Black Spaghetti Hack Session 03: Goodfellows Mount
Last adventure, the party climbed up a hill. This adventure, the party climbed down a hill. In between, they had lunch.
The party reached the house at the top of the hill and after some boot-quaking, Ha’Des called out a “hello” and received a “come on in” by way of reply. So the party did, and walked right into the goodfellows playing cards before lunch.
An experiment:
To make the goodfellows (thuggish fae pixies) somewhat weird I had them be the characters from the Under Hill, By Water game we played. The goodfellows are meant to be game logic defying creatures. At least that’s the read I get on them from Brancalonia book. Since this was the same group, I thought it would be funny if the NPCs talked to the players by referencing their characters from other games. This got a chuckle, but not much else. Instead of approaching them as funhouse ride, the party viewed them as a puzzle to be solved. Don Hector noped out after a few interactions. Ha’Des played it straight. Nico tried to figure out how the magic “worked” in a mechanistic way. All that said they still kept to their mission which was to convince a goodfellow to come back to town with them.
Nico and Ha’Des did much of the negotiating. Don Hector feigned sleepiness and went to explore a backroom. After some finagling, Nico developed a rapport with the goodfellows and Ha’Des offered to make lunch for everyone. Meanwhile, Don Hector came upon a horrible icon depicting the goodfellows’ grandfather (a horrible trickster fae the players encountered in a different campaign). As he reacted to the sight, the floor swung down, sending him tumbling down the mountain along. Fortunately, he landed in a haywain at the base of the hill and not the dung heap. He then set out to climb the hill again, taking the road this time.
Back up at the top, Ha’Des is doing his best to cook with no ingredients beside water and a potato. Nico continues to chat with the goodfellows, and they start asking him questions about his time with the fae. (Nico spent his childhood working in a faerie workshop.) In particular, the goodfellows reminded him of this horrible Ice Queen figure he encountered one time when he tried to escape the faerie lands. Nico’s not happy to be reminded. Some more ingredients got found, but Ha’Des convinced the goodfellows the greatest ingredient in any soup was love. They buy this as the soup gets served.
Don Hector learned that taking the road to the top of the hill doesn’t work and found himself at the bottom again. He headed through the brambles and encountered the donkey again. This time, he tried to rob the donkey and ended up at the bottom of the hill again. So, he decided to wait to see if the others succeed.
Finally, Nico and Ha’Des managed to convince a goodfellow to come with them down the mountain. The fellow climbed in the cooking pot. At the bottom of the hill, a disgruntled Don Hector greeted them. Also, they noticed the goodfellow’s pot had begun ticking. Realizing this can’t be good, they hurried to bring the pot to Count Chico. The goodfellow appeared. Count Chico’s delighted. He pays the party and turns over Gwardo Izznardo. The party hurries out of town, but not before stocking up on soap for the road. As they’re leaving, they heard a loud explosion come from Count Chico’s manor house.
At last, Gwardo Izznardo demanded they stop for the night and reveal what they wanted with him. The party tried to keep the cup secret, but Gwardo sees through all that. He promised he won’t betray the players if they will look after him in his old age. They agreed, and Gwardo deciphered the riddle.
“Church Yard San Basle.”
“Where’s San Basle?” The party asked.
Gwardo didn’t know, except that it was on the other side of the River. He does remember there was a legendary wine with that name and maybe they should talk to a chef to learn where exactly it came from. Gwardo named three places where they might find a chef. The party discussed which might be best, opted for one, and set off.
Next adventure, on the road again!
Crypt of the Muscle Mummy: Touch the Void, You Turkeynecks!
Granted immortality in the long-distant Primeval Eons, the Muscle Mummies have returned from the depths of time. Now, by using state-of-the-art isolation technology, meditative void techniques, and body-numbing repetitive exercises, along with the traditional twin engines of guilt and shame, they offer to cultivate the void mind within anyone!
Including you!
Only by honing the body as well as the mind in the void’s furnace can anyone hope to achieve immortality. A hard task. But don’t worry, our personal trainers are here to help!
