Omphalos 1

THE YEAR IS 199X AND THERE'S SOMETHING WEIRD IN THE OCEAN. ARE YOU TOUGH AND SMART ENOUGH TO FIGURE IT OUT BEFORE THE SOVIETS SINK THE WHOLE OPERATION?

Robert Caney

Below is the session notes of the first session of a 90's schlock deep sea megadungeon(?) loosely inspired by The Abyss I ran today followed by the initial idea from my slush pile and the WAY too detailed notes I wrote up (and somewhat kept to) before running the session. I wanted to show the whole- incredibly rough and hard to read process from small idea to usable (by me) notes and then the session results. 

Players in this game beware! There are spoilers within!

CREW LIST: 

Player One:

Cean [Kohn] Shonnery: USSR defector, former member of the undersea Spetsnaz (Wetsnaz)

Bhey Hab: Marine Biologist, completely unintelligble

Player Two:

Billy Lowstat: America's least capable navy SEAL

Gregor Redacted: USSR defector, nuclear engineer

Player Three:

Lt. John Jack Foster: SEAL and commander of the crew

Emma Kolchek: Medic

It's the last days of the USSR and the world is scrambling to prevent loose nukes! A collection of clandestine Western agencies dispatch our crew to a Soviet research site 2.5 km undersea in the Northern Pacific. The goal: Recover the fissile material from the research site's reactor and extract Dr. Zharkova Filippovna and her research. They're told that the cover story they'll be using for the mission is as an inspection from the IAEA but not to expect that to hold up with the research team at all.

 

 

After a lengthy discussion of what equipment to bring and what was viable in 199X ("Computer stuff? There might be computers right?") the crew gathers and gets their briefing from their handler, Milos, on the contracted Oceanography ship the R/V Protean. They get the initial readings of the sensor equipment on the Protean, revealing that the site below, a geothermal well catalogued as the OMPHALOS site, is a sea mount rising 1 km up from the sea floor with its plateau'd peak at 2.5km below the surface. Eight protrusions, probably sea volcanoes, as well as some strange protrusions that are possibly rock formations towards the center of the sea mount. 

The target is the Soviet deep sea research habitat, KURNAKOV-4, and from the maps and readings they got off the Protean the crew ID'd that it was probably attached to one of the sea volcanoes.

Billy Lowstat is put at the helm of the crew's modified bathyscaphe, Channer-9, and against all advice decides to descend "fast as hell and drift this baby straight up to the docking port". At 2000 meters the vessel suddenly suffers colossal malfunctions as its overpressurized interior emerges into a sudden low pressure zone- exterior pressure readings indicating a depth of only 14 meters evenly as they continue the descent. The crew is able to keep the bathyscaphe together and control the descent to the sea floor.

Bhey Hab is keenly watching for sealife and is rewarded with the massive amount of varied sea life all around them now, fish that shouldn't be able to survive at this depth and- even more shockingly- extinct species that he had only ever seen drawings of. As he's explaining this to the crew he catches site of a huge, bloated, 25 foot long megalodon lazily swimming in the distance.

 

On noting the megalodon the players have a quick panicked discussion about how sonar works and Bhey Hab pulls Cohn Shawnery away from the sonar panel to prevent him from pinging and possibly attracting the megalodon in the distance. 

The crew notes what looks to be debris and shipwrecks towards the center of the sea mount but continue on to the supposed site of Kurnakov-4. As they get closer, with thermal and visual observations they make out a 30 meter tall black pillar of stone coming out of the sea mount with a habitat built next to/on it, cables for communications and lighting arrays running off into the dark. No exterior lights are on and the habitat looks quiet. 

Identifying the pressure lock easily the crew barely avoids a catastrophic collision with the habitat (Billy Lowstat is still piloting the craft) before managing a seal and lock with the habitat. When they unseal and open the hatch they find the pressure differential to be lower inside the habitat than expected and nearly suffer an explosive decompression.

The pressure lock has a hacked in modification to one wall with a scrawled sign in Russian that reads "Dive Pool", but the crew ignores this and aims for the main habitat- noting that the whole habitat is dark, quiet, and the air stale. 

Entering the main habitat ring they take scope of the other decks, identifying the engineering room, laboratory, medical lab, communications center, and armory. Nuclear engineer leading the way they beeline to engineering with a geiger counter out ahead, detecting trace radiation. They find the engineering deck has had its reactor half disassembled and the fissile materials removed, replaced with a hacked and wired in featureless black 1x1x1 cube that has had wiring attached with a switch. Flipping the switch the station powers back on as the engineer notes with confusion that the habitat's batteries aren't charging and the cube is outputting the precise power requirement for the station's equipment. 

Billy Lowstat and Cohn Shawnery are up in the main hab ring meanwhile, investigating the duty roster and identifying the last time anyone was on duty was over four months ago. When the power kicks in they hear a fire alarm from the laboratory and a radio call from the communications center. Cohn Shawnery disables the fire alarm in the laboratory and says "We'll deal with that later". 

Meanwhile meanwhile, Bhey Hab has been back in the Channer staring out the windows at the miraculous sea life. After staring long enough he begins to note and grow confused about the fine spread of silvery particulates across his vision and notes with greater concern that the fine particles are both in the water as well as in the Channer and the station. 

Gregor Redacted and Lt Foster get to work in the communications center and quickly realize they are receiving an encrypted hail and have a discussion about whether or not they should respond to the request for a status update- ultimate deciding to leave it be as Billy Lowstat finds the vodka stashed in the communications center and then gets distracted by the padlock on the armory. 

Emma and Cohn Shawnery head into the laboratory and note with dismay the acrid smoke pouring out of the room was from what looks to have been a hasty fire set to burn documentation. This is quickly overcome by the discovery of the strange airlock attached to the surface of the stone pylon they'd seen from outside as well as an aquarium tank with a huge Giant Pacific Octopus with a label reading "Kusachiy" (Bitey).

Emma has a brief moment of dismay as she remember what the Bends is and realizes that everyone present should be horribly sick but isn't. She call Bhey Hab in to see to the octopus and, on hearing about his particulate discovery, sees the particulates herself and tries to catch a sample of it with some tape- unsuccessfully. Bhey Hab notes there's no food at all for the octopus in here but that it appears healthy and in fact intelligent and watching him- but on the food comment everyone has the realization that the food in the main hab ring was virtually untouched and that none of them have any hunger pangs at all. 

Lt Foster and Gregory Redacted are reading hydrographic maps and identify that the communications crewman had been using sonar and tracking two large objects, revealing that there are actually two megalodon that prowl these waters- as well as identifying a large metal object with a note "submarine?" towards the shipwrecks they had seen and an instruction to "ping the sonar if the sharks get within 100m". They then head to the laboratory where Gregory finds a journal hidden in the smashed computer and desk remains belonging to Dr. Filippovna and quickly discovers most of it to be encoded but the later portions contain frantic harried writing about Kusachiy, indicating that Dr. Filippovna discovered it to be extremely intelligent and had developed a rudimentary communications means with it- effectively teaching it Russian and learning how to read its color changes as alphabetic letters. They also discover a perfectly preserved, or at least maintained, German Luger pistol secreted under Dr. Filippovna's presumed cot in the corner.

Lt Foster picks the padlock to the armory and enters along with Billy Lowstat, finding it to be mostly bare- including the troublingly empty explosives supply- as well as the slumped body of one of the Kurnakov's crew- apparently alive but with a sphere of red metal encasing their head and loosely anchored to the wall and floor. They spend some time poking at the metal carefully, finding it soft but that it responds violently when pressed with force- as well as each time they were able to hear screaming from within the sphere while very carefully avoiding touching the metal at all.

Bhey Hab and Gregor are completely blown away by the discover of an octopus that understands Russian and begin chatting up Kusachiy, learning that it wants to know where Dr. Filippovna went and also wants to play hide and go seek. When asked about the red metal sphere in the armory, Kusachiy pulls itself out of the water tank, pokes its head into the armory and leaves immediately- signing "red goo bad". Bhey Hab spends a good amount of time asking about the particles he and Emma have been seeing, finally getting the meaning through to Kusachiy who calls it "mesh".

