Minireview: A Resection of Time (Call of Cthulhu)
“Modern-day” Cthulhu scenarios aren’t too common, as compared to the “classic-era” 1920s ones…. and the ones that do exist tend to be set in the 1980s or 1990s, which was current when they were written. A Resection of Time is one the few available scenarios in this group – and it’s pretty damn good. Besides being a nice mini-campaign (it’s a bit long to be merely be called a “scenario”, but too short for “campaign”) for Call of Cthulhu, this one would also make a very decent Delta Green scenario with quite minimal modification.
Subtitled “The Strange Case of Kyle Woodson: A Scenario”, the scenario begins with the PCs being tasked to investigate the death of an archeologist specializing in ancient Mayan culture, one Kyle Woodson. As written, the scenario strongly suggests that at least one of the PCs have a strong past connection with Kyle, having been at a dig with him years back. It’s quite doable to have the whole PC group be old archeologist friends / workmates of Kyle (this has implications later on, though I’ll avoid saying what implications to avoid spoilers). Kyle was struck by a speeding car in what seems to be a hit-and-run, possibly an intentional one. However, the autopsy found something very disturbing, so… cue the PCs.
Opportunities for sanity loss abound, and the PCs will fast find that their interest in the case hasn’t gone unnoticed. In the end, it’s likely that the leads will point towards Belize and some old dig sites… and assuming the PCs go there, they’ll find out things they’ll sincerely wish they hadn’t. There is a very nice plot twist at one point, which is improved by some GM foreshadowing in the previous sections.
Like I said, this is a strong scenario. It’s not perfect; some of the initial data about Kyle’s death is a bit contradictory in what seems to be a genuine mistake by the author, but that’s easy enough to rectify. Also, the scenario really needs for at least one of the PCs to have had old connections with Kyle, and to have been on site at a dig with him. Reverse-engineering this into an ongoing campaign might be tricky.
Also as noted, a very competent scenario for Delta Green, with the caveats about PC past involvement still valid.
Minireview: The Varnhold Vanishing (Pathfinder #33)
With The Varnhold Vanishing, the “Kingmaker” adventure path reaches its midpoint. Even though this adventure path is by design a non-linear sandbox, by this time it’s assumed that the PCs have carved out a fledgling kingdom for themselves (with some rules crunch help via a nifty “kingdom builder” minigame/ruleset). Things have been peaceful for a while, with “downtime” perhaps even lasting a year or so after the last major events (up to the GM). Of course, peaceful times never last in these things…
The next major crisis comes in the form of an event which hits the PCs’ eastern neighbor, Varnhold. Rumor has it that the colony has just… vanished. The buildings are still there, but no sign of the inhabitants. Yes, there are deliberate shades of the old Roanoke colony mystery here, as noted in the foreword, though I’m quite confident that the cause of that old event was very different than what’s given here. Anyway, it’s assumed the PCs will want to investigate, since anything that can wipe out a nearby colony will probably me a danger to them, too. If they don’t jump to the bait, you can always have one of their remote towns meet the same fate. ..
The backstory here is a bit weird (not giving any spoilers here), but it’s workable and does give the Paizo guys an excuse to set a very iconic Big Bad versus the PCs at a level when that sort of thing would normally totally crush them. With proper prep, this adventure has possibilities for some creepy investigative stuff, before the action kicks in. Not bad at all.
Since this is part of a sandbox toolkit, the GM is of course free to use this bit at whatever point (s)he wants; some adjustment of adversary strengths may of course be needed in that case.
Minireview: Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch
Red Seas Under Red Skies is the sequel to Scott Lynch’s awesome debut novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora. Now, writing a sequel to an acclaimed debut is tricky at the best of times – people will naturally be comparing it to the first book, and if you are writing a true sequel, it’s extremely hard to get the same sort of impact. If for nothing else, the fact that readers will already be familiar with your world blunts some of the “newness”.
All of that is valid for this book, but make no mistake: it’s a very good book. No, it’s not quite as good as the first one, but it’s still a damn good and entertaining read.
The action starts some time after the events in the first book. Locke and Jean, having (barely) escaped Camorr with their lives, slowly start to rebuild something in the vein of the old “Gentlemen Bastards” – if for nothing else, to give themselves a purpose. An audacious plot to rob the main casino in Tal Verrar gets one complication after another, and soon that initial heist is the least of their problems. The pair gets forced into piracy… well, at least into pretending to be pirate captains, and hilarity (and bloodshed) ensues. There’s a lot of nautical terminology thrown about, some of it invented for this fantasy world. Locke and Jean, landlubbers both, are ill-equipped to deal with the nautical realm, let alone active piracy.
Like the first book, it switches between lighthearted heist romp and very dark sections; comparisons to China Miéville are easy to make, at least to some extent. The fantasy world of these books remains interesting and ambiguous… it’s clearly not Earth, it might be a far-future post-hightech world, or it might “just” be an interesting fantasy world. Lynch is pretty good at leaving out exact descriptions on some things, making some of the threats in these books quite scary since we’re only given frightening glimpses, not details. One passage through a foggy island channel is especially nice and creepy… without much description about the actual threat at all.
If the book has a fault, it’s that it wraps things up much too quickly. It’s a big book and it uses close to 800 pages to slowly describe an intricate tangle of plots, subplots, betrayals and blackmails… and then suddenly wraps up, in what seems like a heartbeat. It’s almost like the author suddenly realized he’s way over page count limit, and forced himself to end things asap. It’s a bit jarring.
That said, it’s one hell of a swashbuckling pirate-flavored tale. If you’re read the first book, do yourself a favor and read this one too. If you haven’t read “The Lies of Locke Lamora” yet… what’s wrong with you? Off to the bookshop you go. Shoo.
Minireview: The Silver Ladder (Mage: the Awakening)
I still haven’t read much from the new Mage; what I’ve read has failed to really resonate. The core book is dull beyond words, and the “Gnostic prison” world is interesting in theory but poorly implemented – the bad guys are so vague they may as well not exist at all… and let’s not even start on “Atlantis”. I’ve heard that there is a pretty good game hidden inside all the crap, but so far I’m not totally convinced. I’m trying to keep an open mind, though.
Anyway, I recently got the Silver Ladder book because it was on sale at the game store. Now, having read it, I’m still not quite convinced by the game. It’s not a bad book by any means, but neither does it contain enough to really wow me. It does have some pretty cool small tidbits, though.
The book describes one of the five major Orders, the “Silver Ladder”. In the core book they are placed in the “leaders” slot, like the Ventrue are in Vampire. As such this isn’t a very colorful role, so they were left quite bland. This book expands on that core idea and describes what the Order really is about, and it’s more interesting than the core book proposition at least. The Order wants humanity to ascend, and want to be their guides in that path and take the role of “Vizier Behind the Throne”; benevolent guiding voices. That’s the theory, anyway. Obviously, many individual mages are in it purely for power (even though the Order tries to weed out the pure power-seekers), others may have good intentions but lack the personal drive and commitment to really push for change. The Order has no use for the weak – after all, they posit themselves as the “spiritual leaders” of future ascended humanity.
Perhaps the most interesting bit in the book has to do with the methods the Order uses to achieve its goals, one of which is “Cryptopolies”: small-scale secret societies formed by and guided by the Ladder, populated (mostly) by normal mortals. The members are monitored and subtly nudged in “correct” directions (as defined by the Ladder mentor), and especially promising individuals are exposed to magic to see how they react. Some even Awaken at that point, which the Ladder contains a huge win. Of course, most do not and some even go insane, such is the price of transcending the human condition.
There’s a lot of other stuff here to expand the Order from a two-dimensional “we’re the leaders” bunch to a more subtle magical transcendentalist society, and much of it is pretty good stuff on the idea level. The problem is the execution; while the book isn’t as dry a read as the Mage corebook, it’s still dry in most places and was frankly a bit of a chore to read through. In contrast the Vampire “Ordo Dracul” book, which describes a vampiric group with some goal-level overlap with the Ladder, was an extremely interesting read. I’m not sure how much is due to the base game (the new Mage forces the writers to resort to language usually only found in philosophy textbooks), and how much is due to the writers themselves, but there it is. In the end, this book had nice bits but overall wasn’t a very engaging read.
Minireview: Cthulhu Now (Call of Cthulhu)
Cthulhu Now might as well be titled “Cthulhu 80s” – but of course it was “now” back in the day. It’s a sourcebook for playing modern Cthulhu scenarios (my edition is the original 1987 one, there is also a 1992 edition with a different cover). It contains some rules additions and articles, and 4 modern-day scenarios.
The rules additions are mostly skills and such, and possibly useful, though it may be that the latest CoC corebook already contains some of this stuff (not sure, don’t own that). The articles are quite useful; there is an excellent one on forensics, and another quite solid on on modern firearms. Sure, some of the tech has changed since then, but most of it is still relevant as far as I can figure out. The biggest change (in everything) is computers: nowadays they are everywhere and a core component of much daily life, back then not so much.
The adventures are, as often is the case, a mixed bag.
The first one, “The City in the Sea”, isn’t anything all that special. An experimental sub gets taken out for a spin to examine some underwater ruins, with somewhat predictable results. The second one is “Dreams Dark and Deadly” and it’s quite a bit better. A private clinic specializing in dreams and dreaming gets invaded by… something nasty, and not everything is as it seems. A very nice scenario which could develop in lots of different directions.
Thirdly we get “The Killer Out of Space”, in which a space shuttle crashes to Earth and the PCs manage to be on site before the army/NASA gets there. The shuttle crash wasn’t caused by any normal technical fault, and things quickly escalate. There is a nice subtle twist which explains why the players aren’t killed immediately, and one which is also a major clue (if they figure it out). Not bad at all.
Last is “The Evil Stars”, in which a glam / heavy metal band tries to summon a mythos entity via music. It’s a bit corny and very 80s, but could be fun as-is in a retro way… and could also be updated for the modern day without too much trouble.
