This is where improv comes in. I’m sure I don’t need to describe improv to you. The basic point is this: you need to have just enough random facts at your disposal that you can deploy them as necessary in a yes, and situation. If this becomes a crime scene, you need to have some stats for cops. If this becomes a fight, you need some stats for mooks, monsters, what have you. If this becomes a criminal conspiracy, you need some criminals, and so on.
The great thing about these improv stats is, you don’t need them for one scenario. You need them for all scenarios. Which means you can re-use them as needed.
Money Heist
It’s not often you see an armored car taken out by bank robbers armed with anti-tank weapons.
A while back I mentioned Improv Stats. What does that look like?
In any game, no matter the setting or system, there is some kind of law enforcement. Someone represents The Man. In some games the players fill that role (hello Mutant City Blues, didn’t see you there) but in most cases the police are potential antagonists, or at least complications to a scene.
I’m going to use Night’s Black Agents in this example, but this could apply to any system or setting.
Night’s Black Agents, the spy v vampire thriller espionage RPG, does provide stats for police, dogs, vehicles and weaponry. A quick cut and paste makes an easy cheat sheet for those moments when it’s all gone a bit Pete Tong and you have to run a combat or a chase on the fly. A few extra cut and pastes make more cheat sheets for chase complications (is the street busy? Narrow? Is that a busload of nuns?). Is that what I meant by improv stats?
Not exactly.
Don’t get me wrong; I loves me some cheat sheets. They have saved my bacon more times than I care to count. But when I mentioned Improv Stats I was talking about how a potential actor in a scene might Act or React.
Think of it like this:
When someone Acts, they take the initiative. In this case, they do a thing that complicates the scene.
When someone Reacts, they take the back seat. Because you complicated the scene, they had to do something.
I deliberately chose that scene from Spanish crime thriller Money Heist because the Heist writers are very good at sketching in characters who they use again and again. Colonel Luis Tamayo (Fernando Cayo) from the clip is a case in point; he barely appears in the early seasons, then shows up as the main police antagonist in the remaining seasons. Meanwhile his predecessor Colonel Alfonso Prieto (Juan Fernández Mejías) features heavily in the early seasons but still shows up in the later ones as the man you love to hate. You know who these people are the minute they walk on screen, and what they’re likely to do.
There’s a quote that has been attributed to several different people and which may be apocryphal, about German officers and their qualities. It goes like this:
I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.
Once upon a time I talked about things to steal from D&D, and I’m going to add another thing to steal: the social map, in which non-combat encounters with NPCs are affected by whether or not that NPC is Hostile, Indifferent or Friendly.
With those two things in mind, Improv Stats: in which everyone can be classified as Clever, Industrious, Lazy, or Stupid, with the qualifier Hostile, Indifferent or Friendly.
Physical stats – how strong they are, how charismatic, what pools they may have in Scuffling and similar, all are irrelevant to Improv Stats. Those are things that might affect player versus NPC tests – combat tests, effectively – and that’s not what Improv Stats are about. Improv Stats are about giving you, the (Director/DM/What-have-you) something on which to base your portrayal of the NPC in question.
Let’s say the policeman is Friendly, Stupid and Industrious. In any given encounter with your players, that’s what this policeman is like. These three qualities ought to give you enough to portray the NPC in any given situation. It doesn’t matter if the policeman is also, say, bald, or gangly, or wears an ill-fitting uniform. That kind of thing isn’t useful. It might lend a bit of spice, but that’s all.
With those qualities, you have Inspector Clouseau. That’s exactly what he is: friendly, stupid, industrious. If he were friendly, clever and industrious he'd be Inspector Zenigata. Either one can Act, or React, depending on those characteristics. What happens next can be developed in play.
You don’t need a character sheet for this or a spread of stats, or potential pool spends. That kind of thing is helpful but not critical to your portrayal. But if you know he’s friendly, stupid and industrious then you have a rough idea of what this particular policeman will do in any given situation.
You can add more to Improv Stats, of course. It might be great to have a picture, or a list of potential names, a standard equipment list. But you don’t need any of those things. All you need is a brief description, with that list of qualifiers giving you the bare bones of the character.
Let’s say that this is a heist, and your players are walking out of the bank in the dead of night with their arms full. Bags of cash. Swag. The getaway car is just a few steps away.
Into the scene walks Friendly, Stupid, and Industrious, either Acting or Reacting.
What do you think he’d do? Because that determines what will happen next.
Life, mostly. Anything and everything can be turned into grist for the mill. I've taken inspiration from a church fete, from Greek myth and a dozen other things besides. It's all there for the taking. Which is why, in my collection, I've books about train wrecks, ghost towns in British Columbia, about New York, London, Paris, the Lusitania, flying aces, domesticating drink, flim flam, stage magic - the list goes on and on, but the point is you need to absorb as much as possible, even if all you take on at first reading is the skim version. You need to have a decent grasp of what's out there before you can start work.
Sin eating is an old funerary practice. The eater takes on the sins of the dead, symbolized by eating a ritual meal handed to them over the coffin of the deceased. Munslow got into the practice when his children died and carried on as a service to the community. Given that Munslow died in 1906 it's reasonable that the practice is still well known in the 1930s, prime Bookhounds territory.
If adding a bit of mythos to the ritual, charnel god Mordiggian is the best fit. The progenitor of the ghouls, that ancient symbol of decay. The main book gives several versions but I'm going to use this one:
Mordiggian, the Charnel God, appears as an enormous, worm-like mass of death, darkness, and corruption. Its idols resemble limbless, eyeless, rotting corpses. Its exact form shifts like time-lapse photography of putrescing flesh and is hard to determine, not least because the Great Old One absorbs all heat and light in a room.
With that I give you:
A Hearty Meal
du Bourg's has suffered a financial reversal and a tragedy: the eldest of the family, Edouard, has passed away at the grand old age of 42. Nobody's entirely sure about the cause of death; only the family know for certain and they're not saying.
However, there's no storm without a silver lining and this time the silver is a sale: du Bourg's is clearing out some of its older material at bargain prices, in a keep-the-lights-on blowout. The auction is to be held at do Bourg's, after hours.
To get in, prospective buyers have to pass one simple test: they must eat a portion of Edouard's sins, passed to them in pie form over Edouard's open casket. Nobody knows for certain what's in that pie. Except that's it's packed full of meat.
As the Bookhounds approach du Bourg's on the appointed day they see one of their rivals stumble out of du Bourg's, retching. The rival flees down the street rather than answer any questions.
Now it's their turn at the pie.
