The Kobold Drinking Song

An oldie, but a goodie. This is a 1st edition AD&D in-joke, but it still makes me chuckle.

Twenty kobolds stood together

Gathered in a field.

The mighty Fighter saw them there and dropped his magic shield.

A plus five long sword in each hand, Plate mail shiny bright.

He confronted all the kobolds, Thinking slaughter, not a fight.

The Fighter is an impressive sight, Some kobolds seek to flee.

But the kobold chief, in a commanding tone, Barks, “Kobolds, follow me!”

And so the score of kobolds charge Towards their fearsom foe.

The Fighter calculates their exp. And waits to fell them all.

The DM merely smiles at him, and rolls a single die.

The result was only seven, but “You go down beneath the tide.”

“What?!” The Fighter yells, outraged, “They need a twenty to hit me.

They’re armed with shitty swords and knives, There’s no way that this could be!”

“Kobolds are small” The DM replies. “So all of them do their stuff.

Since they’ve only teamed up to overbear, Lucky seven is high enough.”

“Big deal!” Is the fighter only retort. “I unleash my Swords of Doom.”

“I’m afraid” The DM replies to him. “You no longer have the room.”

“The kobolds have you grappled now. Your weapons are too large to bear,

If you wish to fight back at all. You’ll have to drop them here.”

“Fine!” He cries in an angry huff. “I’ll punch them in the face!”

“Your one attack hits.” The DM informs. “But another quickly takes its place.”

The kobolds call for surrender then, or they’ll have him for their meal.

The Fighter tells them where to go, and swears at them with zeal.

“They can not pierce my armored skin.” The Fighter cries in a fit.

“It says in the rules.” The DM replies. “‘Held opponent’ equals automatic hit.”

“Half of them now hold you down, Half now use their knives.

You take twenty points of damage. Are you sure resisting’s wise?”

The Fighter gnashed his teeth in rage. “My strength’s eighteen double zero!

I’ll throw the half off with a mighty heave. They’ll see why  I’m  the hero!”

The DM, a fair and impartial soul, says “Fine, your will be done.

Just roll the die, you want low.” (‘Course, the Fighter ‘rolls’ a one.)

“Ha!” He cries, as kobolds fly. “Now the tides have turned.

I hack and slash and chop and cleave, and dash and crash and burn!”

“With what?” The DM says concerned. ”Both swords!” The Fighter vents.

“The ones you dropped?” The DM says. “You wonder where they went.”

“Then I pull out my Two-Handed Sword of Instant Vorpal Death. It’s right here in my other pocket, I’m sure I mentioned it.”

“OK” Sighs the DM. “You draw your sword. But the kobolds are quite fast.

They all jump on you once again Until down you go, at last.”

And thus the melee continued on. Until the Fighter fell.

His mail still shining brightly, His swords still sharp as hell.

Of the kobolds, all were well, A few nursed knicks and scrapes.

And in the end, they had a feast, With the Fighter on their plates.

Arkham – A story telling game – Act 1

For this story we started with the official Chaosium product, Arkham Unveiled. The year was the canonical 1928. The protagonists, we decided, would be visitors to Arkham.

Aside from the source material including the fine map of the city, we used our Query Table, the Answer Deck, the Une NPC generator, our much-thumbed copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and a pile of dice, counters and dry erase pens.

As usual, decision points are indicated by square brackets [like this] to show where we needed to insert some randomness. The rest is pure narrative, as much as my notes of our conversation reflects.

We were Merton [Serene Aristocrat] and Julia Peters [Curious Homemaker - dice roll to see who would breathe life into each: I got Merton; Greg, Julia.]

We were in Arkham from our ancestral pile in Boston because our son, Crosier, had been kidnapped. A ransom note had been received and we were to deliver the $20,000 to the kidnappers [Did we want to come here? Fair chance - No and. We definitely did not want to come here. So why did we come here? From the Answer Deck: Hidden Enemy, Loss.]

Our son, Crosier, had brought a certain amount of stink to the family name by going off into his own business rather than staying with the family firm. We knew that he had dealings in Arkham, specifically in that he provided supplies and biological samples to the University. Though we did not know it, Crosier dealt a great deal with the Histology department, a division that was concerned with the fine microscopic examination of biological tissues. Similarly, though our protagonists could not know, the very last sample Crosier provided would be the key to the entire mystery. [Long series of questions and answers and consultations of the map. We stitched together Crosier's business by putting together the pieces.]

