wearing resplendent robes in the hue of Gallifrey Cardinal Violet, not as impressive as Tyrian Purple, but a close second.  Vorusa was looking for the Vault of Rassilon where he might find the bejeweled codpiece of Rassilon (of course).  With a series of false-flattery and barely veiled insults, the PCs bantered away at Vorusa.  Not wanting to be delayed, he quickly left the PCs' company before he could be stabbed in the back, heading forward into a cave of lizardfolk who the Gallifreyan chastised for leaving dirty puddles all over the place.

There were some filthy beggars also in that cave, which H'ork and Black Francis dispatched as if ordered to by the Orange Emperor of Za'ar!  

After a bit, the PCs also went into the lizardfolk cave.  Instantly killing 3 of their guards, the fiercest warriors of their tribe, the lizardfolk were easily convinced to serve the adventures.  Interrupting that, however, was a small group of interdimensional nomads who arrived via portal with microphone, amplifier, and podium to give their "stolen universe acknowledgement."  Even with greater than average hit-points (oh yeah, most of the PCs are 7th level now) and laser-katanas, the PCs eventually took them out.  Aside from their cool weapons, one of them had a tiny alien creature on his person... along with three mystical seashells.  Thurberus took the little creature in, naming him Ba'ab.

The PCs stayed around the cave to rest as the lizardmen made a hearty spider-leg stew which they all feasted upon.  I made a note to later roll for diahrrea, but promptly forgot about it (maybe for the best, Lol).  With a couple of the lizardfolk walking in front, they explored a cave containing humanoids with glowing yellow eyes mining crystals for the hive.  Clearly, these people were dominated by something.  The PCs stole a few crystals, and soon left.

Pro-GM tip: If you want the PCs (and players) to value something or perceive something in their world as valuable, make it fucking useful!  And while you're benefiting the PCs, do something nice and/or fun for yourself, as well.  You've earned it.  ;)

I toyed with the idea of energy crystals routinely found in the subterranean realms of Cha'alt to be a power source for magic, but decided to explicitly state that a sorcerer could fuel his magic by using crystals.  However, each spell cast with a crystal was accompanied by a roll on that d100 weird side-effect table in Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise (I do love that table). So, we got to see some really weird shit as Bandersnatch cast spells throughout their trek.

Soon the PCs came to a cave where a handful of Kha'alestinians were about to throw what appeared to be a half-Druish princess into a pit containing some awful creature.  The d6 Zeeku rolls determined that Kha'alestinians hated v'symm (that's now part of the campaign setting's lore, if not official Cha'alt canon), which is the mask wearing race that Thurberus was.  So, most of them attacked him.  A couple made good on their attacks, braining him with their ga'afi sticks.  

When it was all said and done, the PCs talked to the almost-sacrificed woman wearing fancy brocaded silk and exotically perfumed.  To their dismay, they learned she was only a handmaiden to the Princess of Kha'alestine, and no longer even that as her half-Druish ancestry was found out - which is why she was brought down here to sacrifice.  Without much thought, Bandersnatch pushed her into the pit since she had little to no value to them - I guess that sleaze factor 5 bonus just wasn't needed (somewhere out there, Botserdomus is shaking his detachable penis in dismay).

Eventually, the PCs came upon a larger cave containing a hive in the center.  More possessed humanoids with yellow glowing eyes were here, bringing handfuls of crystals to the Queen.  Several wasp-men were guarding the hive.  Commie-Tinker went in to see what all the fuss was about.  He succeeded his saving throw, but appreciated the top-down proletariat workers-uniting under the Queen.  One well-placed fireball later and only the Queen survived, and she was half-burned at that.  They took her prisoner.  

Wandering around in an easternly direction, they overheard that Gallifreyan saying something and then letting out a scream.  Off to investigate, they found him at the entrance to Rassilon's Vault; by that time, he was a smoking skeleton - his Gallifrey Cardinal Violet robes still intact, though.  Thurberus donned the fancy robes - not magic, not high-tech, but having another quality... gravitas, sacrosanct, and legendary.

The PCs tried their luck at opening the vault.  Thurberus, feeling the luckiest, rolled some dice and eventually opened it - technically on his first try, but only after getting a reroll via burning a point of Divine Favor.  