A brief trip to the well deck later and Kusachiy is swimming freely in water that should be extremely pressurized. Bhey Hab pokes his head in and finds the water to be somewhat warm, after which Billy Lowstat jumps in and plays tag with Kusachiy for awhile. When asked how long Kusachiy has been here they respond with "long, keep track in time cave at Martina" making gestures in the direction of the shipwrecks.

Back in the main ring, the crew discovers a live squid tied with belts to a surgical table, partially burnt with a nearby acetylene burner, and after reading the log book of various experiments done to it and recovery times (fire had none listed) Emma cuts her finger and watches it heal near instantly- confirming some suspicions but adding even more questions. They take the squid out to the well deck and return it to the ocean. 

After some discussion, the crew ask Kusachiy where the Soviet crew went and get a response of "don't know, down pillar" and the crew decides they'll have to investigate the pillar eventually- but first want to check out the shipwrecks. With Bhey Hab and Lt Foster manning the Channer and the rest of the crew in SCUBA gear, the whole gang plus Kusachiy make their way over to the shipwrecks, carefully dodging a megalodon. 

 

They find the shipwrecks to be of varied make and model ranging back hundreds if not thousands of years. The SCUBA team investigates the wreck of a galleon that Kusachiy heads towards while the Channer team inspects the buried hull of an apparent submarine with its conning tower ripped off. Inside the galleon, they discover everything has been stripped from the hammocks to the nails of the ship- with the captain's quarters left untouched and door shut. Half the crew heads with Kusachiy into a hole in the hull, finding the "rock" of the sea floor to actually be years of fossilized coral. Kusachiy leads them through into a large, open cave seemingly hand carved from amongst the coral, bits of shiny detritus carefully arranged but- most notably- millions of small marks covering the cave- which Gregor interprets as Kusachiy having carved out and representing millions of days of time tracking. 

The other half of the team enter the captain's quarters and find the perfectly preserved- completely untouched by time and water- body of a Portugese captain who watches them as they enter. Using a diving board and testing a few languages they know, they settle on Spanish and find both they and the captain can write and talk in a limited manner to one another. He introduces himself as Henry Dias and this ship as the Santa Martina, indicating that one day in 1667 "the sea opened up and swallowed it whole". The crew notes a massive depression on Dias's head, flash healed over but still clearly a head wound, and Dias says he was hit by a beam when the ship went down. When asked he says the rest of the crew took everything and left "into the dark glass" and haven't been back since. He says simply that he didn't leave as it was his ship and the captain stays with the ship. Thoroughly creeped out, the SCUBA team heads over to the buried submarine.

On the Channer, Foster and Bhey Hab identify the submarine to be a sunken U-boat and pass its markings to the R/V Protean, discovering that it is a missing type XX1 U-boat last seen off the coast of France in the spring of 1944. The SCUBA team enters, has a brief "Indiana Jones realizing now we're fighting nazis" moment, and scour the sub to find that it too has had its valuables stripped but that its complement of sea mines and torpedoes are intact. They all then head back to the Kurnakov-4 and Billy Lowstat has a brief terrifying encounter with a megalodon, seeing it open its mouth and that its gullet is filled with squirming, living sea life. They find a poem scratched into the access hatch of the U-boat and Lt Foster identifies it as the latter half of Goethe's Wanderer's Nightsong I, (roughly):

"I am weary with contending!
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!"

At the Kurnakov the crew finds more messages in the communications center and identify that there will be a rendezvous with BEZDNA in 12 hours- a number that decreases to 6 hours after they fail a verification check while trying to convince them to "come back tomorrow". Finally, they decide they have to investigate the pylons and try and find the crew of the Kurnakov as fast as they can. While asking Kusachiy about the Santa Martina the crew is curious about the response "feel bad, sank ship" and the follow up "used orb, sank ship, down pillar, feel bad", asking Kusachiy to lead them to the orb. 

Kusachiy heads into the laboratory and Bhey Hab opens the rudimentary air lock attached to the pylon wall, watching Kusachiy latch onto the wall, bite, and disappear into an opening that pours out water before closing. After Billy Lowstat heads in and bites the wall himself, the crew discovers that cutting the soft stone of the pylon easily opens it. Suiting back up in wet suits and refilling their oxygen (despite some discussions of "well if we drown we're in the mesh so we'll be fine").

Entering the pylon the crew finds it to be filled with water and note a dim blue light from below ("Cherenkov radiation!" "No, normal readings on the Geiger counter- but slightly higher" "So we're dog sniffing out those nukes?" "Probably?"). Descending 50 meters they find the pylon connects with similar descents to the other- eight- pylons all connecting in the center of the sea mount. The blue light is coming from the bottom of this central cylinder, another 100 meters down, and Kusachiy relays "orb, sinks ships, feels bad". A brief retcon warns the R/V Protean about the BEZDNA being a possible Soviet submarine and to "maybe head like two nautical miles away". 

 

Cean Shawnery pokes at the orb as the ceiling suddenly becomes transparent, revealing a clear view of the ~2.5 km of ocean above and amplifies both the R/V Protean as well as a large, dark shape vaguely "Soviet submarine shaped". With another poke at the orb they see a large dark space opening up and, with horror, see both ships sinking into it and realize that the most recent poke began dropping the ocean's surface down, dragging the ships with them. Another panicked poke reverses this, explosively refilling the enormous empty space and creating possibly (probably) devastating tidal waves but discover that the R/V Protean appeared to be upright and the submarine appeared to be at an unhealthy 45 degree angle from the normal plane. 

Emma spies the northern wall at the base of the cylinder to be covered in a thick green mossy membrane and on investigation finds it to be soft and permeable. Pressing an arm through it she feels air on the other side and relays this to the rest of the crew. Deciding to head through, they relay with gestures and head nods their intent to Kusachiy who signs back "I stay, no mesh in there, careful", and the crew has a brief panic that they will be "mortal again" through the membrane. Cean Shawnery throws himself through the membrane at full speed and hits the air on the other side before dropping into a one foot deep pool. A large, dark room is beyond with dark tiled floors on the other side, a doorway beyond, and a thick mist hanging low to the water. Cean Shawnery takes off his SCUBA mask and finds the air to be cold but breathable... 

And that's where we ended! Both for time constraints and, conveniently, because that's all I had written down firmly. Check out below for some more details from my write up and to see how my process (ish) of translating it to play worked out.

THE INITIAL SCRAWL FROM THE IDEA PILE: 

wreck of another submarine, lampshades danger

wreck of another another submarine, nazi uboat?

posthuman demon in the basement of an ancient ruin [editor's note: look we'll get there with this place eventually be patient]

THREE HOURS OF UNEDITED WRITING AND GOOGLING STUFF ABOUT THE OCEAN- I AM SO SORRY NO ONE SHOULD USE THIS AT A TABLE

Omphalos

0. The Setup

THE YEAR IS 199x, and the ongoing turmoil within the USSR has worried minds tracking their dissolving tendrils around the world for loose nuclear weapons and covert operations acting without oversight.

Your team has been contracted, nominally, by the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate an alleged deep sea nuclear research facility by the name of Kurnakov-4 located at a deep sea geothermal site in the northern Pacific designated OMPHALOS. Publically, this mission is a peacekeeping action to assess safe usage of fissile materials by the USSR, but your real handlers, a collection of covert organizations around the world scrambling to curtail the USSR's reach, provide the classified brief and real objectives:

1. Recover any fissile material from Kurnakov-4
2. Ascertain the purpose of the research team at Kurnakov-4
3. Recover Dr. Zharkova Filippovna and all of their research materials

If the site is deemed by your team to be unrecoverable or otherwise hazardous:

4. Destroy the Kurnakov-4, all of its personnel, and secure or render unusable any hazardous materials

For this mission, you will be working with the R/V Protean Oceanographic Research vessel and its clandestinely heavily modified bathyscape Channer-9.

Handler Milos

A cold, ruthlessly efficient man who insists to be called Milos and will not reveal who he works for exactly is in charge of the general operation. He will remain on the R/V Protean and provide support from there as long as he can, but if contact is lost with the party for forty-eight hours without explanation he will deploy the R/V Protean's low-yield nuclear depth charge and scram the OMPHALOS site. The Protean can be contacted as long as the Channer-9's communications cable is intact, but can also be contacted using the 2c. Communications Center.