We had been booked in to the Hotel Miskatonic [random location from the map], where we waited for a phone call. When it arrived, we were advised to bring the money to the Old Wooded graveyard [random location from the map]. It was dusk: 1700hrs (5:00 pm).

As we arrived at the graveyard and prepared to enter, Julia looked across the street and was surprised to see crosier enter a house. Immediately we went in pursuit towards the boarded up building. This was Unnameable House, a two story brick building with a mouldy smell that had been implicated in a series of sickening murders many years past. [This was an Interrupted Scene. The Answer Deck told us the focus was Home, Hope. Checking the map, we chose the building and then discovered its macabre history.]

Inside, the building was lit from by an unseen flickering light. Enormous stairs led to a second floor. At the head of the stairs hung a portrait of a man who seemed familiar. Overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity, Merton started to climb the steps but was brought to his senses by a stinging slap from Julia. [Our first Sanity check, using our Query table. Merton failed and took a point of loss, Julia succeeded and remained in control.] Determined to get to the bottom of these shenanigans, we hefted the carpet bag of cash and, pistol in hand, headed up the stairs calling for our son.

[Altered Scene. From the Answer Deck: Ending, New Beginning. But what? from Brewer's we got: Blast.] Instantly, the light changed and a sound penetrated us. It was a low droning, moaning sound, like a tired wind through a dead forest. We looked up and were astounded to see two people who looked exactly like ourselves descending the stairs towards us. We were being psychically assaulted. [But what kind? From the Answer Deck: Diligence, Peace.] The sound and the vision of ourselves mechanically, robotically approaching made us feel dull, docile and lifeless. Some kind of zombification, or at least hypnosis was underway. Again Julia overcame the attack and dragged Merton away.

Outside, breathing the night air, Merton and Julia realised that had fled the building in terror leaving both the pistol and the money. In blind fear we drove to the Police Station. By luck we were interviewed by Mickie Harrigan, who called in his hardboiled boss, Luther Hardin. Both knew the history of Unnameable House and were capable of tackling it.

And so closed Act I.

Read on next time as Luther and Mickie tackle the case of the kidnapped tycoon heir and the disturbing tissue sample.

Hân Rokugan – code of Bushido

From the GM Survival Guide. I have no comment about whether this reflected any historical reality. All we can say for certain is that everyone of the samurai class/caste in Hân Rokugan will have been educated in these principles. Similarly, it is only through the story telling process that we will discover to what extend these behaviours are actually displayed.

Gi: Honesty and Justice. Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To a true samurai, there are no shades of grey in honesty and justice. There is only right and wrong.

Yu: Heroic Courage. Rise up above the masses of people who are afraid to act. Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A samurai must have heroic courage. It is living life completely, fully, wonderfully. Heroic courage is not blind. It is intelligent and string. Replace fear with respect and caution.

Jin: Compassion. Through intense training, the samurai becomes quick and strong. He is not as others He develops a power that must be used for the good of all. He has compassion. He helps her fellow humans at every opportunity. If an opportunity does not arise, he goes out of his way to find one.

Rei: Polite Courtesy. Samurai have no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. A samurai is courteous, even to his enemies. Without this outward show of respect, we are nothing more than animals. The true inner strength of the samurai becomes very apparent during times of stress.

Meyo: Honour. The true samurai has only one judge of his honour, and that is himself. Decisions you make and how these decisions are carried out reflect who you truly are. You cannot hide from yourself.

Makato: Complete Sincerity. When a samurai has said he will perform an action, it is as good as done. Nothing on earth will stop him from completing what he has said he will do. He does not have to ‘promise’. The act of speaking alone has set the act of doing in motion.

Chugo: Duty and Loyalty: A samurai who has done something or said something owns that thing. He is responsible for it and all consequences that follow. To those he is responsible for, he remains fiercely true.

Hân Rokugan – society notes

Economy

The basis of wealth is land, because land produces food which can be used to feed your followers.

The Emperor owns all the land. He grants land to the clan lords to manage, who owe him loyalty in return. (Our city of Ryoko Owari Toshi is in Clan Scorpion territory.)

The real economy, then, is an agricultural one; production of food directly relates to the number of Samurai, artesans and peasants that a lord can feed and who therefore owe him loyalty in return.

To assist in accounting, each clan mints its own money. The value of this money fluctuates from season to season depending on the state of the crop.

It is extremely unlikely that a Samurai will know the value of money as it is considered women’s work, or the concern of traders to know such things. To question a Samurai on the cost of things or the value of their money is a grave insult as it implies that he might not know. Samurai do not conern themselves with such things as costs, instead paying whatever they think is fair for whatever they are freely offered as befits their station. Note: it is rude for a Samurai to give nothing, and the merchant who supplied the goods or services maintains meticulous accounts which are lodged with the lord for due consideration anyway.

