Crypt Dust

Cultural programming is a wild thing, when you think about it. If you get a group of people with familiar cultural backgrounds, a shorthand in communication appears. You need to say less to get ideas across. An arched eyebrow at the right time carries with it all the weight of your shared experience.

That is wild to me, and something I think about a lot. It has an impact on my day job leading people from across the country, but also in my regular Torchbearer games. In both cases, there are some commonalities, but also gulfs that need to be overcome.

Games suffer from the disconnect of missing shared experience. This is particularly significant once you start to move away from the Dungeons & Dragons mode of play, which manifests in table top games as well as video games. If your dominant experience is roll a die to hit a thing as the primary means of the game negotiating the fiction, other modes can feel awkward or wrong.

The Torchbearer RPG, on its surface, follows the same pattern of the D&D/OSR mode of play. Adventurers delving into dungeons for loot and glory with the familiar tropes of the warrior, wizard, dwarf, elf, and halfling burglar. Some people who engage with it never see past this veneer, and some hate it because it doesn't flow in the way they expect it to.

They buck against the system, because the system is a trick. It is a subtle one that you can choose to engage with or not. It is a metaphor that requires the shedding of the very cultural influences it wraps itself in.

The game isn't about dungeon delves. Adventures aren't exclusively about diving into ruins. The game is about what people do when they try to negotiate a world that is designed by those in power to keep their power and prevent others from getting it.

Rename a few things, and it could just as easily be about unionizing in the 1920s or today. A small group of people who rely upon each other and their own strongly held beliefs with limited resources attempting to gain agency through the only means in which agency can be attained...

The acquisition of wealth.

This is probably why I bristle a bit every time I see an adamant statement about the game being "only about dungeon delving." It is like picking a car based on the paint color. It is a limited view of the material and a missed opportunity to engage with the philosophical questions the game is actually asking.

Once you start to interrogate those questions, the aperture opens up. The Adventure Phase is really any time and place you face conflict. The Camp Phase is that short rest you need to take because you drained yourself, but you are not ready to back off. The Town Phase is anytime you need to rest and recoup in a place of shelter, but it is always costly.

I think it is important to keep that in mind as you read these actual plays. Our trio of criminals are "dungeon delving" and "resting in town" in the same location. Our conflicts on their surface look to be your classic D&D style challenges, but in reality they are about moving from a position of insecurity to security.

It is a game that tackles the lie of "picking yourself up by your bootstraps."

It is the realization that no matter how competent Omar is, he was always doomed to fail in the face of the overwhelming power of those in charge.

Session Four

When last we left our intrepid group of fledgling Slayers, they had successfully trapped themselves in the room they were trying to get to, with enemies on the other side of the door. Ishlum quickly spiked the two doors in the room, giving them a moment to gather their wits. And at the center of the room? The tome!

Also Fremmech hiding under the table with the tome. As Ishlum and Golgo attempt to rig some rope to make a quick exit out the window down to the courtyard below, Murgon attempts to convince Fremmech to give up some details to the group (Manipulator Test).

Success!

Apparently, a month ago, one of Julm's ships returned with the book. Goultu, Julm's manservant the trio ran afoul of in the kitchen, touched the damn thing and hasn't been the same since. Then Julm disappeared and Goultu has been in charge.

Golgo attaches the rope with Ishlum's help to a rafter and attempts to lead the crew, tome and Fremmech in tow, out the window (Dungeoneer Test). A second story man he is not and his ADHD works against him this time (a check with the Opportunist Trait). They make it down, accidentally leave Fremmech behind, and find themselves confronted by the thirsty undead from last session, with a raging Goultu in the window above.

Time to fucking run.

Sometimes the gods are with you, and the dice. Ishlum leads the pack in trying to get the hell out of dodge rather than fight their way out. Miraculously, they get away scot free without a scratch on them (Flee Conflict, total victory). With some middle fingers to the heavies, they are able to make their way back home...

Well their regular camp at least in Julm's family mausoleum. When you got nothing, any shelter will do.

At camp, Murgon inscribes a fortress circle onto the tome to repel the spirit of Ulkahar, who is currently in residence within Goultu (three shows a week at 730pm). Ishlum keeps watch, being no worse for wear. Golgo rests his exhaustion away.

Then Murgon gets hooked on crypt dust....

It is not clear if he wanted to be hooked on it, already was hooked on it, or if this was all just a happy accident. The thing we do know is that his attempt to make a potion using mushrooms found in the mausoleum became the Lankhmar equivalent of meth and ruined his rations.

At this point the game moved from the Adventure Phase to the Town Phase, for those keeping score at home.

Camp done, preparations made, the trio went to go meet their contact who kicked off this whole sorrid affair, Slot. Slot, to say the least, was impressed that this trio of morons pulled off the caper of a lifetime.

They got the guy out. They got the tome. They got the letter of credit. They got a good story. And, they didn't die or get caught.

All for a measly sack of gold (4D).

Ever helpful, he suggests they get out of town until the heat comes down. He also might have a line on some work for them while they are out hiding in the country.

Time to go shopping to kit back out for leaving town. Time also for Ishlum to get into some trouble and Murgon to find someone to learn a few occult secrets from about Ulkahar.

At the Black Rose, Ishlum does his best to tell a thinly veiled version of the events as a tall tale to the crowd. A sea raider named Drenvas apparently doesn't like Ishlum's face and starts some shit. Good thing Golgo is there to teach Drenvas what disliking someone's face really means.

One smashed mug into a face, a gold tooth on the ground later, and Ishlum's new enemy learned that fateful lesson everyone must learn...

Don't start none, won't be none.

What will Murgon learn from his occult contacts?

Will Slot have an interesting opportunity for the trio?

Will Drenvas come back to haunt Golgo and Ishlum?

Answers next time true believers...

Same Torchbearer time. Same Torchbearer channel.