Option 1: Charnel Meat. This, the investigators will realize (potential Mythos spend), is a ritual to Mordiggian. It's not clear why Edouard's brothers and sisters chose this ceremony to honor their departed brother. What is clear is that the meat is Edouard's. A nibble is enough to get entry to the auction; a hearty bite earns them a special scene with Mordiggian itself, as the room gets colder and darker by the moment. Of course, they could fake it; Filch may help them pretend to have a bite. Faking it may fool Edouard's brothers and sisters but Mythos old ones aren't so easily betrayed, and Mordiggian will mark the defaulter down in its own special charge book.
Option 2: Rashomon. Eating the pie puts the eater in a temporary dream state in which they relive Edouard's last day on earth. They discover that Edouard was murdered; the question is, by who? Was it his sister Eloise, who wanted advancement in the family business but was never going to get it while her brother was alive? His second-in-command, Marcus Shelby, who was afraid that Edouard had finally realized that Shelby was fiddling the books? Was it his brother Daniel, who was afraid that Edouard's worship of Mordiggian had taken him down a cannabalistic path that could only end with a death in the family?
Option 3: Adulterated Meat. The pie has been unknowingly dosed with some of the Elixir of Kathulos, prized by the Hsieh-Tzu Fan. Edouard's sister Eloise did the dosing; she found the stuff amongst Edouard's possessions and mistook it for an exotic spice. Edouard wasn't an enemy of the Hsieh-Tzu Fan but he was hardly a friend; he'd been hired by one of his more eccentric clients to acquire the stuff and acquire it he did, but the Hsieh-Tzu Fan found out and killed Edouard. The cult wants its Elixir back and there's still a good portion of it left; anyone who ate some of the pie can find the rest. Of course, eating strange elixirs found in funeral meat has its own complications ...
This week’s post comes courtesy of something I disliked.
Fuss! Fume!
I was reading an article about low-level encounters for Dungeons & Dragons groups, encounters which weren’t just ‘go kill the rats in my basement,’ and, while I appreciated the sentiment, the suggested alternatives were … dull.
Unbearably dull.
As in, I would leave the campaign if you tried that crap on me, dull.
The big difficulty Dungeons and Dragons has is that it’s still dragging around Chainmail’s corpse. At heart, it’s a skirmish wargame. Its mechanics, spells, equipment and ethos is all about reducing the other fella’s hit points to zero as quickly as possible.
Other fantasy games do this. GUMSHOE’s Swords of the Serpentine does this. But the difference between Dungeons and Dragons and Swords of the Serpentine is, Swords doesn’t start you off at level 1 and say ‘go forth, hero, and do great deeds.’ With Swords, and games like it, your character starts pretty much at the peak of their career and things can only get better. Whereas in D&D and its iterations you start with a handful of hit points and a gleam in your eye.
A gleam which is quickly extinguished if, say, a goblin punches you in the unmentionables. Fury of the Small is not to be sneezed at.
Other games choose other solutions. Ars Magica deals with this problem by giving you a half-dozen characters or more per player, so if one gets chewed up by a rampaging beast there’s another four or five behind them to fill the gap. Ars also focuses on story goals rather than combat goals, because it didn’t start life as a skirmish wargame with dreams of grandeur.
But Dungeons and Dragons is a skirmish game which means the solution to any problem posed in the campaign is often ‘hit it till it falls down, then hit it again.’ It’s the wargamer mentality. Nobody asks a Civil War tabletop gamer to hug it out; Lincoln didn’t defeat Davis in a spelling bee. Though it would have saved a lot of lives if he did.
Which is why ‘kill the rats in my basement’ is such a popular trope. Rats are small. They have almost no hit points. Their damage output is minimal. It’s a quest that can reasonably be achieved by even the most incompe … the most inexperienced group.
Still, there are only so many basements to go around. Eventually your band of pest controllers will run out of rats. Or get bored hitting them. What to do?
Before I start talking about scenarios, let’s nail down some basic principles.
1)Keep the combat to a minimum.
Yes, there will be combat. It’s still a combat-focused game. But the characters only have so many hit points and short rests plus clerics working overtime is not going to solve that problem. Plan for one or two thrilling fight scenes, not The Game Of Death.
It’s fine if the combat is nonlethal. Particularly in an urban setting where there’s active law enforcement and the death penalty (also known as hanging, drawing, quartering and there goes your weekend) it’s perfectly reasonable for the average ne’er-do-well to prefer nonlethal over lethal violence.
2)Make sure there are exciting things to do.
This ought to be obvious but time has taught me that the obvious is anything but. These are heroes. They need to be doing heroic things. Sure, Hercules cleaned the Augean Stables, but he did it in a heroic way and it was one of his twelve heroic tasks. It wasn’t his Sunday second job.
3)Make it fantastic.
This is a fantasy world where Gods, Devils and things beyond imagining walk the earth. Where physics and chemistry take a back seat to mystics in tune with the mythic forces of the universe. One of the reasons why busting rats in basements gets boring is that it’s just rats, just a basement. Where’s the drama in that?
With all that in mind, let’s talk scenario ideas.
The Laughing Cat
Type: investigative; murder mystery.
This adventure location is a burnt-out travelers’ inn on the high road. When it was still an inn, it was a popular spot for wayfarers on a well-traveled path. The reasonable thing to do would be to rebuild it but it has a bad reputation. Word is, it’s haunted. The [guild/monastery/family/noble house] which owns the land would appreciate it if someone deals with that problem before the inn gets rebuilt. Generous financial reward offered.
Journey: 2-4 days across forest terrain to get to the Laughing Cat. The heroes may encounter a faerie dragon on the way there which, if treated with respect or properly entertained (it likes music) can provide a clue as to what might have happened at the Laughing Cat. Otherwise, combat.
The Laughing Cat is a burnt-out shell. Preliminary investigation (DC10 investigation, history, perception) indicates arson. Someone set the main room on fire while everyone was asleep upstairs. If History is successful, the heroes remember that this happened about ten years ago and there were three survivors; everyone else perished, including the Awakened cat which gave the inn its name.
A DC15 check remembers that the three survivors were Myria Whispermouse, a roguish Halfling who’s gone on to become a renowned hero; Aramil Caerdonel, an elf paladin (now fallen) whose whereabouts are unknown, and the innkeeper Bron, who was badly injured in the fire and now lives with family far away. Among the dead were Proserpine, a renowned Tiefling bard, and her half-orc companion Morg.
That’s all that can be seen during the day. At night, the Laughing Cat comes back to spectral life once more. All of its people go about their business as if no time had passed – which, to them, it hasn’t. It’s always and eternally the last night of their lives. To them, the characters are just other guests at the Laughing Cat. The survivors are also there, as their dream selves; a nightmare none of them can escape.
At which point the Cat enters the picture. Peridot is the only one out of all of them who knows that they’re all dead, and Peridot has a proposition: if the heroes can find out which of the three survivors did it and why, the haunting will stop.
