Chaos in Waychester First Sessions

There's two things that I need to do to "finish" CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER (well... other than actually running it, of course): make a plan for the first session or two, and draw a campaign specific iteration of the map with more details that I've come up with in the meantime. And then as a third optional step, I'll actually make character sheets for the iconic characters that I've selected to represent this campaign. For today, let's make a plan for how to actually start the campaign.

First, some context. What will I do with the players before actually playing? I'd expect relatively little investment from them before starting, and I'd like to start modestly; with a small "module" that will kick off the campaign and only last two to three sessions tops, but give clear indication towards the campaign, so that assuming that they like what they're getting in the sample, they'll be willing to commit to more. I think this is a good way to start, especially as my tastes aren't necessarily universal, and it's not a given that my friends will click with what I want to do.

So, other than telling them when to show up, that we'll take about three hours per session (or maybe a bit longer if things are going well and we aren't ready to quit) and that the system will be easy, and that all that they'll have to do is describe in normal language what their character would do, and I'll facilitate the mechanics without them needing to worry about knowing them (although they'll get the hang of them after half an hour of play and be comfortable with them from that point on.) I'd also tell them that if they have expectations about if being like D&D—whatever they think D&D is like—that from my perspective D&D has been like the Avengers or the Justice League in fantasy drag; they should expect this game to be more like the X-files or Supernatural in fantasy drag and be much more cautious with their characters accordingly.

When they first show up, we'd roll up characters, and I'd talk them through it. I'll also stipulate, or maybe just not tell them otherwise, that all characters must be human to start with. Later, as the game goes on, they'll "unlock" access to other races, potentially, if they want to (or have to) retire a character due to death, insanity or they just want to do something else. Even if they're chatty and distracted, there's no way that this is taking more than 30-45 minutes, so we'll be good to start playing after that.

Second, remember how in many episodes of The X-files or Supernatural that there'd be an opening sequence where some poor chumps get killed by the monster of the week, or otherwise come to some kind of bad result? Then you break for commercial and the next thing you know Mulder and Scully have blown into town to investigate. I've started games before with that paradigm, and I like it. I'll give them some pregens to run with, and then I'll go out of my way to kill them. They'll be some regular chumps in Dunsbury, the "capital" of Southumbria. We'll open with a tense scene on a rainy night while in a bad part of town; graveyards, abandoned houses, partially collapsed sewers; the works. They've been paid to escort a merchant to a meeting with a client in this bad part of town (because by "merchant" obviously I mean smuggler) and offer protection, but they've been waiting for close to an hour without the contact arriving yet. Granted; precise time-keeping isn't normal in a setting where watches aren't common, but they realize that things are getting late and the situation is looking bad. 

Then a pack of daemonic six-eyed baboon-like creatures will attack them. (About four or five DAEMON, SERVITORs will do, from the monster list.) Yes, I know that's weird. That's the whole point. If some characters die, that's OK. If they don't, or if there are survivors, the Master of the Pack comes out; a creepy guy with a mask who's clearly practicing witchcraft of all kinds of perverse and disturbing sorts.

Master of the Pack

He's got some real magical power, and shouldn't have any difficulty polishing off the remaining pseudo-PCs, thus ending the opening sequence. He's also got some distinctive gear and attributes, including the horned green lantern, and the strange hoop that he wears at his belt, not to mention the weapon he uses which looks more like a finely made sickle than a weapon.

Third, we cut to the actual PCs, with all of the pseudo-PCs dead and the mood and tone of the campaign firmly established. They're standing by the bodies of the smuggler and the characters that they were just playing. It's a gray morning, cold, but the rain has stopped. They've got some clues as to what happened, but they will need to describe to me why they're investigating this. This is kind of a character funnel; they're not "somebodies" yet, they're nobodies, and they'll get the attention of the patron that they picked earlier on after solving this mystery. 

There will be three clues that they will immediately see, and they will be subtly encouraged to follow-up on all three. 