Crypt of the Muscle Mummy is an adventure location featuring undead fitness coaches. It can be placed in any metropolitan fantasy setting. You can find it here on my itch page at https://yesterweird.itch.io/crypt-of-the-muscle-mummy
Musical inspiration from the Novas.
Black Spaghetti Hack Session 02: Riddle Me Wrong
Last adventure, the party found a cup holding the key to a vast treasure. It just needed for them to solve a riddle. They failed so, this adventure started with the party waiting around a tavern for a guy named Gwardo Izznardo. They hoped he could solve the riddle that gave the location of the treasure.
While the party waited for Gwardo they gambled. For the Brancalonia fans, this was a round of poppycock. It’s a fine game to simulate an hour of game time playing cards. Nicolo won the pot, and two of the other card players began triggering his knave sense. One was dubbed Cigarello, the other Tall Hat. Cigarello seemed connected to the local hoodlum ecosystem. Tall Hat just seemed shifty. A third card player was a demi-giant (a morgant) mercenary. Nicolo filed all this information away for possible future use.*
About now some mercenaries arrived that the party recognized as louts from the same mercenary company (Toad-Faced Larry, Knuckles and Red Fredrick).
Don Hector wanted nothing to do with them and went to get a bath. Nicolo ignored them and chatted with the other card players. Ha’Des went over to the louts to see what they knew about the local area. The louts however weren’t talking.
Right then Gwardo showed up. Red Fred went to grab him. Ha’Des tripped him and grabbed Gwardo. The tripped Red Fred collides with a tavern patron and like the dew proceeds the dawn, a full scale bar room brawl erupted.
Don Hector’s away from it, but impressed by the laundry ladies being eager to scrap. Ha’Des and Toad-Faced Larry started a tug of war over Gwardo. Nicolo and the other card players watched the fight unfold. Tall Hat took the opportunity to pick Nicolo’s pocket and stole his coin purse before sneaking out the door.
A round or two later, the guards arrived and they promptly arrested Gwardo and began to put down the fight.
The guards took Gwardo away. Ha’Des followed. Don Hector headed for the back door, pausing only to attempt to steal some soap. A laundry lady spotted him and towel-whipped his hand. He fled. Nicolo waded into the fight hoping to use his magic hurdy gurdy to put people to sleep. Instead he got knocked out by a brawly monk. The guards arrested him and carted him off to jail.
Ha’Des and Don Hector reunited. Don Hector attempted to do some sneaking around the guardhouse and failed miserably.** The guards chased him away, but not before he heard screaming from inside the guardhouse.
Morning came around. Ha’Des and Don Hector went to see if they needed to bust Nicolo out of jail. Meanwhile, during the night, Nicolo also heard screams from inside the guard house.
Ha’Des and Don Hector arrived and did some shenanigans outside. The guards weren’t having it, but the captain had a proposal for Nicolo. The captain escorted Nicolo to where Gwardo and a local noble, Count Chico, were talking. Chico is angry at Gwardo for some unmentioned “destruction of property”, but he’ll gladly free Gwardo into the party’s custody if the party climbs the hill outside of town and brings back a faerie goodfellow from there***. The party agrees, but before they go the captain of the guard says he wants a word.
Turns out Count Chico had first sent the guards to bring back a goodfellow, but it ended in disaster. He brings out a very disturbed guardsman who was the source of all the screaming at night. The party questions this guard and hears an overwrought tale.
The hill is near impossible to climb unless it wants you to climb it. There’s a donkey on the hill and they must be careful about it. The guard seems particularly traumatized by the donkey and breaks down as he tells about it. The party’s now on edge, but heads for the hill.
Don Hector notices the woods are slightly magical and chats with the bushes. The bushes tell him the road is not going to get them to the top of the hill and they’ll have to climb up the overgrown side. The party does so, suffering damage but reaching the road when it curves back around. Standing on the road is a donkey. The party does not approach the donkey, even though it has saddlebags that jingle.
