Lair of the Gobbler - Play Report & Micro Review

 

Background

Two of my usual players in my Thursday night game were out of town this week, but I really wanted to run a playtest to try out some changes to Brighter Worlds. I was poking around for a small module I could run in a single night, and was pointed towards Lair of the Gobbler by Emiel Boven as my Sunday group is currently in the midst of another Emiel module the Rot King’s Sanctum (although heavily reskinned in that case).

It was a great suggestion! It’s immediately evocative, has good hooks, requires next to no prep, and has enough there to really feel substantial without so much that I thought I’d struggle to finish it in a night.

System

I’m running my own game, Brighter Worlds (SRD) which is a hack of Cairn, Electric Bastionland, and Macchiato Monsters.

It has lightweight core rules, “modular crunch” isolated within character classes (called Callings), and a whimsical storybook tone illustrated (literally) by the inimitable Evlyn Moreau.

The game is designed for tables that want low bookkeeping, options during character creation, some degree of mechanical advancement, and nothing that will clash with not taking it very seriously.

However if you just think “whimsical cairn with class abilities” you’re close enough for the purposes of this play report.

I’ve included my conversions at the bottom in case anyone has use for them.

Characters

Granny Hexwhistle

A returning, fan favorite from my Fangwitch’s Falls play reports, Granny is a Witch and also the worst person to exist. She flies around on a broom with her tiny frog familiar (which excretes hallucinogenic poison) while terrorizing whoever she can find.

Jierdan Havarian

The player of Mercutio from the Fangwitch’s Falls playthrough agreed to make a new character to help me test some things, and created Jierdan, a Grimblade. He has a giant, floating (and possibly sentient) Obsidian Zveihander named Lilicore with which he is able to cast spells by hitting people.

Jay/Dan Shades

Played by my wife, who plays in my usual Sunday game, Jay/Dan is a Sneaky Bastard and also apparently a tiktok zoomer. Jay/Dan can split a clone off of himself (Jay and Dan while doing so) and teleport (snap) one to the other, carrying anyone else in contact along for the ride.

Owner of a crystalline donkey used for transporting heavier items.

The Session

My post-it note "fog of war" read to go.

We jumped in with the party having been hired by the owner of their favorite local restaurant to find her new Sous-chef Moira who was supposed to arrive recently with a caravan. Instead she reportedly went missing while passing through the Berrenmoot Swamps after she wandered off in search of the burial place of an ancient mage (the bit that Granny actually cared about).

After some searching, they find a large earthen mound sticking up from the boggy swamp, with evidence of both ruins and current habitation. Guarding the entrance is a borgle, a salamander person, with a spear. The group, lead by Granny and leaving Jay/Dan’s crystalline donkey tied up, approaches in an obviously hostile manner which causes the borgle to dash into the mound along a narrow hallway with a strange hop-skip gait. Granny rushes in after him while Jierdan casts Anti-Gravity on the borgle causing him to float into the air. Granny Hexwhistle, in her rush, triggers the pressure plates the borgle was avoiding which causes the (previously unnoticed) carved faces to breath fire into the area.

Granny hits the deck and manages to avoid most of the blast, but the floating borgle is less lucky. Jay/Dan scouts ahead, and the party opts to not pass through the flooded chamber on the lower level, instead heading up the stairs. They find a guard room with six borgles shooting the shit, drinking beer, and complaining about the Elder Mother and her recent obsession with her “Large Son”.

Granny sends her frog in to poison their beer jug with hallucinogens, and three of the six are dosed out of their minds before the rest realize what’s going on. At that point the party rushes in, beats the living daylights out of the rest, and threatens them into cooperation.

GM’s Note: The module specifically notes that the guards are distracted, and players should have an easy time sneaking past. I extended this to Granny’s poisoning attempt, deciding that they also wouldn’t notice a tiny frog crawling into the room.

I rolled a d6 to see how many of the 6 drank the poisoned beer before the rest realized something was going on. After one round of combat, each (non-poisoned) guard had been injured and failed a morale save to keep fighting.