Since each clan produces its own coin and the value of that money is related to agricultural production, exchange rates are constantly fluctuating. Each lord has a team of accountants to handle this, and there is a fortune to be made in changing money. Note that handling money in this way is considered pretty low on the social order by most decent people.

Administration and law

Each clan lord appoints magistrates to administer provinces, cities and districts. These officials are charged with collecting taxes and investigating crime. There is a well developed hierarchy of offices and authorities down to local deputies and including such specialists as pathologists (since touching the dead is considered unclean and is the work of ‘eta’, or untouchables).

Each clan has its own laws and when in that territory you must obey them.

The Emperor also maintains a system of magistrates to investigate and punish crime when the matter affects more than one clan or is interclan based. Imperial magistrates have authority above local magistrates but seldom interfere with local matters – it would create a diplomatic incident if they did.

A disarmed society

This is not quite true as many people are armed and weapons can be easily fashioned. However, the sword is the signature fashion of the Samurai who are a specific identified class – much like a European knight in some ways.

There are no swords shops that you can wander in to and pick up a sword from a rack. Swords are made for each Samuari under specific instruction from the lord. Other weapons may be specialised military forms or, more likely, are contempuously classified as peasant defense.

This holds true for many things that are made by craftsmen and can never be simply bought and sold. This may sound strange to a western high fantasy (based on an American ‘wild west’ frontier model), but I have a deep suspicion that this model was probably fairly close to the situation in historical Europe. European knights were pretty jealous of their status as well.

Hân Rokugan – Ryoko Owari Toshi

“Rokugan’s most elegant cesspit; a monster of beauty, a seductive lie cast in limestone and gold, a treacherous maiden whose loveliness is exceeded only by her brutality – that is my home. Ryoko Owari is a grand tombstone for dead honor, where decadent children caper and rejoice in their unholy freedom. I could live nowhere else.”

Shosuro Sokichi
Thirteenth governor of Ryoko Owari

Information on the Magistrates

This game (and possibly campaign if it proves successful and the case continues, or if we just want to continue), is set in the Rokugan city of Ryoko Owari Toshi.

It is a story-telling game using the tools that we have developed that are based on Mythic and other systems, but extensively modified to suit both the style and scale of the stories we like to tell. There will be little or no actual ‘character’ play. Characters will exist as protagonists or antagonists in the story, but they will not have life in a traditional RPG fashion. Most traditional RPG rules then are superfluous. This particular location set comes from Legend of the Five Rings, but none of us have internalised the rules nor ever intend to do so. Similarly the background to L5R may or may not be useful to us; we feel no particular need to know or use any of the canon material.

The important feature of this story will be that the location is a civilised city. The time is an Asian-fantasy with heavy influence from Japanese culture (because we love their swords) and Chinese culture (because we love their system of government). The inciting incident will be one or more crimes. There’s been a murder, and someone is responsible, to quote Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Anything else such as who are the protagonists, the where’s and why’s of the investigation and/or coverup, will be discovered in play. The information concerning the Magistrates is included because I decree that the system of Magistrates is present – because I want them in. This does not necessarily mean that the story need be from the Magistrate point of view. It could equally be from the view of those who are being hunted by them. Only the story as it is revealed will tell…

Hân Rokugan – change of venue

After trying to shoehorn City State of the Invincible Overlord into a usable Asian-inspired feel, Greg has turned around and discovered this gem: Ryoko Owari for Legend of the Five Rings. We never played this setting or ruleset but I was aware of it. This big-boxed-set (OMG, I love it already) promises to both give the correct architectural and linguistic feel to the game, but also give occupations and motivations that are instantly applicable to the feel I am after without modification.

Here’s a useful overview:

Kawa no Kin (Golden River): The river divides the city in half, widening to be the “Bay” of Drowned Honor between the Moment’s Edge Bridge and the Bridge of Drunken Lovers. Just south of the city proper it runs around Teardrop Island.

Leatherworker’s Quarter: This slum lies on the south eastern edge of the city. It is populated by the people who handle the city’s wastes, the dead, torturers, and tanners. As such the region has a particular odour that is quite unmistakable. The most notable features of the region are the city’s crematorium (there is no graveyard in the city) and the marketplace where you can purchase mostly fertiliser for farmers, but more importantly black-market goods are also available here. The quarter is notable (other than for its aroma) for being flat (no buildings of more than 1 story largely), brown (unpaved roads and mud covered dwellings) and bright (it is spread out allowing a lot more light in than most of the rest of the city). This is the part of the city where you are most likely to find “evil” races such as goblins, kobolds and orcs as they can trade with the less scrupulous elements of the quarter.