So. Some articles worth reading and a bunch of scenarios, most of them quite decent and all easy to update for the actual “right now” modern day, if desired. Not a “must get” book by any means, but worth getting if you want to run some modern-day Cthulhu mayhem.
Minireview: City of Golden Death (Pathfinder)
City of Golden Death (written by Joshua J. Frost) is the finale of the three-part mini-campaign begun with Crypt of the Everflame and Masks of the Living God. I really liked those two, and this one does not disappoint either – all three are very different from each other in plot and tone, but still have links to each other and are designed to be run in sequence. It’s sort of like some the 1st edition AD&D series of modules, where the adventures were standalone but also a part of a series. In a way, this is something between a solo module and a larger “adventure path” series.
Of course, none of that matters is the adventures themselves are no good, or contain extremely weak links. No such problem here, City of Golden Death is a very nice finale to the series. Again, it’s quite different in tone to the previous two; here we have the PCs venturing into dangerous ancient ruins, trying to stop the plans of the main Bad Guy before it’s too late. It’s quite cinematic and “pulpy” in places, but in a good way. After the sneaky previous episode, the more straightforward plot here is probably a welcome change of pace. It’s assumed that the PCs will want to do their bit just because they are heroic, so the GM might need to dangle some additional carrots (or a big stick) to starts things off here. On the other hand, the previous adventure already assumed that the PCs had reason to act against the Cult of Razmir, so that motivation will probably just carry over to this one.
As for the “pulpy” bit… well, here the main locale is a place called (I kid you not) “Isle of Terror”. Subtle it’s not, and it’s also a bit cheesy… but hey, old D&D had the “Isle of Doom” (later also used in the Savage Tide adventure path), so it’s in good company.
If you’re looking for a nice mini-campaign for Pathfinder (or other D&D variant), you might want to check out this series of three adventures.
Tori @Pori
Missed seeing Tori at the Pori Jazz festival this weekend (due to Ropecon), but I just noticed that Undented has a collection of YouTube clips of the whole concert. Shortish gig and somewhat predictable “festival” setlist, but her voice is in great shape and I really liked some of the versions she sung here. “Hey Jupiter” (below) is a particularly cool version.
On the same(ish) note, here’s an awesome clip from a 1998 “Storytellers” session, with a short story prelude.
“Everybody knows I’m her man”
Survived vacation
Well, I’m back at work, after a (short) 2-week vacation. It’s nice and peaceful here, as opposed to the hectic (but very fun) vacation schedule. And the office has air conditioning, which is a win these days.
We spent the first weekend in Joensuu, at Isosaarirock. Very nice rock festival, and nice trip overall. The hotel was an “eco-hotel”, which proved to be bad on Friday when we arrived: “eco” meant no air conditioning and poor ventilation, resulting in a room temperature easily in the 30s (C). We finally managed to sleep without dying of overheating by (also) leaving the room door open to the corridor. The temps dropped a bit the next days so it wasn’t so bad, but… that place really wasn’t built to handle heat waves. Nice enough otherwise.
The festival itself was good. Nice selection of bands and a wide cross-section of genres. We listened to everything from big band jazz to heavy metal and (Finnish!) rap. I primarily went there to see Imogen Heap (she was good), but many other gigs were also very much worth seeing and listening to. My feet were killing me near the end; 12 hours or so of standing / bounding about in soleless shoes (Feelmax) starts to get to you. We got a bit of a sunburn, but nothing too bad… and the beach there was awesome. You could wade in the water or go for a swim, while seeing and hearing the band on stage at the same time.
Imogen Heap seemed happy about the very positive reception she got (she hasn’t been here before), so I’m hoping she’ll do a “proper” tour with a Finnish concert at some point. It would be great to see her in a more focused environment.
The following week our house started filling up with guests. A lot of EVE players were coming to Finland for Ropecon, and we housed some at our place. Actually, we still do, I think the last of them leaves tomorrow. We also got well-known VTES “celebrity” player over (I’ve met him before at ECs), who got crash space on the floor on a mattress since our guest bedroom and sofa were already occupied my others. Fun guys all, and it’s fun to have the house full of people. Well, now and then it is, anyway ;)
Last weekend was Ropecon, of course. I ran the big VTES tournament on Friday, and it went very well. Excellent turnout with 93 players, and we also had a record number of foreign players attending. The win went to Otso Saariluoma, with the final round ending around 3am. It was a good final round too, with lots of stuff happening all the time. I’ll write up a full tournament report during the next week or so, with details on all that.
On Saturday I played in the VTES draft (fun, but only got 1 VP total), then caught some random program events and finally stumbled home to sleep for an all-too-short while. Sunday back to the con area to listen to Guy Windsor’s traditional “Realities of Steel” thing, and then an 8-hour info desk shift. So the con went well, though this year most of it went towards VTES for me.
…and now it’s (slowly) back to normal routine. That’s not a bad thing, as such. The kittehs will miss having a million people around the house, though, they’ve grown used to always having a human around who has time to pet them.
