Session Reports


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Chronicles of a 2 year long Lamentations game of demonic lore, fae magic and gothic horror. Click the image to view the Halls of the Dead.

The campaign continued but work made me fall behind on session reports. Maybe someday I'll write a summary. It ended with Odin manifesting and tearing half of England out of the ground before flipping it over and smashing it into the earth. It was fun.
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One-Shots & Other Stuff

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Don't join the illuminati through my comment section... (w/ bonus NPC)

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  Yup, I have the best chatbots. This has been going on for quite some time. Either the rest of you OSR bloggers are more fastidious in maintaining your comments, or I have done something to attract the attention of the great esoteric order of the cyber-illuminati. This really is great entertainment (for me at least). I'm not deleting their comments. Read them, be entertained by them. Please don't click them, get phished, and have your identity stolen and your cash converted into bitcoin.   Bonus Gameable Content: Dr. Odion Level 3 Specialist 9HP Armor 12 Dagger 1d4  The inspiration for this NPC Languages 3-in-6, Alchemy 4-in-6, Medicine 4-in-6   Elias Odion is an accomplished physician and apothecary. He is a servant of those in need alongside his husband Corbin. He provides his services as charity, provided he can do so while avoiding notice from those who distrust herbology and curative medicine beyond simple understanding. He has learned the arts of mundane med...
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XENO Minimalist Sci-Fi Horror RPG Review (w/ bonus Xeno mission objectives!)

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XENO is a minimalist, pamphlet-sized RPG by Caligaes, where players are the alien threat, serving “MOTHER” and eviscerating the anthropomorphic humans and aliens most games would place you in the boots of. It’s inspired by sci-fi horror classics such as Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing , Carrion and the X-COM video games. Its mechanics entirely use d4 die pools with few stats, quick resolution, and nearly no math. XENO currently consists of a core pamphlet, a “Victimary” add-on of Z-KOM soldier enemies, and the 36-page HENS & CHICKS module, written in zine format. I was kindly provided a review copy of these materials, and the game will have a BackerKit campaign soon with a physical release and more content. One side- full combat rules on the left. The core XENO pamphlet is a single tri-fold that looks great in black and white or color. It covers, in minimal but evocative text, concept, character class & stats, objectives, combat & defense, and nemeses, referred to as ...
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My Blog Has The Best Chat Bots (w/ Bonus Necromancer NPC!)

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It appears that the comments of several of my posts have been infested by chatbots. Normally, I would not be a fan. However, they seem to have latched on quite aptly to the content of the blog, so I can't complain. Yes, I have Illuminati, occultist chatbots. Please don't call the WhatsApp or whatever they're posting, but go ahead and check them out over on the Dark Lord Blood and Lucky Idiot Weapon posts. I have no idea why the Lucky Idiot post became ground zero, I think it may have just been the most current post at the time or something. It has some interesting interplay between the bots, as it seems they're arguing with each other about the legitimacy of their respective Illuminations. Bonus Gameable Content: Elizabeth David  Level 1 Magic-User Elizabeth is kind, simple, and highly suggestible. All she wanted was to marry her small-town sweetheart, Gnert the farmhand. He was so handsome! And that milking technique! Unfortunately, one stormy night a...
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Running Vermis; or "oracular meta-fiction as roleplaying setting"

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How's that for an enticing pretentious theory/tip post? Vermis & Vermis 2 are sensational, aesthetically rich and inspiring game books. They are, if you're unfamiliar, "game guides for games that don't exist"- written as picture and lore-heavy strategy guides for old pixelated dungeon-crawlers like Stonekeep and Eye of the Beholder. They take a lot of inspiration visually and tonally from Dark Souls and the bleak, gothic action rpg genre popular since the 2010s. If you're curious, I have reviews of both Vermis 1: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods and Vermis 2: Mist & Mirrors which should give a pretty clear picture. How, though, are you supposed to actually use these as gamebooks? There are a few challenges: They are systemless, using only vague stats with no explanation  They are vague, hinting at the world and its denizens rather than instructing you They are disorganized, functioning as a puzzle for the reader to piece together while flipping t...
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The LotFP d6 Skill System

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My chief design philosophy, and the way I play at the table can be summed up as "Memorable, Minimal, Metal." I don't like to juggle a lot of rules. The main elements of OSR games are combat and skill rolls. Combat rolls are pretty straightforward, so we're going to take a look the d6 skill system works, problems that may arise from it and how to solve those problems. As someone who grew up with 2nd edition AD&D I was used to skills being incredibly granular and using a lot of different methods of resolution. It seemed natural to me, having first encountered that approach, that complexity and verisimilitude were the best rules philosophy. Moving on to 3e, it was better (blasphemy!), but there was still a skill for everything and they tended to discourage creativity through their strict codification of what was possible with or without a given skill. By comparison, the d6 skill system is much more general, open-ended and quick at the table. Description and gam...
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3 Vermis Session Reports In Brief, with notes on running in different systems

