Shadows in the Sewer

 “Right, here’s the job. There’s this old crypt we used to smuggle goods through from the graving dock. Trouble is, now the House has closed down the Smocklehythe warehouses, there’s no getting into the tunnels that way.”

 

“As luck would have it, though… Turns out there might be another way in. Through the sewers.”

 

“You need to find a passage through to the crypt, grab the loot that’s lying there and bring it back here. You do that, there’s a pound apiece in it for you. That and you can keep any tosh you find lying about.”

 

“Oh, and do yourselves a favour. Don’t get caught.”

 

1.     Entrance. A huge stone face in the riverbank wall, its mouth agape with fetid dribble. Inside, pitch black and foul. Roll a die to see how many rats are about, and another for how many lost pence are scattered across the grimy floor.

The tunnel is just wide enough to walk single file. Waste trickles from skull sized holes that line the walls.

From one such hole, the Rat Queen beckons. A spirit of the sewers, she asks that you deal with the monster who has corrupted her halls, rewarding any who expel the snake in the sewer depths (2) with a bite mark. Those who bear this scar can be understood by all rats.

2.     Depths. Further in from the entrance (1), the stench thickens. A side tunnel (3) leads out of the muck while the main sewer continues, eventually ending in a wide, shallow cesspool.

The monstrous snake that dwells within attacks any who disturb the water, fangs dripping deadly venom. Glinting from amongst the bones below the surface are a die roll’s worth of pence, a black athame knife (£2), and a vial containing a potion of hiding (£3), which conceals the drinker for as long as they can hold their breath.

Beyond the pool, the sewer adjoins the crypt (6).

3.     Tunnel. Connects the sewer depths (2) to the crypt (6) via a gate (5). Laying around are an empty vial (2d) and a long wooden pole (1d). Roll a die to see how many rats are about.

In an alcove a stone serpent bares its fangs, dried blood caked on its forked tongue. A fresh offering causes the secret door it guards to open, revealing the sanctum (4).

4.     Sanctum. A small, square chamber, rough-hewn pillars holding up a low, cobwebbed ceiling. In its centre sits a hunched grotesque, older than even the chamber itself.

The statue offers a deal. Player characters may pay 1 Luck and learn how to vomit up a venomous serpent. The snake obeys none but the Devil.

5.     Gate. Black iron bars block the connection between the side tunnel (3) and the crypt (6). The hinge is rusty and screeches loudly if opened. Rust has also eaten a hole in the gate itself, wide enough for a person but lined with jagged metal.

A coffin is stuck in the hole. Its lid, sprouting black fungus, bears the inscription “let none who stir my bones know peace”.

The skeleton within inflicts terrible visions on anyone who open it. Also inside are two funerary coins (1d each) and a silver ring (£2&6d) in the likeness of a snake, engraved with the words “silver for blood”. Its bearer may open the sanctum (4) without sacrifice.

6.     Crypt. A vaulted catacomb paved with gravestones, its many sepulchres long since looted. In one is a heavy, padlocked chest holding twelve vials of rum (6d each). An archway borders the sewer depths (2), and the gate (5) leads to the tunnel (3).

From the far end of the tunnel come echoing footsteps and a blood red glow. A uniformed House guard patrols the crypt, carrying a hooded lantern (£1) and official truncheon (£13).

The Old Graving Dock

When the House closed down the docks, they scuttled the cargo ship Gilt Fawn and left her here to rot. By day, folk still congregate in search of work, forcefully dispersed by the local House guards. By night, the abandoned shipyard falls silent.

I. DRY DOCK

The ship has settled into the silt, its upper deck six yards up. A hole in the hold is too choked with muck to fit through.

A winch controls the dock’s huge sluice. Roll a die to see how many rats are about. A grate leads to Smocklehythe sewer.

II. UPPER DECK

Six yards above the dry dock dirt. Bare masts, one lifeboat. Doors leading to the captain’s cabin and crew’s quarters.

III. CAPTAIN’S CABIN

Locked. Vial of rum (6d), hand mirror (£1&1d), spyglass (£6).

IV. CREW’S QUARTERS

Cramped. Amongst old rags are six yards rope (1d/yard) and a dagger (£2). Door to upper deck, stairs to lower deck.

IV. LOWER DECK

Long since looted. Stairs to the crew’s quarters and hold.

VI. HOLD

Corpse in fine clothing (£2), a key around its neck and dagger in hand. It is haunted, attacking if any dare take its treasures. A half-filled hole to the dry dock, stairs to the lower deck.

Also:

I hope you’re already listening to Ben L’s excellent ongoing podcast Into the Megadungeon, in which he interviews great writers and GMs about how they do All That. Latest episode with Luke Gearing is here.

