Historical Holiday Interlude - Rhodes

During the first half of July this year, my partner and I decided to take a trip to Rhodes. We had already been to Cyprus in March and taken in lots of (pre)historical goodness in the way of ancient tombs and Greek and Roman remains, so this time would bring us a little more towards the present day with the most intact medieval city in Europe. It also linked nicely with the Knights of the Order of St. John.

Not knowing much about Rhodes other than the story of the persecution of the Knights Templar in 1307 and the subsequent fiscal attacks on the Knights of Rhodes in the aftermath of that act (apparently to break the financial power of the two orders), we decided to explore a bit of the old town to find out more.

From the couple of museums we visited we discovered that the city of Rhodes is one of the most intact medieval cities in Europe and that the old town and the Grand Master's Palace are the two main attractions in the north of the island - we didn't get to see any of the other fortresses and towers on the rest of the island as this was to be mostly a holiday of relaxation (sun, sea and sleep).

City Walls (as seen from the harbour)

 

The Harbour defences

 

 

 

Grand Master's Palace (as seen from the harbour)

Anyway, without going into all the details, we explored a lot of the old medieval town, palace and city walls and learned a lot of the history of the island and the Order of the Knights of St. John. These details may come in handy for future gaming with knightly orders in their historical context, or for fantasy versions in an imaginary world. Often, a real institution's history and organisation can be a great place to start to base a fantasy one on.

Surprisingly, other than appearances on a few tee-shirts and fridge magnets, not much is made of the Colossus of Rhodes. I wanted to find out a little more about this Wonder of the Ancient World, but other than it fell to an earthquake in ~226/225 BC, I only really found out that it didn't straddle the harbour as I always thought but was situated to one side. It represented the sun god Helios, and was apparently 33 meters tall and made of bronze. It was raised to celebrate a victory over Demetrius of Macedon. Sadly, the remnants were gathered up in the 7th century and melted down. What a sad way to end its life.

Being a mostly fantasy game player, I thought that the machinations of the order and their enemies could make for a great political game, especially if I could use the iconography of the Colossus as part of the set-up. Then, when I found out that they had their own dragon myth I got even more excited about gaming possibilities. Apparently around the year 1332 a dragon terrorised the people of Rhodes. Many knights went to Mal Paso (Bad Pass) to slay the enormous, long-tailed beast with scales of metal that no arrow or spear could pierce, but none returned. As a result, Grand Master Helion de Villeneuve forbade anyone else from attempting to slay the monster, but, as always in these tales, a young knight, Dieudonne de Gozon disobeyed the order and set about defeating it. To cut a long story short, he took a year out from his knightly duties to fashion a replica of the dragon at his father's castle in Languedoc to get his horse and dogs used to the sight of such a beast. Having also learned of a small, vulnerable unplated part of its underbelly, he set off to slay it. When he encountered the dragon, he was knocked off his horse by its long tail. However, he was able to pierce its soft underbelly with a spear, but the monster's dead body fell on him, trapping him beneath. He was hauled out by joyous villagers and taken to Grand Master Helion de Villeneuve who was going to punish him for disobeying orders, but let him off due to the cries of the populace and promoted him to Grand Master instead. Apparently the dragon's head was on display on the Sea Gate until at least the 17th century when it was written about by two travellers!

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (session 12) - The Lizardfolk (Day 14)

One of the players could not make the session tonight, so we dropped his character (Drakkon) from this encounter - we agreed that he had returned to the lizardfolk to guard our stake in the venture whilst we explored the cave system.

As the ripples approached the party, Navda threw a fist-sized stone at where he thought an underwater being might be. The stone splashed heavily and the ripples stopped. The area went very still and quiet and we all held our collective breaths. Suddenly, the water erupted right in front of me as a massive snake reared out of the water. I managed to cast a Warding Flare to stop the beast, but it was either cast too late or had no effect on the reptile as it bit me.

Navda managed to shoot the creature with his bow, but not before a second snake emerged in front of Dharion. We engaged the snakes in combat, but even above the din of the fight and the resultant splashing water, we all noticed the centre of the pool had begun to bubble and move.

The snakes attacking us suddenly dropped from sight as we looked at the moving mound and dreaded what might emerge from it. A huge alligator burst from the weeds and detritus and headed straight for us. We managed to form a battle line but the beast was so fast it managed to bite me and render me unconscious before I could get a strike in. I remember none of the remainder of the battle, but this is what I was told afterwards when my comrades brought me round...