Was it Myria, whose greed for the party’s loot got the better of her?
Was it Aramil, whose unrequited love for Morg tempted him to do something catastrophic?
Was it Bron, whose drunkenness finally had disastrous consequences?
By talking to those present, finding out what they saw and how they died, the heroes can gather the clues needed to reveal the killer.
Potential combat encounters:
Skeletal rats in the cellar (they guard a clue to the villain’s identity, a fossilized memory that will only reveal itself once they are destroyed)
Bar-room brawl with the dead (nonlethal, but Morg has a punch like a mule’s kick).
The imp Pazzu, whose temptations pushed the killer over the edge. Pazzu has a stake in the game; if it can drag the killer’s soul back to the infernal regions, it gets the soul coin that the villain’s misdeeds will mint. But until the killer dies, Pazzu is trapped at the Laughing Cat with the rest of them. If the heroes reveal who did it, the killer will die that night of a heart attack and Pazzu will be free to collect the coin. If the heroes squash Pazzu before that happens then Pazzu won’t have time to collect. Pazzu is a ‘hide-in-the-shadows, rely on invisibility’ kind of miscreant, but Pazzu can’t resist boasting about their clever scheme. This may trip them up in the end.
Immortal With A Kiss
Type: social, romance, urban
The heroes are hired as extra guards at a rich man’s villa, one week only. The eldest daughter Olympia is getting married and valuable wedding presents are arriving every day. It’s the heroes’ job to make sure those presents don’t go missing and that Olympia’s privacy is respected before the big event. No visitors, no scandal; everything’s being coordinated to create the big event of the social season and there cannot be even the slightest hint of hijinks.
This is particularly important to the family because Olympia is magically Blessed; all her life she’s had the Bless spell effect as a permanent, but according to fortunetellers and prognosticators that Bless effect will pass to her true love, when she kisses them for the first time. This story is well known; how true it is, is anyone’s guess.
The villa is besieged by wedding tourists daily. Bards looking to try out their latest ballads; dressmakers wanting Olympia to wear their designs; cake-makers and confectioners who want Olympia to choose their treats for her wedding; ‘friends of the family’ who haven’t been seen in decades who turn up unexpectedly looking for a place to stay, or a short-term loan, or just a quick word with the bride-to-be. The heroes have to manage all of this discreetly.
Among the wedding tourists are a peculiar band of warlocks and astrologers who, day in, day out, prognosticate the wedding based on Olympia’s birthday and that of her husband, Kairon, the handsome and famous Ranger whose exploits and treasure retrieval bought him instant access to high society. These guys just won’t go away; they fulminate and gibber in the street, producing alarming magical effects, incense, smoke, dancing mice – you name it, they’ve got it. Their omens and portents cover the entire wedding from break of day to the last breath of nightfall.
The heroes soon realize (DC10 insight, perception, deception) that Olympia’s younger sister Callistra is up to something, but it’s not clear what. She’s seen chatting with the astrologers and passing them insider information – but to what end?
Further investigation (DC15, and this can involve bribing Callistra’s cat familiar with treats) reveals that wizard Callistra plans to use Disguise Self and Friends on the day in question to pass as her sister on the wedding day. She figures she can get away with it because she physically resembles her sister (size, bodyweight) and most of the day the bride will be wrapped up in veils and dresses. The heroes may work this out when they realize that she’s feeding the astrologers her own date of birth and personal information, not her sister’s.
She thinks she’ll get away with this because Olympia’s planning on skipping the wedding and embarking on her own heroic career as a Thief. Her lover is an important member of the local Thieves Guild who taught her a few tricks. [The guild member may or may not be her true love; they may just be a seducing scoundrel.] The family would be appalled if they knew, and it’s exactly this kind of hijinks that the heroes were hired to stop – if they want to stop it, of course …
Olympia intends to make her getaway on the wedding day, as that’s when there’ll be the most confusion.
What nobody appreciates (except possibly the heroes, if they’ve been paying attention to those astrologers) is that the prognosticators are actually burglars. They’ve been casing the joint all week under cover of magical hoodoo. They know how to get in and how to get out without getting caught, which is exactly what will happen if the heroes don’t intervene.
Potential combat moments:
Brawl with drunken aristocratic youth who think it’s funny to sing romance ballads under Olympia’s window every day up until the wedding.
Chase/combat with the astrologer-thieves as they make their getaway. They prefer nonviolence, ball-bearings and tanglefoot bags to cover their retreat, but they may confuse things by running through a rough tavern hoping that the ensuing bar brawl will help them escape.
Near the village of Three Hills there is a magical well that has become a popular spot for those on pilgrimage. (Life, Light, Nature). The village is within the fief of [noble/church/monastery] and its patron rakes in a small but not insignificant amount of tolls from those on the pilgrim trail. A nice extra comes from the sale of trinkets and medals organized by a small hermit community near Three Hills. It’s also a well-known fact that horses bred near the well have special properties, and the sale of those horses is a nice earner for the family that breeds them which in turn pays the fief holder a tidy sum for the benefice. In short, there’s a fair amount of cash at stake, which becomes a problem when the pilgrim trail is shut down by druids. Angry pilgrims complain to the fief holder, and the fief holder reaches out to reliable third parties to investigate and (hopefully) solve the problem. Enter our heroes, stage right.
The druids, a trio of halflings, (Garth, Morrin, Gynnie, all novice members of a far-off circle), say that they have the right to shut down the trail when it is clear that the balance is negatively affected, and further that this right is in writing. Three generations back the fief holder agreed to this is negotiation with the druids’ circle, when a blight threatened the land. The druids cleansed the blight and extracted this promise as payment.
The druids say that the horses bred near the well do not have special properties; quite the reverse, in fact, which hasn’t stopped the breeders from selling them at inflated prices based on reputation alone. Animal Handling DC10 shows this to be true; DC15 shows that this condition is being disguised by the breeders who use magical feed mash to pep up the stock before sale. The feed makes the horses seem great for a week or so; after that, not so much. The DC15 also shows that the older horses, which the family keep for breeding stock, are still as magical as ever; it’s only the current sale stock that is affected.
The druids say that this shows the well is being over-used, threatening the balance. They demand that the well be given time to recover – perhaps a year or more. This proposal will not please the fief holder, which conveniently lost the paperwork on that druid deal as soon as possible after it was signed. The fief holder isn’t pleased to hear that the druids kept a copy.
What nobody realizes is that the source of the problem is the hermits, who have become warlocks, tempted to more-than-mortal power by a devil who wanted access to the well for its own purposes. The hermits knew how to bypass the magical wards put there by the druids and they let the devil in. The devil did what it wanted and then left a few infernal serpents behind to watch over ‘its’ property. The serpents allow the devil to come and go as it pleases, bypassing the wards. The serpents can be defeated in combat but can also be instantly defeated by one of the magical horses, if that horse is brought to the well (Religion, Insight).