Inside was the magnificent bejeweled codpiece of Rassilon.  Thurberus somehow found himself its owner and wore it proudly.  The inside of the vault was scrawled with Gallifreyan glyphs.  No one could read them, but one of Vorusa's friends, Kastilan, happened by.  He deciphered them, basically going on and on about the greatness of Rassilon, the Time Lords, and how many people wanted to eat his giblets with a nice chianti.  Does Gallifrey have sandworms?

The codpiece assisted the wearer while using dimensional magic or simply traveling via portal... including time and space. 

Trapping poor Kastilan in the vault, but not before Thurberus wrote a note below the pedestal telling everyone that he had been there, they headed into a long and winding tunnel that was trapped.  Both Bandersnatch and Thurberus were zapped by some ray of energy that turned them into glass.  At this stage, the glass was somewhat malleable.  Bandersnatch had been putting those crystals into his bag of holding, and withdrew another one to quickly cast wish in order to unglass them.  Oh yeah, one of the lizardfolk was also turned to glass.  

He rolled on the d100 table, and got a result that conjured an arcade game similar to Gauntlet that took tokens, specifically Aladdin's Castle tokens.  And it just so happened that two tokens appeared in Bandersnatch's glass hand.  He and Thurberus deposited them in the coin slot and, just before cracking from the pressure and exploding into fragmented shards, became different characters - a female barbarian for Bander and elf wizard for Thurberus - best of all, they were no longer made of glass.  A third token was easily discovered in Bander's pocket, meant for the lizardman who was also turned to glass.  The sorcerer put the third token in and the glass lizard dude became a tech-noir thief, quite an upgrade from spear-toting savage. 

Exiting the tunnel for another cave, the PCs found two black and white checkerboard skinned humanoids playing 17-dimensional chess.  The winner would take possession of a photon torpedo.  They watched for a bit, as Tinker signed-up for the next game.  If Tinker lost, he'd give up Thurberus' newly acquired codpiece.  He had to play the loser and then if Tinker won, he'd play the winner.  It was a long game, but Tinker won.  Then, he played and won the second game.

Garblegax appeared again, warning that the blue-raspberry bastards were on their way, so prepare!  Bander and Thurberus asked Garblegax if he could change them back to their original forms.  He could and he did.  Realizing the power this demon-imp had, the PCs requested him to stay and fight alongside. Thurberus gave the demon-imp his bejeweled codpiece of Rassilon in exchange for staying with them and helping the PCs repel their namesake's attack.  They formulated a plan.

The blue-raspberry bastards, led by tangerine Isithar appeared.  The blue-raspberry Francis appeared directly behind his double in an attempt to slit his throat.  Luckily, Black Francis dodged.  Isithar was ready with a disintegrator beam, but missed.  Instead, accidentally hitting blue-raspberry Francis who made his save and was simply wounded.  

Moments later, Bandersnatch tried to pull out a crystal from his Fruit Loops bag of holding.  He rolled as I'd instructed him to do every time he tried to pull out a deposited object.  This time, he didn't pull out a crystal but a banana.  Oh shit!  

Thinking fast, the party's sorcerer opened a portal to the purple labyrinth.  The PCs escaped (I made the stragglers roll to not be left behind - everyone passed).  Even a single lizardman made it, but not the wasp Queen.  Away they went, and closed the portal in time for the blast which H'ork set for 5 seconds upon the blue-raspberries appearance.  

Inspecting the rubble back in that cave, everyone was dead and accounted for - except for blue-raspberry Tinker.  He's small, so it's possible that they just couldn't find his body - or he somehow made it out of there.  As for their gear, it was all smashed to bits, except for a transparent crystalline segment of the key to time and space.  Taking it with them, they continued on...

And that's where we left things.  Next game is Saturday, September 13th... and then not again until October 4th as I'll be losing a couple of Saturdays due to a vacation over our anniversary.  

Based on our conversation prior to the session, I'm going to put "vengeful skunk-ghost" on the next wandering monster table.  

Thanks for reading,

VS

Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis.  Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  

"Close Your Eyes So I Can Put This Banana-Shaped Object In Your Mouth" - CHA'ALT 3.14

 

It has been awhile.  What have we been up to?  FYI, this first image is a painting I completed shortly after VENGER CON IV.  It's the glyph of Kort'thalis.

Well, after the convention, we had a single session with half our crew, that was meant to be a "bottle episode" segueing away from and then back to the Cha'alt campaign proper.  We didn't get too far into it, so I had the whole second half of that adventure to run.