The fight was a close run thing. The huge alligator managed to cause several grievous wounds to my comrades in arms, but they eventually destroyed it using a combination of magic and sheer brutality. As the fight went on I slowly slipped towards death as my blood flowed from my wounds in a torrent unstopped. Luckily, the beast was slain just in time, and Navda's medicinal skills stabilised me so that I could then be properly Cured by Dharion.

Noticing that the party was in dire need of medical attention, I cast a Prayer of Healing that managed to undo most of the damage caused by the encounter with the great crocodilian. We made sure that the alligator stayed dead.

We took stock of our situation, mostly making sure that there was no sign of those two snakes that we had encountered just prior to the alligator, and began to explore the rest of the open cavern. We found a small entrance to a cave system and proceeded through.

Saltmarsh lizardfolk cave system

We kept to the more shallow waterways where we could wade through rather than swim, or the areas of dry land. Unfortunately this meant that Navda managed to set off a number of traps; the final one being as we approached a dark cave in the north-west corner.

After Navda, and then Gladreth had been hit by a number of darts from a trap in the north-west sector, we heard a voice emanate from the darkened cave. Sir Riley of Aradora introduced himself and was quite joyous at our arrival. As it was dark in the cavern, I cast Light on one of my holy symbols so that we could see who we were talking to. It turned out Sir Riley was a skeleton that had been pinned face down by a column of rock that had dropped from an overhead trap and had landed on his pelvis and upper legs. He explained that he was able to use his magics to keep himself alive, but at the cost of his body slowly rotting away - he had been there a very long time. This explanation rang alarm bells for me but I couldn't put my finger on why his story did not ring true to me. The rest of the party were more believing and proceeded to rescue him from under the stone. Although he came out in two parts, we placed his bits together and he was able to restore his skeletal body to wholeness; again this rang alarm bells in my mind.

Whilst being rescued, Sir Riley told us his story; he and his comrades had been hired by the governess of Saltmarsh a few decades ago to explore this area and to establish a new habitat for the town. Unfortunately, he was caught by the various traps and finally ended up under the rock. He asked about the alligator as he and his companions had had a run in with the beast all those years ago but had not been able to slay it. We affirmed that it had been killed by our own hands. He then asked us to look around the cave system to find his effects. We willingly obliged, finding a robe and backpack which he gladly received and put on, and a wooden staff with a ruby red gem at the top, which I refused to give back to him. I was still unsure of his motives despite him being very friendly.

Sir Riley's ears pricked up and he looked like he had heard something. Upon asking him, we were told he could only hear reptilian voices. We decided that we would head out of the caves to take stock of our situation but Sir Riley took a detour to examine the body of the great alligator. He murmured a few strange words as he pulled two of the alligator's teeth and cast them into the marsh either side of the party. He then thanked us for our help...

Ghosts of Saltmarsh - The Wreck of the Tammeraut II (Days 10-14)

It has been a fair few weeks (months?) since I last posted a write-up of our D&D Saltmarsh campaign. Unfortunately, due to real life and holidays getting in the way each week we ended up with a bit of a hiatus in the campaign. We managed to get back round the virtual table on Thursday to remedy that.

 

 Day 10 (Continued) - The Wreck of the Tammeraut

The underwater combat continued on with the appearance of more zombies emerging from the wreck. This was not helped by the fact that we could also hear some very low-pitched moaning emanating from within the remains of the ship, indicating that something large was still in there.

As the fight at this point was now limited to just a few remaining zombies, Dharrion was able to sneak past the combat to see what was inhabiting the wreck. The water turned extremely cold as he approached the large being within; it looked remarkably like a sea captain but much larger (maybe 10'-12' tall), with a suction-cupped tentacle for one arm and a great sword held in the other!

As the last of the sea zombies were put back to rest by the fighters in our group, with a little help from Gladreth and I casting some offensive spells I might add, the fight moved into the wreck. The giant sea zombie cast about with its great sword and tentacled arm with great devastation, causing me to heal many wounds to my fellow adventurers, but it was not only physical damage it caused; the cold and sense of fear emanating from the being eroded our confidence that we could defeat this being. Druss was hit for some nasty, permanent necrotic damage that put him out of the fight, but that diversion was just enough for me to cast Burning Hands and for the rest of the party to re-double their efforts to allow Dharion to finish off the entity with a hit that critically damaged it. It fell and turned to sludge and seaweed in a matter of seconds leaving no trace of it ever being there other than the great sword it left behind.