They follow the donkey to the top of the hill where they find a clearing, a shack built out over the ledge, and a tree hung with bodies. Don Hector realizes the tree with the bodies is an illusion. Nicolo tries to recall events from his childhood time with the fairies. All are too scared to go up and open the shack’s door.
Time goes by.
At last Ha’des gets fed-up and goes and knocks on the door. A voice answers and tells them to come in… and that’s where we ended the session.
Next session: Lunch with the Goodfellows
*These card players are proving a decent well for NPCs and people met on the road. Tall Hat in particular has become a nemesis for Nicolo, since he stole Nic’s coin purse.
** Don hector failing stealth checks has become a feature in our game. Since he’s made from wood we imagine him trying to sneak around in wooden shoes like a Dutch peasant on cobblestones.
*** This is an adventure straight from the Brancalonia book.
Black Spaghetti Hack: Set-up & The Fool’s Cup Session 01
THE PITCH:
A spaghetti fantasy game that mixes For Love and Gold, They Call Me Trinity, and The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.
THE SETTING:
The Republic of San Uzzano, a small republic being fought over by two opposing armies (one army is loyal to the distant Emperor Joe, the other army is loyal to an exiled family called the Swansickles). The players are lazy ne’er-do-well mercenaries, nominally on Emperor Joe’s side, trying to avoid getting killed. They discover the location of a legendary fortune in gold and that’s the quest. I pitched it as lasting about 5-10 sessions, although I think 10-15 will be more likely.
THE RULES:
The Black Sword Hack (but modded to suit the setting), Fleaux! (monsters), Brancalonia (mostly for the vibes), and Under Hill, By Water (bits of its light-hearted tone). About session 02 I added the laundry mechanic.
THE TABLE STYLE:
We play weekly online for 3 hours a session with the same players every session. They are more a narrative shenanigans group than a tactical wargame group. This is relevant in making adventures. I want to avoid TPKs and have each session feel as self-contained as a mid-80s detective show except with more forward momentum on an over-arching plot.
THE CHARACTERS
Don Hector de Madera: A noble marionette matador (is highly flammable).
Nicolo: A knavish gifted inventor (has a firelance).
Ha’Des: A foolish malebranche duelist (can breathe fire).
SESSION 1
The party were broke so they chased a pig in the hopes of catching it and then selling it elsewhere. The pig ran into an abandoned building. The PCs followed and the floor of the building gave out beneath them. They fell into a crypt. It turned out the ruined building was once a chapel. In the crypt there were two semi-recent dead bodies. The pig runs amok. Ha’Des and Don Hector search the bodies. They find a gold-plated cup and a letter from one of the army commanders. At this point swarms of rats begin spilling out of the walls. Mayhem ensues. The pig gets caught and dropped. Rats get burned by fire. Don Hector tumbles down a staircase. A door finally gets opened, and the party with the pig find their way back up to the surface again. They appraise the cup and letter.
The letter is an order that indicates the location of “The Fool’s Cup” believed to be the key that leads to the lost treasure of local folklore hero Thomas the Abbot. The cup is decorated with fools and has letters etched on the bottom. The players realize they’re holding the cup mentioned and realize it’s a puzzle.
(Player caution at this point was nearly making me scream, because this thing was the macguffin the campaign was meant to hinge on and the paranoid play style of OSR games meant the players were initially too scared to interact with the item.)
Player puzzles are a problem and in this case I wasn’t going to let them roll to solve it, but I also wasn’t going to punish them by them not being able to solve it. I told them if they solve it they’ll level up, otherwise they saw noted peripatetic sage-knave, Gwardo Izznardo, in a nearby town and he could solve the puzzle for them.
The party tried to solve the puzzle, but only managed to discover the cup’s magical properties (it transforms any liquid poured into it into a very potent alcoholic beverage). After five minutes of not getting anywhere close to the answer, they opted to seek out Gwardo. They reached town, sold the pig, and settled in the local tavern to wait for Gwardo Izznardo to arrive.
Here’s the cup and puzzle if you want to give it a shot:
“Drink And Be Merry” is written around the cup’s outer rim.