Fisherman’s Quarter: This quarter lies on the eastern shore of the Bay of Drowned Honor and is surrounded by city wall. Much like the Leatherworker’s quarter to the south this part of the city has a distinct odour as well, fish and smoke. The Fisherman’s quarter is where the cities craftsmen and sailors live, work and play. It contains smokehouses, warehouses, opium dens, taverns, brothels, inns and the homes of its residents. The roads of the quarter are narrow and cramped, some so narrow that a person in heavy armour cannot pass through! Most buildings are low to the ground still but their closeness and the haze of smoke that hangs over the quarter can blot out the sun. The number of fires, and the wooden construction of many of the buildings makes firemen among the most important people in the quarter. Unfortunately the city’s governing nobles do not supply these people, instead they are the drawn from the local populace. As a result of this the firemen are the quarters most dangerous gangs, resorting to extortion, bribery and violence to ensure they control the quarter.

Mechant Quarter: Across the Bay of Drowned Honor from the Fisherman’s Quarter is the Merchant Quarter. Dominated by warehouses and merchant stores this quarter is loud, wealthy, bright and fast. The buildings are tall with dramatic curves of roof that carve the sky into crescents. This quarter runs the gamut from wealthy merchants carried in palanquins to new merchants dressed as well as they can manage but mostly wearing an aura of greed as they hustle, scheme and above all sell, sell, sell. This is the quarter where people from outside the city most attempt to come, and where the nobles mix with the common folk, and with its wealth it also brings taxes and corruption of the more financial sort. It is here that characters will hear the most talk of lands beyond the city, in fact the merchants are particularly dissatisfied with the land’s treasurer feeling he (unlike the city’s governor and her lord) unduly taxes the cities residents, using taxes as a weapon because he cannot do anything else to affect the city or its lords.

Temple Quarter: West of the Merchant Quarter lies the Temple District, the single largest building in which is the temple of the god of wealth (Daikoku (Big Money!) in Rokugan, Waukeen in FR, etc), a structure that is so large that part of the quarter is known as the god’s shadow. The quarter is one of the quietest of the city’s quarters,  the street-side vendors wait for customers instead of crying out, the chants of monks blend with the songs of birds as you walk the wide sunlit streets. The quarter is so placid that even its firemen are respectable! Aside from the massive temple to wealth there are a few other notable faiths, the prominent god of the kingdom (Amertarasu the sun goddess in Rokugan) has a temple here, as do a few other favoured local goods such as the God of Trickery.

Licensed Quarter: On Teardrop Island there is only one business, entertainment, and the island is a world apart from the rest of the city. Here horses are rare, and the sounds of music and laughter (and other pleasures) are common. Here are play houses, brothels, taverns and opium dens. Here a noble can relax their guard as weapons are not permitted on the island, here a noble can enjoy their wealth without the strictures of society at large. Here decadence is sedate and refined and suits the appearance of the clientele. The whole island is now manicured to create a sense of relaxation and pleasure, the buildings are carefully signed, and sedate in design, the gardens are well cared for, and lanterns (magical and otherwise) keep the island well lit throughout the day and night. Here it is easy to relax, enjoy and forget the troubles of the world outside. One thing stands out here from all the others though, the House of Foreign Stories is a tavern & play house run and staffed by people from distant lands or other planes (in Rokugan theses are simply people from outside the Empire, but in DnD these could be Gith, Succubi, Fey, and so on).

Noble Quarter: High on a hill to on the south eastern side of the city sits the Noble Quarter. All the smells of the city seem to commingle in the noble quarter, every delicacy finds its way here when perfected, and here the houses are the largest, the buildings the most graceful, and the gates and gardens the most well kept. Even the paved roads are kept smooth and even to be comfortable beneath the feet of nobles and their steeds. If a thing is good in Ryoko Owari eventually its best comes here, of course this means that the intrigue of the city is at its peak in this quarter. Here is where you are most likely to end up dead for a mis-step in an intrigue, not because your opponent kills you personally, but because you are left ruined and are arrested for execution.

Hân – start of the map redraw

HÂN – preparation for a story-telling game

These are the preliminary notes for a story-telling game on the drawing board. The goal of this game is to follow up on the success of Slipstream and attempt to apply the lessons to a closed environment with a strong implied soultion. In other words: crime solving in a city.