As we gathered together to assess our situation we realised that all the effort had caused our underwater breathing abilities to begin to wear off as we began to struggle a little for breath (except for Gladreth as she joined us later). We had just enough time to search the inside of the wreck, and discovered a huge treasure chest (the treasure that the pirate crew of the Tammeraut were going to bury somewhere safe), and to block the stone plug over the orifice to the otherworld with the magical immovable iron rod.

We returned to the surface with hands and pockets full of whatever treasure we could carry and climbed onto our boat just in time as our underwater breathing abilities ran out. What to do with the remainder of the treasure was quickly discussed and we returned to the hermitage on Firewatch Island.

Days 11-13 

Over the next few days we returned to the site of the wreck and sent Drakkon down wearing his magical helm to recover the rest of the treasure and returned it all to the island. Whilst this was going on I was able to repair the permanent necrotic damage to Druss with a Minor Restoration spell and he made a full recovery.

During the afternoon of the thirteenth day, after assessing the value of the treasure, we made a small number of, what we hoped were innocent looking, boat trips back to the main harbour town to transport our newly found wealth. We rented a large room in a quality inn and set about converting what we could into large denominations of currency in the form of gems and jewellery. This still meant we had a number of chests full that were too heavy to carry by any one individual. 

Day 14 - Return to Saltmarsh

The next day, as we had nothing else to keep us in town, what with Morley having gone missing again, we decided to return to Saltmarsh. We packed our rented cart and headed back along the coastal path towards the city.

Several hours into our journey, we discovered that the road had been completely wiped out by a mudslide with no easy way around it. We decided to leave the cart and horses in a safe place and went looking for a way around the road blockage.

It was very heavy going in the surrounding marshlands, and after a number of minutes we began to hear reptilian screeching coming from the woods ahead of us. As we edged forward to investigate, the ground erupted beneath the party and everyone but myself was swept up into the trees in a huge net trap. This drew the attention of the lizard folk, who ran to investigate what their trap had caught. I tried desperately to hide but I did not act quickly enough and was soon surrounded by many lizardmen pointing their spears and darts at me.

They were convinced that we had come to steal them away and kill them like we had the others, but as the discussion went on it became obvious that they had mistaken us for the real evil-doers and that they saw all humanoids as the same. I was able to stall them in their discussions of wanting to eat us (they had even begun to build a cooking fire which I kicked apart before they had the chance to light it) long enough for my companions to cut themselves free of the net trap. This evened the odds a bit and eventually we were able to find out what had happened to their tribe and offered our help in stopping the perpetrators. It appeared that humans captured the lizard folk and took them to a cave from which they were never seen again.

We were asked to leave all of our shiny stuff as collateral to force us to return after investigating the disappearance of their families. We managed to negotiate with 50 gold crowns, but my offer of a Light infused coin was met with scorn as their shaman showed that he could do the same trick. They would keep the shiny stuff for one day and then assume that we were just like the other humans and had just run off without helping them.

After the shiny transaction had taken place we were shown to the cave a short distance away where all of the other lizard folk had been taken into and had never returned. We were left at the entrance to the cave by their trackers, who then headed back to their tribe, and headed into it.

It turned out that it was not really a cave entrance as such, but an opening into a shallow valley dominated by a sixty foot diameter pool full of black water, surrounded by very boggy ground with the occasional small islet piled with what looked like reptilian bones that were maybe several weeks old.

Saltmarsh Cave

As we approached one of the small islets after wading through some of the bog, we noticed the water began to approach our position from both sides in a rippling motion.

 

And a final update: due to the aforementioned everyday stuff getting in the way, the Midgard : Britannia campaign also took a hit time wise recently. The next scenario is almost ready to go but it is finding the time to get the table set up and a game played. I think I have the forces and scenario sorted, plus some newly bought scenery (river sections - still unpainted - to replace those my cat destroyed a number of years back) to allow it to happen. Hopefully I can get the next scenario sorted in the next couple of weeks, and the next game played, although I do still have a lot of real life stuff to deal with first.

Midgard : Scenario 2 : Aftermath

The Encounter in the Mist saw both sides take very heavy casualties; in fact, the Romans were almost wiped out...

The Britons' losses (87pts):

• 2x Warriors 3 (44pts)
  
• 1x Warriors 2 (17pts)
• 1x Slingers (10pts)
• 1x Skyclad (16pts)
  

The Roman losses (137pts):

• Marcus Aurelius Bellator 2 (25pts)
  
• 1x Legionaries (34pts)
• 1x Cavalry (20pts)
• 2x Archers (58pts) 

• (1x Legionaries (34pts) from previous game Hors de Combat due to reduced Stamina)

The last battle left a big hole in both armies' forces, so I have upped the reinforcements this time round to make sure that I have a couple of decently sized forces for the next game, with a mind to attempting a last-stand type scenario where one side is outnumbered by the other. So, here are the reinforcements that I rolled (in the order I rolled them) for the next game...