Dr. Zharkova Filippovna

Russian-borne mechanical physicist, employed in top secret research by the Academy of Sciences for the past twenty years. 8 months ago contacted Milos's agency through a proxy promising "The most important research ever done" if she can be extracted. No communications since.

Channer-9

A heavily modified bathyscape that can just barely fit its pilot, navigator, and eight passengers. The bathyscape is equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (sea drone) that can be operated out to 20 kilometers. A cable runs from the Channer to the Protean for ease of recovery as well as communications. The skin of the Channer can be electrocuted to scare off ocean life.

The Crew

Crew should be a mix of security specialists, engineers, and a smattering of scientific experts in fields such as: Oceanography, Biology, Nuclear Physics, Geology. All crew should explicitly list which languages they can speak.

In the event of a character death while exploring the Omphalos, the pilot or navigator of the Channer should serve as replacements, or a notional "backup crew" filling the extra passenger spots.

1d6

1. Navy SEAL: Diver, Military Training, Damn Tough To Kill
2. Intelligence Analyst: Cryptography, Radio Equipment, Additional Language
3. Nuclear Engineer: Nuclear Reactor Maintenance, Engineering, Physics
4. Marine Biologist: Marine Biology, Diver, Oceanography
5. Medic: Medicine, Field Surgery, Anesthsia
6. Demolitions Expert: Explosives, Mechanical Engineering, Scrap & Craft

1d10 Languages (English Assumed):

1. French
2. German
3. Bengali
4. Russian
5. Japanese
6. Mandarin
7. Spanish
8. Portugese
9. Hindi
10. Arabic

Hydrographic Readings

The Protean's inital readings of the Omphalos site reveal the shape of the sea mount and the location of the Kurnakov-4, but anything further is out of range and fidelity for their radars. The pylons register as probable ridges of undersea volcanoes in a strange uniform distribution.

12 hours after the initial descent the Protean will detect an unidentified submarine loitering nearby. This is the Bezdna, a heavily modified Akula class nuclear powered attack submarine awaiting a signal from the Kurnakov-4 indicating it is safe to approach.

1. OMPHALOS Site

2.5 kilometers beneath the sea somewhere in the northern Pacific Ocean is a seamount that rises into a 10km wide flat plateau. At its center, eight 30 meter tall glossy dark stone pylons rise out of the sea floor. They form the outline of an octagon with 223.561 meter long sides. The area is known as the OMPHALOS site.

Attached around two pylons is a sealed deep sea enclosure (2. KURNAKOV-4) of recent make, with a series of modules attached and circling fully one of the pylons.

The center of the octagon contains a variety of wrecks of ships ranging from the early 1600s to present day. Most of these are buried in silt but diligent searching would reveal two miraculously intact vessels: 1a The Santa Martina, a Portugese galleon, and 1b. U-2556, a Type XXI U-boat.

Any lights shining in the area around the seamount will reflect tiny silvery particles in a fine mesh. Sampling the water and analyzing its contents will reveal these silvery particles to be clumps of nano-particles (Mesh) that are inactive and dissolve outside of the seamount.

Note: Pressure Anomalies

Water pressure readings in a rough cylinder rising 500 meters straight up from the sea mount indicate that this region of the ocean is inexplicably low pressure. What should be ~500 atmospheres of pressure (500 times that of surface pressure) instead registers as about seven atmospheres, allowing SCUBA divers to operate without additional gear in the area. Careful measurement and observation of this pressure boundary will note that its size and exact location fluctuate slightly.

Any pressurized vehicle crossing this anomalous pressure boundary will groan and squeal loudly as it suddenly adjusts to the massive pressure differential and all but the sturdiest vehicles will spring leaks and suffer other mechanical failures due to the stress of crossing the boundary.

For the Channer-9 this will result in it requiring 6 hours of repairs before the pilot is willing to bring it back up through the barrier. If the Channer-9 ascends without these repairs being done there is a 7 in 10 chance of a catastrophic hull collapse.

Observant crew will notice that despite the pressure shifts they do not suffer any degree of Decompression Sickness.

Note: Mesh

Mesh is the autonomous nanite cloud finely dispersed throughout the water of the seamount and similarly infiltrates the vessels therein. It functions by preventing any degree of harm or degeneration to organic material that it is exposed to, repairing any wounds or damage while exposed to the Mesh. This includes repairing your lungs if you are drowning in the Mesh, allowing unaided and unencumbered diving. Mesh only knows your biology while you are exposed to it, meaning any wounded who are then later exposed to Mesh may have horrifying repairs to keep them alive in their wounded state.

In particular, brain damage is "patched" preserving the appearance of life but in a zombie-like state of intelligence lacking consciousness. These consciously dead simulacra of people (C-Dead) retain as much of their personality and memories as well as behaviours as they can from their pre-dead life, and can converse politely but are otherwise unable to change their patterns or desires without prompting.

High heat as from an explosion does disrupt the Mesh and could be used to kill something by temporarily neutralizing the Mesh.

Upon leaving 1 and 2 the Mesh is no longer propogating or active.

Ocean Exploration

Any marine biologist will be able to spot an enormous variety of supposedly extinct sealife (Up to 26 million years old) living in abundance throughout the OMPHALOS site. The only predators to be found are a pair of Megalodon and they are the only thing to show up on an encounter roll here. When rolled, there is a 50% chance they will be sleeping, drifting by lazily.

MEGALODON
Lvl 10 Def none Thrash 2d6

Immortal - The Megalodons are kept eternally alive by the Mesh and have long since stuffed themselves full of similarly immortal yet continuously digested sea life. This makes them very slow and very large, but their natural killing instinct still drive them to at least ram into things they could eat.

Boot and Rally - If antagonized sufficiently, the Megalodon will vomit up its squirming totured meals and replace its Thrash with Devour 3d4. If this attack reduces a character to 0 HP or lower they are devoured and kept alive by the Mesh in the stomach of the Megalodon.

1a. The Santa Martina

Stripped paint and soaked wood poking out of the silt reveal the remains of the Santa Martina, a Portugese galleon constructed in the early 17th century. A single entry into the upper deck can be dug out of the silt revealing the interior to have been stripped bare, all of the fittings, cannons, and other acoutrements have been removed.

Wading through the 1/2 meter of silt to the back of the ship reveals the captain's quarters, where captain Henry Dias sits contentedly at his desk.

The captain was nearly killed when the ship sank but was preserved by the Mesh as a C-Dead. Much of his memories and personality are confused and lost due to the patching, but he responds politely to inquiries and knows the following:

1. The Santa Martina sank while exploring the northern Pacific in 1677 as if the ocean opened up and swallowed it whole.

2. His First Mate, Bonifacio Ramos, took the still conscious crew and as much of the ship's goods as they could "into the glass pillars" and have not been seen since.

3. Two great sea beasts (See Megalodon) prowl the waters nearby but are usually asleep unless disturbed.

To actually speak with Henry Dias you will need to bring him to somewhere dry. He speaks Portugese, Spanish, and a bit of French.

1b. U-2556

The U-Boat's conning tower has been completely destroyed, the only indicator of its presence is the rough outline and the open access hatch. Scratched into the metal exterior near the aft hatch someone has written:

"Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde!
Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust?
Süßer Friede,
Komm, ach komm in meine Brust!"
[Der du von dem Himmel bist (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)]

The interior is flooded and its electrical systems are completely ruined. There are no human remains within the U-boat and all documentation is ruined beyond use but careful searching will reveal that the watertight containers for documentation were removed from the radio room.

16 sea mines and 8 torpedoes are still usable in the torpedo room, though the firing mechanisms no longer function.

1c. The Pylons

The eight pylons appear as pillars of glossy dark stone. If struck or cut the impact site will open a tear into the interior of the pillar which can be pulled further open. If left untouched for a few seconds these tears will seal.
The interior is a vertical shaft filled with water that drops 50 meters and then slopes inwards, connecting each of the pylons into one central shaft that drops another 100 meters. At the bottom, on the northern wall, the glossy stone material of the shaft is replaced with an archway of thick, water-impermeable membrane that can be walked/swam out of.