1) There's a nearby dive tavern and flophouse. Some the guests, employees and other neighborhood locals are standing around outside gawking at the torn bodies, and some of them are talking with knowing nods and meaningful looks at each other with and grim faces. The PCs can interview them for potential witnesses and discover that the smuggler and his bodyguards had waited in the dive tavern before going to their meeting, and that many had seen them. They looked shady, and after talking to a few of the witnesses, they'll be able to discover at least one of them who knows the name of the merchant (Eric Gylle) and somebody else who has heard the name as a notorious dealer of the highly dangerous and illegal devil spice. While some wretched souls use this stuff as a dangerous nostrum, it also has a reputation as being used as a component in some rituals of witchcraft, daemonology and necromancy. While interviewing these guys, one guy is acting especially suspicious and tries to slip away, but not without the PCs seeing him (no need to make a check. I'll make sure that he does something clumsy, turns around with a frightened look at them, and then starts running, or something like that.) Assuming that they chase the guy down, he's got a slightly scintillating turquoise powder on his upper lip. It's kind of a red herring; the guy's just a devil spice addict, and Gylle was his supplier. He was kind of desperate, however, since Gylle had told him a couple of days ago that he had a big score coming up, after which he expected to be able to afford leaving town for good, leaving this poor fellow (Glendon Droge) high and dry. 

2) The smuggler's (Gylle's) body is torn open, but he doesn't appear to have been robbed. His messenger bag is torn open, but the items seem to have merely been spilled out in the mud, and there's enough laying around to have had it pretty full. If something was taken, it was something small and particular. However, some of these scattered items have the residue of a turquoise, luminous powder on them. If they've already done the first clue, they'll know what this means. If not, they'll have the chance to do it still. Among his things is a wooden cigar case with the name Eric Gylle on it, as well as an address here in town. It's his house, although it looks scantily furnished, as if he doesn't spend tons of time there. While there, however, the house also receives a visit from Gylle's distributor's thugs. Gylle owed him money which the big score was supposed to cover, but since he never showed up last night to deliver it, a number of obviously criminal types have come to shake him down. Instead... they find the PCs, of course. 

There's nothing remarkable about this; the PCs just have to deal with angry and suspicious criminal gangsters. It's possible that they won't have to fight them, but most likely they will. If they somehow get more information from them, they'll find that they work for a crime lord named Renwick Bennett, a notorious figure about town. They may even try to track down and confront Bennett, which shouldn't be too difficult to do. He's anxious to find out any information that will lead to his missing money. If the PCs go in guns blazing, they'll probably not do well; Bennett lives in a very nice part of town in a luxurious villa, with tight and intimidating security that a handful of 1st level PCs should not feel confident in assaulting. Besides, he's reasonably helpful without overtly incriminating himself in anything illegal; Gylle owed him money, but he had promised that a "big score" was coming last night that would give him enough to pay the debt back with interest, as well as set him up to leave town, which Bennett thought was a good idea, since Gylle was a shady character who didn't brighten up the neighborhoods he lived in, if you know what I mean. Bennett isn't going to give them any info on his supply, or even that it is his supply, but he'll be happy to have a few disposable do-gooders out there investigating what happened, so he'll be helpful. He'll point out that Gylle mentioned that his customer supposedly lived in the run down part of town, or maybe just outside of town in that direction, which is part of the reason they met there, and which should point them back to the final clue, if they haven't already discovered it...

3) While the rain that fell last night obliterated any signs of where anyone went or came from (i.e. footprints) near the body, after a more thorough search of the broader area, they will find a partially collapsed sewer tunnel that has strange footprints and traces of the glowing turquoise powder. (I guess I realized I haven't spelled this out yet; the blue powder is the devil spice, in case you didn't put that together.) Following the rain-flooded sewer tunnel, it doesn't take them long before it leads them, through a loose rusted iron grate, to an old cemetery on the edge of town. There are some mouldering old nice graves from a time long ago, but mostly this has become a ghetto pauper's cemetery in more recent years. Beyond the cemetery are even older graves; ancient barrows that predate the arrival of the hillmen entirely. But, they can follow the tracks in that general direction. Here, they'll see a nuzzle-rat, basically Lovecraft's Brown Jenkin. An obviously supernatural and evil little creature, it spies them, and runs screeching further into the barrows. 

Fourth, these three clues, hopefully discovered in more or less that order (which I can help facilitate) will lead them to the Master of the Pack's hideout, in an ancient barrow that he's unsealed. There they'll have to confront him as well as the servitor daemons again that he'll be summoning. There will probably only be two this time, since they're pretty powerful for 1st level PCs who almost certainly won't have silver weapons, or even know that they should have silver weapons. 