One borgle agrees to lead them to where Elder Mother Elharr is, thinking this might be a good chance to displace her while maintaining plausible deniability.

They reach a large room containing the Elder Mother, her “large son”, a few borgle guards, and a harried looking Moira, the chef they were sent to rescue! Elharr’s large son turns out to be the Gobbler: a massive, rotund, and immobile toad. Moira has been gang pressed into chopping and cooking a massive earthworm to feed the Gobbler.

Granny immediately gets into a shouting match of insults with Elharr, with Jierdan being a tall imposing presence, while Jay sneaks around to Moira and Dan stays near the room entrance.

Jay snaps back to Dan with Moira in tow as the shouting match erupts into violence as Elharr shoots lightning at Granny and Jierdan. Jierdan uses his giant floating sword to attack one borgle guard while he attacks another with an axe.

Despite rescuing Moira, Jay’s teleport leaves him exposed as the Gobbler flicks out it’s massive tongue and gobbles the clone into his huge mouth. Dan snaps Jay back to him, but as the Gobbler is in contact the huge toad comes alone for the ride and gets jammed in the too-small hallway, where the rescued Moira takes her revenge using her meat clever. Sadly this fails to get Jay out of the Gobbler’s stomach, leading him to perish within.

Jierdan finishes the battle with Elharr with a flying leap that reunites him with his sword. He brings the zweihander smashing down on the Elder Mother while simultaneously casting Chain Lightning to electrocute all the nearby borgle enemies. Upon seeing Elharr defeated, the remaining borgle guards decide it would be in their best interest to flee.

Granny intends to interrogate Elharr for mystic secrets but the Elder Mother’s will is too strong, which ends with Granny simply finishing her off and looting her corpse. Jay gets resummoned, although at considerably lower stats (Jay/Dan’s Attributes are split between the original and the clone).

Granny, having seen Elharr heal one of the borgles during the fight, believes the staff may contain healing powers and attempts to activate it on the newly summoned but very weak clone. Instead she discovers that the Twinning Staff can be used to copy spells, and accidentally double casts Painful Truths on both Jay and Dan, nearly killing them on the spot.

GM’s Note: I specifically asked Granny’s player if he prefers to simply be told what magic items do, or if he wants to experiment with them. He firmly chose the latter.

Moira carves some roasts out of the Gobbler’s corpse as the party catches their breath. She tells the party she’d really like to rescue Willow, a root-kin who she says was also captured by the borgles.

As the way they entered is now blocked by a dead, giant toad the party heads down the other path (where the fleeing borgles went) and discovers a soggy library. Within they manage to find an unknown tonic as well as a spell scroll, and eventually a secret passage hidden behind a bookshelf. Through there is the mage’s tomb! Inside is a dark stone sarcophagus and four faceless statues holding unlit braziers.

Within the tomb the party lights three of the four braziers prior to opening the sarcophagus.

Jierdan: “Don’t light all four, it might be a trap!”"

They open the tomb and the statue holding the sole unlit brazier releases a shadowed figure which immediately moves to attack the party. They defeat it with magic, and magic swords, but not before Moira has her shadow consumed by the creature.

GM's Note: The tomb is what I like to call a “player trap”, as each unlit brazier releases a shadow when the sarcophagus is opened. It’s positioned perfectly to impact players who try to be clever (as mine did) by not lighting all of them in an attempt to avoid a trap.

The party loots the tomb of treasure, magic items, and spell scrolls. Then, with the help of Granny’s flying broom and Jay/Dans teleportation, they rescue Willow and escape the ruins without further conflict (in spite of my efforts to tempt them into tentacle-filled water with shiny treasures).

Me, “Yeah you can cast spells, you just don’t currently have a Grimoire to copy those scrolls into.”

Jay/Dan’s player, “Grimoire,” putting a guttural emphasis on the second syllable. “It’s only a Grimoire if it’s from the Grimoire region of France, otherwise it’s a sparkling spellbook.”