If this is revealed then the druids can restore the protective wards and, after the serpents are dealt with, the well will recover. If the devil is left in place then the well will become permanently affected within a year.
Potential combat moments:
A fight against infernal, poisonous snakes.
A nonlethal brawl with the horse breeding family, or angry pilgrims.
A potentially lethal scrimmage with the druids, or the warlock-hermits. The warlocks are likely to take to their heels if discovered; they got into this for power, not to get stabbed.
The devil, if encountered, will insist on a battle of wits (Arcana) – a riddle challenge. If the heroes win, the devil promises to leave. If the devil wins it will remain at the well for a month. This challenge can be attempted more than once; the devil likes playing games.
OK, it’s end-of-session. The characters have triumphed. Or at least they aren’t dead, which is a triumph in and of itself. The time has come to divvy up the good stuff – or whatever passes for good stuff in your campaign.
What does that look like?
Dungeons and Dragons and similar fantasy games have a definite advantage here. Everyone knows what the good stuff looks like. It’s shiny and spendable, glows with magic power, or increases your character’s level and therefore prowess. It’s all easily quantifiable. A +1 sword is a +1 sword, which by default is better than that nasty old ordinary sword you were using five minutes ago. Gaining 500 experience points is an undeniable rush, particularly when you can look at your current totals and think ‘I’m only a few hundred more points from the next level!’
Call of Cthulhu has a similar reward system, where at the end of the scenario your characters get Sanity rewards depending on what they did and how well they did it. Sanity, for those not in the know, measures the characters’ mental state and can be reduced to 0, through various shocks and trauma. 100 is the theoretical human maximum. 0 = time to book you into a long-term-stay at Casa de Soft Walls, from which you shall not be returning. Nobody’s ever explained what 100 =; I presume you leave your physical body and ascend to the heavens on a cloud of sunshine and rose petals, at which point something quite nice happens beyond the ken & barbie of mortal folk.
Point being that, in theory at least, if you gain enough rewards you can exceed your original Sanity total. Which in a game like this, where Sanity is the oil that keeps the engine going, is a reward prized above rubies and titles.
However, there aren’t any other rewards. That’s pretty standard for horror games. You’re not meant to be the dashing hero; you’re meant to be the weedy academic, or similar. Victory for you means survival, not advancement. Sometimes you get to save someone’s life, which is great; saving lives is a good thing. However, it doesn’t fatten your wallet.
Nor does it have the same impact as that +1 sword or those 500 experience points. It’s not easily quantifiable. The gold you swiped from that dragon all adds up to a total which can then be spent on goods and services. The fuzzy warm feels you got from saving little Suzy from the shoggoth cannot be spent on goods and services. Not unless your in-game economy is radically different from the norm.
So, to the question: in games where the reward isn’t easily quantifiable, what will make those rewards fun?
Sometimes the game makes it easy for you. Bookhounds of London is a little like that. You have a shop, which your players are constantly trying to improve. That shop has stock, which your players are constantly trying to get. The obvious reward there is more stuff for the shop, more stock to sell. Replace that dingy little cash box with a shiny new cash register. Design custom book covers for your collection. Thanks to your efforts the shop now has a valuable collection of grimoires on vampire lore (effective increase 2 points Occult). That sort of thing.
However, as a rule rewards can be characterized as one of three things:
Reputation
Resources
Shiny Things
Reputation is a bit like pornography. Nobody really knows what it is, but they know it when they see it. There’s a really good reputation tracker in 13th Age which has since been ported over to Night’s Black Agents and other GUMSHOE systems: the Icon system. There are a number of Icons – powerful entities or organizations – whose favor brings a range of powerful rewards, and whose enmity can bring terrible destruction. Your reputation with that Icon helps determine whether or not that Icon will lend aid.
Point being that reputation is useless without someone to acknowledge it; if, however, the CIA knows you and respects you that could mean you can rely on the local station chief for aid, or get a cache of weapons at just the right time, or transport, or whatever it may be. Reputation = tangible reward.
This can apply to pretty much every gaming world. Cyberpunk has its corporations, gangs and medias; City of Mist has its avatars and proto-demigods; Troubleshooters has world governments and sinister organizations. Any and all of these can become Icons, which in turn reward gains in Reputation.
But! It follows that a gain in reputation for one Icon results in a loss for another. If you gain reputation with Scotland Yard because your actions helped foil a cult conspiracy, those cultists are going to have an unfavorable view of you. That can lead to future plot – conflict often does. But it’s something worth bearing in mind.
Resources are those things that the characters can use either in the current adventure or in future adventures. GUMSHOE has a habit of reducing these things to pool points rather than specific items, which is useful. Pool points can be anything; a gun can only ever be a gun.
Night’s Black Agents has a fun idea which could probably be ported over to other systems: excess funds. For whatever reason your characters have money to burn. Maybe they had a good run at the local casino; maybe they stole it from some luckless villain. However they got it, they have it and more.
In fantasy this is often the reward that a swords and sorcery campaign gives. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser were always rolling in excess funds after a job, and by the start of the next story they were broke again. Easy come, easy go.
The great thing about this kind of reward is first, it can be abstracted, but second, you can make it more concrete by asking the players how they want to represent this resource. It’s one thing to say you have excess funds; something else to say you have a bag full of cash. That bag can be stolen. It can break open mid-chase, scattering bills all over the street. It can be given to someone else. It can be gambled at the casino.
Alternatively, it’s one thing to say you have transport; something else to say you have a cherry Ford Mustang with custom detailing. One is an abstract. The other is style.
Bullitt
Let the player choose the physical representation. They’ll have more investment in something they chose as a resource reward. You can abstract it initially if you like, or need, but they give it form.
Finally the Shiny Things.
Those are a little bit like Resources in that they have value, but really, they’re trophies. Let’s say that the characters come away from an alchemist’s lab with a half dozen jars that contain God Knows What, but it’s glowing and has little eyes. Fine. It probably has value to someone. But really, it’s the in-game equivalent of a lava lamp. Pretty, meaningless, and there’s a non-zero chance it might explode showering hot wax everywhere.
It’s often the case that characters choose their own trophies, but it can be fun to design a few as rewards. The hat made entirely of shadows. The golden spider pendant. The illustrated scroll with alchemical writing on it that nobody living can read. The crystal skull that glows in the dark. The mirror that shows your reflection as it appears in an alternate dimension. The framed Nosferatu poster signed by Bram Stoker. These are the meaningless in-game things that players find attractive; they make excellent rewards.
I started by asking: in games where the reward isn’t easily quantifiable, what will make those rewards fun?