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Finding the right system: Systemless adventures are nothing new, many statless bestiaries and one-page dungeons exist. They are generally assumed to use some dialect of the OSR Rosetta Stone or simple NuSR game. There are definitely things to take into account, however: you will want a low-powered or dangerous system, with a magic and skill system that is either generic or highly flavored toward Vermis's tone. Having run it several times, here are some suggestions: Session 1: Lamentations of the Flame Princess, heavily houseruled Location: Pauper's Catacombs                         Party: 4 level 6 characters I ran the Pauper's Catacombs as a "side-shot" in my campaign (when too many players are absent for a "real" session), using our regular characters with the rule that characters won't die, but suffer consequences as a result of these semi-canon adventures (i.e. missing limbs instead of death)....
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Mork Borg Session: Rotblack Sludge

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The Accursed Den (but upside down) Rotblack Sludge is the introductory adventure included in the Mork Borg core book. It's well-suited to a one-shot, as are the ones created by Mork Borg's DNGNGN . I ran it for 3 players, using 2 characters each in case of a high body count. This report will include spoilers, obviously.  The players: Kelly Quinn Dylan Our heroes:   Quaker Mary the Dark Traveler. Occult Herbmaster, cowardly and prone to substance abuse. (Kelly) Doctor Dizzy the escaped cultist. Esoteric Hermit, alcoholic and extremely loud with a phlegm problem. (Kelly) Dun Kirk the Zweihander-wielding Gutterborn Scum. Wasteful, ruthless, and stutters when he lies (constantly). (Quinn) Roman the repugnant. Esoteric Hermit, vindictive and lazy. (Quinn) Chastity Goodfellow the Rotten Nihilist. Occult Herbmaster, former slave of a witch, shrewd and giggly. Has 4 monkey companions named Caligula, Nero, Ivan, and Mary, Queen of Scots. (Dylan) *Scream of a dying man* (the actual soun...
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Vermis: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods RPG artbook review (w/ bonus Goblin Knight stats!)

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Your console boots up. You switch the input to TV03. Color bars flash, static fizzles. The CRT scanlines reveal the words Vermis: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods . MIDI synth music issues forth, soft and sinister --what we would call Dungeon Synth today, but what was mysterious and unnamed in childhood-- fades in, filling the dark room lit only by the glow of the screen and the power button of your console. A jarring flash occurs, with the words Which flesh is your flesh? appearing, briefly, before you are given the prompt Press Start to Enter the Darkness . Vermis (volume 1, with more to come?) is a guide to a game that never existed. It’s a lo-fi dark fantasy action RPG, with Dark Souls being an easy point of comparison, but of the era of Eye of the Beholder grid-based movement and sprite-based Doom engine graphics but with an off-putting layer of grime. In those days, a guide book would sometimes contain a world unto itself, with the world lore, character options, and select ...
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Vermis 2: Mist & Mirrors Review (w/ bonus Scooby Doo Hallway portals!)

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The dim light of a single bulb illuminates the messy stacks of dusty boxes in your attic. Treasures await. You hone in on what you seek. The lid of the foot locker creaks open on its damaged hinges. A rag of stray webbing clings to the interior, and the spider lays dead atop the messy stack of comics and roleplaying modules. Peeking out is the video game guide you seek, Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors . The rediscovery of Vermis ignited your curiosity, and you thought of the sequel you bought but never remember playing. You can't find the game disc in the foot locker. Good enough for now, you think, I can dig through the guide and pick up a copy later. You sit down on a cardboard box, flipping the cover open.   The knells of the bell echo along the endless corridors. The mist engulfs everything. Those glassy eyes that chase you wherever you go are none but your own. You eagerly devour the age-faded pages, losing track of time in the quiet attic, finding yourself in the world of th...
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d20 Weapons for Lucky Idiots (re-posted from Secret Santicore 2017)

PSA: This is a Chat-bot Mating Ground. Observe, below in the comments, an impressive gathering of illuminati occultists seeking more of their kind. Enjoy this opportunity, but do not feed them, contact their phishing sites, or tap the glass. Thank you. First of all, this content isn't mine. It's from the Secret Santicore 2017 document, written by Trent B. of  newfeierland.blogspot.com . The compilation, which came out this year as a beautiful pdf, is full of great content, including a piece by me (Reef Elves for DCC and LotFP ), and a piece written for me by Lungfungus of Melancholies and Mirth , featuring bizarre and abstract alternate planes of reality. Check it out! I had to share this table of weapons for giants. But of course, it applies to the Lucky Idiot , who can use anything as a weapon (it was inspired by a player who wanted to use a Buster/Guts sword) as long as it's not mechanically different from the standard weapon types. Exceptions can be made with Lucky...
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