However once outside, they discover that Jay/Dan’s crystalline donkey is missing. Granny flies into the sky and (due to the high visibility of the donkey) spots it being lead away by a group of borgles fleeing the ruins. Granny flies Jay ahead on her broom, and Dan teleports the rest of the group together. They rest up (giving Jay and Dan specifically a chance to recover a bit) before they ambush the borgles in the dead of night. Granny sufficiently impresses her terrifying nature to them, cementing her as a thing that goes bump in the night for future generations of borgles, while the rest recover the donkey along with the looted treasure the borgles had taken on their way out.

Micro Review

Both my players and I had a fantastic time with Lair of the Gobbler. I was able to run it with just reading it through once, and writing up stats for the creatures and items and honestly I could have done that on the fly without issues.

The art is fairly minimal, but what’s there is extremely fun. The map was helpful and managed to portray stacked floors without turning into a huge mess.

This ended up being the perfect length, with the party exploring nearly everything, and still finishing at a reasonable time even with the bonus borgle hunt at the end.

I really appreciate the extra guidance for each location as to the disposition of the borgles or creatures within. The added “lever” of the borgles’ dissatisfaction with their leader was fun, and something my players immediately grabbed onto. A less bloodthirsty group could have certainly found a way to navigate the ruins and politics therein without violence, but as I wanted to test out some combat mechanics I’m not going to complain about this outcome.

Overall, fantastic module that I highly recommend. Especially for anyone looking for a single session adventure that doesn’t require much prep.

Brighter Worlds Stats for Lair of the Gobbler

Creatures

Borgle

3 Grit, d6/d6/d6, Spear (d8) or Blow-Pipe (d6, paralyze on Critical Damage)

• Lil’ salamander guys.
• Slippery little buggers, difficult to pin down or grapple.
• Wants: A relaxing swamp time.
• Often found: Kvetching about the Elder Mother.

Elharr, the Elder Mother

4 Grit, d8/d6/d10, Twinning Staff (d6)

• Borgle shaman, communes with bog spirits to cast spells (only loses 1 Grit to cast spells).
  • Bolt - d8 damage, impair next attack or Save on Critical Damage.
  • Bog Heal - Heal 1 Step of STR Damage and refresh Grit. Only works on bog creatures while in a bog.
• Wants: To love and protect her Large Son.
• Often Found: Neglecting the other Borgles in favor of cooing over the Gobbler.

The Gobbler

6 Grit, 2 Armor, d12/d4/d10, Tongue Lash (d8, eats target on Critical Damage)

• Overgrown toad, can’t move or speak.
• Vulnerable to ranged attacks.
• Wants: to eat and sleep.
• Often found: eating and sleeping.

Lurker

6 Grit, 1 Armor, d8/d8/d6, Tentacles (d6,d6,d6,d6, grapples on Critical Damage)

• Four tentacled swamp predator.
• Wants: Easy meals.
• Often found: Lurking in dark waters to ambush prey.

Shadow

3 Grit, d6/d6/d6, Shadow Touch (d6, consumes shadow on Critical Damage, step up this attack’s damage)

• Conjured shadow, only effected by spells or magical weapons.
• Victims are turned into more Shadows.
• Mindless, not effected by mental magic.
• Wants: To consume living creature’s shadows, and create more of its own kind.
• Often Found: Bound to protect tombs and burial places.

Rootkin

3 Grit, d6/d6/d6, Shovel (d6)

• Little living root guy with glowing eyes.
• Can see in the dark.
• Wants: to not be eaten.
• Often Found: distracting itself from its current troubles by reminiscing of its favorite pastries.

Moira

3 Grit, d6/d8/d8, Cleaver (d8)

• Trained chef, forced to cook for the Gobbler.
• Wants: To get free, and cook for someone who actually appreciates it.
• Often Found: Prepping huge worms for Gobbler chow.

Items

Ring of Protection

• +1 Armor
• Makes your voice sound funny while active (like speaking through a fan).