The answer, ultimately, is by giving those rewards weight and attraction. Reputation has weight: it confers easily understood in-game benefit. Resources also have an in-game benefit. Shiny Things are a bit different but can be equally useful, because they have attraction. The cool tchotchke that they put in their office, to impress visitors. Nobody asks why the hell Batman wants a giant Lincoln penny in his cave; but all eyes go to it whenever they walk in the room.
Like half the planet (it feels like) I too have been sucked into Baldur’s Gate 3, developed and published by Belgian game developer Larian Studios. Present to self for Christmas.
God alone knows when I’ll finish it. The damn thing’s huge. I haven’t even gone through Act One. I’m still noodling around goblin camps and wondering whether that nice Auntie who lives out in the forest really can homeopath me back to health. I shan’t tell you what I think of the game. Unless you’ve been living under an RPG rock you already know how good it is. I wouldn’t be writing about it now if I didn’t enjoy it.
That said.
There’s a bit early on that sticks out at me. Very minor spoilers ahoy.
Blighted Village. It’s within a stone’s throw of a temple, now defunct, and easy walking distance of what seems to be a grand monastery (ish) with a tomb underneath it, also defunct. Already you can get a sense of how this community used to work: priests in the temple, monks in the scriptorium, with a village in the middle producing goods to satisfy their needs. Probably there was some little gift shop selling tchotchkes to pilgrims as they wandered through.
Visually the Blighted Village reminds me of those tiny villages out in Northern Italy. You know the type; everything’s made of stone, streets very narrow, and there’s probably someone trying to sell it because nobody wants to live there anymore. Big features include a windmill, apothecary, and school. It’s abandoned, overrun by gribblies.
The more I poke around in there, the more the feeling grows. Is this a once-functioning community, or is this basically a bit of window dressing for the dungeon below? Did this village have a purpose, or is its purpose to get you down in the adventure area ASAP?
Point being if it feels as though the Blighted Village, or whatever it may be, is just set dressing, then the set starts to wobble. Immersion is threatened. Some background material is required for a place to feel lived-in. In Baldur’s Gate that seems to come most often from books and secrets you find after poking through all the crates and shelves; not so much from the things you see on the screen. Every so often you might, say, search through a schoolhouse and find a much-loved teddy bear. What happened to the child who owned that bear? How did the bear end up buried in a hole?
How much is too much, when it comes to background material? There’s no point designing things the players will never experience or care about. But if you set something in, say, an abandoned vineyard, do you want to outline how a functioning vineyard would, well, function? Or do you just want to sketch in some eye-catching details and handwave the rest?
If you’ve read my stuff, you know I prefer setting things in the real world, adding some historical data to make things flow properly and lend a bit of spice to what might otherwise be a boring narrative. Sometimes this leads to trouble, revisions. A while back when I wrote Sisters of Sorrow I realized that submarines in World War One were nothing like I imagined, and that meant rewriting the entire concept. C’est la vie.
I find it useful to poke around in old books and find out how things once worked. If nothing else it can provide plot, or at least an interesting scene.
Probably the better question is why I’d want to do such a damn silly thing, but here we are.
A lot of games have, say, an abandoned farm as a setting. Something happened here in the before times and as a consequence the place is now Ripe For Adventure. Hideous things lurk in the shadows, each of them malignant and dripping with treasure.
For that to work in a scenario, how much do I need to detail about how the farm used to function?
The answer is, as much as is useful to me. However, that’s more glib than helpful. A bit fortune cookie-ish.
I start at Gutenberg because it’s useful to have a basic overlay of how things worked before The Unpleasantness. It’s also a pretty decent source of copyright-free maps and images. I could say the same about Wikipedia. I rely on neither for factual accuracy but then I’m not writing a thesis: I just want ideas.
Gutenberg reminds me that, if my adventure site includes a stable, then that stable needs somewhere to store harnesses and tack; somewhere to store grain and feed; somewhere to put the carriage (if this is that kind of stable); a source of water. Do I need to plan all this out? Probably not. But I do need to know that these things exist, because knowing this allows me to add details that can make the game fun.
It can also be a source of … other things …
From the description found at Gutenberg: The carriage room is sixteen by twenty-five feet, and the manure pit is in the basement beneath this room; to prevent the escape of ammonia from the manure pit into the carriage room a good cement floor should be laid down.
So, if I wanted to design a trap that, say, dumps the characters into, oh, a manure pit why not … I trust you can work out the rest for yourself. A whiff of ammonia might be the one warning the characters get before their moment of unhappiness.
A while back I put out a D&D scenario, For The Sound Of His Horn. In that scenario there’s a haunted mansion. Did I plan out the entire mansion from basement to rafters?
Hell no. This is what I said:
The Manse consists of the manor house, the hunting dog kennels, stables, and formal garden.
Manor House: a minor country house, first built over 400 years ago as a fortified country manor, renovated 150 years ago to be more comfortable and include a glassed sunroom. It was abandoned 100 years ago. Heavily overgrown and the roof is basically gone. In its day would have been home to four of the family and twice as many servants, or about twelve people in all. Rooms include: the great hall, the solar (private lounge for the family only), glassed sunroom now overrun by plants and mold, bedrooms, library, garderobe (latrine, single hole, discharging to outside), kitchen (including pantry and buttery, food prep and storage), attic (in almost complete ruin), wine cellar (ransacked). Most rooms have some furniture in them, but anything truly valuable has long since been stolen. Haunted Effect: footsteps heard in the next room, but nobody is there. Trigger: if anyone finds the library, if anyone is alone in the house.
Hunting Dog Kennels: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a hundred hounds, or fifty couples. Still stinks of dog even after all these years. Haunted Effect: shadows of hounds flit across the walls. Though they do not attack people, they harass the shadows of anyone in the kennels. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the kennels, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the kennels.
Stables: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a dozen horses including tack room for their gear, and the manor house’s carriage, capable of seating four plus driver. The carriage and tack are far too rotten to be any use to anyone. Haunted Effect: the sound of stamping horses being loaded with tack for a hunt. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the stables, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the stables.
Formal Garden: rolling lawns with tree groves scattered about, small lake now choked with reed and mud, artificial ‘hidden grotto’ cave, artificial ‘antique’ statues (cupids, heraldic animals, foxes). Haunted Effect: the fox statues seem to move about and there are more of them than before. Trigger: if anyone finds the hidden grotto, if anyone is alone in the garden.