The question that I hope to answer is whether, from entirely random seeds, an alledged crime can be identified to have occured in the past, and then whether by using the investigation tools uncover the means, motive and opportunity. And then place all that on to a similarly generated person, or group.

Technically it should work. That is the beauty of experimentation: to expose your theories to the real world.

At the purely mechanical level, the setting will be classical Chinese inspired fantasy (Crouching Tiger, House of Flying Daggers and so on), coupled with the writings of Robert van Gulik and his crime fighting character Judge Dee, based in a city.

The city basics will be donated by City State of the Invincible Overlord, a Big Boxed Set that I have carried around for 20 years without it seeing a guernsey. There is considerable work that needs to be done to this material before it is ready. For example: temples of Odin and so on need to become Budhist, Taoist, Confucionist and Animist. Moreover, as I read it now, I can see how childish we all were back then. I see there is a butcher. Just one. But where are the cattle yards? Where does the meat come from? Where is is slaughtered? I see that the city sits by a river. Where are the docks? There is one, but what about all the fishermen? And finally, the whole map just stinks of a sterile wide-open-spaces Disneyland city. Patches of lawn? I don’t think so. In their place will be the shantytowns. The streets will be closed in with awnings and stalls. The listed places are only the permanent structures. In the gaps are hundreds more shitboxes.

We will use our Query Chart.

We will use the Answer Deck to generate random motivations and left-field seeds.

We will use Une for the NPCs.

We will use Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and fable for deeper insights into events, and to find the names of people we meet.

I’m really looking forward to it.

Slipstream, Pt4. Shark bites Xaq

Last time, you will recall, agents of the rebellion had fomented revolt on Xaq, a desolate and barbaric planet that served as recruiting grounds for cruel queen Anathraxa’s ruthless armies. Labouring under the belief that he was to become king of kings of all the brutals, a petty chief had united the tribes and was attacking the queen’s troops because he thought them to be her enemies. Anatraxa, aroused by this story of masculine aggression and blind devotion, and uncaring of the lives of her own troops so far lost, decided to visit Xaq and feast on the new tribes’ life forces.

Now read on.

Decision points described in square brackets [like this].

Paranssos and Danton, agents in the service of the rebellion, but ignorant of the ultimate leadership of the cause, were sent to Charadon. [Does the adventure continue on Xaq? Slim-chance: no, but. There are important influences nearby. Where? From locations deck: Charadon.]

The leader of the Sharkmen of Charadon was Ovark Carcaria, a self-styled priest attempting to export his religion. He was also a known critic of Anathraxa, but since Charadon had nothing worth exploiting the planet had been untouched. [Has the religion been successfully spread through the galaxy? 50/50: no, but. Not the religion itself but it has been used as a front to spread the rebellion. Does this involve the fake personality of Dr Baffle? 50/50: no, but. What is the overall relationship of Ovark Carcaria to the rebellion? From the Answer Deck: The Stranger, Patience. Much discussion ensued. We raked over the detail of the three preceding episodes and looked at the clues till we arrived at the following.]

Ovark Carcaria was none other than the single mastermind of the rebellion. Hidden in plain sight as an enemy, but appearing to be a powerless one, he had laid his plans. But Ovark was not all he seemed. He was a sharkman in body, but he had been occupied by a Stygian – the last surviving Stygian after Anathaxa exterminated the race decades, or centuries ago. The six Stygian Elders that were encountered in episode 2 were incorporeal projections. Perhaps they were generated by long forgotten equipment buried deep in Stygia. Perhaps they were vestigial energy of the extinct psychic race. Perhaps they were ghosts. Perhaps they were projections of Ovark himself. What had happened to the personality of the original sharkman? No one knew. However, he had taken control of the body of Ovark, and had orchestrated plans that had their origins far in the past and were only now coming to a head.

The ship carrying Parnassos and Danton dropped through the heavy air of Charadon and plunged into the tropical sea. It sank through the darkness till an enormous domed city came into sight. Giant airlocks cycled in the secret citadel and the pirate agents were escorted into the laboratory palace of the rebellion’s mastermind. There, the entire history of the rebellion was explained, and the agents were instructed on the final act that they must perform in order to finally topple Anathraxa.