2. Kurnakov-4

The deep sea research facility Kurnakov-4 was first constructed by elements of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oceanographic Research Fleet in 198X. It consists of a central hab structure anchored to the ground with a module enclosed around one of the pylons.

2a. Kurnakov-4 Pressure Chamber

The Channer-9 can dock with the pressure chamber and gain access. The chamber itself contains the necessary airlocks for pressurization as well as a side deck with a well for direct diver access to the site nearby. Lockers outside of the airlock contain 2 usable SCUBA tanks with wetsuits.

2b Main Hab Ring

Trash and detritus are scattered around. The air is stale and smells of body odor- but breathable. The power is out (2f. Engineering). In total there are eight cubbies strewn with personal effects as a still well stocked galley that's barely been touched. Searching can find the duty roster:

• PO2 PETROV [SEC]
• SEAMAN SOKOLOV [SEC]
• PO2 OSIPOV [COM]
• SEAMAN MAKAROV [SEC]
• SEAMAN RYKOV [ENG]
• INNA OSIPOV [MED]
• ALEXEEVA [CMD]
• LCDR NOVIKOV [CMD]

Also strewn around are a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a small journal containing a lewd fan fiction [Russian] of LCDR Novikov and a sea sponge, a machete, and a large nautilus shell.

2c. Communications Center

A bank of radio consoles and controls for a sonar array dominate the communications center as well as a half dozen binders and notebooks. The binders contain cryptographic information for one-time message passing and the notebooks are logs of messages sent and received.

Flipping through them reveals it starts from wehn PO2 Osipov was transferred here last year and most messages are routine updates of status good or bad, with the last update passing a coded message signed off ALEXEEVA. The last message was recorded four weeks ago.

When powered, the center can be used to communicate with the Protean as well as with the Bezdna which will be hailing the station using Soviet cyphers that can be reconstructed using the binders.

Stashed under the desk are three and a half bottles of vodka as well as a loaded pistol.

BEZDNA

The Bezdna was dispatched to deploy a recovery team to the site and is ready to descend and offload two platoons of Spetsnaz once the pressure barrier has been adjusted for them. They are monitoring a series of deployed sensor buoys and simply lying to them that the barrier is adjusted will be obvious.

With its depth modifications, the Bezdna could cross the barrier as it is but would lose half the crew before the Mesh went into action. After 24 hours if there is no contact they will cross the barrier.

Running silent, the Bezdna is unaware of the presence of the Channer-9 but is aware of the Protean but not its mission or allegiance.

The Bezdna is fully armed with a complement of 30 torpedoes, 2 SAMs, and 10 cruise missiles.

2d. Armory

A small, secured closet. It is locked from outside with a chain and padlock. The gun racks indicate that there were 6 rifles, a heavy machine gun, eight pistols, and several explosives that are now missing aside from one rifle with ammuition and two pistols.

Chained up in a corner is Seaman Rykov, as indicated by their uniform and dog tags. A mass of red, sticky, metallic goo surrounds their head and has grown small tendrils to anchor it in place. If rescued from the Red Goo, Seaman Rykov is already completely insane, their brain fully rewritten to experience only pain.

RED GOO
Lvl 2 Def Leather Ruin

Regenerative - Goo is a singular mass of nanomachines that restores itself rapidly when damaged. Unless killed with fire, heat, or anti-goo weapns it will regenerate itself fully within a minute of apparent destruction.

Overheat - The most effective way to defeat any mass of nanomachines, other than weapons specifically designed to destroy them, is with heat which will rapidly break down the machines and render them unviable.

Ruin - A single glob of Red Goo is about the mass of a watermelon and acts as one entity. It is programmed to dynamically affect the human brain to suffer continuous states of agony and despair, adjusting and restoring any weakened anatomy to ensure the human lives through the process and their neurotransmitters do not dull the experience. When not attached to a human, the Red Good will locate the nearest one it can and attempt to attack them.
On a successful attack, the Red Goo encases the head and invades the skull to begin applying its attack. For every ten minutes of exposure there is a 1 in 10 chance that the human, if rescued, has become irrevocably insane.

2f. Engineering

At the base of Kurnakov-4 is the engineering section which contains a series of ballasts, air tanks, batteries, and a nuclear fission reactor anchored to the sea floor.

The reactor is currently disabled and has been ripped apart. Its fissile core is missing and instead a black 1x1x1 cube has been wired directly into the battery supplies with a flippable switch that is currently off.

Black 1x1x1 Cube
When wired into a power supply and provided a low watt input, the cube of smart matter encasing an ultra-dense pack of nanobatteries will modulate and output the required power to fill the power supply with a continuous charge. This cube currently has enough power to run the Kurnakov habitat without interruption for 10,000 years.

Careful searching reveals a series of explosives designed to destroy the facility in an emergency have been removed.

2g. Medical Bay

A small suite of first aid and surgery supplies is dominated by a large surgical table in the center of the suite with a large squid retrained with several belts and wound medical gauze to the table.

Amongst the medical supplies is a small journal of notes kept by Inna Osipov that detail a series of experiments done to the squid testing the limits of the miraculous regenerative and healing properties of the Mesh, noting that everything aside from heated incisions was near instantly recovered. The squid is still alive and panicked but one of its tentacles has been burned.

2e. Laboratory

The laboratory module is the second largest of the habitat and is anchored to the sea floor as well as a Pylon. If the door is opened before power is turned back on the room will be filled with acrid black smoke. The source is a metal waste basket in the room that was stuffed with documents and burned haphazardly.

The laboratory contains a cot, a sealed glass water tank, a desk strewn with papers and diagrams, small personal effects of Dr. Filippovna including a photo of a german shepherd and a field of sunflowers, a large metal gate-like apparatus around the bare exposed wall of the Pylon, and a computer and printer that has been smashed to pieces.

Inside the tank is a large Giant Pacific Octopus, a note taped to the tank labels its name as Kusachiy.

The papers strewn about the desk have been picked and thrown about haphazardly, the ones that remain, if studied, are sensory readings outlining the pressure anomaly around OMPHALOS. Hidden inside the case of one of the computers and somewhat readable is a Dr. Filippovna's Notebook which explains the experiments taken that uncovered how to enter the pylons as well as describing a spherical device that is able to control the pressure anomaly- including lengthy asides about how to communicate with Kusachiy and how they taught Dr. Filippovna how to operate the device.

The metal gate apparatus is a crude airlock that allows one to open the Pylon without flooding the habitat- cycling the water back into the pylon at the press of a button.

Kusachiy

Large for its species, Kusachiy is a rust-red Giant Pacific Octopus and the oldest sentient earth-borne organism in existence. 22 million years ago Kusachiy accidentally entered the Pylons and was force uplifted to be sentient. Despite this, Kusachiy lacked socialization and has spent the last 22 million years living peacably around the sea mount.

Having not explored much of the OMPHALOS facility beyond the Pylons, Kusachiy is unfamiliar with any of its inner workings but is aware of how to use the Pressure Modulator in 3c. to alter the pressure field around the sea mount- having used it several times for fun and unknowingly resulting in the sinking of the Santa Martina as well as several other vessels.

Despite being sentient, Kusachiy has limited means of communication. Dr. Filippovna first identified Kusachiy as being extremely intelligent and developed a rudimentary way of communicating with Kusachiy through careful observation of color-shifts. Kusachiy, meanwhile, has a rudimentary grasp of Russian now and despite their advanced age is eager as a child to learn more now that they have had a conversation partner. Effectively, with the journal and by speaking Russian you can communicate one syllable intentions back and forth.

Let's Eat: The Bloom

COLDWATER, WASHINGTON, DAY

Sweeping mountain vistas and deep conifer woods surround the town of Coldwater which rests on the banks of Coldwater lake. The small town is dotted with dated buildings and small-town shops flocking with tourists. In the town center, the preparations for the annual blueberry festival are well under way as townsfolk bustle about, giving one another a smile and cheerful hello. 

COLDWATER, WASHINGTON, SIX DAYS LATER

The quiescent mountain town is exchanged for a horror. Flames lick out from flamethrowers- the guttering  flames accompanied by the occasional burst of gunfire as well equipped hazmat teams sweep through the surrounds. A dated diner is unrecognizable under a heft of black mycelia and fungal growth- tortured moans coming from within as a team approaches, weapons at the ready. 