Secrets
Manor House: Library. In its day this would have been an impressive collection. That was before the windows smashed and damp got in. Now most of the books are ruined and the carpet is a soggy, stinking mass. Secret: Will & Legal papers. Hidden in one of the books is the last will and testament of Gelbert’s brother Wyllin, including plans of Wyllin’s estate. The papers show Wyllin’s two children, son Bartell and daughter Allecia, were to inherit. Secret: Family Holy Book. The Huntingtower Scriptures of Ezra, annotated on the frontispiece with the family tree. Bartell and Allecia, Wyllin’s son and daughter, are both crossed out. Secret: Estate Plan. A framed copy of the estate’s total land holding hangs on the wall. If Wyllin’s share had passed to his children Gelbert would have been left with less than half; if they didn’t inherit, Gelbert got it all.
Formal Garden: Hidden Grotto. In its day this was a quiet spot with a good view of the gardens and lake, part hidden by a grove of trees. The sort of place lovers and poets might enjoy, on a pleasant summer’s day. Secret: Bartell’s Diary. This is hidden under a stone near the grotto’s bench. Written in a child’s hesitant script, the diary tells how Bartell and his sister were forced from the family home after their father died. For a brief time they hid in the garden where once they played as children, but Gelbert soon found all their childhood hiding spots. ‘But he shall never find our secret wood, and we will hide there until we can get someone to help us!’
Potential encounters
The Butler, manor house only, night only.
Twig Blights, 4-6, formal garden only.
Giant Bats, 3-6, manor house only during the day in what little is left of the attic, night only in the gardens, hunting.
Rats, 10-20, hunting dog kennels and stables only.
Potential Treasure
Bloodstone earrings, 100gp, manor house, bedroom.
Obsidian carved family seal, 50gp, manor house, library.
Book, antiquarian, local history (gives +2 to any History check concerning Mordent), 80gp, manor house, library.
Book, antiquarian, vampire lore (gives +2 to any History check concerning Barovia), 100gp, manor house, library.
3D6 GP, manor house, one time only, any room.
Potion of animal friendship, hunting dog kennels.
1D3 bottles of good wine, 50gp each, wine cellar.
1 bottle of bad wine, DC15 CON save or lose 1D6 CON, CHA, INT for 24 hours (constant retching, nausea), wine cellar.
Enough description to be helpful, not enough to be overwhelming. There’s just enough history to the place that you, as DM, can get a sense in your head of how things used to work and how things work now. That’s all you really need. It might be a little different, in a combat-heavy game, if you need combat areas. Then you want maps. But most of the time you’re not going to need detailed maps, particularly if you’re the only one who’s ever going to see them.
Going back to the Blighted Village, where this conversation began, that’s broadly what you, the player, get. A visual that paints a picture. Enough of a working design that you, the player, get a sense of how it was supposed to function when it was a functioning village. Secrets, hidden away, that you, the player, can find.
Notice I repeat those words, you, the player. That’s who all this is for. Never lose sight of the fact that there is an audience and that audience needs to be catered to. All this description, this verbiage? It has a purpose.
Put it another way. I came up with a concept I called Rome. All roads lead to it. For the campaign, Rome is an event, location or circumstance that is the end state of the game.
That’s for the game.
For you, the DM/Keeper/Director, Rome is the player. Everything you do is headed towards that Rome – player engagement.
Fun.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stick a tadpole in my eye and go smack goblins.
… I'm struggling to convert them to proper scenarios. Do you have any tip to create a scenario structure using a hook? Do you create a set of clues? Do you write scenes that connect all the facts of the hook so that the bookhounds need to go one scene after other one? You improvise? Carlos Roig
Now there’s a question.
I had something else in mind for this week's post, but this caught my attention so I went ahead and wrote this instead.
Let’s go back to Coleshill Abbey for a moment; that destroyed library which has hidden secrets buried both in the past and the present.
… the estate be used to run the library, open by subscription to certain scholars. Mostly friends of Vincent and fellows of Vincent’s old Oxford college, though the list included a scattering of worthies who got in on merit alone. The library was in operation from 1872 to its destruction in 1915 …
The hook is that forger Winona Pryce, who used to work with Coleshill Abbey’s librarian, has a book stolen from the library which she now wants to sell. Before the Bookhounds can arrange the auction Pryce dies of a heart attack, and her body is found at the ruins of the old library. The book is nowhere to be found. Important customers are impatient for the auction. The Bookhounds are caught in the middle and must resolve the problem.
Because it’s the problem that’s the issue.
I spent some time talking about Baldur’s Gate 3 last week. In that game the problem is the Illithid tadpoles that the player is infected with right at the start. Those tadpoles will kill the player and anyone else they infect, so the player has to get rid of them. Thus begins a search for a cure. Everything else in the game, all those complicated plot tangles and quests, flows from that.
Which is exactly what a good hook does. It poses a problem that the players have to solve.
Coleshill Abbey poses three problems:
What to do?
Where’s the book?
What was Pryce doing at Coleshill Abbey?
Let’s tackle them and see what they lead, because that, my friend, is how you design a scenario.
What to do?
This is about those disappointed customers. They wanted that book. Now they won’t get it. This means problems for the store which in turn means problems for the Bookhounds. Since this is a valuable book it stands to reason that the people who wanted to buy it have money in their pockets. Since this is a Mythos book it stands to reason that the people who wanted to buy it are mad, bad and dangerous to know. Some of them more than others, no doubt.
At this point it would be helpful to know who they are and sketch in a little of their history, the amount of detail dependent on whether we’re talking about background players or potential threats, even long-term threats. I’m not going to do that here; just be aware that it’s something you have to do.
Now, look at the problem from a structural point of view. You have the Hook. It has the Question, which is the foundation of the scenario. Put yourself in the Bookhounds’ shoes. If it were you, and you had to deal with an irate customer, what would you do?
Well, there are two obvious solutions that spring to mind.
One is to dodge the confrontation altogether. Whenever so-and-so calls, I’m out. To Lunch. To Dinner. Sick. Whatever. From the Keeper’s perspective, you want to sketch in a scene that deals with this possibility. Potential spends. Will this result in, say, a chase scene? Will this result in a fight? What might the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice?
The other is to meet the confrontation head-on. Negotiate. Bluff. Pretend they have the book after all and the auction will go ahead. Again, you want to sketch in a scene that deals with this possibility. Will this result in a Maltese Falcon series of confrontations with strange and dangerous characters?
Maltese Falcon
What will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice?
Going back to Carlos Roig’s original question these are the scenes that connect the facts of the hook. That’s part of scenario design. However, that’s not the whole of scenario design, because in any given scenario you have to have one scene constantly available, which is:
Whatever the players want to do to solve the problem.
There’s no accounting for taste. Players get all sorts of ideas in their heads. You can’t anticipate them. They might decide to forge their own copy of the book, or steal a copy from somewhere else, or murder all those disappointed customers. Anything’s possible.