The Britons' reinforcements (150pts out of a possible 150pts):

• 1x Archers (15pts)
• 1x Archers (15pts)
• 1x Skyclad (16pts)
• 1x Warriors 2 (17pts)
• 1x Slingers (10pts)
• 1x Hounds (22pts) 
• 1x Mounted Warriors (16pts) 
• 1x Warriors 2 (17pts)
• 1x Warriors 3 (22pts)

The Roman reinforcements (53pts):

• 1x Centurion 2 - replacement (no cost)
• 1x Auxiliary Archers (29pts)
• 1x Auxiliary Spearmen (24pts)

Going forward I will change the numbers of reinforcements back to the amounts from the last post on that subject - Britons = 100pts plus % based on size of victory, Romans = either Legionaries or two rolls on the auxiliary tables. I may change the table somewhat as I am rolling too many "specialist" units and really want more warriors types. I will have a think on that again over the next few days. I have decided that the Romans, like the Britons, should get automatic replacements for their lost leaders; a bog-standard Level 2 Legionary Centurion, except if cavalry are rolled and a new mounted Decurion or somesuch can be added. I will allow any reduced Stamina units to make up the numbers on the tabletop if needed.

The Britons' army for scenario 3 (97/209=306pts):

• Bellicus 3 (47pts)
• Maviloduus 2 (32pts)
• Catuarus 1 (18pts)
• 1x Warriors 3 (22pts)
• 3x Warriors 2 (51pts)
• 1x Female Warriors (16pts)
• 1x Mounted Warriors (16pts)
• 2x Skyclad (32pts)
• 2x Archers (30pts)
• 2x Slingers (20pts)
• 1x Hounds (22pts)

This force is now back to a smidge over the 300pts starting value - what I was aiming for to enable me to play None Shall Pass (Scenario 2 from the rulebook).
 

The Roman army for scenario 3 (85/121=206pts):

• Lucius Valerius Corvus 3 (43pts)
• Gaia Pomponia Thrax 2 (21pts)
• Marius Pollux 2 (21pts) 
• 1x Legionaries (34pts)
• 1x Auxiliary Archers (29pts)
• 1x Auxiliary Spearmen (24pts)
• 1x Legionaries (-1St) (34pts)

The Romans are up to 200pts now which allows for the None Shall Pass scenario to be played properly (correct points sizes; 300:200). I am amazed at how these numbers are turning out if I am honest. There is no dice fudgery going on, just pure chance.

 

For the above scenario to become playable on the tabletop I need to create a few more figures bases. I will need a unit of Hounds for the Britons, plus a new centurion and unit of Auxiliary Spearmen for the Romans. I have all the figures required, so I will just need to paint them up and/or supply sabots for them. Now, what do I go for, mastiffs or wolfhounds, and how many on the base? I have a dog handler to go with them, but will need a different style of base as these dogs are mounted on 2p pieces and the handler on a 1p piece.

Mastiffs

Wolfhounds

The scenario also calls for a couple of items of scenery that I do not have, so I will either have to buy something that fits the bill or use an everyday item to allow me to proxy that scenery like in the last game where I used a couple of cork dining place-mats as rough ground. I will also try to get some more paint onto some more of the unpainted figures.

Representing the horrors of Cthulhu without giving the game away

I decided on a change of pace today, and amended the style of post. This is a break in form from the last few months' of D&D and Midgard game write-up offerings. I am harking back to a mini-series of related posts from 2021 wherein I discussed various ways I used to run fantasy gaming sessions. They can be seen again below if you wish to take a look...

Dungeon Dwellers' Tactics - 23 Jan 2021
Henchmen and Hirelings - 7 Jan 2021
Dungeon Ecology - 6 Jan 2021
Dungeon Parties - 5 Jan 2021

Continuing on; this is a post on how I think it may be better to represent the Cthulhu mythos and other similarly associated gribblies on the tabletop without stat blocks getting in the way - i.e. keeping a sense of awe and horror without reducing everything to numbers.

Whilst reading a book, or watching a film or TV show, I love the feelings of suspense and dread that the authors/screenwriters give to their creations and the protagonists' encounters with them. I would very much like to represent those feelings in my tabletop games.

