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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The Fangwitch’s Falls - Session Two Play Report

 

Background

This is the second part of my play report for EmemyCo’s The Fangwitch’s Falls, read Session One if you haven’t. 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.

Previously On…

 

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.

Pele

Cleric of her Small God: a tiny golem with a volcanic head who is the God of Magmatic Renewal.

The party arrived at the town of Mahruko, chased down a rumor of quarreling ghosts, murdered some chickens cursed demons, treated with a magic 8 ball skull-based Seer, and chatted with two strangely long and tall normally proportioned fish sisters.

Overnight they’re joined by a new party member (our usual fourth player who was unavailable during session one):

Tibbius Sacrum

A Bag of Bones: a walking, talking skeleton wielding a (different) skeleton’s leg. Apparently the Seer’s college roommate. Able to switch between terrifying spooky skeleton and comical spoopy skellington on a whim.

GM’s Note: We spent maybe a minute trying to justify why a skeleton was joining the party, but I mostly didn’t think it was important for it to make sense “in the fiction”. Prioritizing speed over realism, we ended up with the absurdist idea that the Seer suggested he join this party because they “seemed cool” and everyone rolled with it.

Session Two

“The only good man is a dead man.” - Granny Hexwhistle welcoming Tibbius into the party.

The party (now including one boney boi) enjoys a morning teatime with the Yamuna Sisters before heading on towards the lake. They pass some strange stone structures and scrimshaw on the way, but cursory examination reveals no deeper or magical meaning.

Arriving at the lake the party spots a small boat riding deep in the water, containing two men waving for help. Mercutio whips up a set of linked runes carved into some driftwood: one to move the driftwood towards the men, and a second which triggers on contact with another piece of wood (the boat) that sets up a water current to bring the boat the shore.

As the boat is carried closer, it becomes apparent what the problem is: the boat is jam packed full of fish! To the point of nearly sinking!

GM’s Note: There’s a random table to determine what issue the fishermen are dealing with. I was about to roll on it when I spotted “Too Many Fish” as an entry, and decided that was far too funny to not be the case.

The party immediately begins questioning how the boat ended up in this situation, and why the fishermen don’t even have any fishing equipment. The fishermen have no good answers, which makes the party even more suspicious. Granny notices that one of the fishermen is wearing some sort of amulet beneath his shirt, and, being a covetous witch, immediately decides she wants it.

She makes a grab for it, which the fisherman objects to. Mercutio, always willing to escalate violence levels, pins the fisherman’s arms to allow Granny Hexwhistle to try and grab the amulet. The second fishermen, seeing the (totally unjustified) attack on his companion moves to try and push Granny back, who retaliates with a blast of magic. This breaks his spirit and he takes off running towards the woods, pursued by Granny on her broomstick.

GM’s Note: The fishermen’s initial inability to answer questions and their suspicious actions was a result of me not knowing why they had so many fish in their boat. I was mentally scrambling for a good reason, but in the mean time they were answering evasively. So, that much is my fault. What follows I take no responsibility for.

Tibbius begins tossing fish from the boat one by one back into the lake as a form of intimidation (???), while Pele and Mercutio interrogate Fisherman A. They find that the amulet is a large jade fish, apparently enchanted to make fish hop into the boat on their own. Despite belonging to a long line of excellent fishers this (still unnamed, whoops) fisherman had no skill at all. To fix this problem, the fisherman acquired this amulet trade from the Fae who are currently in the Deep Woods.

Meanwhile Granny Hexwhistle is circling the fleeing man on her broom, cackling madly the entire time.

Me: Okay so what is your goal with all this?

Granny’s Player: I want to completely terrify him, make this a total nightmare.

Me: Well, mission accomplished.

Hexwhistle eventually paralyzes him with the Staring Contest spell, then shoves her frog familiar in his mouth to dose him with hallucinogens, ultimately making him pass out from the extreme and wildly varying sensory inputs.

GM’s Note: Brighter Worlds uses a “Eulogy” system for earning XP. Anytime a character does something noteworthy enough to be read out at their eventual funeral gets added, and you gain 1 XP. Anything on the line gets voted on by the table. It serves to both let the table meter their own advancement rate, and also adds a “best of” campaign record to every character sheet.