Staff of Night (d6)

• Wielder can see in the dark, and seems to melt into shadows if stationary.

Tonic of Health

• Drinking restores on step of attribute loss and refreshes Grit to Max.

Cloak of Starlight

• 1 Armor
• Discharge to release a flash of light, dazzling nearby creatures.
• Recharges by absorbing starlight for 6 hours.

Twinning Staff (d6)

• Step down WIL as you cast a spell to double-cast it.

Spells

Grasp of Yahzahar

• As “Black Tentacles”

Shadow Blade

• Condense shadow into a sword with damage equal to your WIL. You can immediately attack after casting this spell.

Bolt

• d8 damage bolt of electricity, impairs next Save or Attack on Critical Damage.

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The Fangwitch’s Falls - Session 4 Play Report and Review

 

Background

This is the fourth and final part of my play report for EmemyCo’s The Fangwitch’s Falls, read Session One, Session Two, and Session Three.

If you’re just interested in my players’ and my final thoughts on the module jump down to the end.

Fangwitch’s Falls can be purchased here, or alongside Em’s currently kickstarting module Try The Beetle Milk.

I’m using Brighter Worlds, which is my own hack of Cairn, Electric Bastionland, and Macchiato Monsters. You can pick it up here for free, or look at the SRD here, but if you imagine “Whimsical Cairn with Class Abilities” you’re most of the way there.

The Cast

Granny Hexwhistle

Witch on a flying broom with a small, frog that sweats hallucinogen. All-around bad person.

Mercutio Smock

Gentleman and Runewright extraordinaire, crafting interesting logic-based magics.

Tibbius Sacrum

A skeletal Bag of Bones slowly turning into a literal cartoon skeleton with all of his hijinks.

Pele

A Cleric of Small Gods with a small, divine, volcano headed golem (God of Magmatic Renewal) riding around on his shoulders. She can change the nature of the world by speaking with her god.

Previously On

The party got information about the Fangwitch from a strange Fae in the Deep Woods, and then concocted an elaborate plan to retrieve the Mask from the bottom of the lake. Surprising everyone, the plan worked. The Mask is some sort of ancient VR headset that would normally control the Fangwitch (an ancient terraforming engine), but currently cannot.

Session Four

The party begins to circumnavigate the Lake to head towards the Falls, behind which they know are a series of caves containing the Fangwitch. Along the way they run into a tadpole person: a traveling fencer by the name of Plukia. Plukia acts as a merchant of sorts, trading his goods and skills in exchange for fish and duels. Sadly none of the party takes him up on the offer for a duel to first blood (although Tibbius tries to cheat the system on account of not having blood). Granny trades the Jade Fish Amulet (a veritable lifetime supply of fish) for Plukia to train Pele in the ancient martial art technique of water running (plus some cooking spices).

GM’s Note: Plukia is one of my favorite NPCs from the module, and I was very happy I rolled his encounter here at the 11th hour. A bit disappointing none of my players wanted to duel him, but training montage is also pretty good.

After an intense training montage and parting ways with Plukia, the party arrives near the falls, but decides to make camp and attack the caves in the morning. They settle in a convenient cave located nearby, and are surprised by a River Bear returning home during the night.

The River Bear, upset by the home invasion, tries to chase them out but is instead insulted for its bachelor status (it seems to be the last of its kind), set aflame, and then killed. To add insult to injury Tibbius then raises it from the dead in skeletal form as the first member of his Skeleton Crew.

GM’s Note: Poor river bear, it didn’t deserve this.

Granny Hexwhistle messily eats the heart of this bear as part of the Perfect Divination ritual, which gives her perfect knowledge of the next 24 hours.

In the morning, the party uses the previously created Water Repelling Rune to open a gap in the waterfall so the party can make their way through. Inside, they navigate through the caves, avoiding a group of water logged ghouls with a combo of water running, broom flying, and runes.