The play that had been performed throughout the galaxy [described in episodes 2 and 3] had a psychic brainwashing component. When a certain sequence of numbers was heard, the programmed subject would act out the instructions contained in the play: engaging in sabotage, rioting and general civil disobedience against Anathraxa’s forces. This sequence of numbers would be broadcast as part of a great celebratory lottery being held on Levitos. [How do we deliver the psychic trigger? From Answer Deck: Greed, Good Fortune].

Levitos, you will recall, was the high tech floating city of The Greys that had been starved of fuel by the queen. In secret, a shipment of dark matter had been supplied and now the full range of powers was available to the inhabitants. The technology now available to the rebellion was greater than that possessed by Anathraxa. The queen had failed to take action against Levitos because she had been successfully deceived into attacking Mechanos and now was too busy lustfully engaged on Xaq. [Is Levitos now fully functional? Odds on: Yes, and. Is Anathraxa feeding on Zaq at this moment? Safe bet: Yes.]

The prize of this lottery (broadcast system wide because we have ancible, or at least such time dilation or broadcast ranges are irrelevant to the story) was a lifetime luxury apartment aboard the mighty city with panoramic views of the rainbow flowing slipstream

[At this point we felt we could see the broad sweep of the conspiracy, but had no idea what to do next: how could we play it out? We drew from Brewer’s and received Pyrrhic Victory. At the time it meant nothing so we parked it. It was not until very close to the end that we saw how this described both the entire story arc and the detail of this episode.]

Parnassos and Danton, using false identification papers provided by Sinon of Barter, were posing as Imperial Gaming Auditors. We were in disguise as Psiclopians, with synthetic skin covering our eyes and a semi-functional single eye placed on our foreheads. The real auditors were held up out near Psiclops due to the space battle developing around Mechanos between Anathraxa’s fleet and the now infuriated Robotmen.

We arrived at Levitos on schedule and were escorted to the Commander’s office. Levitos was a gigantic space-going domed city of the Close Encounters kind. The passage through the black hole to Slipstream had wrecked most of its superior technology and it was only able to hold station over the Slipstream flow. This filled the skies with beautiful rainbow displays, much like a continuous Aurora Borealis. The architecture of Levitos was grand, reminiscent of the most opulent old Earth casinos, and in fact that is what Levitos had largely become. The rich and famous liked to be seen there. Now, unknown to most, the great city was coming to life and machines of monstrous power were humming and sparking back into operation.

The lottery was conducted using a gigantic chocolate wheel apparatus with strong echoes of Metropolis in its design. Lights and swinging arms spun around, settling on one of 20 numbers. Every five numbers the spin would halt and the presenter would look into the broadcast cameras and ask the audience to phone in if they were still in the running. The whole event was attended by this glitzy showmanship and direct audience participation.

Behind the semi-transparent lottery wheel face, inside the overheated, valve and clicking relay random number generating machine, we plugged in our ‘audit’ box. Naturally the box had overrides and inserted new code. The result was that when an audience member called in to confirm that they were still eligible to win, a coded tone was played to them, triggering the subliminal programming placed there earlier.

As the numbers ticked over, more and more people called in. In fact, we calculated that a significant portion of the entire population of Slipstream received the signal at least once. [For the record, the winning numbers were: 14, 9, 13, 18, 18, 17, 1, 11, 7, 9, 9, 7, 19, 17, 13, 9, 10, 1, 3, 8.]

A feeling of goodwill swept the oppressed populations of the Slipstream system. Where Anathraxa had set race against race and conditioned feelings of mistrust and antagonism, there arose instead an understanding that the enemies were not neighbours near or far. There was only one enemy: it was Ananthraxa herself, represented by her brutal, cruel, ruthless (and sometimes sexy) forces.

Levitos started its mighty engines and powered towards Xaq. The surviving forces of Mechanos, decimated nine times over yet victorious, descended on Xaq and engaged the fleet protecting the queen. The queen was unaware of this and was powerless to intervene as she gorged herself on the males of the tribe: they all died with smiles on their faces.

Even the crew of Anathraxa’s warships were not immune from the effects of the lottery. They were fatally unprepared as the vengeful killbots carved through them. Soon the skies were clear except for Levitos. Hovering over the desolate planet, while the queen could only impotently shake her fist as the sky, the Levitosians extended a force shield around Xaq, sealing her within.

And so it seemed that the evil reign of Anathraxa had been brought to a close. She was a prisoner, marooned on a planet that she had made barren, with no hope of external aid penetrating the Levitosian shield, and no technology or industry on the planet’s surface with which to engineer a breakout. In the final cruel irony, she was the Supreme Being on the world, master of all, top predator, and ultimate punishers of all males. But increasingly she would be dressed in rags, and no one could offer any solace.

[And now to tie up the loose ends and explain the Pyrrhic Victory finding.]

The military victory of the Robotmen over the Imperial fleet was complete but costly. It was a dark day for robot kind but, as Bendar of Futurama would observe, ‘We can always build more killbots’.

It was a Pyrrhic victory for the winner of the lottery, for there was one, as the view of the slimstream was now forever replaced by the ice filled clouds above Xaq.

Perhaps the greatest Pyrrhic Victory occured for the Levitosians who had worked hard to restore their technology. Witht his technology they could have once again roamed the skies and perhaps even left the galaxy all togetehr. however, they were now eternally locked in orbit around Xaq maintaining the shield around Anathraxa’s prison. They had even lost the view of the slipstream, instead becoming becalmed in a misty sea, dusted and buffeted by ghostly images in a half light.

It was, in a way, even a bittersweet victory for the sexbot turned galactic war criminal. She had everything she could want: devotion, freedom, and an endless food supply. It was only for want of the finer things in life that she would suffer.

But, a disquieting thought: who is this Ovark, the psychic Stygian mastermind that somehow transferred his consciousness into another body in order to fulfil his vendetta against Anathraxa? Who is to say that he could not himself be immortal, transferring his essence endlessly through a series of bodies whose minds had been murdered? Could it be possible that he could turn out to be just as injurious to freedom as his predecessor? And ultimately, how many of the malign tales told of Anathraxa were actually true? After all, who alive today can say they ever actually met in her the flesh…

And so the curtains go down on Slipstream, a story-telling adventure in four parts, told using tools developed by Greg Hallam and Andrew Boswell.

Watch out for new stories coming to a cinema near you.

Slipstream, Pt3 – XAQ

Last time, you will recall, the growing rebellion of the oppressed people of the Slipstream universe gathered pace as the seditious play penned by ruler in exile Basilike was smuggled out of his prison and put on the stage across a dozen planets. Guided by the mysterious Stygians, it appeared that the movement may have a chance of success. In response, Anathraxa’s space navy moved into close orbit around Mechanos due to false information concerning their role in the rebellion.

Now, read on…

For this write up I will try to show some of the decision points that occurred in play in order to demonstrate how the tools assisted in building the story. These comments will appear in square brackets [like this].

The mood in the galaxy was grim. Anathraxa had mobilised her police state system to crack down on all the worlds, disarming and imprisoning anyone suspected of harbouring anti-state feelings [What is the mood of the galaxy? From Mythic: Control Weapons].

We were in orbit around Xaq. Officially we were delivering, via parachute drop, crates of food and simple weapons. However, some of the crates contained high tech weapons. We had been sent by the rebellion commanders to make contact with a certain tribal leader who had indicated that he could be manipulated in to helping us if he could be helped to defeat his rival tribes. [Where are we? From our location deck: The Ice Cloud. Are we waiting in the ice cloud (as opposed to passing through)? From our Sargasso chart: Yes, we were waiting. Why? From Mythic: Important invitation.]

We were mercenaries, Vulture a street punk from Gyptos who fought his way all the top of the murderer and thief path and Buck, a dandy of indeterminate planetary origins who was as cultured as he was venal. [Who were we? From Brewer's, and a draw from the location deck.]

Xaq was one of Anathraxa’s recruiting planets. Kept in a state of stone age barbarity, the inhabitants fought tooth and claw in order to survive and to glorify their goddess. On regular occasions she harvested those suitable for training into her armies. At all times it was heavily patrolled in space by a fleet of battleships and war-rockets. Since the planet was almost completely barren, food and equipment drops were indiscriminately made, forcing the locals (or Primals) to fight each other for the contents. As a matter of practical logistics, external mercenaries were needed to make these drops, but they were never allowed to approach too close or land.

As our ship came over the drop zone and the six crates were pushed on their rollers down the gaping cargo bay ramp, Buck and I followed them out. We pulled our parachutes at the same time as the crates’ auto-opened, and floated down, hoping that the two extra chutes had not been noticed by the patrolling ships. Unfortunately, an observant deck hand was on duty and did note the extra parachutes, starting a chain of events that rippled through the navy’s command structure, but we [the protagonists] did not know that at the time. [Are we noticed? Sargasso table: yes. We discussed what this chain of command might look like, and how long a response might take. We then figured out what the response would be. A team would be sent down to sterilise the drop zone. This could take up to an hour to start happening.]

