28 February 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED ROGUE FEED

Things of Beauty My Refereeing Hero

FEB 28, 2010 12:11A.M. FEB 27, 2010 10:00A.M.

Sometimes you read an account of another referee’s RPG campaign and

you can’t help but marvel at it and think, “That’s who I want to be when I
grow up.” Blair over at Planet Algol is my refereeing hero these days. His
latest post is a paean to the heady alchemy of random rolls, trusting
players, and sticking to one’s guns even in the face of seeming absurdity.
As he notes:

And it all worked out in the end. Be true to your DM bad-

assery. Follow through on your madness. Don’t fudge the
dice. Put the players through hell. If they’re true, if they’re
tough, if they’re the leather and iron that adventurers are
made of, they’ll eat it up and than say “That’s all you got?”

They really are gorgeous, aren’t they? I haven’t ordered anything through Simply awesome.
Lulu in a very long time, because of the shipping costs, but I happily
sprung for these and would do so again. Absolutely beautiful. Dan and
Steve should be very proud.
ROGUE FEED

Dwimmermount, Session 32
ROGUE FEED FEB 27, 2010 08:31A.M.

Help Requested
FEB 27, 2010 10:21A.M.
Does anyone know where I might be able to purchase copies of the
Gloranthan Classics reprints of old RuneQuest materials? There doesn’t
appear to be a website that I can find for its publisher (Moon Design),
but perhaps I’m just missing something obvious.
Any help on this score would be appreciated, since I’m rather keen to
obtain copies before they’re no longer available, assuming that’s not
already the case.
Thanks.
Having left Dwimmermount, Brother Candor decided that now was the
time to return to Adamas to discuss the matter of Xaranes with Morna,
the high priestess of Tyche. He wasn’t looking forward to this, but he also
knew it was necessary. Surprisingly, Morna was not angered by the
information he passed along so much as concerned. The political
situation in Adamas was fragile in the aftermath of the zombie invasion
of the previous weeks. The church of Tyche was in a better position than
the church of Typhon, as it had acted decisively in order to protect the
city-state, while the Typhonists dithered.
At the same time, the church of Typhon remains powerful and
influential. Though harsh and unforgiving, the religion remains popular
because it has a history of defending Adamas and other bastions of
civilization in times of need, whereas the church of Tyche is seen as more
“flighty” and less reliable. If Morna were to sanction an expansion of her
church through the adoption of Xaranes as a saint or hero of Tyche, as
Brother Candor suggested, it might look like a bid to gain more power
and influence and turn opinion against her, just as her temple’s star is
rising. Consequently, she did not agree to Brother Candor’s plan — not
yet anyway. Instead, she suggested that they wait until after the
imminent arrival of a Typhonian inquisitor in Adamas, who would be

1
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 28 February 2010

attempting to clear his church’s name by finding scapegoats to blame for
its slowness in responding to the zombies.
Brother Candor and Dordagdonar also did some further research into
the Iron God’s history and beliefs. There was comparatively little
information, but there was some. They discovered that the cult was older
than they’d realized, stretching back at least a thousand years, which
meant that it predated the Termaxian ascendancy by at least 500 years.
The cult never seemed to enjoy a huge following, being primarily one
adopted by Thulian soldiers who’d been stationed at Dwimmermount at
some time in their careers. Its beliefs remained obscure but it seems to
have shared a fair bit with the religion of Typhon but with a wider focus
and a less harsh approach to problem-solving. And of course the cult of
the Iron God was strongly devoted to the protection of the dead, both
their physical remains and their spirits/souls. Precisely why this cult was
singled out for special hatred by the Termaxians is unclear.
The party then returned to Dwimmermount to continue exploring. Along
the way, Brother Candor decided to pay a visit to the temple of the Iron
God to see if, thanks to the clerical regalia of the cult he now possessed,
he might demonstrate any extra authority there. As it turns out, he was
able to command a mechanical three-headed guard dog that the party
had encountered earlier. He also discovered that his ceremonial lantern,
when lit, dispelled even magical darkness, the lantern being an
important holy symbol of the Iron God.
indistinctness.
Dwimmermount has proven far more successful than I ever expected it
would. I’ve kept things as minimalist as is feasible, allowing details to
grow through play rather than through any plan of my own. It’s been a
valuable learning experience, one that’s all the more gratifying because
it’s managed to hold the interests of my players for so long. Like a lot of
things in life, not every session is unadulterated joy or even particularly
memorable; some of them have been downright dull. But we pressed on
nonetheless and, while I won’t go so far as to say that those dull sessions
were necessary for the longevity of the campaign, but I do think they
were inevitable. That’s why I’ve found it so essential to get together
regularly: the dull sessions are less likely to set the tone for the whole
campaign if you have lots of other more enjoyable ones to overwhelm the
dull ones in your memory.
In any case, the campaign continues on.

After that, the party descended deeper into the dungeon and more fully
mapped out the area they’d explored the previous week. What they
noticed was that the ceiling pipes, which had carried azoth in the past,
were limited to a particular area of the dungeon. They did not extend
beyond a handful of rooms and corridors, suggesting that they were the
site of an experiment to determine the effect of azoth exposure on living
creatures both sentient and not. Interestingly, the characters
encountered very little in the way living things in this part of the
dungeon, with the exception of the mushroom men they’d battled
previously. Most of the azoth-changed creatures, including many plants,
were already dead, presumably from the adverse effects of the magical
liquid but they could not be sure. Brother Candor also suspected that the
vampire Cyrus might have had a hand in all of this too.

Moving on, more “beast men” were encountered, but they seemed to be
from a different part of the dungeon. They were out on patrol, gathering
supplies to take back to their lair, wherever that was. The characters
defeated them and decided to seek out where these creatures might have
come from. It was at that point that we ended for the evening.

All in all, it was a fairly “workmanlike” evening of play — no great

revelations or events but more fodder for making ex post facto making
sense of it all. As I’ve said many times before, the secret to the longevity
of any campaign, particular one without an explicit story or plot, is that
you play regularly. Every minute you spend playing, even if it’s just
mapping out the dungeon, searching for secret doors, or battling
wandering monsters adds elements that, in retrospect, might take on
greater significance. They all add to the texture and depth of the
campaign, even when the specific details of “slow” sessions fade into