On the cup are 3 jesters standing in the rain. The leftmost stands on one leg, one hand is behind his back. His other hand is beside his head. He has two fingers pointed up to make the devil’s horns. The middle fool is upside down doing a hand stand with one hand. He waves the other hand in the air, holding up five fingers. The rightmost fool holds a platter in one hand with three goblets on it. She holds up three fingers and has a wide smile on her face. Scratched into the bottom of the cup is a rectangle of letters. A snake-like creature covered in hairs makes a border around the rectangle.
Good luck!
THE LAUNDRY MECHANIC
So I added a laundry mechanic to my Brancalonia* game. It goes like this: every player has a 4-segment clock that tracks clean to filthy. When you’re clean, everything is fine. When you’re filthy, you have disadvantage on social skill checks. Long distance traveling, failing some actions, and combat make you dirty. Taking a bath, cleaning your clothes at a river makes you clean. Every settlement has a laundry/bath house where you can clean-up for a coin or two.
Why am I doing this?
Brancalonia is in part inspired by spaghetti westerns and those had plenty of bath tub scenes. Mechanically, it’s another stat for players to worry about and spend money to maintain. For the GM, it’s a neat way of adding complications that are easy to resolve. A failed investigate roll? That’s a tick on your laundry tracker as you take a book off the shelf unleashing a cloud of dust that gets all over your clothes, but you find the letter you were searching for tucked between its pages.
I think this will work and be fun because the campaign is temporary. When I pitched the game I said it would last about 8 sessions, and my players, saints that they are, will put up with my nonsense for a time. I also think the mechanic works to reinforce the down and out in a hot dusty and dirty landscape that Brancalonia evokes. In a civilized hard scrabble region people would be simultaneously broke yet finely dressed. Adventurers in particular would straddle that line, being desperate for cash and vainglorious. It also provides new rewards. Sturdy clothes offer you 6-segments. Fine clothes only two or three, but might give advantage on a check. It grounds the game in the everyday in a discernible way. That might not be the goal with every game, but it is my goal with this one.
This isn’t without precedent.
The game Road Warden has an appearance mechanic where you need to make sure you maintain a certain level of cleanliness. It adds mechanical depth to interactions and enhances the setting.
Besides, who hasn’t gone camping for days and wanted nothing more than to get home and take a hot shower?
(*I’m not playing Brancalonia as written and am instead using a modded version of the Black Sword Hack that I’ve taken to calling the Black Spaghetti Hack.)
THE WHISPERING HOUSE
Two day ago, Scrypthouse ZLX-1197 reported receiving a strange signal. Since then the house has gone silent. You’re to escort and protect the maintenance team sent to fix whatever went wrong.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
Right?
A 16-page investigative adventure for Electric Bastionland and other weird adventure settings. Includes inspiration for making living houses and a list of lexical diseases to amuse and frustrate players.
(This is an updated version of ideas initially presented in Mysthead 3.)
Favorite Reads 2023
A baker’s dozen of books I read and liked this past year. The last time I posted a list like this was in 2019.
The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck by Alexander Laing (1934)
A weird crime novel, and I mean both of those in their genre sense. It’s a murder mystery but for an audience that were teens who read Weird Tales. Strange things are a foot around a rural New England medical school. Odd experiments, diabolical research, and a despised professor harboring a dark secret. It’s good stuff with plenty of twists. For fans of mystery, mad science, and weird horror.
The Peripheral by William Gibson (2014)
A young woman in a rural near future USA comes into contact with a piece of technology that allows a signal to pass between her time and another one farther in the future after a series of disasters wiped out much of the human race. At first she thinks it’s just a job, but when she witnesses a crime in the future she’s suddenly caught in a power struggle that bleeds across time lines. This was neat. I liked the way time travel only allowed for signals to pass between eras. This meant people could basically Skype, remote operate machines, and engage in financial shenanigans, but those are more than enough to find allies and enemies in your own timeline. A bit light in the prose, but that’s no terrible crime.