With any luck, the PCs were scared enough knowing what they were getting in to that they didn't just barge in shouting huzzah, and maybe they've been fairly successful in killing the Master of the Pack, his nuzzle-rat familiar and any daemons he may have summoned. Maybe even all of the PCs survived. If not, they probably at least all made it to this point in the game. I'll have a couple of spare characters on hand just in case, though, so players will have something to do if their character bites it.

If the Master of the Pack was involved in some master plot, there is little evidence of it here. Along with the ancient bodies originally buried in the barrow, there are some much more recent remains, looking like murdered victims of the cultist, but what exactly he was murdering them for is unclear.

Given that this isn't a D&D game, he's not going to be loaded up with treasure, either. A very modest amount of money will be found in a small pouch; not nearly as much as Bennett told the PCs that Gylle expected to be paid. Whether the Master of the Pack has another stash hidden somewhere else, or if he always simply meant to murder Gylle and take his devil spice is unclear. There is his weird sickle as well that has a soldered bead of silver right along either side of the edge, making it a silvered weapon that will be more effective against daemons and certain other monsters. Too late to help the PCs with the daemon baboon things, but handy, no doubt, going forward. There's also the bag of devil spice, leading to a bit of a moral quandry for the PCs. This stuff is super dangerous, very illegal, and possession of it could be a death penalty in many jurisdictions. But... it's also worth quite a few nobles. What are they going to do with it?

And finally, there's a moldy and stained copy of the Third Cryptical Book of Hsan. Also illegal and dangerous to own... but if any PCs are excited to start studying magic in spite of the very sensible taboos against it, this is a potential starting place for them. Well, I guess that's not finally; there's also his weird hoop. The PCs won't be able to make heads or tails of it now; it's made of bronze and iron, and doesn't appear to be special in anyway. I'll leave that as a mystery to be resolved down the line for now...

Fifth, where does the game go from here? Well, Bennett isn't pleased that his money didn't show up, and he'll want to satisfy himself that the PCs didn't just run off with it. Once that happens, he probably isn't terribly interested in them, but he may give them a token of appreciation for helping resolve a problem that he had. If the PCs don't take the time to address this, they'll raise suspicions that they did in fact run off with the money, which will put a nasty price on their heads in the underworld.

Also, while the Watch and any other authority figures are happy that the PCs broke the case for them, they don't exactly want to advertise to the people that a necromancer and daemon cultist of some kind was operating on the outskirts of town, kidnapping and murdering townsfolk. The PCs won't exactly be famous, but a few people in the know will hear of them. Which leads to... invitations from the potential patrons to meet with them, and start the CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER campaign fer real!

Hopefully this will have been a knocked out of the park session or two (or three at most) and the players are both attached to their characters and drawn by the hooks, and eager to see what more there is to offer. If not, well... I guess no real harm done and I'll try it again with a different group. At that point, I can start making a similar plan for what will happen in the next session or two. As Professor Dungeon Master says, the most important session of your game is your next one, so let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. This post outlines the direction I presume to take the PCs on in the first session to get them acclimated to the game, their characters, and the setting. After meeting with the patrons, the game will become more open. I'm a fan of the "narrow-wide-narrow" school of campaign design; most players need some direction at the beginning of a campaign, or they'll be flailing around trying to find the game in frustration. And most campaigns need to funnel eventually towards a dramatically satisfying conclusion. But between these narrow options, I want the players to feel more open to explore what they think is most interesting, tackle things at the pace that they feel comfortable, etc. 

Other than draw the campaign specific map, and come up with character sheets for my iconics, for the pseudo-characters that they'll be playing for the first sequence, and a couple of spares, I'll be good to go.

I should also note, that in a D&D paradigm, this little adventure would probably bring the characters from 1st to late 2nd or even 3rd level. I imagine that in Dark Fantasy X, the entire campaign would get them to 3rd or 4th level tops, so this is just a small speedbump on the way towards 2nd, which I wouldn't expect them to hit for many more sessions. 

Fast leveling is anathema to both the tone of a dark fantasy slash horror game, as well as to games that you hope to actually have last for a long time. You'll also notice that the rewards for the game are fairly modest. A couple dozen nobles, a silvered weapon, a bag of illegal and dangerous daemon-tainted drugs, and a cursed book that will allow the PCs to learn spells at the cost of their sanity and soul... as well as bearing the very real risk of being lynched by a mob, and the mob being encouraged by local law enforcement or authority figures.

Always remember your tone, and don't let yourself get distracted from reinforcing it.

The nuzzle-rat familiar