In this case, the table voted that the extreme terrorizing of the fisherman qualified as an entry for Granny Hexwhistle’s Eulogy. I argued against it, both on the grounds that this feels like something Granny does all the time, and also because this is something I’d call a perverse incentive. Alas, I was outvoted.

Returning to the rest of the group with the passed out Fisherman B in tow, the party puts together the whole story. Tibbius dumps the boat full of fish back into the lake right before the party remembers they wanted to have a large gift of food to potentially appease Old Tago (the giant monster that apparently lives in the lake).

They send the two, now traumatized, fishermen off towards the not-at-all suspicious Yamuna Sisters’ house after “confiscating” the fish charm. Following some discussion the party heads towards the cemetery to follow up on the rumor they’d heard about the gravekeeper, as well as it being on the way to the Deep Woods to meet the Fae.

Me: Wow, they’re actually pretty close to finishing the module. That’s way faster than we usually get through things.

My Players: I know we’re literally right next to our goal, but instead lets go head off in the opposite direction to meet (and probably pick fights with) the weird ancient creatures we just heard about.

The Cemetery is flooded, both with bog water and ghouls. There’s a large mound in the center with a huge Toad sitting atop, as well as a particular tree-mushroom that the ghouls seem to be centered around. Granny heads to that tree-mushroom on her broom, while the rest of the party kites the slow moving ghouls to reach the topped mound.

Granny finds, and rescues, the beleaguered (and previously missing) grave-keeper before meeting up with the rest of the party near the giant toad. The rescued gravekeeper is sufficiently polite and thankful for the rescue the charm Hexwhistle, and informs them that the toad is Gol, a local Demigod of the Ponds. Gol is asleep, and ignores all attempts by the party to wake him. Pele eventually speaks through his God and collapses half of the mound Gol is on, forming a ramp for him to roll down. Unfortunately some godly power keeps Gol floating in empty space.

GM’s Note: I gave Gol a WIL Save to remain in place despite the ground being removed from beneath him. My logic at the time was that the module lists some specific ways Gol could be woken, and I took that as a further implication that it should be difficult to do so.

In retrospect, I should have let this attempt work. If for no reason than the image of a carriage sized toad rolling down a ramp into a crowd of ghouls is extremely funny.

It would also also have played into my favorite line of text in the module, which is that he “prefers to roll around like a misshapen wheel.”

Realizing that their attempt to displace Gol has left an easy path for the hoard of ghouls to get at them, the party makes themselves scarce (after making sure the gravekeeper is headed back towards Mahruko safely).

Onward to the Deep Woods! The sun is beginning to set just as the party reaches the outskirts of the forest. Pitiful wailing and the sound of heavy footsteps emerges from deeper into the forest, causing the party to prepare for combat only to see a giant mushroom man fleeing in terror from a cloud of butterflies.

Granny Hexwhistle gets very lucky, and manages to kill the magical, illusion-projecting butterfly (and feed it to her familiar), then immediately turns to try and extract some recompense from the mushman. Gari, the mushman in question, explains that he’d been chased by the terrible butterflies who kept putting him to sleep with magic. He is very agreeable to preparing food in exchange for his rescue, but seems to be a bit unsure as to what food actually is.

After a few minutes of burning a mushroom, dirt, and pine needle patty over a fire the party realizes that Gari is simply too much of a himbo for them to exploit, and sends him on his way.

They make camp and settle in for the night.

Brighter World’s Playtesting Note: By this point Granny had earned 2 XP and her player was looking to purchase a new Advanced Ability. Nothing on the sheet was speaking to them, and the player really enjoys looking through spell lists and making careful choices. I offered them the ability to take on an ability from the (currently unpublished) Crystal Wizard which would give them a choice of any spell or ritual each time XP is spent. An example of my attempts to make different Callings appeal to different player types being semi-successful.

As a point of comparison, in my other group a player with the Demonic Sorcerer Calling is absolutely loving the totally random mirror of this Ability.