Leech by Hiron Ennes (2022)
Sci-fi horror about a creepy doctor who is a single appendage in a vast parasitic colony organism that takes over human hosts and wears them as puppets. And the narrative voice nails that conceit completely. The plot is very Gormenghast by way of Dune with the doctor coming to treat an isolated monarch and his family as they navigate local political unrest caused by their cruelty. This one has a good chunk of gore and isn’t for the squeamish.
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (2022)
A near future SF novel with a split narrative all centered around a group of researchers discovering an intelligent species of octopus off the coast of Vietnam. This has those good speculative touches like addictive AI companions and automated robo-vessels that relentlessly pursue their primary function regardless of the cost. This is a good starting place for anyone wanting to engage with modern day SF.
Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley (2022)
This is an SF novel that starts as a pastoral novel set in a society of intelligent raccoon-like creatures. From there it shifts into an espionage novel about UFOs. Imagine something like the X-Files but set in Tolkien’s Shire. That’s what this is. It’s neat, and the pastoral bits, which are mostly a travelogue, are really enjoyable.
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1909)
Silly and over-the-top. I can get why the story has persisted for over a century now.
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (2019)
This one is less a how-to unplug and more a history of unplugging. It’s smart, and points to not abandoning the world, but finding space enough to cultivate one’s own attention within the world. It also gives a brief history of social networking systems that I wasn’t been aware of before. Definitely give this a read if you want something stable to hold onto in our late stage capitalist world.
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)
I remain a fan of the British Person Takes a Walk genre and this is a good part that with its descriptions of hawking in fields. It’s also a meditation on loss (Macdonald’s dealing with the death of her father) and an investigation into a literary icon (T.H. White who was also into hawks). As this was a very popular novel a decade ago, it’s likely you can find cheap copies now. It’s good.
The Absolute at Large by Karel Capek (1920)
A scientist makes a miraculous energy making machine that has the byproduct of unleashing divine particles into the world. These have the unfortunate side-effect of increasing fanaticism and sectarian strife. This is very much a light satire, but that it’s written in the early days of atomic research before World War 2, so it’s a bit prescient too.
Gunsights by Elmore Leonard (1979)
A later Elmore Leonard Western from the era when he was mostly writing crime novels. This is really something unexpected. On the surface, it’s about one thing (a range war with former allies now on opposite sides), but under that it’s a satire of something else entirely (the way media as often creates events rather than simply reports them). If you’ve never read a Western and want to start with one that’s a bit savvy and smart, this is the one.
Felicie by Georges Simenon (1942)
I’ve read a few Maigret novels and enjoyed them, but this was the first one where I _got_ what his deal was as a detective. Simenon uses his detective less to solve crimes as explore the psychology of the characters involved in it. So this reads not as an account of a crime and its solution, but as a psychological analysis of in this case the crime’s chief witness.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekara (2023)
Fetter was raised as a cult assassin with magical powers, but now he’s an adult trying to live in the big city and keep mind and body together by attending weekly group therapy sessions and avoiding whatever pogrom the government is currently conducting. It’s hard to describe this book, but it reminded me of Michael Cisco’s The Divinity Student as well as Samuel R. Delany’s novels Dhalgren and Triton, novels about young men arriving in cities that are simultaneously fantastic and mundane. It’s good.
Dance of the Tiger by Bjorn Kursten (1978)
This book rewired my brain a little bit. On the one hand it’s a speculative fictionalized account of the interactions between early humans and Neanderthals. Bits of the book are heavy-handed (the way Neanderthal’s speech is portrayed is so corny… but it works!), but after a while those bits are less jarring and the story that unfolds is fascinating. Both in a mythical/mystical sense and in anthropological sense. It really cemented this idea in my head that art-making, and by extension tool-making, are fundamental to humanity as a species, and if there’s any way back to the Garden of Eden it’s through competently making things with our hands. This is probably going to be one of those books I never shut up about if not stopped.