One of the original and still one of the best megadungeons, Caverns of Thracia, was of course written by the legendary Jenell Jaquays, who is currently raising funds for medical treatment. Please help if you can.

This Mothership module on Kickstarter has a crack team behind it and less than a week to go. A sci fi adaptation of the Demeter chapter from Dracula, so pretty much the platonic ideal of MoSh.

Red Moon Generator

Sounds like a good Mothership adventure, doesn’t it? No dice, we’re back in Lanton town. ‘Tis the season for Graverobbers, and while I plan next moves for the Pocket Guide I’m thinking about the best way to include a starter adventure. This is an adventure game, so no adventure would be like cutlery without soup.

I honestly hadn’t considered randomly generating a starter adventure as an option. I love bespoke, playable spaces put together by level designers. It’s most of what I do and a lot of why I love this hobby in the first place, and while randomly generating a dungeon is fun in its own way you undoubtedly lose something.

However! Let’s consider our needs in this specific instance. We want a quick, introductory adventure. Quick is important - even the six-room dungeon I had been working on for this has branching paths, sticky decisions and potential pitfalls that could easily see a group, especially a new one, delving for hours. It’s easy to underestimate play time when writing one-shots - I wrote The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 for quick convention play and I’ve heard stories of folk getting multiple session mini-campaigns out of it. I ran a second session of it Sunday night and we’re still not done.

So, quick is good but we can go quicker. Why not a simple series of randomly generated obstacles? One or two things in the way of some treasure, a half-hour maximum of play to get to grips with the world and the basics of the game. And if a session does run longer, that lets the players experience the Black Market / Red Moon loop as well, win-win.

This also keys in to the “introductory” aspect, as a Dealer who wants to run this multiple times will be able to keep things fresh. Could even be done with the same group. Plus a bunch of random tables is one of the best ways to describe an adventure game setting - plus plus, that’s a bunch of material to pull from for other sessions, even more easily than from something more structured. An adventure comprised solely of random tables almost functions as a GM screen in this way, and I’m all for material pulling double duty.

Anyway, it’s an idea I’m toying with. Below are some tables, the likes of which you may be seeing in the upcoming final version of A Pocket Guide to Smocklehythe. As always, remember to pick up this “early access” release, and you’ll get the full version free when it comes out and avoid the price going up.

Tonight, beneath a Red Moon…

 

On the Smocklehythe riverbank is an old graveyard, surrounded by…

1.     A six-foot, old brick wall

2.     A jagged, rusting iron fence

3.     An old, low dry-stone wall

4.     Thick, thorny hedgerows

5.     A shallow, stagnant moat

6.     Badly mended wooden fences

 

The night guard wields a hooded lantern (£1), official truncheon (£13) and…

1.     A hungry bandog (£10) on a heavy iron chain (6d)

2.     A pistol (£13), powder and shot for one firing (1d each)

3.     A silver whistle (£1&6d)

4.     A vial of good whiskey (6d)

5.     An accomplice, walking in step

6.     A hot meat pasty (2d)

 

You know that somewhere here lies your prize, a grave…

1.     Within a mortsafe, the guard has the key

2.     Beneath a great stone statue

3.     Unmarked, therefore conspicuous

4.     In one of four identical vaults in the crypt

5.     Under a worn headstone, nearly unreadable

6.     Yet to be buried, six feet down in a freshly dug plot

 

The treasure in the coffin turns out to be…

1.     Only the usual, two large funerary coins (£1 each)

2.     A solid silver ring in the shape of a serpent (£1&4d)

3.     A gold tooth in the skull, sharply pointed (£1)

4.     A little stone talisman, protects against possession (6d)

5.     A vial of deadly poison tucked in the inside pocket (£3)

6.     Nothing. Old bones, black fungus eating at the coffin

 

But you are not alone…

1.     An incompetent rival bumbles about nearby

2.     A mourner has snuck in to keep vigil by candlelight

3.     The beleaguered old gravedigger whistles as they work

4.     A fox in the undergrowth, watchful and wary

5.     An adder in the grass, quick to strike if disturbed

6.     Roll a die to see how many rats are about

 

And in the darkness stirs…

1.     A roaming spirit, a chill on the wind

2.     One final scream as the spirit of your quarry departs

3.     The bones and sinew in the coffin grasp hungrily

4.     An imp dedicated to mischief, eating candle-flames

5.     A grim, the local warden spirit, bark without bite

6.     The graveyard cat

MNKRM

Everyone seems to be doing newsletters these days. I know I always enjoy reading them. But I knew if I did one of my own it’d have to be something a bit different, fun enough to keep me writing, and most of all useful to the folks who subscribed. I waffle on long enough already here - I wanted this thing to be like a monthly injection of succinct, practical game material.