This is where improv comes in. I’m sure I don’t need to describe improv to you. The basic point is this: you need to have just enough random facts at your disposal that you can deploy them as necessary in a yes, and situation. If this becomes a crime scene, you need to have some stats for cops. If this becomes a fight, you need some stats for mooks, monsters, what have you. If this becomes a criminal conspiracy, you need some criminals, and so on.
The great thing about these improv stats is, you don’t need them for one scenario. You need them for all scenarios. Which means you can re-use them as needed. If Constable Grigson doesn’t end up being used in the Coleshill Abbey scenario you can use him in Vathek and the Burning Tower. Or you can use him in both scenarios. The cheap-john Morris Farraday and his partner ‘Ribs’ Macavoy can turn up in as many scenarios as you like.
The same applies to any other yes-and contingency you devise, whether it’s an NPC, an event, or something similar. Think of these things as guest stars. Or recurring characters. TV Tropes.
Moving on.
Where’s the book?
This question gives you a little flexibility, because you, as Keeper, know where it is. You designed the scenario, after all. From that point, you need to put together one or more scenes that guide the Bookhounds from the hook to the end goal.
Let’s say that Winona left the book with a friend of hers for safe keeping, Howard and Thripps, a pawnbroker with a reliable safe.
Again, put yourself in the Bookhounds’ shoes. You have to find out where the book is. How would you do that? Well, you’d look around. You’d search places where you think it might be or have been – Winona’s apartment is the obvious choice there. You’d talk to Winona’s friends, her neighbors, her business contacts.
All these scenes or mini-scenes give clues, which will eventually lead to Howard and Thripps. Exactly how many of these scenes you need is up to you. If it helps, think of it as a police procedural. At the beginning the cops interview everyone they can, search the crime scene, probably talk to the forensic examiner to see if any scientific evidence is available. That’s pretty much what your Bookhounds are doing.
Always remember that extra scene: whatever the players want to do to solve the problem. The improv moment. The Bookhounds may decide that the best way to find the book is to hold a séance to contact Winona and ask her. Or use their own magical abilities, whatever they may be. Summon up a Rat-Thing and get it to sniff out the book. Hire a private investigator to do the legwork for them.
The solution to this is the same as before. Have just enough random facts at your disposal that you can deploy them as necessary in a yes, and situation.
Going further, whether this is an improv moment or a designed scene there’s still that final question which needs an answer: what will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice?
OK, let’s take a look at the overall scenario. We’ve got the hook. We’ve got questions that flow from that hook. As a result of those questions we’ve anticipated scenes which answer those questions, and we have some improv hooks in our pocket for those moments when the Bookhounds decide to use their initiative, precious little angels that they are.
What happens when the questions which flow from the hook are answered? What happens when the characters have dealt with What To Do, Where’s The Book and What Was Pryce Doing At Coleshill Abbey?
When that happens, you’ve reached scenario midpoint.
In game terms, this is a Core scene. The Bookhounds will always get to Core scenes; the interesting thing is how they get there. But it fulfils the same function as the Hook, which is: it proposes problems which the players have to solve.
Exactly what those problems are depends on the kind of scenario you want to write.
In the example last time I gave three Options and today I’m going to use one:
The Library Eternal. Sykes died in 1915 and the Abbey burned to the ground, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. Sykes used his occult skills, and his Megapolisomantic ability, to turn the Abbey into an eternal institution just as the flames consumed it.
By the midpoint all the questions asked by the Hook have been answered and the Bookhounds should be aware, as a result of those answers, of the Eternal Library, that it has the book, and that Winona’s there now along with Sykes and possibly others. The Bookhounds will also know by this point that the Library has a peculiar clientele that can include almost anyone or anything.
Incidentally if you’re wondering why the Bookhounds are aware of this, remember that bit I kept repeating about ‘what will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice’? That’s why. This is what they were learning. This was Rome, for this scenario.
This plot choice also means that the book, if it was ever being kept in a safe at Howard and Thripps, is no longer where the Bookhounds thought it would be. Maybe it dissolved into dust or dream-stuff the minute they tried to pick it up. Maybe it just wasn’t there. However that gets resolved, the book is now on the shelves of Coleshill Abbey Library.
So what questions are being asked by the midpoint?
Probably something along the lines of ‘how do we get that book’ and ‘how do we satisfy our unhappy customers,’ both of which have the same solution: get into the Library Eternal and swipe it, so the Bookhounds can sell it.
Exactly how that is done could involve a variety of scenes. The Bookhounds might approach an existing Library member – one of those peculiar cultists, say – and steal their library card, so they can get in. They may attempt a mystic ritual, preferably one that you’ve hinted at in one of the clues the Bookhounds gathered in a previous scene. They may try to enlist Winona’s help. Each of those three options involve at least one scene each, so three scenes in all.
Plus, of course, that inevitable fourth option: whatever the players want to do to solve the problem.
Once in, they have to get out again. This could be a clever heist, a smash-and-grab, a chase. Again, you want to account for those contingencies and again, that’s a scene each.
There will almost certainly be an antagonist reaction of some kind in which Sykes, his allies and his library members rally to protect the Library against intrusion, and you want a scene for that.
Finally, there will be a Resolution. At some point the Bookhounds either get away with it or not. They get the book, or don’t. However it goes, by the time they get to this point they have answered all the questions posed by the Core midpoint scene.
What happens when there are no more questions to answer?
The End.
Cabaret
In summary: yes, you want a series of scenes that connect up to reach certain Core moments which, in turn, lead to a resolution. There will be a certain amount of improvisation but improv doesn’t solve all your problems. Improv is a support for your existing structure, not a replacement for that structure.
Crucially, you need to bear in mind that your structure isn’t some magical castle in the clouds that can only be reached by imagination wizards. Your structure is very simple. It starts with this:
You put yourself in the characters’ shoes and ask yourself, if I had to answer this question, what would I do?
For a long time I’ve been noodling with the idea of creating a library record for my collections, movies and books. I resisted because all the apps I looked at wanted a subscription and I couldn’t see the value in that for me. Even if it’s a couple bucks a month … why? If I’m not going to pay 20-odd bucks a month for Netflix why the hell am I shelling out for something to keep my library organized?
Then I discovered Kimico’s Buddy apps. $5 one-time, and I get to curate everything I own with a quick scan of a barcode. They do a version for films as well, and while I don’t have as many barcodes for those (the boxes go in the bin pretty quick) I can search by film title and that works, for the most part. When it doesn’t there’s usually an understandable issue; I love the 1931 Peter Lorre film M, but if you put in M as a search term … hoo brother.
Also, it can be a bit fuzzy on ISBN. Not the modern stuff; they're great on that. I've noticed that the old numbers - the ones on the flyleaf in books from 1970-ish - just don't compute. The Brain Says No. However, minor quibble.
Yes, I did just spend several minutes of my valuable time (and yours, for that matter) gibbering about an app. Well, sometimes I gibber. These things happen.