We planned on playing last weekend, and 3 players got together.  One of whom felt mostly fine before leaving his house and then deathly ill once he arrived.  So, we talked for a bit, realized we wouldn't be able to play, and vowed to pick things up next Saturday when hopefully all would be right again.

So, last Saturday we were able to finish the scenario.  And even though I created the Kult of Kort'thalis community on X for all your TTRPG needs, I haven't been as active as I wanted to be, and I'm trying to sneak in this blog post.  

My wife REALLY wanted another puppy.  Long story short, we got her.  She's super cute, but it's almost like having a newborn.  That's how much time and energy has been sucked out of my schedule.  In another couple weeks, things should get back to normal.  But for now, we'll all have to take what we can get.

Ok, since it had been so long and a few of the players weren't there for the scenario opener, I basically repeated it.  Each player could choose his character from whatever dimension, universe, or color-vision plane of existence he wanted.  Plucked, by the ivory guardian for this particular mission.

H'ork picked kaleidoscope-Cha'alt (actually, the player chose to roll on my d100 color table in How To GM Like A Fucking Boss - that was the result) and wanted his demeanor to be like The Dude in The Big Lebowski.  Then there was tangerine Bandersnatch.  Therberus was from the planet of thinking rocks so he could be a rock salesman, and the party's pixie-fairy thief haled from Cha'alt-Jamaica (yes, we insisted he attempt the accent, no matter how bad it was).  BTW, we're still looking for one more player we can add to our multi-hued bastard roster.

Basically picking up where we left off, except for going over the details of the quest - find the transparent cube somewhere within the Caves of Carnage and give this key to time and space to the ivory guardian so he can prevent the multiverse from being destroyed or some such.  Along the way, there may be other guardians with their own agendas.

After a conversation with the cannibal cave whores, and trading a nice rock (with promises of more where that came from) in exchange for some mango-pineapple BBQ sauce flavored people, the PCs traveled deeper into the cave-system.

They soon came upon a gateway to Spider-Silk Road where several traders and merchants were situated, unclear why the gates would be closed.  And not just closed but magically sealed.  The adventurers surmised that what they did to Chud-Letha'az might have something to do with it.

When Therberus wasn't hawking his thinking (but definitely not sentient) rocks, Bandersnatch was making a case for magic space sand that was once owned by a bloodthirsty emperor - damn, now I want some of that sand, too.

After trading some shroom-spice for another couple thinking rocks (Therberus' sales pitch keeps getting better and better - even I wanted to own one of those rocks... such storied history!), they kept moving.  Even after a free sample in a to-go shot-glass, the PCs weren't interested in the double-filtrated worm wine peed out by Sydney Sweeney!  

They came to a frog-folk congregation, 22 of them, being led by a High Priest about to sacrifice a dark-elf woman.  In this massive cave was a statue of T'sathagg-Kha built into the rock.  Not standing for a bunch of amphibian supremacists ritually sacrificing a lady of elven blood, they attacked (Tinker sneak-attacked the High Priest) and won.

The new puppy, Zara, is sleeping, so I'll forego the battle details...

The High Priest escaped via a secret door at the base of the toad-devil statue.  The PCs followed (but not before being singed by flame coming from the statue's mouth), walking up a spiral staircase to a chamber within the statue's head that contained a mechanism for blasting the cave with fire.

After that, the PCs explored a broken down amusement park in the darker regions of another massive cavern.  They fought some night-clowns before dispatching their reinforcements in a clown car with a well-placed thermal detonator.  

Oh yeah, the PCs kept meeting these other guardians in various side-caves along their route further inside the cave-system.  There was an emerald guardian who wanted them to try out this super-weapon like a battleaxe chained to a unicycle.  And a banana guardian who wanted the PCs to close their eyes and then guess which of three banana-shaped objects inserted into their mouths was the real banana.  Therberus got a load of that guardian in his mouth.  Then there was the blue-raspberry guardian and a few others.

It didn't take the PCs long before realizing these guardians just wanted to fuck with them, and in fact a scroll fell out of one of their robe pockets - a charter that stated that exact fact...

We the heresigned agree to fuck with the aforementioned lesser beings and sub-creatures.  Whosoever receives the most points gets access to the executive restroom which includes the holy glory hole of endless sha'abli [in the ancient tongue, sha'abli means "girl mouth"].