Camera pans straight down horizontally beneath the town, thick black mycelial cords run from the town surface to a cathedral sized cavern far below, where fungal-crusted residents stand rooted around a descent into the pulsing, blue bioluminescent glow of the mycelial heart- a single blue capped mushroom juts from the heaving mass of growth. 

Sounds of metal on rock in the distance and of something swinging through the air- a large claw sweeps through scene and deftly clips the mushroom away from the mass before tactical chatter and gunfire reveal the approaching cleanup teams in the caverns- the scene is engulfed in flames.

INT. DUNGEON. BANQUET HALL. 

CRAB sits at the head of a fungi-laden banquet table, a covered silver tray in front of him- thick black mycelial cords run from the tray throughout the room, rooting through the hall and sprouting glowing blue mushrooms. Fish-men in bowties idly wander the room- their eyes crusted by fungi and growths visible pushing up from beneath their scales. CRAB pulls the conspicuous silver lever next to his chair. 

Grating gears and the screech of metal fills the room but is rapidly overcome with a shrieking wail from thousands of voices as a cage in the ceiling opens and a chained ball of clacking skulls and searching shadowy tendrils is lowered above the table. Clinking his glass with a fork, the screaming quiets to a murmur and CRAB lifts the covering on the silver tray, revealing the blue, squirming mass of the heart of a nascent fungal bloom.

CRAB

Hearken to me, ye DAMNED, we're eating The Bloom tonight!

TITLE CARD

CRAB

Published in February of last year, written by Josh Domanski and the Goblin Archives, The Bloom comes to us as- well at least to my knowledge- the third major adventure from Goblin Archives for the Liminal Horror system and the second such adventure jointly written by the authors. This tasty morsel is- of the three so far- my personal favorite and is dripping with gameable sandbox content in a small Twin Peaks style town up in the mountains. Once again, we have art provided to us by Zach Hazard Vaupen this time just for the monsters and NPC portraits from Josh Clark. While not as ever present as the phenomenal art Zach did for the illustrious The Mall adventure- what is there is more than enough to get the neurons firing. As for Josh's portraits, I found them particularly helpful in framing in my head who it was I was portraying- kudos.

DAMNED

[HOWLING OF WIND FROM A BLIGHTED PEAK]

CRAB

Yes the layout by Josh Domanski is particularly readable and flows smoothly; and I'm always one to praise the addition of linked pages in a PDF as being crucial for a GM to keep the pace up. 

Hazy spores cloud the room in a blue-bathed fog as CRAB drinks deeply from a glass filled with hazy amber liquid.

CRAB

Did you know you can make wine from mushrooms? And not just plump helmets. Anyways...

 Right right, the setting. Go read the blurb on their site, but the bottom line is we're adventuring in a Twin Peaks inspired town that has something going horribly wrong with it- and the doom clock to keep things evolving before disaster. As their itch page highlights, this isn't just Twin Peaks- it's "What if Twin Peaks had a The Last Of Us arc?" And that's pretty on point- as the monster of the week is a fungal growth of an Armillaria ostayae variant that infects animal and human hosts- turning them into walking, hunting, zombie-like fungus vectors. 

The DAMNED lash out at creeping mycelia with shadowy tendrils. CRAB puts down the glass and grabs the central mycelia cluster in one claw before devouring it whole. The infected fish-man hosts around the room grow more and more agitated as CRAB wipes the last remains away before hefting a shotgun from beneath the table and loading it.

CRAB

Now, let's do something a little different and roll into the actual play with director's commentary. This time I had the pleasure of actually running this before I reviewed it, and so while I get some cleaning done around the house- please enjoy the show.

Slow zoom to a descending screen on the back wall. A projector whirs to life and the movie begins to play as shotgun blasts fill the room- splattering gore and blue mushroom on the corner of the screen.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

H & R

H & R are our players and their characters, so let's roll with it. R had planned a two week camping trip up into Coldwater with a group of friends but totaled his car and was in the hospital for a week before being able to make it. R on the other hand missed the evite and so got the invitation late but takes the opportunity to treat the camping trip as a time for a writer's retreat. With some minimal camping gear (assuming their friends had the rest to cover them) they drive up into Coldwater.

CRAB-COMMENTARY

The adventure provides a series of archetypes for character backgrounds and some recommendations for how to start the game. My table was drawn down to two players for this session and I knew we only had time for a one-shot, which the module also has considerations for. Deciding to completely ignore those recommendations, we rolled up our party and set them off to join their friends at Coldwater Camp with nothing but the player-facing maps in hand. By no means do you need to runt his adventure with the players being part of the camping group- but it seemed like a good way to draw them into the mystery. Also, I had the Twin Peaks OST cycling through for most of this session.

DAY ONE

Exhausted from the drive, H & R check the map and see a diner in town, so they pull in to get some coffee and food. There, they meet Kass who is more than happy to chat compared to the cold reception from the other locals. In short order, the group mentions they're here to go camping with their friends and the whole room goes quiet. Stumbling over her words, Kass asks the group to wait and have a conversation with the Sheriff, who she calls on the landline.

Sheriff Hank pulls up and greets the party before inviting them to have a conversation back at the Sheriff's office. Once there, he informs them that three days ago a group of campers went missing at Coldwater Camp, their tents destroyed possibly from a bear and no sign of them to be found otherwise. 

The sheriff assures the party that their friends probably weren't there for the attack and should turn up any day now but invites them to go chat with the deputy at the campground if they want to. First up, the two leave and get a room at the only hotel in town, a run-down two story motel called the Lakeview Resort. Up in their room, they find a pamphlet for a strange new age religious service at the Church of Celestial Science in town. H says it looks fishy, but in short order the two first make their way to the campground where they spot their friends' two cars in the parking lot and the deputy, Gerald. 

 CRAB-COMMENTARY

There's a neat voidcrawl procedure to use an overloaded encounter die and generate encounters between travel spots. I'm not highlighting it here when it happens, but it serves to add flavor and additional hints and clues throughout the investigation, and at night brings in some real fun horrors.

A short, bored, man, Gerald shows the two up to the tent sites where some loose caution tape marks the torn apart sites of their friends. Gerald reiterates that they'll probably turn up any day now and then leaves without much further ado- but not before letting slip that he hopes this doesn't turn out like The Incident from last year. The group examines the sites and spend some time identifying whose sites were which, making note of several bullet casings and discovering a folder with a pamphlet from the Church of Celestial Science and a map of the region with the Hines farm circled.

Seeing nightfall approaching, the two decide to check out this Church next but are stopped by the park ranger, Sam. She's disheveled and doesn't look to have had much sleep, but tries her best to answer their questions- but then goes into her theory of a bigfoot attack being responsible. Unsure of how to interpret that but deciding she might be a crackpot, the group leaves amicably after making plans to meet with Sam at dawn for an update and then make their way to the Church- but not before something large and heavy bolts into the woods nearby- spooking the two would-be campers.

CRAB-COMMENTARY

I really dig how the NPCs are framed in the module, with a simple print of desires, secrets, and social bullet points I was able to run them all with a simple glance as they came up- of course this was after reading the whole module twice-over before running it. 

The bigfoot theory was a great red herring and the players weren't sure if it really was a sasquatch attack or not until they find more clues in the next few days.

At the Church covered in modern symbols and gold filigree, the group are about to walk into the atrium to speak with Thomas, the Church's central figure in town- but R spots a photo printout from a CCTV camera in the diner of H & R walking in this morning. Spooked, he pulls H out and the two drive off to the Gorge- the town's local dive bar- to talk the investigation over.

Spinning their wheels for a bit, eventually the Sheriff comes in and the two invite him over for a drink to talk. Hank calms their inquiries about why the state rangers weren't involved yet by saying he'd called them and they should be down- but again their friends should be back any day now. When H brings up The Incident, the Sheriff firmly rebuffs them and says to leave town business alone. Their chat is interrupted as two out of place and clean cut looking people walk into the bar and the Sheriff says his goodbyes before taking the new pair into a back room.

The group heads back to the hotel for the night but get sidetracked investigating a strange glowing blue mushroom in the stairwell that spores when R touches it. Shortly later though, they hit the sack and are plagued with vague nightmares of something watching them from the woods as they examined the campground that morning.

