The Bonehoard

Another old session summary: Last session was the party's initial foray across the river to the abandoned / quarantined Grey District, looking for loot. The party had just pulled off a heist on an arms warehouse of the Hargrave Guards, and wanted to make themselves scarce while patrols led by Sigga the Wolf scoured the borough for the culprits. Most the evening was spent cautiously exploring their selected landing spot, well away from the vaguely threatening group they had sold their ill-gotten arms to a couple days prior. After passing over the building overflowing with fungal blooms (party: 'Nope nope!') they entered a large dockside building with ratholes gnawed through the doors. Predictably, the party immediately had to deal with a flood of rats. After the initial wave retreated, however, a small swarm of white mice entered the hallway ahead, running in concentric counter-rotating rings that began to mesmerize the onlookers. Fortunately Cecilly the Arsonist...

Continuing with my posting of month-old summaries to get the blog caught up: Session recap: Last session the group put on their strategist hats and drew up a plan of attack for a job Barbarus (Jackson) received from his contact with the Righteous Banner. Mork had requested he burn down a warehouse full of armaments owned by Lady Hargrave's guards, a callous but skilled group stationed on the upscale Glass Street. The Righteous Banner fears that, should the political situation turn violent, the ruthless Hargraves would be a serious existential threat to their people. Several plans of attack were drawn up, including convincing a waiter of an upscale tower-restaurant overlooking the building to conceal them after closing so they could descend unseen, but the party was split over the arson aspect of the plan since the warehouse was on the ground floor of a partially residential building, and a midnight burning would likely entail the deaths of bystanders. Barbarus argued...

This is like two months old at this point, but I'm gonna post up some older summaries I'd sent out to the group to get the blog caught up, and then start posting weekly summaries thereafter. Background info: The group has now been back in Strigastadt for ten or so sessions, running a homebrew rule system I made based on WHFRP 1e and B/X, with other bits thrown in (variable spellcasting, advantage/disadvantage, etc). It's worked surprisingly well so far, with a few tweaks. They started out this foray to Strigastadt in a funnel, impressed into service in the sewer militia (a handy way to run a funnel in a city, sewer militia stolen from Heretic Werks ). Each started with a secret objective, like half of which ended up unused but dangling hooks for later. With surprisingly few casualties they managed to escape. Session recap 0.5: In a shocking turn of events not a single person died! There was an encounter with what is now known as "grease dogs" which develope...

One of the traditions I love best at our table is the graveyard - a place where notable PCs wind up when they die. Instead of fading into obscurity, we have a reminder of their awesomeness sitting next to the play table. They're fun to make and take a lot of the sting out of character deaths. Here's our graveyard, now full after almost a year and a half of play over several settings - it starts with Strigastadt, moves to the Forgotten Shore, goes to the Lost Pyramid, and finally returns to Strigastadt. With Chuck Chuckleston's death to a brutal combination of fungal hounds, grease dogs, and giant wasps recently, it looks like we need another expansion... Open in new tab if you want it legible

Last time I ran Strigastadt I had a bit of trouble communicating vertical relationships of buildings to each-other - 99% of movement was done via streets since that's what was obvious on the 2D marker map. This time around I got some slate & travertine tiles which're working really well for me so far. Since there's only 3 shapes of tiles (plus the small towers), they're quick to grab and plop down as the party explores. Slate & travertine are also dark and light enough for colored chalks to show up on them, so we can mark up the map as we go. Plus it's much more fun to plan out a borough by physically placing tiles. Material details if you're curious: