The Trigram Chronicles #4

Layout of a typical siheyuan

Rescuing a kidnapped child brings the heroes into contact with the Sword Sisters Sect

Daring mission to the General's Residence to assassinate General Yen's right hand man

As the Qing forces begin to take over more and more of the lands south of the Yangtze, our heroes (see PC profiles here) are no closer to finding the last pair of scrolls that will allow them to defeat General Yen. Rather than to sit in despair, they decided to thwart the Qing's efforts at conquest.

Having learned that General Yen's right-hand man, General Yu Shou Ren, had set up his headquarters in the city of Tongling, our heroes traveled there. Here, they heard tales that several Qing commanders and officials had been assassinated, and now the city was in a state of curfew.

Despite that, our heroes plotted to find and sabotage a Qing base inside the city. On the night they were performing the reconnaissance, however, they chanced upon four men in black, one of whom carried a sack over one of his shoulders. Our heroes decided to follow the suspicious men, and when they were discovered, they attacked our heroes with throwing knives. Their attempts to parley being met with silence and more throwing knives, our heroes retaliated and defeated the men in black, to find that a child was inside the sack. As the last of the men in black attempted to flee, he was cut down by a swordswoman.

Soon more swordswomen arrived, and our heroes learned that they were of the Sword Sisters Sect, and that the child was the daughter of the leader of the chapter in Tongling. The Sect had been conducting assassinations of Qing commanders and officials, and in response General Yu had ordered his men to hunt down the Sword Sisters, who had to go into hiding. To force the Sword Sisters to emerge, General Yu's men resorted to kidnapping the daughter of their leader.

But even as the Sword Sisters thanked our heroes, they demanded to know how Wu had learned their kung fu, which was only taught to women. Wu replied that his late mother had taught him the kung fu. Now by their sect rules the punishment for teaching the kung fu to a man was death of both the teacher and the student, but as Wu had saved the life of one of their own, the Sword Sisters were now in a dilemma. Wu then volunteered to disable his own kung fu, but only after he had avenged his family on General Yen. The Sword Sisters agreed, on the condition that he assassinate General Yu too.

Our heroes agreed to the pact, and were given information about the General's residence in Tongling. Learning that General Yu had sequestered himself in his residence due to threats of assassination, only communicating with the troops in the frontlines via messengers, our heroes made their plans.

They waylaid one of the messengers outside the city one night, and donning his uniform and using his token of authority, Soong entered the residence to meet General Yu. At the same time, Zhang stole her way into the kitchen, where she prepared to start a fire to distract the guards. Wang and Wu laid in waiting on the roof of the reception hall, ready to burst through the roof and attack General Yu once Soong confirmed his presence.

But when Soong arrived inside the reception hall, he found that he had been met by a double for the general - General Yu had anticipated their move. Guards burst into the hall to arrest him. Wang and Wu leapt down from the roof into the rear courtyard. Zhang set the kitchen on fire and joined Wang and Wu, and together they made their way to the rear of the compound to try to kill the general in his quarters, but found the doors and windows barred. Simultaneously, nets were cast across the roofs of the courtyard, trapping our heroes. More guards emerged, and our heroes were now fighting to their front and their rear.

After a hard fight, Soong and Wang pushed the guards out of the reception hall, and returned to the rear courtyard to join Zhang and Wu, who had likewise defeated the guards there. Seeing our heroes wounded and trapped, General Yu emerged from his quarters, hoping to make an easy kill. But his hubris was his unmaking, as our heroes fought as one and quickly took him down. Then, taking his head as evidence of their success, our heroes cut through the net and made they way to safety, but not before leaving a message written in the blood of the dead man on the courtyard floor: we are coming for you next.

How will General Yen respond to our heroes' actions? To find out, dear reader, you must turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

The plot for the first half of the session once again came from a seed from this blog. During session zero one of the players had asked for a rooftop fight, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to incorporate one into the campaign.

I was impressed by Wu's player when he offered to disable his kung fu after his revenge mission is completed. This is a classic wuxia trope, and moments like this are the whole point of playing this campaign for us.

For the second half of the session I gave the players a free hand in plotting their mission, only giving them the picture of the compound as a planning aid. The twist is General Yu was already anticipating an attack, and I had the whole response more or less planned out, from the elite guards who would utilise the formation rules, and the use of nets across the courtyard to prevent them from escaping - once again a classic trope.

The PCs took some damage before the final fight with General Yu, but by now they had learned to fight as a team: three of them engaged in melee, with Wang using his Defender skill to protect the others, while Wu threw needles at the General. Once again this shows that  the 'action economy' of RPGs mean that a solo villain, no matter how powerful he is, is vulnerable to a whole group of PCs. I will have to make sure General Yen does not fall prey to this in our finale.

A Return to Dragon Age RPG?

(image from Green Ronin website)

For some reason lately my mind had been turning to the Dragon Age RPG published by Green Ronin.

My first encounter with the game occurred in 2010, when the players in my previous RPG group bought me Set 1 of the RPG and forced me to GM for them. They have all played the computer version of the game, and wanted to experience it in tabletop RPG form. I played the computer game, enjoyed it, and then proceeded to run Red Hand of Doom using the rules.

But a few sessions in, I decided I didn't like the rules, and persuaded them to switch to Savage Worlds instead. We played through the remainder of the campaign with Savage Worlds rules, and I thought that was the end of my involvement with the DA rules.

Then in 2016, when I decided to start GMing again, I learned that the Dragon Age rules had now been compiled from three separate boxed sets into a ingle rulebook. Now by then D&D 5E had been published, but I chose DA over 5E, and recruited a group of players for the campaign. I once again ran Red Hand of Doom, and we managed to complete the campaign and start the next arc of the campaign. However, we began to have problems with scheduling, and so I decided to put the campaign on hiatus and switch to a sci-fi campaign using Savage Worlds rules and a different scheduling system. Again, I thought this was the end of my involvement with DA.

In 2017 I started playing D&D 5E at local Adventurers League events as a player, but at my sister-in-law's insistence I had to learn the 5E rules (using the books I borrowed from FG - I still do not own my own copies of the basic rulebooks) so I could DM for my family. I enjoyed the 5E rules enough, and of course they were more "universal", and since 2018 they have been the mainstay for my fantasy campaigns. This was also when I decided to start chronicling my sessions on this blog.

But now, even as I am looking to start another 5E campaign in May, my thoughts turn once again to Dragon Age.

Previously, I had thought that the rules were clunky, compared to what I was familiar with, like Savage Worlds and Dragon Warriors. When I started playing 5E, I felt that 5E was a more elegant system, even if mechanically DA and 5E were very similar: they were basically the same game except DA used 3d6 while 5E used 1d20. You can imagine my surprise when I learned that DA was actually published before 5E was.

One of the things DA was infamous for was the hit-point bloat. This, coupled with the way armour worked, meant that fights can last a very long time, with characters using lighter weapons being unable to do very much against heavily armoured foes.

The advancement system was also complicated, with things like Focuses, Talents, and Specialisations to consider.

The casting of spells also took longer than it did in 5E, requiring a roll to cast a spell, with different modifiers depending on whether your character had a Focus in the same school as the spell, and a different target number for each spell, and then for some spells a saving throw on the part of the target of the spell.

What I did love however was the presence of spell trees, which was something I think is thematic and but have so far failed to implement in 5E.