DAY TWO

Noting their similar weird dreams and how tired they were, the group first makes a trip to the diner again and have a chat with Kass and some local fishermen claiming they'd caught a furred trout in the lake. Kass is convinced into talking about The Incident that left 23 dead last year- but she doesn't know much more. She does let some gossip about JJ, the only remaining son of the Hines family who came back after the incident to run the farm.

CRAB-COMMENTARY

 "The Incident" or "The Coldwater Lake Incident" is a reference to The Bureau and is left unfilled in- meaning the details are vague. Something happened, a lot of people died, GM fill in the blanks. For this session, it was never really explained but did hang as a cloud over the town. There's a few other things never really explained- Haru and her whole schtick, or what happened to Gabby at the firewatch tower. These are left vague in the module for the GM to fill in as necessary, which I appreciate.

The next stop is the campground again, the pair meets Sam at her cabin and examine her bigfoot plaster mold and her dozens of cryptozoological drawings before she shows them to the signs of a bloodless scuffle at the hiking trails. Warning them of rain coming in that night, they part.

Stopping in at the hardware store, the pair buys some high powered walkie talkies and tune them into the ranger frequency, the police frequency, and the firewatch tower frequency. On their way out, they run into a buck deer, casually standing in the parking lot. Completely docile, it makes no response to them even after H gives it a kiss on the nose. Unsettled, the pair watch the buck wander off further into town before they decide to check out the firewatch tower they've been hearing about. 

Hiking up and examining all the graffiti, the pair finds the tower abandoned recently and the small room tossed as though it had been searched. A map in the middle of the room has a few locales circled with notes, but the group is most interested in the Hines farm and the illegible note about the Pickman Lodge in the hills above town. H finds a walkman and some cassette tapes and decides to listen to them as the pair head back to their car- determined to check out the farm.

With some experimentation, H & R discover that when listening to the cassette tapes, you can see a hazy cloud whenever people lie. They discuss good ways to employ this but are distracted when they spot Deputy Gerald on the main road, walking backwards into the woods with no car in sight. He makes no recognition of the two and keeps walking and the pair decide to get out of the area and move to the Hines farm next.

The farm is sickly and the crop is doing poorly. First thing that catches the pair's attention though is the front door of the farm house is already swung open and banging in the wind with JJ's car in the driveway. They check the barn in the back and the chicken coop but find both empty. Shouting around for JJ, they get no response. Uncertainly, they enter the house and find an unfinished meal in the dining room covered in fungi. Upstairs they examine a shrine in the master bedroom to the 23 who died in the Coldwater Lake Incident- but curiously note the additional 20 names on the memorial. 

Hearing something from the other room upstairs, they find the guest room blocked by a fallen dresser and push past it to discover a fleshy fungal chimera hybrid of the Hines family goats, some chickens, and their milk cow in the middle of absorbing what looks to be JJ. The chimera cries out with all its voices and the group books it out of the house and speed off back to the hotel to collect themselves. 

Rationally, they order a few pizzas from the Occult Pizza down the road and go over the case again. When they see the mushroom pizza covered in fungus H immediately goes to throw it in the dumpster. The rain started pouring and the sun set, he spots an odd lump in the parking lot and catches a human leg as part of it with his cellphone light before the whole mass shudders and moves off into the woods. 

Back in their room, the pair both reflect on some other odd moments- each thinking they're hallucinating as R had experienced a brief episode where he thought his skin was glowing blue- but refused to tell H about it as he suspected it might be the mushroom spores he inhaled. H meanwhile had been having brief episodes where he saw thick veiny cords under his skin- and again didn't bring it up. 

CRAB-COMMENTARY

These hallucinations were my solution to rolls on the dire omen table- an option on the overloaded encounter die that corresponded to the next Fallout the members would experience.

Remembering that the blueberry festival was today, the two head up the road to check it out and find it still in full swing despite the rain. They spot the sheriff getting yelled at by what they presume was the mayor, and offer to get him a beer at the Gorge. Back there, they discuss what little they've found and the flesh chimera with the Sheriff. He seems concerned and tells them to visit the assistant Sarah at the department in the morning and to keep him informed on their investigation before again being interrupted by the clean-cut pair coming in and taking the sheriff into the back room. 

Shortly later, a shotgun blast rings out from just outside and the pair duck under the table as the Sheriff bolts to the front door. He comes back in to let the bar know that it was just someone trying to spook a mountain lion he saw near his porch- which only further confuses the pair who decide to try and get some sleep- but not before noting a strange glowing blue-fungus covered mass in an alleyway nearby. 

DAY 3

Nightmares plagued their sleep again. Once more they roll into the diner where they gossip with Kass, who informs them the clean-cut couple are the newcomers in town, Brett and Angela, who bought out the entire Pickman Lodge as their personal residence just after the Coldwater Lake Incident. The gossip is interrupted as the fishermen from yesterday come in and show off their furred trout. Talking about fishing for awhile, H asks to see it and picks it up before - to his horror - he realizes the fur on the trout is mycelial strands. Furiously washing his hands in the sink, they get back in their car and spot a column of black smoke- visible even in the rain- coming from the Camp.

First, they check in at the Sheriff's office where the assistant informs them they were to be granted access to the armory as necessary- so they pick up two stab-vests and a shotgun before heading off to the camp. 

CRAB-COMMENTARY

Right about here is where how late it was in the night led to me moving the story along a bit to get us to a conclusion before sunrise.

At the camp, the pair find the whole place to be covered in fungus and mycelia- the trees rotten and the smoke coming from Sam's cabin. They briefly try to search for her- only to find her and five others covered in fungus, rooted to the ground in a circle in the campsites. At this point, they decided it was probably best to flee the town. 

Running back to their car, they find the engine flooded and make the choice to swap the battery out to the '72 White Chevy Bronco in the lot which had its keys in the ignition. Just as they were about to finish the swap, they find out what happened to the other campers. 

Barreling out of the mycelial growth behind them- a monster of fungus and melded human flesh- the Flesh Hydra makes its first full appearance. H gets a few lucky shots in with the shotgun and keeps it at bay until R finishes the battery swap and the pair flee the campground. As they try and flee the town, however, they find the routes east and west are both flooded. They decided to head for high ground and make for the Pickman Lodge.

Finding the lodge empty, they take shelter from the rain and search the place, finding rooms filled with lab equipment and survival gear as well as one locked door with something scratching on it. They also find a strange red rotary phone connected to data and telephone cables in the dining room- R spends awhile talking to the person on the other side and getting assurances that help is on the way. 

CRAB-COMMENTARY

 The phone is an artifact being used by Brett and Angela- Bureau agents. They use it to redirect outgoing calls from town into the phone which tells sweet lies. Per the module, Brett and Angela have been there for a year monitoring the area after the Incident, but have been sending falsified reports for the last week. The module leaves this open to question as to why. I decided to run it because they were seduced by the phone's comforting lies and thought they could keep the situation in town handled without further Bureau help which might try to reposess the phone. 

After waiting long enough to come to the conclusion the voice on the phone lied about help, Brett and Angela pull up and there's a tense stand off with guns drawn on both sides before diplomacy reveals them both on the same side. Brett and Angela fill in that their research and samples led them to believe this was all caused by a fungal mass growth using the caves beneath town to grow (the party had been hearing about these caves from NPCs for awhile) and that there should be a central mass they can destroy to impede its growth. The agents deputize the investigators and make a plan. Brett and Angela search the Hines farm for a suspected cave entrance and the party goes to find some ammonium nitrate at the Station to detonate on the fungus. 

Driving off in the dark and the rain, R is keenly aware of the Flesh Hydra following the party, keeping pace with the car just behind them. It keeps just away as they pull into the Station, a convenience store/gas station, and R fills the tank up while H goes in to find some explosives. He finds a flamethrower for sale and immediately purchases it, before the shopkeep informs him of the explosive barrels that JJ was supposed to pick up are just out front. 

R sees another car pull in and the man get out of his car is slammed into a bloody smear on the ground and dragged into the dark by the Flesh Hydra. R decides it best to go inside now and help H. He distracts the shopkeep while H grabs two pony-kegs of ammonium nitrate and throws them in the car and honks the horn to get R back in and they speed off towards the Hines farm. 