I got to introduce a soda vending-machine that contained a few cans of Psychotic Break energy drinks.  The adventurers busted through the glass so they didn't have to pay for them.  Not a huge loss since the cans' expiration date was approximately 88 years ago, before The Apocalypse, (and the company producing them went out of business a long time ago).

Continuing on, the PCs found a brothel coin with a glyph on one side (that read "put the pussy on a pedestal") and a view of Chud-Letha'az embossed on the other. Minutes later, a familiar voice came from a darkened tunnel up ahead.  Walking over to them and cocking a bazookoid.  It was their old friend Isithar after revenge (what else?).  He started monologuing about how the Purple Bastards betrayed him.  In an astonishing feat of de-escalation that worked better than it had any right to, Isithar wound up agreeing with tangerine Bandersnatch that the Purple Bastards were scum, and the multi-hued Bastards would be happy to help Isithar in hunting them down and teaching them a lesson.  Isithar then returned to his portal to locate the exact bastards who did him so dirty, instead of contrary-colored clones who only appeared to be the ones he swore vengeance upon.

Before the end, the PCs spent some time on the amusement park equipment like the ferris wheel and bumper cars imagined as a slideshow montage a la The IT Crowd - tangerine Bandersnatch got a handjob from Thea, the dark-elf woman they saved.

Just when the PCs were starting to realize there was no cube, the PCs came to a cave containing the transparent cube sitting on a stone pedestal connected to 8 other smaller, lower pedestals with a different colored banana resting atop each one.  All the colors of the rainbow, plus obsidian-black.  It took the PCs awhile to work their way through the puzzle, and I'm not sure they actually figured out what was going on under the hood, but sure enough, they were able to get their hands upon the key to time and space.  

Before handing it over, when all the various guardians showed up, the adventurers wished the guardians back in time to just before The Apocalypse.  And then wished themselves onto Alpha Blue for some sleazy R&R.

That's where we ended it.  Next time we play - Saturday, August 30th - should get us back on track with the main leg of our Cha'alt campaign.  We did sporadically use Zeeku, and it produced some good results.  A defining aspect of great game design is that if it's neglected for a short or long period of time, the game doesn't lose its luster.  

Thanks for reading; hope you enjoy!

VS

p.s. Rest in peace, Terence Stamp.  Zod!  Want a great new TTRPG community where you can hang out with other gamers, get ideas, advice, and training in order to improve?  Look no further than the fastest-growing group on X - it's the Kult of Kort'thalis.  

Kult of Kort'thalis

 

The time to evolve is now, brothers and sisters!

The Kult of Kort'thalis is not just a TTRPG community on X, it's also advice, training, and support group for gamers of all stripes to improve their roleplaying experience.

Here's a link to the Kult of Kort'thalis community on X.

Join the Kult of Kort'thalis and see what's going on.  Tell us what you'd like to get better at, what pisses you off, and what play-style soothes your savage beast.  The Kult listens to you, the Kult understands you, the Kult will grow in power and influence until the entire TTRPG hobby bends to our will.

But until that day inevitably comes, just kick back and check our shit out.  Whatever you're looking for can be found with switching systems, editions, altering aesthetics, metagame mindsets, or the addition of just the right game mechanic.  We have veteran game designers ready to help you help yourself.  

The unexamined life is not worth gaming!  Along with our Challenge of the Week, your fellow Kultists will challenge you to consider how you game and why you do the things you do - is it merely habit or some kind of subconscious block?  If you can change for the better, why not change?  Assuming, that is, you want to change.  Why wouldn't you want to change, hoss?  Huh, why?  Is there something deeply and abidingly wrong with you?  Why?  Why?  Why?

This is also where I'll be announcing weekly one-shots on Roll20 set in the eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic world of Cha'alt.  Sign-up to play at my virtual table, one of the best Game Masters in existence (yeah, I think I've earned that title).  And who knows... maybe eventually cyber-scratch-n-sniff stickers or something?

The Kult of Kort'thalis is the future; your future... join us!

Enjoy,

Venger As'Nas Satanis
High Priest of Kort'thalis Publishing 

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  

Venger Satanis Questions Jeff Rients

 

Jeff Rients (here's Jeff's blog) was kind enough to let me Q&A him last month...

Thanks for indulging me, hoss.

Thanks for the invitation to bloviate. Hopefully you will enjoy the results.