Cthulhu Mythos Calamari - free download

I have played Call of Cthulhu on and off for many years, over several different versions, including the Dark Ages and Invictus settings. I have also played a number of one-off humans versus monsters RPGs and tabletop games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Broken Legions, but what has prompted me to write this post is my recent-ish acquisition of the Osprey Publishing book When Nightmares Come. It got me thinking that I often find that the horror of Lovecraft's creations are not given any justice once they make it to a rules set, because once they have stats associated with them and the players get hold of said stats, then the horror element has essentially gone. So, how do we represent unnamable and indescribable things in tabletop and RPG games?

I think the first thing we need to look at here is whether we are going to Role play or Rule play. Obviously all games require rules to make it fair for everyone that takes part and they provide the guidelines on how to play, but sometimes rules can get in the way of a darned good narrative. Most of the RPGs that I have participated in as a player have been theatre of the mind style - no miniatures, no props, just good story telling by the GM and the level of immersion into the game instilled by the players. From this, would it be too much of a stretch to have monster abilities that the GM makes up on the fly? The GM can work out what will cause harm to the creature based on pre-game thoughts, or maybe ingenious role playing by the players - that is, if a player thinks of a great ruse to disable a critter, then it should be rewarded with game-world changes by the GM. That doesn't mean to say that the next time a similar monster is encountered it has to have the same vulnerabilities.

When I play a game I try not to look at any stat blocks or monster descriptions so I purposefully don't know what each critter is capable of. Obviously stats are required for game play's sake, but if they are used, they need to be kept secret so the players do not know what they are up against. Unfortunately, having played many RPGs and having read many fantasy, sci-fi and horror novels I, as a player, kind of know what most creatures are by their description and then know what their traditional weaknesses and vulnerabilities are. This leads me towards a bit of rule playing knowing that such-and-such is a 2 HD monster, cannot be hit by mundane weapons, but is vulnerable to silver. I wish I could forget all of this whilst playing. That said, even though I, as a player, know this, unless a particular gribbly has been encountered previously, my character does not know what it is. This is where the Role playing comes in.

So, here is where a good GM comes into their own. Why should a particular monster look like the stereotypical form of that monster? Why can only certain weapons harm them? Why can they not come out during the day/night? Although it would turn any "real life" mythology on its head, in a fantasy or sci-fi world these vulnerabilities can be different. A monster might just be a particular species that is just very hard to kill. Use the rules in the Bestiary of whatever game world you are playing in but amend it slightly. In a fantasy context, maybe ghouls are not undead but are a race that live in crypts and darker environs as sunlight harms them (it does not kill them but slows them, blinds them etc.). They can be killed by mundane weapons but due to their metabolism they regenerate swiftly or their biology dictates they need very little blood in their system, so as a result a cut will very likely not bleed (or not very much at any rate) hence all hits only cause minimum damage.

Using the above as an example of how we can mix things up, means we can use more horrific creatures in several new and different ways. Like the ghouls mentioned above, maybe zombies are also not undead, but are afflicted by a virus (as per many Hollywood movies recently), or are beings subjected to a fungal spore infection (as in my own Doggerland D&D campaign). Do they move quickly or slowly? How do they feed and what on?

Before a monster is encountered properly for the first time in an adventure, have signs and clues to its existence; stories told around camp fires or in the local inn, spoor (fur, scales, slime, ectoplasm), the remains of its previous victim(s), a strange smell in the area etc. Build the picture slowly but enticingly. The next encounter should be just as the monster has wreaked havoc amongst, but not been killed by, another group of NPCs (maybe make these NPCs warriors or adventurers so it ups the perceived threat level). Next, have the heroes encounter the monster but have them not be able to kill it quickly (reduce all hits to maybe the minimum damage, let it take several hits and then escape). Finally, have the heroes meet the monster face-to-face. Use its normal stat lines but try to work the combat encounter so that one of the heroes deliver a death blow using a particular kind of weapon (a silver blade, a magic item, etc.) or only bludgeoning hits cause damage etc., to make them think that is its weakness. If this killing blow can be emulated in other encounters with the same type of creature, then the players may think that the beings can only be overcome by certain weapon types; the mythology will build itself. 

These are just a few options for consideration when running horror style encounters in your RPG. Unfortunately, this is a little more difficult for a tabletop wargame as both sides need to know the beings' capabilities (although I can think of one or two ways around that). Maybe I can have a think on this subject further and use the idea for a future post?