Since the crates were dumb-dropped they were dispersed over a wide area. We landed close to one of them and scouted around. Luck was with us, and the cave structures close to us were in fact those occupied by our double-dealing Primal chief, Rantipole. [Since this was a planet based adventure, we searched through my maps till we found something suitable. It was an old Battletech tactical map. The centre water was an oasis. The hexes were marked 01 to 15 horizontally, and 01 to 17 vertically. We rolled a d20 twice to find a drop location for each crate and ourselves (discarding anything bigger than 15 and 17). Crates can be seen in white on the attached image.  We used counters to represent the protagonists, red and yellow, and other colours to represent tribes who come to claim the crates.]

We were surrounded by tribesmen. We called out for Rantipole, but he was hiding. Instead his chief wife came out to negotiate. She was very polite and circumspect, but reluctant to agree to anything. We could see that his tribe was poor and weak. They needed help in order to get the upper hand against their enemies, but it was naive to expect that they had any intention of betraying Anathraxa. It was a mystery. [Tell us about the chief. From Brewer's: Rantipole, an idiot. This explained why he was attempting to negotiate with us, a potential enemy to his goddess. Does Rantipole negotiate? From Sargasso: no, but. He sends his wife. What is she like? From our NPC deck: meek.]

Meanwhile, another tribe was closing in on this create, intend on seizing it. On the other side of the oasis a complement of ship’s troops landed and were systematically scorching the area. [Greg described the troops as wearing blue jump suits and simple flak jackets. They were not crack marines or anything like that. They were more like prison guards: not necessarily combat experts, but thorough and merciless.] Other tribes in the area observed this destruction and suffered the consequences as well. They fled from the soldiers towards us. [What do the locals do? From Mythic: Open observe.]

At Rantipole’s area, the closer rival tribe arrived and attacked. This galvanised the locals as we calmly returned fire with our rayguns. As everyone knows rayguns are intuitive and easy to use, even for cavemen, and our newly armed friends were delighted to be so easily able to destroy their enemies. We invited the survivors to join us and, just like that, Rantipole began to consolidate his power as King of kings.

The second tribe appeared and were similarly invited to join the ‘tribal confederation’. Rantipole’s imagination started to work and he imagined himself as the leader of all the tribes. Wouldn’t the goddess be pleased with him? We agreed she would. But there was a fly in the ointment, we told him. See these blue uniformed people? They are not the goddess’ people: they are evil invaders that despoil her work. See how they burn her gifts?

Armed with this evangelising vision, Rantipole led his force against the blue-jackets, but they gave as good as they got and where pinned down but not killed. Things looked grim until the leader of the second tribe that had joined the confederation advised that his people too had a cache of hidden weapons. It had been started by a downed pilot years ago. Extra equipment was brought in, but used ineffectively. The blue-jackets called for help on the radio.

We were informed via our own communications team in orbit that the signal was sent. In terror that they would send something devastating, we pulled everyone back to the caves. [Do they call a Valkyrie (Handmaiden), a particular fear of mine? From Sargasso: no.] Minutes later an extraction gunship collected the survivors of a the landing party, and shortly after that the valley floor was napalmed.

Satisfied that Rantipole was now buoyed up by his messiah complex and could unite the tribes and fight Anathraxa’s troops, while convinced that he was actually doing her will, we (Vulture and Buck) called for extraction.

What did all this mean for the rebellion? Well it meant that Xaq would not remain a recruiting ground for much longer, or at least the recruitment would be disrupted for a significant period of time until this local insurrection could be squashed. And given that the locals thought that they were actually fighting for Anathraxa while they killed her soldiers, this could take a while. What was happening elsewhere to put this into perspective? Rebellion had broken out on several other planets. [From Sargasso.] The psychic, mystical Stygians were our allies. Levitos had received its shipment of dark matter and was well on the way to restarting its engines. Unfortunately, Mechanos copped it. Anathraxa’s fleet acted on the false information provided in Part 2, and devastated the planet of the Robotmen. [All questions to Sargasso, most of which can back with blunt yeses and nos.]

And as the credits roll on part 3, we are transported to the veiled boudoir of the devastatingly beautiful and cruel queen Anathraxa as she read the reports from Xaq. She smiled as she reads of the rebellion. What does it matter that that a few ship loads of soldiers are being killed? For too long the pathetic Primals had worshipped her like dogs. These were real men with some fight in them. She wanted them. She gave the orders: the queen was coming to Xaq to feed. [What is the final mood of the episode? From Answer Deck: Victory, Sexual Attraction.]

Stirring music. Tune it next time.