Announcing MNKRM!

1000 words of sci-fi horror resources, new issues on the 10th of every month. The first issue just went live, you can read it and subscribe for free right here.

This month’s theme is BASICS. It’s pretty much all the stuff you need to get you game started - a hub location, micro-adventure and some sources of inspiration. We’ve got bioengineered bullet beetles, a conversation with eyeball soup, and - because it’s me - a playable in-universe gambling game.

The idea behind MNKRM is that once a month you’ll get this concentrated shot of game juice directly into your inbox, all ready to take to the table, and hopefully there’s at least something in there you want to steal or take inspiration from for your next game.

Things like stats and item prices will be written for Mothership, because that’s what I run and have experience writing for, but there’s not reason you can’t adapt MNKRM material for a game of Alien or Death In Space (which my MoSh stuff tends to be a good fit for totally anyway tbh).

Anyway - it’s totally free to subscribe, so please go ahead and do so! I’ve also added an optional paid tier at $5 USD a month, which is the lowest amount substack will accept. People who pay don’t get anything special or extra, but it’s a great way to support this project specifically, or you can think of it as a tip jar if you like this blog or my work in general.

Anyway, that’s all for this month from MNKRM. Don’t forget to subscribe, and I’ll see you next time.

Update

 With all the Weapons Test 023 zines well on their way to backers and my desk and head finally clear I thought I’d do a little post-mortem update on where things are at for my projects. I’ve talked about some of this but the gist is this. If you’re not concerned with how the sausages get made skip to the end for what’s next.

At the start of this year I posted about how this year was going to be a bit of a turning point for me, transitioning from hobbyist into full time rpg guy. I’ve had some lucky breaks already and figured that I might as well make a go of turning this into a career - despite all the doom and gloom about the industry, much of it warranted, I know many people who do ttrpg and adjacent work for a living.

The plan was to take savings from previous jobs and projects, put those into a new project up front, then take the profits from that and pay myself a wage, using any additional funds to start the next project, repeat, etc, and so on.

And it worked! I had a successful KS campaign for zinequest, and was on track to use that money to get everything out to backers but also slipstream into the next thing. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as smoothly as all that!

As well as general delays (to be expected with any project, especially working with more people than I had done before and doing a physical release for the first time), I found out in July that my Universal Credit (the UK’s super fun catch-all benefit for people who need help with housing, disability, etc) for the month would be zero. Never did find out the reason, but while I scrambled to get rent together the current project had to take a back seat, and some of the funds meant to get the next thing going had to go on bills. I was lucky enough to get some work and help from friends which meant I still had a place to live, but I still had zines to print and ship, and once I finally got signed back on to UC the algorithm decided I’m now eligible for a whole lot less.

So, a couple of months of bad luck later I can say the project is finally done, but it’s left me in a bit of a sorry state. The next thing I had lined up, my Pokémon Go style rpg Demon Watch, as well as the new updates to GRAVEROBBERS that I’d hoped to get out around Hallowe’en/Guy Fawkes Night, as well as some Mothership stuff I had in the pipeline with some cool folks, are all shelved.

Not all bad though! I do have some work to keep me going (but am very much looking for more still, graverobbersguide(at)gmail(dot)com), and despite this year’s setbacks I’m still hopeful. The brief taste I had of doing this full time convinced me that I really don’t see myself doing anything else.

So, what does all this mean? Well, don’t expect many blog posts or updates on projects for a little while. I’ll be working in the background, seeing what I can get done by myself and doing some very cool paid projects for other people that I hope you’ll be hearing about soon.

In the meantime I’ll be launching a kind of side thing, a way to keep the juices flowing and get some cool regular game stuff out to you all. Far from feeling burned out, I’m energised and ready to do some good shit 💪 So that’ll be coming out tomorrow, pay attention to this blog and my socials if you’re looking for free Mothership compatible stuff! I’m also still working on the Odai 57 ashcan, and looking at ways to get low-budget Graverobbers releases out too.

Social(s), yes, I’m on Bluesky now. Had avowed myself away from new platforms but if I’m going to keep in touch with folks, up to date on cool stuff I can’t afford and able to broadcast what I’m doing this seemed like the best bet. I’m on Twitter a lot less as well. You can follow me there, dgchapman.bsky.social

Anyway, that’s all! Just keeping you all abreast of what I’m up to. I appreciate all the support, it really does mean the world. This hobby and this little blog has, without hyperbole, changed my life, and I’m very grateful to all of you who like my stuff, whether that’s pledging to crowdfunding things, offering jobs, sharing and posting about things I make, leaving nice comments - or, most importantly of all, playing my games and having fun.