Reaching a large underwater lake, the party sees the enormous Fangwitch coiled around a submerged stalagmite, and beyond it a glowing fissure in space. Mercutio dons the mask and attempts to force the Fangwitch through the fissure, but fails in a battle of wills and the Fangwitch attacks the party.

Pele tries to speak with her god to turn the rock pourous, thereby lowering the water level to stop the Fangwitch from getting close, but instead turns the stone into sand nearly dumping everyone into the water. Pele sprints away using her newly learned water walking, Granny flies on her broom, and Mercutio ducks back into the hallway leaving only Tibbius to get wet.

The battle ensues!

Granny flies overhead draining away the Fangwitch’s Grit with Entropic Drain, Tibbius swims around on his River Bear skeleton and opportunistically attacks the Fangwitch, and Mercutio continues his mental battle through the Mask. Eventually Pele is able to turn the tides by speaking with her god to open a series of magma vents in the base of the lake, blasting the Fangwitch with super-heated steam.

The Fangwitch breaks and runs, swimming swiftly through the glowing fissure.

GM’s Note: The module notes that the Fangwitch will flee through the fissure on a failed morale save, and Mercutio’s mental battle had weakened its will making it more prone to failure. It was still a funny moment of them battling to force it through the fissure, and then it deciding to turn and run through the fissure. The party sorta looked around and were like, “well, we let it run then?”

Mercutio (having by this point puzzled out the Mask’s interface somewhat) finds that he cannot close the fissure due to “another user” having set it open.

Tibbius takes the mask and swims down to investigate the fissure, through which he seems massive piles of gold and gems like those of a dragon’s hoard. Deciding to head through himself to investigate, he finds himself in a giant underground (not underwater) vault containing limitless riches, and some distance away a throne with a four armed skeleton wearing an identical Mask. Heading that way, Tibbius is ambushed by the Fangwitch who had been hiding inside one of the piles of gold. Taken by surprise, he’s sliced in twain, and even with his enhanced skeletal durability is crunched into dust by the Fangwitch.

Or that’s what would have happened, as Granny Hexwhistle reveals that was all simply what she saw in her Perfect Divination prediction. Time is “rewound” to just after the Fangwitch flees through the fissure and a new plan is formed.

GM’s Note: I’ve been trying to get this “iT wAs AlL a ViSiOn Of ThE fUtUrE” divination mechanic into and RPG for ages, and this was the first time it came up at the table. I was worried about it being annoying, but having a “reset button” floating in the background was actually a lot of fun. I may have to tweak some things to avoid overuse, but I like it a lot.

Mercutio engraves a rune onto Granny’s broom that makes anyone touching it weightless, allowing everyone to pile on together. A strange sight bursts into the treasure vault, of a witch’s broom with a Cleric riding up from, a Witch riding in the middle, a Runewright riding in the back, and a Skeleton hanging off the bottom.

Pele hops off the broom and dashes to the gold pile the Fangwitch is hiding within. She speaks with her god to instantly melt, then resolidify the gold managing to (at least temporarily) lock the Fangwitch in place.

The rest of the party flies over to the throne, rips the mask off the (thankfully actually dead) skeleton’s head, and flies back. They pick up Pele and make it through the fissue just as the Fangwitch breaks out of its golden cage, and after passing through don the masks and (with their powers combined!) close the fissure.

GM’s Note: The dramatic timing on this makes it seem like I had my finger on the scale, but it genuinely worked out this way as the Fangwitch finally managed a roll to break the gold, then failed the roll to reach the fissure in time.

The party celebrates! They’ve saved the world! Or at least the Fang Woods! And it doesn’t hurt that they technically still have the Masks and access to a vault filled with potentially limitless gold and riches (and a very angry Fangwitch).

Thoughts and Review

GM’s Opinions

I love this module. As I mentioned before, it hits a really good balance between providing information and leaving “blank spaces” for me to fill gaps. Having said that, I do think the module would benefit from more procedural “heft”. Even if I’d be likely to run things my own way, having a set procedure for travel, using the encounter table, and similar would improve things. Less experienced GMs may flounder a bit when presented with something as open ended as this without more structure for guidance.

One actual complaint about the module content I have is that despite the party spending 4-5 days within the area, only a single one of the calamities occurred. The calamities are a very cool mechanism, unique catastrophes that can occur at each location, but they happen only every 1d6 days. Maybe this is due to the travel rate I decided (6 hour blocks) but that goes back to a lack of provided procedure. On the same topic, I think having some mechanism that clearly communicates the time limit aspect of the calamities would be nice, rather than having them simply occur randomly.

Overall though, the Fangwitch’s Falls is fantastic. All of the NPCs are a genuine joy to meet and play. The art is adorable and does such a great job of setting the tone (one player described it as reminding him of Hollow Knight). There’s so much going on, and once you get dug in it’s easy to tie everything together and go hang out with all these weird guys in the weird woods. It’s flexible enough that you could run this as a one shot, or let it stretch out into a longer campaign. I highly recommend picking this up if any of this sounded like a good time.

Player Opinions

Since this was also a playtest for Brighter Worlds, I sent some feedback forms to my players after the session. I included some questions about Fangwitch’s Falls, which I’ll reproduce below.

It’s worth noting that my players only experienced the Fangwitch’s Falls through the lens of my GMing, and I took a fair degree of creative liberties. So feel free to distribute blame or credit between myself and the author as you see fit.

(Someone didn’t send me their responses yet, so I’ll edit those in when they arrive.)

What was your favorite thing or moment from the Fangwitch’s Falls?

Mercutio: Earthquake and how fangwitch affected environment. Mask was also cool.

Pele: The arc of the Seer from poorly rhyming skeleton to flying chicken demon was quite entertaining.

Tibbius: I enjoyed the world overall. It felt very real and full of life. Everywhere we went there was something going on.

Granny: Pretty solidly fun all the way through.

What was your least favorite thing or moment from the Fangwitch’s Falls?

Mercutio: First session, it was hard to know where to go, what to do and why. There should have been a more engaging conflict and stakes to get things rolling

Pele: The frog/ghoul area was a little anticlimactic. We couldn’t do much with the frog and mostly avoided the ghouls. It might’ve been different if we went back with the frog amulet we got later.

Tibbius: I loved it all!

Granny: Scheduling

Any other thoughts on Fangwitch’s Falls?

Pele: Lots of funny characters overall. Lots of unique creatures (fishbear, prawn fangwitch, demon chickens) to interact with.

Tibbius: I loved the feel of the world. It was cute, but dangerous. Weird, but didn’t feel forced.

Brighter World’s Playtest Notes

I got some good feedback from my players about the system from this (I won’t repeat it all here just for length considerations).

Overall the system is working as intended, with the Eulogy XP system in particular being well received. One repeated note that I agree with is that characters don’t start the game with enough equipment or tools. So taking a page from all of the RPGs I’m already stealing from for Brighter Worlds, a number of equipment tables to roll on at character creation will be added soon.

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The Fangwitch’s Falls - Session Three Play Report

Background

This is the third part of my play report for EmemyCo’s The Fangwitch’s Falls, read Session One, and Session Two. The module can be purchased here, or alongside Em’s currently kickstarting module Try The Beetle Milk.

I’m using Brighter Worlds, which is my own hack of Cairn, Electric Bastionland, and Macchiato Monsters. You can pick it up here for free, or look at the SRD here, but if you imagine “Whimsical Cairn with Class Abilities” you’re most of the way there.

The Cast

Granny Hexwhistle

Witch on a flying broom with a small, frog that sweats hallucinogen. All-around bad person.

Mercutio Smock

Gentleman and Runewright extraordinaire, crafting interesting logic-based magics.

Tibbius Sacrum

A skeletal Bag of Bones slowly turning into a literal cartoon skeleton with all of his hijinks.

Pele

The Cleric of Small Gods couldn’t make it to this session on account of using his large amounts of PTO to have a fulfilling life going camping with his wife.