At the farm they meet with Brett and Angela and are shown to the hidden cave entrance in the cellar of the Hines farmhouse. The new party dons gas masks and heads into the caves, with R & H hauling the kegs and Brett and Angela leading the way. 

Some cave navigation later, the group runs into a gas-masked Sheriff Hank and have a tense negotiation about what he was doing there before deciding to tentatively team up. They head further down into the caves following the thickest strands of mycelia into a huge cathedral like cave with a pit leading into the fungal heart of darkness. 

Brett, Angela, and the Sheriff fight off a group of fungal-hosts and mycelial strands that seperate the party and R&H run forward to hurl their explosives into the pit. They're stopped at the last minute though as the Flesh Hydra pulls itself out of the pit and attacks. 

R's shoulder is dislocated and he's hauled up onto the back of the Hydra- still clutching the keg while H's foot gets mangled from another attack but successfully fires a few blasts from his shotgun.With some deft maneuvering, R is able to escape and roll off the Hydra while using the lighter he bought at character creation to partially detonate his keg- blowing the Hydra back into the hole. 

The other half of the party keeps up the assault but Angela goes down as the hosts continue their assault. R & H throw the last powder keg in and on top of the reforming Flesh Hydra- spraying the flamethrower in on top and detonating the mass- barely escaping the blast. The detonation confuses the remaining hosts which are put down in short order as the whole group flees the now collapsing cavern and into the morning sun.

By noon, the Bureau has arrived and begins cleanup through the town. The investigators are given some token monetary compensation and sworn to secrecy and sent on their way with an unassuming gray business card bearing only a phone number to call for work. The pair vow to never eat mushrooms again as the session ends. 

CRAB-COMMENTARY

Things had to wrap up fast towards the end as we'd already been playing for six hours or so- but all in all this was a delight to run. The module presented an intriguing investigative puzzlebox for the investigators to untangle and the town's vibe and detailed NPCs were perfect.

INT. DUNGEON. BANQUET HALL.

Flesh and fungus smears the tables and halls all around. CRAB sits at the table, covered in mycelia and fungus. With a breath in- the growths slink and retreat under his shell. His eyes glow faintly blue. The DAMNED retract back up into the ceiling with a whimper.

END TITLES

Shadow - CHROMATICS plays.

The camera sweeps back and flits between different rooms in the dungeon. Bodies and gore cover the halls amidst smashed mushrooms and furniture. Fish men in gas masks with bloody mops and buckets are at work cleaning the mess. As the last panning shot ends, a mass of flesh and mycelia rolls with a schlop into the shadows. 

Zach Hazard Vaupen

Knave Campaign Postmortem: Yonwell

I've been delaying and delaying closing the page on this chapter, but:

The Bell Ringers have made their last journey together. 

Adventures So Far:

Report 1(Not Really): Clowns, Handspiders, and Lions

Reports 2, 3: Ew, Gross

Report 4: Generic Wizard Tower

Report 5: Pepper Dies (Again)

Reports 6, 7, 8: Don't Go To The Library

Reports 9, 10, 11, 12, 13: What's the Worst that Could Happen?

A Recital

Since our last recap, there have been many sessions with new players and deadly adventures. The guild finally entered into Honorwatch, the dread keep ever on the horizon. The first foray brought them through the hidden tunnels uncovered by Corin the Smith. While they found great fortunes within their brief exploration of the dark tunnels, they very quickly were forced to flee from wights and knights that haunted the halls. A chance encounter with the bandits holed up along the south road to Yonwell breeds enmity as they suffer heavy "taxation" from the bandit king in exchange for free passage and sanctuary.

Rallying once again from Yonwell, they journey with a larger party to Honorwatch itself and seek a ground level entrance. On the way, they battle with the notorious drake, Kesselwyrm, before reaching the decrepit town on the outskirts of Honorwatch proper. There, Stratford Slee meets his demise under a cavalry charge of dead, and the party escapes into a hidden tunnel in a ruined chapel. 

From here there were lengthy trips into the fetid halls- treasures were won and nascent adventurers were slain. Retreating back to Yonwell the guild sought treasures in the east, across the Greenspine and in the court of the rumored Fairy Queen. They journeyed there and defeated devious traps, attended a strange party, and were cast out by attendants of the fae court. High up in the mountains they broke upon a golden tomb and robbed it of its worth before returning to Yonwell once more. 

Here, the core of the adventuring party began to move (literally) on- and I decided the time was nigh. These adventures ended not with a bang or TPK (as they'd always thought it would)- but as must always happen, the wheel of time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. 

Max Bedulenko

In the Beginning

I made the Yonwell campaign about two years ago with the intent to run it with a rotating cast of players and focus on exploration of the world and dungeon crawling. In many respects this was a success, and through ~11 players the group forged a guild, fought a war, brought rune magic into the world, and much much more. 

Knave was my system of choice here mostly for ease of pickup for newer players and simplicity- encouraging the more modern-system focused players to engage with the world over the system itself. I also experimented with many, many rule tweaks and procedures, system changes and add-ons. Some were dropped, like the death and dismemberment table, but others such as the simplified hexploration procedures stayed relatively unchanged. 

>>Messy and unedited house rules heavily borrowed from others here<<

In fact, contrary to my usual tendency to over-worldbuild, Yonwell started extremely light on work after prep of the initial 10x10 hex area immediately around the town. The world doesn't even have a name, still (only a single player asked about it, once), but thanks to really leaning in to only preparing things the players will interact with it felt like all of the prep that I did saw use. Dungeons were lifted wholesale from other products, including the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, many Trilemma adventures sites (handwolves were put into a random encounter list after finding them in the glossary, they grew to become a frequent comedy encounter), the previously discussed rune dungeons, the entire Freeport adventure, and more.

In memory of loyal party donkeys Ser Dunkelton (RIP) & Dunketello

 

Last Questions: Secrets Unveiled

And now, before closing the curtain on Yonwell, there were a few questions from my players to answer. 

 

Forrest White

Q: What was up with Honorwatch?

A: Honorwatch started as a big ruined fort on the hill, some skeletons on the random encounter tables for the surrounding plains, and the warning from the first npc out of town to not sleep within sight of it. After a few early sessions, it took a more developed role as the world got fleshed out wherever the players interacted with it. So, let's dump some lore.

There were Duke Conrad of Yonwell, and his brother Duke Konrad of Honorwatch. Naming conventions aside, years ago the Duke of Yonwell plotted against the Duke of Honorwatch- intending to kill him and seize Honorwatch. Honorwatch itself was a bastion of researchers, having a grand ruin underneath the castle proper, and the Duke of Honorwatch kept the peace honorably in his lands until his brother's betrayal. 

Essentially, the Duke of Yonwell made a secret alliance with the Witch Queen and gifted a cursed amulet to the Duchess of Honorwatch. The amulet corrupted the Duchess and eventually laid root and turned the lands into the Witch Queen's native swamplands, marshy and riddled with vampiric thorn bushes, allowing the Witch Queen's magics enough ground to teleport directly into the ruins beneath the castle. 

The ruins, as was discovered by the Duke of Honorwatch, were a great pristine seal- over some great power sealed away by the ancients. There were three swords that acted as keys to open the seal, and at the time the Duke of Honorwatch had located two of them: Eventide and Hierophant. The Witch Queen sought to harness this power herself, and tried to break the seal without the third blade. Her attempts backfired and she barely escaped the site alive- but the seal's magics brought the curse of undeath to the Duke of Yonwell and his lands- binding them to keep the seal intact.

This all draws into the further lore backgrounds of what was sealed and why- but essentially what we had was a snakeman empire overthrown by men who discovered how to wield Godbound-tier magic. They overthrew the snakemen and built a great utopian empire, with six of their number being the de facto pseudo-pantheon. Over time, they began to restrict who learned their magics, as in the hands of any lowly peasant it could destroy the works of kings. Eventually their empire grew more and more insular, elitist, and cruel. One of their number attempted rebellion, and trained legions of commoners in secret. A great war, sometimes known as the Runic War, scarred the land and broke the empire. The remaining five were not able to kill the unnamed sixth, but were able to erase their name and form and seal their seat of power- but in doing so had to seal away their greatest magics.