How much do you rely on players picking up what you're laying down, running with the vibe, and just engaging with the world or campaign setting in order for things to go well at the table? 

What I’m laying down is usually some smelly old dungeon from the early Judges Guild or something like that. I try to remain completely open to the possibility that the players will say “fuck it” and go off and do something else. That happened last time I tried to run Tegel Manor. The players decided that wasn’t enough treasure in the world to justify fighting a mansion full of undead. They left and sought adventure elsewhere. So I try to maintain just coherent enough of a campaign world to always provide the party with some actionable alternatives. Sometimes they’ll just point blank ask a question like “Who has a castle we can kill and take over?” and I just improvise.

Do you have a default campaign setting or fantasy would where you normally set adventures?

Not for many years. I used both Greyhawk and the Known World / Mystara in the 80s and 90s. In the 00s, I ran a 3e campaign in Greyhawk that ended with the equivalent of Ragnarok. My last three successful campaigns were set in fantasy England, circa 1,140 A.D., a cosmic crossroads pocket dimension, and the stupidest fucking campaign setting I could come up with.

What house-rule do you find yourself using more and more these days? 

I have several house rules that have been stable for many years now. Natural 1’s and 20’s on the to-hit roll send you to fumble and crit charts. Monsters are worth 100xp per hit die (the OD&D rule, I can’t be bothered to look at a chart). 1d6 group initiative, ties go to the PCs. You can level up in the middle of play. Carousing. But my newest funtime is the adoption of a varient of Raggi’s alternate MU rules. From Vaginas are Magic!:

• THERE ARE NO SPELL LEVELS
• All spells are considered equally difficult, and the level of the spell’s power is determined by the caster’s level. 
• BEGINNING SPELLS
• Magic-Users begin with three randomly determined spells from the entire spell list of the campaign.

When an elf or MU levels up in my campaign, they roll on my custom spell list. This list is an ongoing effort of mine to include every wizard spell from every fantasy RPG product I can lay my hands on. It currently has 6,187 spells listed. Some of these spells are absolute campaign wreckers and some of them are useless crap. Most are somewhere in between. Nobody has any idea what kind of weird power their arcane caster will get next, including me. I love it.

I’ve heard of a d1,000… but how do you randomly determine spells from a list of 6,187?  The only thing I can think of is asking someone to pick a number between 1 and 6,187.

There are several ways to do it. If you truncate the list to just 6,000 its a snap with three d10s for the last three digits and d8-1 for the thousands columns (reroll if 8 comes up on the die). Or roll d7-1 if you are the kind of maniac who keeps a d7 handy.

You can also get the whole range with a series of d10 and percentile rolls. There are 62 groups of 100 available (rounding the last 87 up). Roll d100 until you get any result below 63. Now roll d100 again. So if you 51 on the first roll and 06 on the second, you end up with 5,106. If you happen to roll 62 on the first roll, just reroll any result above 87 that comes up on the second roll.

The easiest way to do it is electronically. In a Google Spreadsheet you can roll nearly any size die with the RANDBETWEEN function. IIRC Excel has an equivalent. If you have a lot of weird nonstandard die throws in your game setting up a custom die thrower in a spreadsheet can be very helpful.

Finally, what I actually do is use rolladie.net. You can specify a arbitrary number of die sides there. Though one time I held down the 9 key for several seconds then hit ‘roll’ and ended up crashing the page.

Is the OSR still vibrant, does it continue to serve a purpose, does it even exist anymore, and has anything credibly replaced it? 

I’m not sure. I don’t follow the scene much anymore. But there’s always been two important components to the OSR. On one hand is the commercial aspect. As long as Chris Gonnerman is putting out Basic Fantasy and Goodman Games is supporting DCC rpg and James Edward Raggi IV is making Lamentations of the Flame Princess stuff, that end of the operation is secure. And I’ve seen some younger folks doing stuff on itch.io that seem in line with that sort of thing.

But the more important part of the OSR is a central ethos. And that ethos is simply this: we don’t have to follow where the publishers lead, whether that’s TSR or WotC or even folks like Raggi and Goodman and Gonnerman. We will explore options that are no longer supported. We will run games that don’t align with corporate interests. We will follow the roads not taken. As long as that is happening at game tables, the OSR will never be dead even if it no longer the flavor of the month.

 

What are you currently running and/or playing at the moment? And how's that going?