Previously On

The party arrives at Mahruko, chases down some rumors, talks to a rhyming skull, has tea with some long fish ladies, harasses some fishermen, rescues a gravekeeper, and fails to exploit a mushman himbo.

Session Three

The party wakes to a loud rumbling and grinding as the ground beneath them shakes in what seems like some sort of earthquake. Mercutio takes off running deeper into the Deep Woods in a panic (he will later claim he was trying to figure out where the epicenter of the quake was).

Mercutio barely manages to avoid hitting a spider silk trip wire, and after stopping just in time is greeted by a strange, raspy voice thanking him for not disturbing the traps. He turns to find an overly lanky, extremely thin figure draped in shapeless clothes with oversized hands like sledgehammers.

This figure introduces himself as Riko, a fae currently participating in the hunt for the Candlestag. Mercutio holds his shit together long enough to politely finish the conversation before running back to the rest of the party.

Reunited, they decide to head deeper into the Woods to see if the fae have any information about the Fangwitch. Granny Hexwhistle reveals that she has some knowledge of the fae, for which she traded a pinky finger in the past, and that if the fae are here they’re seeking something unique and interesting. Also that although they shouldn’t take their explanations about their own business seriously (or at least literally) they will always follow through on deals.

GM’s Note: Granny’s player asked me if she knew anything about fae, since it seemed like the sort of thing a witch would know about. Brighter Worlds doesn’t have any explicit knowledge or skill mechanics, so I just asked what Granny had to trade to gain this knowledge.

The party finds a different fae: this one is smaller, and floats in space surrounded by a billowing starlight cloak while wearing a half-moon mask with twisting horns. This fae introduces itself as Felu and agrees to an exchange of information for services, largely because Granny managed to remain polite the whole time.

While Mercutio enchants a chain with runework to eternally bind the Candlestag, Felu describes the original purpose of the Fangwitch to the party. It was one of many such organisms used by the “original creators” to reshape this world from an inhospitable waste into a place people could live. This one went rogue and refused the shut down command, leading to it being bound and sealed. A seal which is now breaking.

GM’s Note: Getting straightforward and unambiguous information about the mysterious “big bad” of the module needed to have a cost, especially if you’re getting it out of some fae whose whole deal is exchanges. Mechanically each of Mercutio’s runes cost him a point of Max Grit (Brighter Worlds’ HP) to activate, so if he holds his end of the deal he’s down a point of Grit forever.

Felu further expands that if they had access to tools of the original creators, they may be able to rebind the Fangwitch. The party immediately thinks of the ancient Mask they’ve been told is at the bottom of the Lake. Granny Hexwhistle and Tibbius decide that, given access to these tools, they’d be more likely to try and take over the world than save it. Felu finds this entertaining.

All parties satisfied with the exchange (although Mercutio ruminates that he’s likely to deactivate his runes at some point in the future to gain his Grit back) they go their separate ways. Upon reaching the lake they discover two things. First, the earthquake from earlier was the Lake splitting open on one side and creating a channel to the sea. Second, they’re blocked by a large group of Witchspawns: strange spiny creatures with some connection to the Fangwitch.

GM’s Note: The Fangwitch’s Falls has an interesting mechanism where each location has a potential catastrophe that can occur. One of these happens every d6 days, until 3 occur at which point the entire location falls apart. This was the first one to happen in this playthrough.

Granny Hexwhistle immediately provokes them with imperious commands to obey her. They respond with strange clicking and then a stab attempt as Granny realizes, in horror, that since they don’t have eyes her signature spell Staring Contest has no effect.

Granny, managing to shrug off the initial wound, flies up out of reach on her broom while Mercutio activates his runic armor and rushes in and Tibbius begins swinging his bone club around.

After downing two of the spawn, Tibbius turns on SPOOK MODE causing remaining Witchspawn break and flee at the terrifying sight. One doesn’t quite get away as Tibbius captures it by spinning it upside down and stabbing its spiny head into the ground.