Onwards and upwards! Fun new MoSh-y thing tomorrow.

False Equivalent Exchange

 So in this week’s Dandadan an 18th century alchemist who might be organising an alien invasion got a train across Tokyo to enrol as a high school teacher, which doesn’t even break the top 50 most bonkers things to happen in that manga but I digress

On the train, we get a like 1-page silent scene, a few panels illustrating his journey. At one point he offers his seat up to an older woman with a cane, and stands the rest of the way. Then when he arrives at the school, he comes in and just kind of takes a chair by a computer in the office, talking as if he’s always been there as he infiltrates the school right there in front of everyone. And while his new coworkers seem a little confused, they accept it. Something’s off… but it’s not this guy, we know that he works here, that’s his seat.

And it’s not confirmed or even particularly highlighted, but I’m pretty sure the train journey was a spell. Like, it’s made clear he’s using some kind of magic to alter peoples’ perception of him, but I’m fairly certain the innocuous train scene was him casting that magic, that giving up a seat allowed him to take a seat. The law of equivalent exchange is pretty well known esotericism, used to great effect in Hirofumi Arakawa’s classic Fullmetal Alchemist, but what’s happening here a bit different.

And i think it’s cool so let’s steal it 👍

The Law of False Equivalent Exchange is an FKR-style magic system that works thusly: Any character who can Do Magic may attempt a ritual. They must accomplish three tasks of their choosing which affect the material world in opposition* to their desired goal, represented by three “sub-“goals. If the GM agrees and they are able to perform the tasks, their goal is magically achieved.

*but not exactly. For example:

A character wants to become queen of a small kingdom. Instead of staging a coup or using some mundane trickery with the line of succession, they set out to achieve this via a magic ritual. The player proposes the following sub-goals and their “opposite” tasks:

- I will take the throne: I will give up a “throne”, a valuable seat.

- I will wear the crown: I will remove something precious from my head.

- I will rule the land: I will allow the earth to do what it will with me.

The player character takes a horse and cart to the current king’s castle, paying the fare of an elderly traveller and giving up their seat, opting to ride in the back. By night, in a storm in the fields outside the castle, they remove their own eye with a knife, dig a hole and lay in the dirt, allowing the soil and rain to smother them (GM probably calls for a save or something here).

The GM rules the ritual complete and accepts the exchange - when they wake in the morning, choking on dirt and blood, they clamber out of the earth and walk into the castle, where they are greeted as queen.

This could get boring if it’s too easy so I’d set limits - not silly once-a-day stuff, more like some overall larger price to messing with the material world like this. You’d be immediately set apart, visible by spirits and fairies, or maybe you’d have to reckon with the ghosts of the world you undid. Or just give it a bigger material cost, some specific magical ingredients that must be spent to finish the ritual, unicorn’s blood etc.

Murder On Line One

“Hey, maintenance? Yeah, I got a real mess over here. Someone trashed a milk right out the front of my store. You gotta send someone to clean this shit up… Nobody likes looking at a dead android. Bad for business.”

New update to the Odai 57 ashcan version! (see last post)

I’ve added a text version of Murder On Line One, a neo-noir Mothership mystery. Just the text but it’s all there and it’s all good. The adventure works as a standalone like All the Fun of the Fair, but it makes much more use of the setting’s phonebook.

I’m still working on the third adventure, which is a slightly more low-keep introduction suited for longer games in this setting. Lot of work getting a setting intro right, so that’ll be out when it’s out.

(I also feel like I didn’t end up getting that in depth with what makes the phonebook setting so suited to mysteries in my last post, so maybe I’ll revisit that in future. Not today though, it’s very hot and I’ve got like 200 zines to ship. Weapons Test 023 backers, thank you for your patience, they’re a-coming!)

Big thanks to the folks who have downloaded the Odai 57 ashcan already! Like I said this was a big experiment from me, I had no idea how it would be received or if it would even get any attention. So I appreciate your faith that the material will be good despite a lack of presentational polish as of yet. Hope you’re getting some good games out of the two adventures so far. £10 for 2 adventures seems good to me, idk.

I’m still thinking on what the best way of making and releasing this stuff is going forward. Maybe like a subscription thing? £5 a month for more polished content or something. But until I have a better idea, buying this ashcan version is the best way to support not just this project but me in general. (Or hire me! graverobbersguide(at)gmail(dot)com)

Or getting anything from my store really, maybe there’s something else on there you’d be into? Did you know I did a game about golf? I don’t talk about stuff I’ve done in the past nearly enough, there’s some cool shit on there. Take a look.

Anyway, back to shipping zines and slowly perishing in this heat. All the best x