The name of my current campaign is Dillhonker City. It is on a short hiatus at the moment as my work schedule is temporarily disrupting things. The rules are nominally Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but with enough house rules and DM whimsy to make that designation almost a fib.  I have found the game to be immensely entertaining, thanks primarily to the wonderful players. But we’re reaching PC levels (7th level elves, ninth or tenth level humans) that are harder to maintain challenges in a gonzo-style game. I think we might be approaching the end of this thing, but I’ve been wondering that for several months now and the game goes on.

 

What's something cool one of your players has made for your game recently? 

“Making stuff for the game” is a level of commitment I never, ever expect from players. If they show up and play hard for a couple of hours, I’m a happy clam. They could have literally no thoughts about the game between sessions and still be welcome at the table. That being said, I did enjoy recently that Zak posted his character sheet for all the world to see. He also occasionally posts reports specifically on James Raggi’s misbehavior in the game. This is going back over a year now, but Becami posted on her blog an illo of her PC Boomba the Dwarf (RIP) and her collected notes for the campaign. I think she keeps better track of the campaign than I do. And then there’s the secret session report at the end of one of James’s videos…

 

What's something you've been meaning to make or add to the game, but you just haven't gotten around to it yet? 

New critical hit and fumble charts. I’ve used Dave Hargrave’s Arduin crit hit chart for years, but it has its flaws. And Hargrave’s fumble chart has always been a little weird to me. You can roll a fumble and then still hit the foe for partial damage. What kind of fumble is that? I’d really like something egregiously large and complicated like you get out of Rolemaster or HackMaster, but tuned particularly for my kind of game.

 

Between two choices, the first awesome / hilarious but could potentially "kill" the entire game, or the second, sensible and steadfast... which do you choose? 

Choosing the sensible option is for real life. Go stupid or go home. In my current campaign one PC has a crown that allows them to summon a giant worm/snake that burrows between realities and another has the Ultimate Nullifier straight out of Marvel comics. I’m genuinely surprised they have yet to try to pick a fight with God.

 

How obsessive have you ever gotten about GMing, campaign world creation, or lore authorship?

The thing I have gotten more obsessive about in recent years is leveraging the fact that I play via Zoom. I’ve got the internet right there in front of me, so I’ve tried to incorporate that into play. The players decide to go find the Lost Dwarven City? I google up a map of Moria. Players interrogate a monster as to the nearest big treasure, I search my file of the dungeon for “gems”. That sort of thing. I don’t go for commercial online aids like Roll20, but running an online game exactly the way you play face-to-face strikes me as a missed opportunity.

 

What's one GMing, campaign creation, or lore blind spot you suffer from, where the details may as well be either handwaved or copy/pasted from A.I. because it's just your Achilles' heel? 

The Gygax phrase that haunts me is “YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.”  I have been very bad at tracking torches running out, the changes of seasons, the shifting phases of the moon, etc.

I take Gygax' strict time records as a call to set down campaign events somewhere before they vanish from one's mind.  I'm sure Gygax had fun monitoring game-time, day to day and week to week.  Sounds exhausting, though.

Exhausting, yes, but I quite like the range of situations that can only be produced by attending carefully to a timeline.

 

What's a piece of advice you wish you could give your teenage self about gaming? 

1.   Buy fewer game products. Write more stuff yourself, even though it is bad. In my youth I squandered a fair amount of money on games I never played or only played once.

2.   Skip Star Frontiers, go for Traveller.  I still like Star Frontiers, but there was no Star Frontiers scene where I grew up. Meanwhile, I lived about a 35 minute drive from GDW’s headquarters. A giant missed opportunity.

 

Are you writing anything now; any new product on the horizon?

I just finished my birth tables for the 2005 version of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. That was a bit of an undertaking. I ended up building a 1200 line spreadsheet with all the demographic data from the manuals in the boxed set. Since then, I’ve been working on a set of answers to my 20 Quick Questions for each of the 18 regions of the Wilderlands. The idea being that you could roll up a PC from anywhere in the Wilderlands and get a custom handout of what they know about the campaign world.

Also, I have been working on a stocked hexmap. Zak drew the map a while back and I have been slowly stocking all the hexes. I’d like to publish it in a future issue of Fight On! but it may be a tad too long for that venue when it is done. It’s basically an island designed for shipwreck-type situations; the PCs wash up on the shore and the adventure begins.