GM’s Note: I gave each of the (at that point) four remaining Witchspawn a morale save to keep fighting. Each had a 50% chance of failure, and all four failed. Better lucky than good, as they say!

Granny attempts to interrogate the captured spawn, but being unable to communicate with it resorts to dissection. She finds the spines are made of a ceratin-like material, while inside they have a complex crystalline structure. Tucking a few of the spines into her bag the party turns to the problem of retrieving the Mask from the bottom of the lake.

The plan they devise is as follows:

• Mercutio will inscribe runework onto Tibbius’ hand that, when placed in contact with the lake bed will move all the water away from him. Putting him at the center of a buoyant bubble and rocketing him towards the surface.
• Granny Hexwhistle will watch the area using the Bone Sense ritual to keep an eye out for trouble.
• Tibbius, being a skeleton and therefore free from the need to breathe, will be the one going into the Lake to retrieve the Mask.

Granny activates Bone Sense and finds a giant, “Loch Ness Monster” type creature (presumably Old Tago) is in the Like, but currently investigating the new sea channel. Taking this opportunity to be as good as it’s going to get, Tibbius heads into the water. He quickly swims down to the supposed location of the Mask by way of rotating his bony feet rapidly around his ankles like small propellers.

Tibbius finds the mask at the exact center of the lake. He notices that all the nearby fish have fled as Granny simultaneously senses Old Tago beginning to swim in the skelly-man’s direction. Tibbius grabs the mask and begins propeller feet-ing back towards shore as fast as possible.

He barely is not going to make it, and at the last second before Old Tago catches up activates his escape runes. The bubble bobs him to the surface like a cork, where Granny (having been watching through Bone Sense) is waiting to grab him out of the air by skewering her broom through his rib cage. Old Tago peers at them with interest, but doesn’t pursue as they make their way back to shore.

GM’s Note: Only two die rolls happened during this whole process. One was me rolling a die to see if Old Tago would notice and investigate the intrusion. The second was Tibbius rolling against Old Tago to see who was faster. The rest was a result of good planning (uncommon for this group) plus excellent application of skills, abilities, and magic. It’s nice when a good plan comes together.

Reunited, they begin to examine the Mask. Mercutio notes that the interior of the mask has incredibly dense and complex runework, and throwing caution to the wind puts it on. He immediately collapses to the ground as he enters a strange, virtual space where he can see the surrounding terrain along with the sites of future calamities highlighted. By scanning around he’s able to identify that there are some caverns hidden behind the Falls and sees what is likely the Fangwitch within, although everything is labeled in an unreadable language so it’s difficult to say.

Tibbius and Granny smack him around enough that he’s able to take off the Mask, and has just enough time to explain what he saw before Tibbius tries putting it on. Tibbius doesn’t collapse, and sees a similar view but for him it’s all bones. He notes that he’s able to “interact” somewhat with the Fangwitch though this view by focusing on it, but an (unreadable) error message pops up in his view when he tries to do so.

Although unable to fully decipher the interface, the party manages to at least understand that they’ve located the Fangwitch. On top of that there’s some ticking clock counting down towards total catastrophe unless they do something.

GM’s Note: In the module the Fangwitch’s purpose and motivation is randomized, along with the effects of the Mask. I definitely expanded/twisted it beyond what’s written in the book. “Environmental fail-safe” that wants to “devour all the earth has to offer” turned into an ancient terraforming engine. The Mask (whose location is also randomized) being able to “induce an eon-long magical slumber” turned into a control interface for said engine.

Did I follow what was strictly listed in the book? Absolutely not, but the results sparked a fun idea that I ended up running with.

Final Thoughts

This was a super fun session. I think Mercutio’s player really likes fiddling with mechanics to do clever things, so getting to create the “bubble escape button” runework was satisfying and fun. Conversing with the fae was a good time, always enjoyable to play a being who’s perspective and actions are just alien enough from the norm to be unsettling.

Looking forward to the finale of this adventure as the, hopefully complete, party goes to confront the Fangwitch.

Read on to Session Four + Reviews.

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