Now, with a few years of 5E under my belt, and having learned more about the history of D&D and having had some exposure to OSR, I feel I am more ready to handle the complexity of the DA rules. There are issues still, but I think I am now more confident of tweaking the stats and playing fast and loose with the way monsters and NPCs are stat-ted to make the game feel less of a slog.

What does this all mean then?

I have been thinking of picking up our Dragon Age campaign, perhaps continuing one of the PC's quest of reclaiming his family thaig from the Darkspawn, maybe using the Dwarrowdeep megadungeon. Of course, whether that will happen will depend on how much the module fits my concept, and in any case it will probably not happen this year as our next campaign, scheduled from May to perhaps November, will also be a fantasy campaign.

If you are a fan of the Dragon Age RPG, do let me know about the games you have played and plan to play, and what house rules you have implemented to make your games better.

The Trigram Chronicles #3

The Second Heavenly Gate of Mount Qiyun

Bandits terrorise refugees fleeing the Qing; our heroes put down the thugs

Our heroes obtain the scrolls from Mount Qiyun; Reverend Zhang sacrifices himself for the greater good

As out heroes (see PC profiles here) traveled south towards Mount Qiyun, they found thousands of refugees also on the same road. General Yen had launched an offensive south of the Yangtze, and many had fled the chaos that comes with war.

They stopped at the small town of Qimen, where they took their meal at an inn. Here, they were greeted by a man named Soon, who recognised them as the heroes who defeated the Two Emissaries. Soon offered to pay for their meal, and proceeded to order the most expensive items on the menu, before absconding and leaving our heroes with the bill!

As our heroes were arguing with the inn staff, a farmer approached them and offered to pay for part of the bill; he had overheard Soon's conversation with our heroes, and beseeched them to save his son Yang Shou, who was gang pressed to join the thugs under the Twelve Banes a month ago.

Our heroes agreed to help the farmer, and after tracking down Soon (who was trying to sell a piece of fake jade to an unsuspecting customer) and exacting justice on him, proceeded down the road out of town, to where they had heard the thugs had set up a roadblock and were extorting from refugees who sought to pass.

Luring one of the thugs away, our heroes captured him and learned of the location of their camp. They proceeded to the camp and defeated the thugs who were there, only to learn that Yang Shou was one of their leaders! Yang confessed that he had indeed been taken from his family farm by force, but the life of a thug turned out to be better than that of a farmer, and he was soon made a junior leader. Our heroes convinced Yang and the other thugs to take some of the loot they had gathered, and to return to their homes, and they did so. When the other thugs returned to their camp, they were likewise defeated and were persuaded to disband and return home.

Our heroes then continued south, and after a week arrived at Mount Qiyun. As they ascended the narrow stairs that led 2000 feet to the Taoist Monastery at the summit, they saw a large party of men below them, numbering over twenty, also headed for the monastery. When they arrived at the outer gate, they were stopped by two priests who told them that Reverend Zhang, whom they had to see, was not receiving visitors that day. Wu presented the letter of introduction from Prince Gui, and our heroes were admitted.

Entering the courtyard of the monastery, our heroes found Reverend Zhang seated at the steps leading to the main hall. Around the courtyard his disciples, all looking ill, sat or laid.

Zhang explained that he and his disciples had been poisoned by the Dark Judge's Poison, which weakened them and prevented them from using their Qi, rendering them defenceless. Our heroes surmised that the party of men behind them must have poisoned the priests. They stated their purpose of visit, and Zhang bade them to take the scrolls and flee, while he and his disciples would try to stall the intruders.

Unwilling to abandon the priests to their fate, our heroes instead decided to confront the intruders, and meet them at the narrow gate that guarded the approach.

As the party of men neared, our heroes could see that they were thugs led by the Purple Robed Twin Swords, two of the Twelve Banes. Our heroes tried to stop the intruders, but they were no match for the Twin Swords, and were unable to fight past the many thugs who followed them. When it seemed that they would be defeated, they heard a voice calling from above them - Reverend Zhang had arrived, wielding a scroll case in one hand, and challenging the Twin Swords to come after him. Our heroes took advantage of this distraction to flee, and so once again the scrolls were kept safe from the hands of the Twelve Banes.

Our heroes are one step closer to defeating General Yen, but will they find the last set of scrolls in time? For the answer, gentle reader, you must wait till the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

The first part of the session were based on encounters from encounter tables I found on this blog. There are quite a number of ideas from there that I think I will employ in future sessions.

By now I think my pattern for this campaign is to have two major encounters: one minor one based on an wuxia trope and not necessarily related to the main plotline, and a second one where our heroes encounter the forces of the Twelve Banes or the Qing, which will advance the main plotline.

The first half of the session was a lot of laughs as I role-played the conman, and the players role-played how they convinced the thugs to give up their lives of crime and return to their families. I told them afterwards that their spiel will not work in future sessions or campaigns.

I am still having trouble calibrating the fight where Major NPC Villains are used, partly because the game utilises a d10, which means damage can be swingy. This is not a deal-breaker, however, as in wuxia it is acceptable for the heroes' skins to be saved by fortuitous circumstances, or the arrival of a powerful mentor figure.

At the end of the session I once again asked my players what they wanted to do, and they had the idea to assassinate a Qing General. This is of course a common plot for many wuxia movies, so I hope my version will measure up.

The Seth Skorkowsky RPG Icons Dice Set

Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of Seth, and have been on a quest to get him to 100K YouTube subscribers so he will make a full-length movie starring Seth and only Seth. That was three years ago, and we are now at the 95.7K mark.

The fact that Q-Workshop is making a set of dice based on an RPG personality - not even the two Matts have their own dice set - tells you how much you need to subscribe to Seth's channel, so watch the video, and don't forget to like and subscribe.

The Trigram Chronicles #2

Map of Old Hefei - Carefree Lake is in the top right corner

Hidden scroll reveals secret to defeating General Yen; our heroes meet the Emissaries again

Service to Prince Gui brings our heroes to Hefei; mission to Carefree Lake reveals betrayal

So our heroes descended from Mount Juihua, wounded but alive. 

Wu studied the bamboo scroll hidden within the metal case, and found it contained two of the secret kung fu manuals that together comprised the Trigram Grand Style.

Now after Master Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang created the Taiji Style, he found that few among his students had the aptitude to master it. And so he broke the style into eight parts, just as the duality of taiji gave birth to the four elements, and the four elements gave rise to the eight trigrams; and so his students could master aspects of this formidable kung fu. In the latter years of the Ming dynasty the court turned against Wudang, and its disciples were scattered, and so it was that the eight styles separated.

Now most men could only master one of the eight styles, weak as men are these days, but General Yen was able to master the Qian and Kun (Heaven and Earth) styles, making him nigh invincible. However, it is believed that those who can master the styles of the other six trigrams may, by their skills combined, defeat a wielder of the Qian and Kun style. So now our heroes are resolved to find the remaining four scrolls, and master the skills within.

For a while our heroes cast about for news of the lost scrolls, but could not find any clue. In their wanderings they learned of the news that General Yen had ordered all blind beggars in the region to be seized and interrogated, and that Prince Gui, a nephew of the late Ming emperor, had raised a banner of rebellion in the Yellow Mud Lake region in the west, and was calling for loyalists to join him in overthrowing the Qing.

Following the rumours, Wu, Soong, and Wang (see PC profiles here), arrived at the Green Dragon Tavern, where it was said that recruiters for the prince could be found. Unbeknownst to them, they were being tracked by the Black and White Emissaries, who confronted them at the tavern, demanding they handed over the scroll. Our heroes refused, and the Emissaries and their thugs attacked - but they had underestimated our heroes, and they were defeated and slain.

Witnessing their prowess in kung fu, a man approached our heroes, and introduced himself as Chow, a servant of Prince Gui, and offered to make an introduction of them to the prince. Following Chow, our heroes traveled to the edges of the marshes around Yellow Mud Lake, where they were taken by a sampan to a hidden isle, upon was built a large wooden house. They were brought to the gallery on the upper floor of the house, where they saw the prince in the midst of composing a four-line poetry. The prince appeared to have been stuck after composing the first three lines, and so Wu proposed an ending to the poem. The prince was much impressed, and called for wine to be shared.

They then spoke at length, and when the prince thought he knew the hearts of our heroes well enough, he offered them a mission. General Yen, he revealed, was planning a moon appreciation feast at Carefree Lake in Hefei on mid-autumn night. He had invited Ming generals and officials in the areas still not under Qing control to attend, and it was understood that those who answered his invite would be showing their allegiance to the Qing.

Now the prince suspected that some of the generals and officials who were in his faction would be attending the feast, and so he needed someone to spy on the feast and identify these traitors, who would be traveling to Hefei and Carefree Lake in secret.

Our heroes accepted the mission, and after shaving their heads in the Qing fashion and learning the appearances of the generals and officials under Prince Gui by studying their portraits, traveled to Hefei. Outside the city, Soong waited by a tea house until he spotted one of the officials, whose entourage had stopped for a break. He spiked the tea of one of the sedan chair carriers with laxatives, and when the man became afflicted, he offered his services, and were taken into employment on account of his strong physique.

Inside Hefei, Wu found the musical troupe which would be performing at the feast that night, and managed to impress them with his virtuosity at erhu, and so was likewise taken into employment.

Wang, meanwhile, met a contact in the Beggar Sect in Hefei, and through him was able to smuggle himself, hidden in the food supplied for the feast, into the two-storeyed pavilion on the island in Carefree Lake where the feast would take place. Under the cover of darkness, he moved from the kitchen to the upper floor, and hid himself among the rafters of the roof.

Came mid-autumn night, our heroes kept their eyes and ears peeled, as they observed the guests as they exited their covered sedan chairs, as they moved about in the banquet hall, and as they greeted each other by names. By these means of subterfuge, our heroes were able to learn of the identities of 27 of the 28 guests who arrived in covered sedan chairs to pledge their allegiance to the Qing emperor and their support to General Yen on an attack planned on Prince Gui's hideout in a month's time.

With this information, our heroes made their way back west, where they were to rendezvous with Chow on the road to Yellow Mud Lake. When they arrived, they found Chow waiting for them with a band of armed men. Chow asked them for the list of those whom they had seen. Suspecting something on account of Chow's eagerness, Soong lied and said that they had made no list, but had memorised the names, which they would report to the Prince personally. Chow then asked if they had revealed the information to anyone, and when our heroes replied that they had not, Chow produced a list of names from his robe, and asked that they gave the prince the list instead.

Chow revealed that he had in fact pledged his allegiance to the Qing, and that the list contained the names of generals and officials who were actually loyal to Prince Gui. Chow exhorted our heroes to join him on the side of the rising Qing against the waning Ming, just as a wise bird would choose a healthy tree to perch upon.

Such a proposal was an anathema to our heroes, who rejected it and denounced Chow. Chow ordered his men to attack, but the traitors were easily defeated, and Chow, seeing his men slain, threw himself at our heroes' mercy.

Our heroes hog-tied the traitor Chow, and brought him back to the Prince. When he had heard the testimonies and seen the made-up list, Prince Gui ordered Chow to be drowned in the waters of the lake. Then, after perusing the list the heroes had made, he came to the conclusion that with so many of his men turned, his position was no longer tenable. He resolved to join his brother in the south, and asked our heroes to join him too. But with revenge still in their minds, our heroes declined, and instead promised that they would fight the Qing in their own way. As parting gifts, Prince Gui presented a paper fan to Wu, upon which he wrote the words "Iron Fan Esquire" (after the latter's signature weapon), and a letter of introduction bearing his seal, addressed to the Master of Qiyun Temple, an offshoot of the Wudang Sect, where news of the Trigram scrolls may be found.

What awaits our heroes at Qiyun Temple? If you desire to know, please turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

After our game was postponed a total of four times due to various illness (including covid), we were finally able to play the second session of the campaign, even if there was a last-minute drop-out (due to yet another illness).

This session was based off the idea in the module Bohemian Grove. At the end of the previous session I asked my players what they wanted to do next, and they said they wanted to find some rebel factions to join. Now there were indeed several rebel factions, some of them formed around Ming princes, so I decided that they would hear about one such factions and try to get recruited.

The fight in the tavern is of course a standard requirement for wuxia. My players were able to fight in a more co-ordinated fashion this time, and utilised the verticality of the battlefield, which gave them the initiative throughout most of the fight to defeat the enemies convincingly.

The site of the mission was chosen based on the module, which set the action on an island in the middle of a lake. I found a map of old Hefei, and saw that there was a lake within the city walls with a small island in it, which seemed a likely setting for a secret meeting. I had no idea how the players would achieve their mission, but they were able to capitalise on their characters' strengths to find a way into the pavilion.

I gave away Chow's betrayal too early when I reached for my map book before I roleplayed the interaction between Chow and the PCs, telegraphing that a fight was going to take place. Rookie mistake - have to watch out for that one in the future.

At the end of the session I asked my players again what they wanted to do next, and they replied that they wanted to continue the search for the scrolls, and so I picked a spot on our map and came up with an in-game reason for them to go there.

Warzone Eternal and Sci-fi WW1 Photodump

I found out recently that there will be a new version of Warzone called Warzone Eternal that will be launching on kickstarter soon. While I am not looking for a new set of rules, it seems like the figures will be released in small, five-figures packs, which sounds like a good way of supplementing my forces.

I joined their facebook group to keep track of the project, and thought I might as well lay my collection out on my new mat and contribute a few photos to the group, so here they are: 

Art of Wuxia - A Partial Review

This is going to be a partial review of the Art of Wuxia RPG rules. It's "partial" not because I am biased, or because I haven't read the entire rulebook (I haven't) or played the game, but because I have decided to not use much of the rules for my campaign and so I did not read those parts thoroughly, and I cannot give a review of them.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are a few wuxia RPGs out there, but because of my own idea of how I want my wuxia setting to be and how I want the play to feel, I eventually decided on getting Art of Wuxia. Rather than giving a detailed and systematic review of the system, I will just highlight those aspects of the rules which sold me on it.

The first is how "schools" or "sects" of kung fu are represented in the game. One of the core tropes of the wuxia genre is different schools having different strengths and weaknesses. In Art of Wuxia this is depicted by having a list of over thirty kung fu Techniques. These Techniques are like the special skills in Blood Bowl, and as your character levels up, he can learn more skills. The genius here is, each school typically 'teaches' only 5 or 6 skills, which together define a certain fighting style: an assassin style school will have skills that grant dexterity and missile bonus or moves, while a "brute" style school will have skills that increase your melee attacks or damage. Since the combination of the sets of Techniques are unique (I believe) to each school, practitioners from each school will have different fighting styles or combat roles within a party. You can choose which school your character is from by looking at the 'build' you want him to achieve over the course of a campaign, in the same way you would build a Blood Bowl player.

More broadly, schools are either of the Internal Qi of the External Qi style. The concept of Qi is of course another core trope of the genre, and here I feel the author did a great job representing not just Qi in general, but also the differences between the Internal school and the External school. Both schools can use Qi points for things like healing surge or re-rolls, and the External schools have some abilities not available to the Internal schools, but only the Inner school has the ability to use Qi for 'Lightness' or flying/wire-fu. This superpower is offset by the way the rules for Lightness works: characters typically have 3 points of Qi, and using Lightness does not expend a Qi point but requires you to have at least one point left, while carrying someone while you 'fly' will require you to have two points in reserve. This is a simple but elegant way of balancing the game without making the choice a forgone one.

On to the mechanical part of the rules. The basic system is a d00 system, so characters succeed by rolling equal to or below a target number. This is pretty standard, but the rules allow you to take multiple actions in a turn, with the successive action incurring a 20% penalty. This means that a character with a high score in, say, melee can make multiple attacks with good chances of hitting. In addition, some Techniques allow you to make additional attack or defence rolls without incurring the 20% penalty (or rather the penalty is deferred to the roll after if you choose to take another action, as I understand it), so high level characters can take on several opponents alone.

Another thing I like about Art of Wuxia is the way human NPCs are represented. Unlike PCs (and monsters, which I don't use), NPCs do not get a full 'stat block'. Instead, a 'mook' level NPC will just get a single score of say 60 as a target number for combat and tasks/skills that he is good at, and half that for tasks/skills he is not so good at. (This is the same concept behind the Monster Math in Five Torches Deep RPG.) This simple system allows the GM to run a large number of low level NPCs, certainly another beloved trope of the genre, without having to look up several numbers.

Major and Master level NPCs have more stats, with a different number for taking actions and resisting attacks, and they also have skills and Techniques like the PCs. In another stroke of genius, the author represents the "fighting formations" by treating the mooks who will make up one of these formations as a single Major NPC, so a GM can recreate this trope without having to learn another set of rules.

So those are the things I like about Art of Wuxia. There are many other aspects of the rules that I think work fine, but don't really make me excited.

The Class/Skills system is a hybrid of a class-based and skills-based character system, in that each class encompasses a number of skills, but some skills rolls can be tried by a character even if he is not of that class, while some class skills like those of the Alchemist and Mystic can only be made if your character is of that class. There are ten classes, and each PC takes two (one of which is almost certainly the Warrior class). Since I omit three of the classes (Diviner, Mystic, Sorcerer), I can't really comment on how the rules for magic and divination work.

There is a default setting and fluff for the game, but I have set my campaign in historical China, and the rules can certainly accommodate that. There are rules for a more high fantasy campaign, including the Journey to the West style with humanoids, deities, and demons. Perhaps one of these days I will run such a campaign, but for now I think we can have a perfectly good campaign even when we don't use all the magic and monsters - after all, many popular and beloved wuxia novels/movies/TV series don't either.

If there is one complaint about the rules, and I am really nitpicking here, it is in the 'translation'. Specifically, it is the names of some of the Techniques, schools, and items, and also some of the quotes from characters in the flavour text. Now I am functionally and compulsively bilingual, so when I read or hear something in English in entertainment media (yes, it's rather specific) I automatically translate it into Chinese in my head. And the thing is, certain word that sound cool together in English don't always sound cool when translated into Chinese. To be fair most of the names are good, and the whole is certainly not the travesty that is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.

All in all I am very happy with the rules, and if you are looking for a set of rules for a wuxia campaign, I hope you have found my review helpful.

The Trigram Chronicles #1

L to R: Li, Wu, Zhang, Luo, Wang, and Soong 

Assassination attempt on General Yen fails; our heroes are saved by Cripple Li

Tiantai Monastery burned to the ground; our heroes outwit the Black and White Emissaries

It was the third year after the Qing's passage through the Great Wall (1464 CE). Prince Regent Dorgon had issued the queue edict during the previous year, and it was being enforced in the lands south of the Yangtze with great brutality. Chief among these enforcers was General Yen, a former Ming general who had defected to the Qing. Forces under his command massacred those who defied the edict - tens of thousands perished.

Our heroes - former imperial assassin Zhang Ziyi, warrior-scholar Wu Wen Xiong, blind beggar Wang Ah Hu, and lay student of Shaolin kung fu Soong Wu Qing - all of whom have lost family to General Yen's forces, came to learn that he was traveling to the north, and thus laid an ambush on his entourage as it passed by a narrow defile. But they had overestimated their own skills, for while they were able to slay several of his guards, the four were no match for General Yen - Zhang and Wu were sent off the side of a cliff to the river below, while Wang narrowly escaped capture, saved only by the quick wit of Soong - together the two leapt off the cliff too to avoid falling into the hands of the Qing.

When they awoke, our heroes found themselves in a cottage, tended to by an old physician who called himself Cripple Li, and his student Li Hui. They had drifted down the river, unconscious, until they were found by fishermen and brought to Li's cottage. Cripple Li learned of the heroes' quest for revenge, and tried to dissuade them from their mission, but they could not be convinced. Cripple Li revealed that General Yen had mastered the Heaven and Earth Kung Fu, and possessed such power that was matched only by a few in the wuling.

His tale was then interrupted by the arrival of Qing soldiers, hunting for our heroes. Cripple Li handed Li Hui a bundle, and bade her to take the heroes to a shack in the mountains nearby via a hidden path, and thence to find his friend the Claypot Monk at Tiantai Monastery at Jiuhua Mountain, while he tried to stall the soldier. As the party climbed the foothills, they could see smoke rising from the village, and Cripple Li being cut down by the Qing soldiers...

When they had reached the shack, which was used for shelter by Cripple Li and Li Hui when they went to gather medicinal herbs, Li Hui opened the bundle to find a letter from her master. In it he told Li Hui that despite her natural aptitude for kung fu, he had instead taught her the healing arts, believing that it was more virtuous to save lives than to take lives; however, in times such as those they faced now, one sometimes had to kill the wicked to save the lives of the innocent, and thus he had passed his kung fu manuals to his student.

The party traveled south, eventually arriving at the great Jiuhua Mountain, and ascended to its summit. When they arrived, they found the main prayer hall of the Tiantai Monastery smothering, its pillars burnt out and its great tiled roof collapsed. In the courtyard laid the bodies of more than thirty monks and twenty thugs, each wearing a red scarf around their neck, all of them bearing wounds. Li Hui, who had met the Claypot Monk once when he visited Cripple Li, could not find the body of the man. The party searched the compound, but found only ransacked quarters, kitchen and scripture hall. It actually took blind Wang, prodding through the tiles of the great hall's collapsed roof, to find the monk's body. When they unearthed him, they found his body covered with wounds, and his arms were wrapped around a buddha statue. Once again, it was beggar Wang who felt the cracks in the back of the statue, giving a clue to a secret compartment within. Just when the party had figured out how to open the secret compartment, they were interrupted by the voice of a man demanding they hand the statue over.

The party looked up to find themselves surrounded by ten men, eight of whom wore red scarves around their necks; the remaining two, who appeared to be the leaders of the band, wore broad-brimmed straw hats; one wore a black cloak, and the other a white cloak.

Wu recognised the two as the Black and White Emissaries, two of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan, leaders of a vast band of bandits that terrorised the lands after the collapse of Ming authority. Our heroes refused the Emissaries' demands, and the bandits attacked. Outnumbered, our heroes began to fall one by one, until Zhang fled the fight with Li and the buddha statue, drawing the Emissaries away. Zhang hid Li in the monastery's kitchen, and then led the Emissaries on a chase, until at last Li emerged and offered to surrender the statue for their lives. With many of their thugs dead and the White Emissary wounded, the Emissaries agreed, and left with the statue. Unbeknownst to them, Li had opened the secret compartment and removed the metal scroll case which was hidden within.

To learn what was hidden therein, gentle reader, please turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

So went the first session of our wuxia campaign, and I must say I have not had this much fun GMing for a long time. That is not to say that I did not enjoy our previous campaigns, but because of how familiar all of us are with the wuxia genre, we found ourselves speaking in character much more than we did in our other campaigns. Granted, most of the dialogue were "cut-and-paste" lines from various wuxia novels, movies, and TV shows, but one can say that this is the essence of the genre and indeed much of classical Chinese literary tradition, and it was a lot of fun saying them, sort of like an extended session of an RPG session where the characters spoke exclusively in Month Python quotes. To further encourage my players, I tossed them replica Chinese copper coins representing Experience Points each time they said something in genre.

The second fight scene of the session and the idea of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan was inspired by the 12 Golden Butchers, but the other scenes are just tropes you must have seen in over a dozen wuxia movies.

The opening scene was railroady, but the players were happy to go along for the ride, with two of them even throwing their characters off the cliff into the river because they knew that was what they were supposed to do. Sadly for them, they did not all wake up in a cave where the text of the ultimate kung fu could be found inscribed on the walls as they had hoped...

The second scene was an exposition scene, where the players could tell their backstories, and where I could further detail the dastardly deeds of General Yen.

The third scene did not go quite as I expected it to. As these rules are new to us, we did not manage to get all of the rules correct, and the players certainly did not yet know how to use all of their characters' special skills. As a result they were overwhelmed by the bad guys, but fortunately for everyone they managed to outwit the opposition, and pull off another wuxia trope.

What I realised after the game was that the players and their characters had failed to fight as a team to capitalise on their strengths and to cover for each other's weaknesses. This was not necessarily a bad thing though, as this would be realistic from the narrative point of view too. Hopefully we will see them gel together in the Avengers fashion after a couple more fights.

I started this campaign with nothing planned beyond these three encounters, but thankfully my players gave me some ideas on what their characters want to do next. The next session will be in two weeks, which will give me ample time to plan for it. Stay tuned!

Art of Wuxia - The Trigram Chronicles

When we neared the end of our Space Opera campaign, I realised that I will need a 'filler' campaign for the months of February to May, when I hope to start my Blood Sword campaign. I had earlier planned on running a "The Last Kingdom" campaign using "The Hero's Journey" rules, but I didn't think it was a good idea to run a fantasy campaign right before the another. I asked my players for ideas, and one of them suggested a wuxia campaign.

Now we are all but one of us East Asian in ethnicity, yet despite that we have never played any "oriental" campaign. And the wuxia genre is not an unfamiliar one to us: I must have watched more than a thousand hours of Shaw Brothers kung fu movies and Hong Kong TV series based on the works of Louis Cha, and even read a few wuxia novels back in my childhood. Anyway, everyone liked the idea of playing something different, and so I started planning for campaign.

There are no lack of kung fu RPGs on the market. I spent several days googling and looking at various forums, and in the end I decided that Art of Wuxia was the set of rules that seemed to fit what I have in mind the best. Its full rules and default setting are still a lot more fantastical than the setting I have in mind, but it was easy to just omit all the magic and monsters and keep the rest of the rules. Perhaps I will do a more detailed rules review in the future.

For the theme of the campaign, the player suggested it to be about fighting government tyranny. What came to my mind then was the queue edict issued by the Qing government in the early years of their conquest of China - this was an order issued not for any practical reason, but solely to demand a demonstration of submission, on pain of death; tens of thousands of Han Chinese were slaughtered for disobeying the order, ironically at the hands of Han Chinese soldiers under the command of Han Chinese generals who defected to the Qing. This premise also gave me a villain for the campaign, as well as a reason for the PCs to get together: they will all be novice martial artists who have lost family and loved ones to the order, and their goal is to take revenge on the general who led the massacres, who I have decided will look like Donnie Yen in Once Upon in China II.

Over the course of the campaign, we hope to cover the usual genre tropes, with the heroes meeting and fighting mooks and villains with "evil kung fu", learning new kung fu as they level up, and eventually avenging the deaths of their families.

The Qing Conquest of China was of course a drawn out and complicated affair, and for the purpose of our campaign I will utilise artistic license and not be sticking to history, so I hope the more learned readers will forgive me.

The Party

Li Hui - Physician. An orphaned Muslim girl, Li Hui was taken in by Cripple Li, a former army physician. Cripple Li had initially taught his student only the healing arts, but after her master's death, Li began to learn kung fu.

Luo Yun - A foundling raised by farmers, Luo Yun was recruited by the White Lotus Cult and learned kung fu. When the Qing government began to suppress the cult, Luo Yun returned home to lie low but found his entire village slaughtered by Qing soldiers under the command of General Yen.

Soong Wu Qing - Soong's family ran a famous armed escort company, but when his father refused to work for General Yen, his entire family was killed in retaliation. Soong was away in Shaolin Temple studying kung fu, but left upon learning his family fate to seek revenge.

Wang Ah Hu - Wang served as a soldier under an officer in Yen's army when he was still serving the Ming emperor. Rightly concerned that the officer and his men would not take kindly to his decision to defect to the Qing, Yen ordered the unit into an ambush laid by the Qing. Wang lost his sight in the ensuing battle, and became a beggar, but driven by his thirst for revenge, he had learned to overcome his disability.

Wu Wen Xiong - Born a sickly child to a rich family, Wu was not favoured by his father. His mother, formerly of the Sword Sisters Sect, secretly taught him kung fu to make him stronger. Wu's family were arrested and executed after General Yen accused his father of sedition over a poem the elder Wu had written, and their property seized. Wu managed to escape, and had sworn vengeance since.

Zhang Ziyi - Formerly an assassin in the service of the Ming, Zhang was ordered to assassinate one of her relatives who had earned the displeasure of General Yen. Zhang refused the mission and fled, but when she reached her home village she found that her family had been murdered on order of General Yen.

Sludge Fox #4 - Tearcoat Swamp

Game 4 of the campaign was another attack on a Crown position, except this time there were no defensible features for my troops to hide behind.

The Rebels came at the Crown forces from two directions; in retrospect I should have concentrated all my units on one side and dealt with the attacks in detail, but I hesitated, and allowed the tactical initiative to pass to the Rebels. To make things worse, FG won initiative rolls on all but one of the turns, which allowed him to fire on my units before I have a chance to do so. My commander barely escaped with his life, and all supplies were lost to the Rebels.

I continue to be impressed by the scenarios in the campaign. So far all the scenarios offer tactical options for both sides with some elements of randomness to keep things unpredictable. The Sludge rules are rather unforgiving, and losing the initiative roll at a critical turn can really send your forces into a death spiral.

We are now just a third way through the campaign, so hopefully my Crown forces can make a come-back.

Deepnight Revelation #14

Captain's Log - T345

Deepnight Revelation avoided a disaster today, yet despite my relief I make this log entry with a heavy heart.

While Deepnight was refueling at the gas giant, the Amelia Earhart, under command of Chief Operations Officer Lieutenant Sequera, traveled to Prospect to prepare a camp for shore leave for the crew. With just two weeks before we reach the wormhole, I had expected it to be a time for the crew to celebrate our mission and reflect on our time together in the past year, but...

Lieutenant Sequera sent Dr Balilaika, Sergeant Ahab, and crewman Ajax on a shuttle to scout out a plateau near the landing zone as a potential site for a camp, but this turned out to be a ruse. Some 40km from the landing zone the crew received a transmission from Corpsman Wootue urging them to land the shuttle immediately. The crew did, and the engine exploded shortly after.

Corpsman Wootue explained that he, Lieutenant Sequera, and the members of Engineering team Six had decided to stop Deepnight Revelation from returning to our galaxy by destroying her and her entire crew along with her. They had taken this course of action as they believed that Deepnight's return, along with the news of the relatively lower technology of the species in this galaxy will lead to an invasion by the United Confederation, the Tazanian Empire, or both. But before that could happen, there would have to be a war for control of the wormhole. The consequence of our return, they believed, would be war that will result in millions of deaths across two galaxies.

On account of their friendship, Wootue had decided to spare Dr Balilaika and crewman Ajax, but the mutineers had taken Lieutenant Xebec (the pilot) and Technician Talon-Var, who were not party to their plot, as hostages, and they warned the crew of the shuttle to not return to the Amelia Earhart or attempt to stop them. They then cut off the crew's communication links.

Based on the information they had, the crew surmised that the mutineers were planning to disable the safety features on the Jump drive of Amelia Earhart and turn her into a nuclear bomb. This task would take many hours, which meant that the mutineers would most likely not change their location in the 16 hours before Deepnight would make rendezvous. The crew decided to travel back to the landing zone and retake the ship.

Utilising the survival equipment on the shuttle, the crew traveled through the night on the river that led to the edge of the plateau on the emergency life raft, and then improvised a balloon-glider using the life raft, hydrogen from a fuel tank, and a survival tent to make the descent.

It was dawn when they neared the landing zone, and when they encountered a spider-drone used by the mutineers as a sentry. Through the drone Corpsman Wootue once more warned the crew not to intervene, or he would kill the hostages if they approached any closer.

The crew arrived at the landing zone to find it guarded by more spider-drones. Using his psychic abilities crewman Ajax caused a herd of the native large herbivore to stampede into the landing zone, and when two of the mutineers disembarked to investigate the crew sneaked onboard and overcame the mutineers. Technicians Trevor Beal and Scott Zane and Utility Droid HE-54 were killed during the action.

The crew confronted Lieutenant Sequera and Corpsman Wootue at the bridge, and were able to persuade them to release the hostage and surrender, on the promise that they would help them receive a pardon. They did so, and then Sergeant Ahab shot and killed them both.

The Amelia Earhart had been made safe and had been recovered. Mutineers Petty Officer Milo Deems and Technician Lydia Torrent, as well as Sergeant Ahab are now under custody, pending court martial.

The command team and I now have the delicate task of dispensing justice and maintaining morale and indeed control over the crew in the final days before we reach the wormhole.

Prepping and Running the Game

The final session of the campaign was based on the classic Star Frontiers module 'Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes' - I had planned this months in advance, and had named one of the scout-ships Amelia Earhart in preparation for this.

As I mentioned before, I intended for the session to serve as a bridge to the Season 4 of the campaign, which I have tentatively named The Wormhole Wars. It seems pretty obvious that the return of Deepnight Revelation to our own galaxy will tempt the superpowers to try to establish a foothold if not a new empire in the new galaxy, if only to prevent the other side from doing so. Will the stakes be high enough for either side to break the peace and invade the Neutral Zone, where the wormhole is located? I think we all know the answer.

In a couple of weeks we will begin our next campaign using The Art of Wuxia rules. Stay tuned for a post about that soon.

Deepnight Revelation #13

Captain's Log - T283

We have made rendezvous with Commander Khomen and his team. Our mission has been successful, but it came at a cost I am not sure we ever imagined would be exacted.

Mr Khan and crewman Ajax and a small team had traveled to the city on Terminus where, crewman Ajax, following the call from the K'ul, they entered the largest of the pyramids east of the city. Here, descending to the core of the pyramid, they came upon a large chamber whose floor was covered with Gren biomass.

The Gren entity then communicated with the team telepathically, through crewman Ajax. The entity gave an account of itself as a benevolent protector of the planet and its people. When confronted with the fact that members of its species had consumed several systems in this galaxy, and had invaded our own, the entity admitted that once it too was an unthinking, all-consuming being, but had over the millions of years of its existence had learned to control its hunger and create a harmonious ecosystem that benefited all lifeforms on its planet. When told about the infected specimen of the space creatures we encountered, it offered a solution: that it, or rather a part of it, be brought into proximity with a specimen, with the hope that it can then attempt to use its psychic powers to bring it under control. The team was naturally skeptical of its offer, although professor Tsoukalos was enthusiastic about the prospects.

The team returned to Deepnight where the Mission Command Team met to discuss our next move, while we sent Commander Khomen and a team to take a scoutship to the edge of the system and await our instructions, in case Deepnight did not survive our upcoming confrontation with the entity. But our deliberations were cut short by news of a brawl having broken out in the mess area. Professor Tsoukalos had told some of the crew about the entity's offer, and while some agreed with his point of view, the Rakashans among the crew were derisive of the idea, and a fight broke out.

While some members of the command team went to break up the fight, we were informed by Helm of an unauthorised shuttle launch. Dr Cho Sen Wan and Lieutenant Nidesh had taken one of the boats and were headed for the city. Mr Johnson, Dr Balilaika and Trooper Blick took another boat in pursuit. I ordered Helm to take Deepnight out of orbit but found that the ship appeared to be held in place by some gravitic force.

On the planet, Dr Balilaika and Trooper Blick pursued Dr Cho into the pyramid. Mr Johnson attempted to gain control of the boat, but was attacked by Lieutenant Nidesh and unfortunately had to defend himself by killing him.

Inside the pyramid, Dr Balilaika and Trooper Blick were able to stop Dr Cho from reaching the core by shooting him in the leg, but before they could exit the pyramid they were attacked by what appeared to be infected specimens of the local deer. Dr Balilaika was able to carry Dr Cho out while Trooper Blick held off the attack.

Once they were outside the pyramid, the team prepared to return to the ship. With only one pilot among them, they were unable to recover both boats and Mr Johnson made the decision to set the remaining one on self-destruct. As they were taking off the team noticed that the populace were approaching the pyramid en masse.

At the same time, sensors on Deepnight revealed that massive swathes of forests were turning sickly and herds of animals were rushing to these diseased areas, and the populace of all the villages were also heading for the forests.

Surmising that the entity was consuming the lifeforms to generate more psychic power, Mission Command team decided to launch a nuclear strike on the planet. A 1 kt device was detonated over the pyramid and then ten other sites where the feeding was seen to be taking place. Then a 10 Mt device was launched into the crater where the pyramid once stood.

The attack seemed to weaken the entity, as it allowed Deepnight to break orbit and also dodge an asteroid flung at us. The nuclear explosions were insufficient to create a nuclear winter that will ensure the entity's extinction, so we further drove an asteroid into collision with the planet.

During the time we were traveling to meet Commander Khomen we were able to learn that Dr Cho, Professor Tsoukalos, and many of the crew members were in fact under the influence of the entity when they acted in the uncharacteristic manner.

Mr Ajax tells us that he is no longer sensing the entity now, and our sensors likewise do not detect any psychic emanations from the planet. The surface of the planet is still too hot for us to make a landing and determine if any of the entity survived; even if it did, it will have nothing to feed upon and it will not be a threat again for perhaps millions of years. Mission Command is satisfied that our mission is completed, and I agree with the view.

Prepping and Running the Game

After more than six months, our campaign has come to an end. Well, there is still an epilogue session to be played, but the main mission has been completed.

Due to covid restrictions, Ajax's player attended this session via zoom, which was not optimal, but I am glad everyone was able to be in the session.

Again, most of the session was role-playing, with the first hour spent making contingency plans before the crew went to meet the entity, and the second hour spent talking to the entity and then discussing with the mission command team. It was a difficult role-play for me, as I had to make the players think that I am a benevolent entity with the best of intentions - I am not sure I managed to keep a poker face when I asked them to take part of the entity to their ship. 

Much of the discussion was between the players as they tried to figure out the true nature and intentions of the entity. While a couple of players started out thinking it could be a benevolent being that has learned to curb its instincts, eventually they all agreed that it could not be trusted, The discussion then turned to how to destroy it without killing the other inhabitants of the planet. For a long time they were unable to come up with a solution, so I set in motion the events that would simultaneously cause chaos onboard the ship and force their hand.

Over all I am happy with the way the campaign went and ended. It was a difficult decision to make, and I think in the lead-up to the final confrontation I have managed to have the players see and interact enough with the people of Terminus to give a face to the decision.

I think there is still enough leg in this setting for us to play another season/campaign, and the next session will be a sort of a teaser to what it may be about. Stay tuned.

A Song of Dice and Buyer

No? OK, I tried.

Anyway, the idea for this post came when I received the faux jade polyhedral dice set that I ordered for our upcoming Art of Wuxia campaign.

I am usually a dice snob and I am an advocate of Gamescience dice, but as this would be the first time we are playing a wuxia campaign, I thought I will steer fully into it and get a set of dice that look the part. Perhaps I will save them for only the boss fights.

Several years ago I decided to cull my dice collection and use only Gamescience dice as much as possible. When I bought the new set of dice, the idea came to me to do an audit and see how far I have deviated from that goal.

These days, for the RPGs that use polyhedrals I use the Gamescience sets pictured above. You will notice that there are 2 d20s for each set to allow for advantage/disadvantage in 5E. Actually, the light green set hardly sees any action as I made the mistake of using blue crayons for the numbers and they are impossible to read against the green felt base of my dice trays.

For games that use only d6s, I have three sets of six d6s. Except one of the red d6s is missing... I am sure it will turn up soon...

Of course, some games require more of one type of dice, such as Horizon Wars, which uses only d12s, and a lot of those. I bought twelve of these, which cost quite a bit, and which is made worse by the fact that we have decided the rules aren't for us.

Then there are rules that require specialty dice which Gamescience do not make, which are:

Blood Bowl. I got these block dice many years ago, and it's a testament to the design of the game that they are still used in the current edition. The d6s have a scarab for the '1', which was something I thought fit my Khemri-themed team. I was tempted to get a set of the new GW dice for my Skaven team, but that would be wasteful.

Gaslands. I normally avoid games that require proprietary dice, especially those that are expensive (see the next entry...), but Gaslands just looked so fun I decided to get a set.

Forbidden Lands. The problem with the Forbidden Lands dice was that not only were they expensive, they were out of stock most of the time. I decided to re-create them by getting cheaper skull dice and other dice in the appropriate colours. They are not a perfect replica, but since the higher dice are not used often, the set was adequate. In retrospect I went overboard and bought more dice than I needed in my attempt to imitate the colour scheme faithfully, since I already owned...

The (not) Dice of Rolling. I posted about these before. The idea for this set of dice is that each die type was of a different colour, so it is easier for the user, particularly players who are new to polyhedral dice, to quickly identify the dice they need. The number of dice and the use of two colours for the d6s were based on the rules which I use for my convention games, which were where I expected to use these dice. I should have bought two more d20s of a different colour though.

There are some other dice in my collection which don't see a lot of action or any at all, but which I still decided to keep. They are:

The original Fighting Fantasy Heroes dice. I got these in around 1986 when I started my GMing career. As you can see the years have not been kind to them and the three are the only survivors from the original set of six.

Specialty dice. A slightly different perspective in this photo. The top row shows a d3 and two Average dice, and the bottom row shows an Artillery die and a Deviation die from GW. These hardly see any use, but are useful to have around in case you ever need them.

Gifted novelty dice. Here are three dice given to me by my friends: a home-made glow-in-the-dark d10, a d6 with Roman numerals, and a d120. The last one is pretty impractical as it rolls for a long time and is difficult to read. 

Finally, like most wargamers, I have a lot of Chessex d6s. These are useful as casualty and status markers. I got a brick of the green dice for my Night Goblin army, and the blue one for my WOTR/Empire army.

There are a few more polyhedral dice which I did not show, and which I think I should give away in the future.

What does your dice collection look like?

ZOD Tank Company and Pendraken Sci-fi Marines

 

Even though I already own a small quad mecha force in the form of my Heavy Gear Caprice mechs, and a "Mad Max" style force in the form of my Dropzone Commander Resistance force, I have always wanted a Cold War era style mechanised force with tanks and IFVs.

I looked around for a long time, and eventually I decided that the best way to get the models I wanted in the smallest numbers of deliveries was to get a ZOD tank company off ebay and two packs of Pendraken's sci-fi marines.

The ZOD models are cheap "scale-less" models sometimes advertised as 15mm, but as you can see from the photo above they are closer to 10/12mm, with the vehicles being much wider than they should be "in real life", although the aspect ratios look fine for tabletop models.

For the camouflage I used a "bands and wedges" pattern, which I created by spraying the models with brown primer, then putting masking tape over the models, and then spraying a sand colour, and removing the masks. They are obviously not practical in real life, but at this scale, when looked at from certain angles, they do break up the shape of the vehicles.

Deepnight Revelation #12

Meeting the natives of Terminus

Captains Log - T277

The Medical Division has completed their analysis of the creature that attacked our ship during the refueling operation two days ago. Our initial suspicion of the creature being an infected specimen of the same species which we encountered at DSA-1 was proven correct. The tissue specimens acquired from the dead creature and its juveniles will allow Medical Division to conduct further tests on the experimental counter-agent which they have derived from the Biologics.

That the Gren are capable of infecting a space-faring creature is indeed a worrying thought. This means that even if we are able to locate the homeworld of the Gren and destroy it, there may already be any number of creatures carrying its spores throughout this galaxy.

Captain's Log - T278

We have arrived at the system where the sensors and Mr Ajax have both identified as the source of the Gren psychic emanations, which Astrography had optimistically named Terminus.

Initial scans of the system showed only one planet capable of supporting life. Indeed with the exception of the polar regions, the planet's continents and islands and its oceans are teeming with life, although there are regions where the vegetation appear to be sickly, and some which are barren of all life. There are many settlements spread throughout the continents, with one large settlement on the main continent, and one on the polar continent.

In view of the possibility of infection by Gren spores, Mission Command has decided to minimise exposure to the crew by sending just one small team to the surface. I have asked Mr Khan to lead the missions.

Captain's Log - T282

Mr Khan's mission had given us a lot of information about the planet and its people.

The dominant species of the planet are a sentient humanoid species that calls themselves simply "the people" in their own language.

Our team made contact with two separate populations, the first of which lived in a port city in the polar continent which is now in ruins. It appears that this was once a thriving port city with a mid-level technology, but now the city is in ruins and its populace consist of rival bands of scavengers. Mr Black was able to make contact with one of these bands and trade some oil for food and furs, and from this contact they were able begin analysing the language of these people using the software from the Haix.

The second contact the team made was with one of the settlements on the main continent. This was a farming community whose people spoke a language related to those in the polar continent. Curiously, the people here were not surprised by the team's arrival, even though it was obvious they had a pre-industrial level of technology and had never had contact with an alien species.

The people were friendly and welcomed our team to their village. Here the team were able to learn a lot about their civilisation. It appears that long ago the people did possess an industrial level of technology, but had given that up to return to a agrarian lifestyle. The lands are fertile and the climate stable and the people had no difficulty growing enough food and keeping enough animals to feed themselves. The attribute all this to the K'ul, which seems to be a benign force which protects and looks after their people, and also tells them how to live their lives.

Consequently they have little desire in material goods beyond what they need for their work and lives. Everyone partakes in the work needed in the community, each doing what he is best at. They have no money, and those with surplus of food and goods merely bring them to the marketplace where others can freely take what they need. They do however wear jewelry, which they do not buy for themselves, but which are gifted to them by others as a sign of esteem.

Mr Ajax was able to discern that the people are receptive to psychic energy, although they themselves do not emit any. Here in the village he felt a call for him to visit the main city, although the suggestion came not in the form of words, but in vision and intuition.

Mr Khan's team also investigated the regions where the vegetation are sickly, and also those regions which are barren. In the former the team found that the ground was overgrown with what can only be described as Gren "vegetation" which are consuming the plants, while in the latter the ground was devoid of all biological material.

The team also discovered several abandoned cities on the main continent which have been overtaken by forests.

At the same time, Life Sciences and Geology Divisions have reported phenomena that corroborated the people's account that the K'ul takes care of them: the planet has an absence of seismic and volcanic activity, and its weather systems are unusually mild and not in keeping with what is expected based on our simulations. At the same time, plant and animal growth on land and in the oceans are at a much higher rate than expected, yet in most regions the ecology seem to be in balance.

More disturbingly, Astrography reported that an asteroid that had been on a collision course with the planet had deviated from its trajectory just enough to avoid striking the planet.

I will be meeting with Mission Command Team to discuss our next step.

Prepping and Running the Game

After some six months and 12 sessions, we have finally arrived at the last planet in the campaign.

Except for the first part of the session where the crew fought an infected "space whale", the whole session was just role-playing and exploration, with the PCs making first contact (twice) and slowly trying to piece together what the planet was all about. At the same time, I fed them information which the other Divisions have learned,

At the end of the session they had some idea of what they are facing. Deliciously, some of the players are entertaining the idea that this particular Gren might indeed be a benign entity and that its destruction may not be the only solution. This will make the finale session a lot more interesting.

The next session will see the crew traveling to the main city and meeting the Entity. I am a little nervous about role-playing the Entity, since it will be a delicate balance of trying to appear like the good guy while trying to gain information from the crew, while at the same time giving off enough creepiness for them to realise that something is off. I also have no real plan of how I can make use of the crew to get myself off the planet, so that is something that I will have to 'wing'.

Crucially, the players have made sure that they have some sort of protection against infection from the Gren, even if this only lasts 12 hours or so; but the Gren does not know that, so that adds another aspect to this whole encounter.

The finale session will be in a week - hopefully restrictions are eased by then and I can have all five players at the table.

2021 in Review and Looking Ahead

It's been another loony year, but to be fair it wasn't as crazy as 2020.

Despite the frequent lockdowns and disruptions, we managed to soldier on through our Space Opera campaign, and are now on the verge of completing it.

The terms of the lockdowns were such that in those weeks which we could not meet in a large enough group to play RPG, we could meet in smaller groups (sometimes just FG and myself) for wargaming, so over all it was a good year for wargaming compared to previous ones.

Over all, we played roughly 25 sessions of RPG and 14 of wargames, which isn't too shabby.

What I did a lot more of this year was building and painting terrain, as well as rounding out my armies, such as more terrain for my sci-fi WW1 armies, archers for my Uthuk warband, a few more units of men-at-arms for my 15mm Wars of the Roses armies, more figures for my 10mm Arab Revolt collection, of course figures and terrain for our Sludge project, and finally, one more unit of Night Goblin archers and three fanatics which you see above.

What I did this year was also to more or less decide on what rules to use for the respective armies. The lack of a satisfactory set of rules has always been a barrier when it comes to playing with the figures I already own. This year saw me try out a few sets of rules using the existing figures I own, which are: Contemptible Little Armies for 10mm Arab Revolt, Trench Hammer for my WW1 sci-fi figures, and Never Mind the Billhooks for my 15mm Wars of the Roses figures. Now these are truly "complete" projects for which I have figures for both sides, enough terrain to populate a table, and a set of rules which I know and like well enough to spend a weekend playing.

As usual there are unplanned projects which came out of nowhere. One was Never Mind the Billhook, and the other was Sludge. I suspect these two sets of rules caught many wargamers out of the left field this year, so I count myself in good company. The Sludge campaign had to take a pause when RPG became possible again, but I plan to see it through during the coming year.

Likewise, we were not able to complete our Blood Bowl league. Blood Bowl Thursdays were very social occasions for us, involving more alcohol and trash-talking than in my other sessions, so I look forward to picking it up again.

Another wargame I look forward to playing more of next year is Kings of War. Adrian and I joined a local KoW group, who seem really friendly and active, so my Night Goblins may be seeing a lot more action in the near future.

In terms of "new" project, FG and I have been buying and painting up models and terrain for a 10/12mm mecha project. I already have a bunch of Heavy Gear Caprice and Dropzone Commander Resistance figures and models painted, as well as some terrain, but the arrival of his Battletech kickstarter has spurred us to getting more - a lot more - terrain, as well as look into rules. I am in the process of painting up a more conventional force with armoured vehicles instead of mechas, and we hope to be trying out CAV and Alpha Strike next year.

For RPGs I think we did remarkably well, completing two campaigns and playing most of another. The Deepnight Revelation campaign will likely end in January next year, and the campaign to follow will likely be a Wuxia campaign using the The Art of Wuxia rules. Despite all of us being Asians (and most of us being Chinese) we have never actually played a wuxia campaign, so I am looking forward to this one. Following that, and if the kickstarter delivers on time as promised, we will probably play the Blood Sword campaign.

That's more or less it then. Lots of plans to play with the toys we already have, but no doubt over the course of 2022 some cad somewhere will come up with some fun set of rules that will sweep through wargame-dom and make us all go out and buy new figures. Let's hope it's not something that requires a high figure count...