Time passed and they ancients sealed their greatest city and all its technology behind the mighty Shieldwall mountains, chaining another of their own who had become corrupted to guard it eternally (this being Azamax the Cursed). The rest scattered, with some being lost to time, others still live in the setting (The First Wyvern, the Lich King). Eventually, the much less magical civilizations of the world were formed and after many many years we have Yonwell- just 20 hexes from the sealed magical city and ten from the great seal underneath Honorwatch. 

All this was in no way in place at the design of the campaign, and it wasn't until they discovered the teleporter cairns some 15 sessions in that it was set in stone. At the beginning, all I had was Honorwatch being a cursed castle and there being big mountains to the way way north that hid something. 

Ben Zweifel

 Q: What was the deal with the teleporter cairns?

A: That was how to unseal the city behind the Shieldwall. Two hexes out of Yonwell and not discovered until 10-12 sessions in to the game, there was a monolith just in the Shellwood atop a cairn. The party fought a vampire-vine-beast inside and explored the remaining three rooms. One held dozens of stone statues of people in various stages of life, another held the tomb of one of the five Ancients as well as a pool of magical healing water, and the third held the teleporter. 

It's a simple system, there's a crystal that powers it and the players had to find it (stolen by the vampire thing) and activate the system. There were four reels filled with symbols that could be lined up into combinations of four and a lever. The way it worked was a simple dialling system, put in the right combo and teleport to the corresponding cairn. They had already worked out the address of the cairn they were in and were satisfied to leave- but one player wanted to try a few hunches. 

Fortunately for them, I had planned for that. The first success was all four Tree symbols- this led to the "Cathedral". It was a building set beyond the Shieldwall and filled with six statues, one smashed, each which when touched would give a vision of the corresponding cairn. Each statue looked like one of the six ancients, and if all six cairns were activated then the barrier in the cathedral blocking the exit would be broken. 

The second successful combo was the four dragons, which led to a floating castle above the bay of the lost continent Wyv. The sheer number of wyverns around the castle led to the players to quickly decide to leave and not come back- unfortunately for them. 

Q: Is magic everywhere now? How will it affect... things?

A: Rune magic is, at least. The players were already seeing some fall out from when their lantern boy taught all the other lantern boys how to make magical rune-powered light, and they also taught even more to a second henchman. Rune magic was one of the magics sealed in the Runic Wars, being the easiest for the common person to use and benefit from. 

It will take time for people around the world to see the old runes in ruins are working again and figure their inner workings out- but what happens once magic is readily available for even the lowliest peasant is anyone's guess.

Q: If it had gone on for long enough, would we eventually have gotten involved in the southern wars, or is that an off-screen thing? 

A: There's a physical line drawn south of Yonwell that the players were told we don't go to. Conceptually, this is because the south lands are filled with mundane war and generally suck, so they left and came to these frontierlands by Yonwell. Mechanically, it encouraged players to explore north out of Yonwell- but no, there were no plans for the south lands- players were free to name the wretched and boring countries of origin for their characters at will (all I can remember were Florida and Ohio). 

William Stevens

Q: Was there a city in the far north past the dragons or am I mistaking?

A: "DRAGONS?" was written all over the player map at various points- but I believe this refers to the area north of Starmoore. North of that destroyed town was a narrow coastline hedged by brokenlands, which opened up into a grand plain spiked with plateaus atop which were the Dragon Baronies. These were to very feudal-themed cities which maintained knights that rode atop drakes as well as legions of footmen that were used to battle each other and the seasonal tide of orcs from the east. 

Q: What did we not get to that you are most disappointed about?

A: I could have directed or hinted better, but that floating island with wyverns? It was empty. There's no monsters or ghosts or ghouls or even wyverns inside it. The only things inside were treasure and the means to move the island at will. It was a giant flying castle filled with treasure that you could just move wherever you wanted it to- but as it turns out the wyverns outside were so scary the players just never left the parlor. 

Let's take a last quick tour of some of the mysteries and denizens around the world of Yonwell- and reveal just how poor my hook management was for this campaign.

Chaim Holtjer

A freshly excavated tunnel in a farmer's lands lead through the snake-emblazoned temple deep beneath the earth, scales slide against stone as the ancient necromancer prepares his next concoction- oblivious to the rediscovery of his laboratory.

In the deep cavern beneath the Ranger's Guild, a brass brazier burns fiercly outside the Unbroken Tomb, its contents awaiting the worthy.

Undolant the Purple hums a merry tune- conjoining the last set of arms to his new batch of handwolves.

Atop the Greenspine, the bumbling grobkins work in their stolen brewery, feeding the great hunger that commands them. 

Thunder rumbles from the mouth of the Castle Demon- squat among the glassy ruins of Starmoore. Furtive figures dart to and from its hidden passages, stoking the flames of its dreaming engine.

Deep in a snaking cave a not so ogreish scholar connects wires and cables and invokes the ancient oaths, trying to resurrect his dead god.

Vibrant greens choke out the twisting red vines creeping at the heart of the Shellwood, a silver pond undisturbed at its heart. 

Balanced on the fanged mountains in the sea north of Shellport, the ever-fought battle of ancient automata continue in blasted halls and spiralling stairs.

Down dark alleyways and behind closed doors of Gnarledshore, the remnants of the snakeman empire conspire and plot- dreaming of their empire's return.

The great pale ziggurats of the dead in the far east mill with tired corpses under the empty eyes of the Lich King.

Coins tumble from enormous piles of treasure heaped amongst the far mountain altar as Azamax the Cursed's flaking gold scaled-head considers the horizon.

The priestesses of Magda offer a freshly harvested crop of Man-Locusts to their False Mermaid gods, feeding the beast they build in their temple.

A new bandit king crowned, the roads from Shellport to Yonwell prove to be ever valuable- as long as they pay their taxes to the Duke.

Ribboned trees line the forest paths where half-elves tend to the ghosts of the dead play court with their Half-dead queen. 

Drake-mounted knights dive and cut at hordes of pallid-fleshed orcs in a pitched battle on the plains, banners unfurled and blood splattered.

Bristling black spines and fiercely cut chitin adorn the blood red Wyrm that emerges from the ruins of the blood altar- now fully recovered it sets its eyes to reclaiming its title.

Centaurs skirmish with the twisted minions of the Witch Queen in the snowy hills of the Beastwarren. From her fetid pit of Felltine, she howls and slinks; plotting anew to break the seal.

High amongst ancient pine trees, the feathered Serpent Lord glides in search of prey- and vengeance.   

In taverns throughout the bustling city of Yonwell, stories are told of adventurers mad and mighty- and the bells they rang and the tales they sang.

The high bell tolls at her shrine and Alia wishes safe journeys to a fresh faced band of adventurers and their dog, eager to make a name for themselves on the frontier.

Through a Nearby Mirror

Tim Hansz

All in all, I'd count this grand West Marches-ish a success. Knave was a good choice to be sure, but I don't think I'd choose it again for a longer campaign like Yonwell ended up being. It could have been my tooling around with the system constantly that made it into something I didn't quite like- but either way it'll be good to go back to something with a bit more structure and classes, even. 

Long ago I had found hexcrawls to be an intimidating prospect to set up- with there being dozens of guides and articles on how to do it properly, on how the procedures need to be, on how to build the world- but ultimately focusing on smaller 10x10 hexes to start with and keeping things flexible the first few sessions worked wonders. 

 

Above is the real- actual-, current and up to date map for Yonwell as well as the player made map for comparison. Each little yellow tag- for those not familiar- is where I made an entry for that hex- an encounter or something similar. Astute players of mine may notice there are many hexes that they explored which do not have an encounter shown on my map. To them, the answer is I Improvised A Lot. Sometimes they were encounters or locations I knew I wanted to use and just waited for a good time to adapt them- sometimes it was a roll on some roll-up tables to make the place on the spot- but something I really leaned on heavily throughout the game was improvisation and not sweating the prep- and to my mind this ended up being fairly smooth with only a few bumps.

Looking back at it all and reminiscing, there's plenty I would have done differently if I started again today- and that's just fine. I had a great time running this world with all my players, and now it's time for the next adventure.

Thanks for playing