I mention it because, first, there may be some of you out there who want some Kimico love. Second, because it got me thinking about libraries in general, and how they’re portrayed in games.
Religious libraries are probably the most interesting, from a gaming POV. I expect you all know that monasteries in Europe preserved the history of [Rome/architecture/theatre/civilization in general]. Then there’s institutions like Baghdad’s House of Wisdom, lost, as so many wonders are; the Mouseion of Alexandria, ditto; Saint Catherine’s at Mount Sinai; institutions created by preservers of knowledge like the Kanazawa Library (Bunko) which became a Buddhist temple.
What makes them interesting from a gaming perspective is, first, their collections are eclectic, unusual, and often penned in a dead language which adds a layer of mystery and exoticism to a document that might just be about ungumming a blocked toilet. Still, it looks more elegant in Latin.
The Matrix
Second, their collections are often private or secured in some way, like the chained libraries once so popular in Europe. Or there might be curses laid on the book to discourage theft which, in a fantasy setting, might have more substance than the would-be thief expects.
Point being, if you put barriers up that encourages players to find clever ways to break those barriers. It’s the same for every other rule or system; the minute you put one in place someone tries to find a way to break it. This is a low-key form of conflict, and conflict breeds plot.
Destroyed libraries are also handy for gaming. It’s the Maltese Falcon in book form; the more exotic the backstory, the more interesting the McGuffin.
The Maltese Falcon
It’s even better if you can still get to the destroyed library somehow, perhaps in dreams or through magic. That’s the main story arc of The Long Con; there’s a repository of destroyed tomes out there and the Devil holds an auction every so often, ransoming those dead books back from a burnt past.
Academic or antiquarian collections have a similar charm to religious libraries, in that their books are often eclectic, unusual and penned in a dead language. Pride of place here goes to Miskatonic U (rah rah sis boom bah) with its infamous Necronomicon; all manner of gaming fun times have been wrung from that peculiar grimoire and its academic keepers. The Bodleian at Oxford is a similar institution, with all sorts of strange and forgotten tomes hidden away in the stacks.
Then, of course, there is the Librarian. The one in charge of the books. Sometimes not fit for office, sometimes less than diligent or appointed purely to grub up the stipend and neglect the collection. Or a true scholar, their head in the clouds, incapable of dealing with their fellows. Or hard-headed soul with their feet on the ground and their mind on the job. Or a mixture of all types.
Finally, there are the Thieves. For there are always thieves, sneaky-minded, light-fingered weasels who connive their way into the stacks and make off with the most valuable tomes. The Three Blind Mice are always on the lookout for new treasures …
With all that in mind:
Coleshill Abbey
This is, or was, a manor house on the outskirts of London, in Kilburn. Its library is supposed to have contained a number of medieval manuscripts including a copy of [insert Mythos tome here], which – along with the rest of the library – is supposed to have been destroyed in 1915 when bombs dropped in a Zeppelin raid set fire to the Abbey.
In the late 1700s, Josiah Goll made the money. His son Newman spent it. His grandson Vincent, being a more tight-fisted soul, kept what was left and used the books his father Newman collected as the basis for an antiquarian library held at the family manor. Vincent was a scholar, not a moneymaker, and when he died without heirs he left a stipulation in his will that the estate be used to run the library, open by subscription to certain scholars. Mostly friends of Vincent and fellows of Vincent’s old Oxford college, though the list included a scattering of worthies who got in on merit alone. The library was in operation from 1872 to its destruction in 1915.
It’s long been rumored that the Abbey’s last librarian, an eccentric would-be occultist named Edwin Sykes, had a profitable sideline in stolen books. He’d get one of his forger pals – Winona Pryce was one of his favored contacts – to copy the book in question and use that to replace the stolen tome. After a suitable grace period the book would be recorded as lost and the forgery destroyed, to prevent anyone discovering the truth. Since the Trustees of the library were grey-haired academics who cared more about nice lunches than academic rigor, the scheme went unnoticed.
Sykes went up in the fire. If there was any truth to that old rumor, it went up with him.
Or so everyone thought at the time.
Winona Pryce, now an old woman, says she has the [insert Mythos tome here]. She was tasked with copying it but hadn’t finished the job before the bombing. Sykes was the only one who knew who the customer was and since she couldn’t find a way to make an immediate profit she squirrelled away [insert Mythos tome] as a kind of pension. She knew there was a market for it; she didn’t know how to reach that market.
She contracts the Bookhounds to sell it for her, in a special auction. One item’s up for sale and one only. It’s a valuable piece; the Bookhounds stand to get a nice little sum in commission, and Pryce will walk away with a lot of money.
If only she didn’t suffer an inconvenient heart attack. Her body was found at what’s left of Coleshill Abbey; nobody knows why.
Nobody knows where the book is either. The one she left with the Bookhounds turns out to be a forgery.
Now there’s a lot of well-heeled annoyed customers at the Bookhounds’ doors. What to do? Where’s the book? What was Pryce doing at Coleshill Abbey?
Option One: The Library Eternal. Sykes died in 1915 and the Abbey burned to the ground, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. Sykes used his occult skills, and his Megapolisomantic ability, to turn the Abbey into an eternal institution just as the flames consumed it. It still operates to this day as an antiquarian library for … peculiar … customers. However, when Sykes heard that Winona was trying to auction off one of the library’s better pieces he sent an agent to make sure the book was returned and Winona brought to the library so she could be dealt with. Now she’s a very junior member of the library staff for all eternity and the library has [insert Mythos tome] back; if the Bookhounds want it for themselves, they’ll have to break in to get it.
Option Two: An Unhappy Customer. When Sykes died before he was able to hand over [insert Mythos tome] to its buyer, the disappointed purchaser assumed that it went up in flames. Now, to their chagrin, they learn that the book survived. It’s not as if they can enforce the contract; but they could use Sykes’ ghost and the spectral memory of Coleshill Abbey to take revenge on Winona. However, they’d hoped to get the book as well. That didn’t happen. Looks like Winona pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. The question is, where is it now?
Option Three: Grand Albert. The book is more self-aware than anyone gave it credit for, possibly due to a direct connection with an Old One. It wants to be cherished, honored, given the proper respect. That was what happened at Coleshill Abbey. Then Sykes tried to sell it on to some parvenu, a middling occultist with no intention of putting it on a grand shelf or displaying it at its best. That would never do. So Sykes went up in flames and the book went to live with Winona for a while as a stopgap. This wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing and certainly better than the middling occultist. Then Winona tried to sell it and the risk, once again, was that some bungler bought it, not the powerful sorcerer it was looking for. So Winona had to go, but now the book has a problem: how best to ensure it gets the owner it deserves. Enter the Bookhounds …