BLACK HACK BRANCALONIA
Our current Monster of the Week game will be ending this January (when more serious professorship resumes for the GM). This means I’ll likely be back in the GM’s seat sometime early next year. So I’ve been prepping a new campaign. This one will be a Brancalonia game except I don’t actually think Brancalonia is a good fit for 5E D&D.
In a game of down and out grubby adventurers nothing should have over 50HP. The brawling rules are neat, but maybe not necessary when characters are lower powered. For now I’ve decided to use Black Sword Hack/Fleaux! as my rule set. My prep’s mostly been just making a list of backgrounds, NPCs, and random tables for the setting. The heavy lifting will reside mostly in capturing the right flavor.
The idea’s to run a Good, the Bad, the Ugly campaign. The players will learn of some great treasure in adventure one and have to cross the map to get to it. Along the way shenanigans will occur. The goal’s to have it last between 5-10 sessions. I might even allow a bit of PvP at the end, so we can have a good old fashioned 3-way stand-off.
I’ll post details as it unfolds. If folks want the prep documents, let me know and I’ll put together a free PDF to download from my itch page.
More to follow.
Auzomatic Cafeteria Temples & Cookbook
Does your roleplaying campaign need a good diner?
Do you ever wish you had a bunch of tables to generate strange sounding meals?
The Auzomatic Order is a religious order that follows the example of Auzomat the Great Worm that burrows in the crawlspace beneath the world. The order builds cheap eateries wherever the ectoflesh from the crawlspace breaks forth into our reality.
In Auzomatic Cafeteria Temples you will discover the history of the order and the layout of one of their restaurants.
In The Auzomatic Cookbook you will find everything you need to generate strange meals to amuse and confuse yourself and your players!
Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon
Here’s a write-up of the greatest magic item of all time: Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon.
Knights check in, but they don’t check out!
And yes, it’s based on the Knight Hotel from Orlando Furioso.
If you want all this in a PDF version, you can find one free here on my itch page.
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Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon is a large, roughly rectangular carved stone.
- The Stone: The stone is portable, but heavy, as large as a thick tome. It is a bulky item. When placed on the ground outdoors and the command word is spoken, the stone’s spirit instantly creates an illusory megadungeon.
- Megadungeon Appearance: The megadungeon’s exterior appears as an ancient imposing fortress. The gate is open and unguarded. The megadungeon’s interior is an endless array of rooms, corridors, halls, towers, and courtyards that unfold before its unwitting prisoners.
- Illusion of Heart’s Desire: The stone’s spirit can discern the heart’s desire of anyone within the dungeon or within sight of the gatehouse. The spirit can generate the illusion of a humanoid foe carrying whatever this desire may be deeper into the dungeon.
- Entering the Dungeon: Anyone who passes beneath the gate falls under the spirit’s spell and will not be able to find the gate again without a guide unaffected by the illusions.
- Heroes check in, but they don’t check out: At any given time there will be 2D12 prisoners already trapped within the megadungeon.
- The Megadungeon is inhabited: The spirit creates illusory foes. The creatures are unaware that they are illusions and behave as if they were real. They will have factions and regularly intrigue against each other.
- Cruel, but not Evil: The spirit has no desire to kill its prisoners or see them killed. Its job is to keep its prisoners trapped inside for as long as possible. Prisoners of the dungeon can take damage but can not be slain by an illusion while in the dungeon. The spirit will also use illusions to keep prisoners from killing each other. Food and drink can be found by those trapped inside.
- Immunity: The stone’s owner is immune to its illusions and can locate and move to any individual trapped inside in a single round. Individuals immune to illusions can recognize that the megadungeon and its inhabitants are not real. However the illusions behave as if they were real when encountered.
- Escaping the Dungeon: It is impossible to escape while under the spirit’s spell. However if one is unaffected by its illusions and can find the stone in the gatehouse and expose its arcane mark to sunlight, the spirit will take material form. If defeated in combat, duel of wits, or any sort of contest the spirit will dispell the illusion and the megadungeon vanish. All prisoners will be freed instantly with full health. The spirit can not be summoned again for a month and a day.
Enjoy!
Yesterweird 