After Thoughts

This group has a bit of a tendency to go from 0 to 60 when it comes to random violence, those poor fishermen. The fishermen incident is a good illustration of the level of detail I like in a module though, which Fangwitch’s hits quite well. Enough to provide a framework that I can run and (relatively) quickly spin up new ideas, but not so much where things I invent are going to cause contradictions later. 

I recognize that a lot of people will want more detail or structure, but for me this is perfect. It’s a great middle ground where a single read through lets me understand the world enough to run without further prep and the flexibility to add more to the world.

Session 3 of the play report will go up whenever we manage to get out of scheduling hell and play session 3. Maybe this week? We’ll see!

It was this week, huzzah, read Part 3 here: https://academyofdoors.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-fangwitchs-falls-session-three-play.html

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The Fangwitch’s Falls - Session One Play Report

Module Introduction

The Fangwitch’s Falls is a fantasy adventure by EmemyCo. It’s written for Cairn, but easily adapted to anything rules light, and is a fantastic example of the “talking to weird guys in the woods” style of module that I’m a big fan of.

It features a point crawl navigation of the strange Fangwoods, beset by calamity as the legendary Fangwitch thrashes about as it wakes. Six of the seven locations have a unique calamity that can occur as a result of the Fangwitch’s movements, although if enough actually suffer them the entire location will destabilize and be totally destroyed.

Much of the setup and content is randomized, from big details like what the Fangwitch is and what it wants down to small details like “why are those fishermen having a bad time and is it too much fish?”. I think the same group could probably run this twice without getting bored, but if nothing else running it multiple times as a GM means you get to see something new each time.

There’s a sizeable collection of the weirdo NPCs and creatures to be found, complete with fantastically adorable artwork, an encounter table (execution left to the GM), and a nice set of local events and rumors to help get the players invested.

I fell in love with this module while reading it, and have been looking forward to running it since then. The group I ran it with leans a little in the direction of “murder hobo” so it’s maybe not exactly the intended audience, but I think the ensuing friction was great fun.

You can pick up The Fangwitch’s Falls by itself here, or along with a new module by Em by the name of Try the Beetle Milk, currently being kickstarted and promising to be more of the same off-the-wall goodness.

System

I’m letting this mini-campaign also serve as playtesting for my system Brighter Worlds. In brief, Brighter Worlds is a game of modular crunch intended to let players muck about with the individual mechanics they enjoy without weighing down the game for everyone else at the table. It’s a more whimsical take on the OSR/NSR, as seen through the lens of Evlyn Moreau’s artwork, and I think is a good match in tone for the Fangwitch’s Falls. Mechanically it’s based on Cairn, Electric Bastionland, and Macchiato Monsters.

Grab it here (for free) if you’d like to read more, or check out the SRD here.

Player Characters

Granny Hexwhistle

Granny Hexwhistle is a Witch, and also an unforgivably awful human being. Her familiar, which assists her with spellcasting, is a tiny frog which secretes hallucinogenic poison. The frog is a prince she transmuted years ago, and can’t (or won’t) turn back. She has a broom to fly upon, as all proper witches should.

She’s here to try and weasel out any ancient witch secrets from the appropriately named Fangwitch.

Mercutio Smock

Mercutio is a Runewright, master of the subtle but flexible art of creating magical effects by chaining together rune elements. He specializes in adding logic elements to his runes, allowing them to be activated based on “if, then” statements.

He’s here to try and uncover the Rune of Mud, supposedly used as part of the original binding of the Fangwitch.

Pele

Pele is a Cleric of Small Gods, specifically of the God of Magmatic Renewal who takes the form of a small volcano headed golem. She can speak through her god to change the world within its domain.

She’s here because the waking of the Fangwitch is the end of a great cycle, something her and her god wish to witness.

Session One

The party arrives in Mahruko, a small town at the edge of the Fangwood, to a scene of widespread malaise. The road’s been washed out behind them, the square is filled with people fleeing a nearby town that was swallowed by sink holes, and a general sense of foreboding. They follow the sounds of activity to The Coiled Mare, a local bar where someone is blowing through their savings to buy drinks for anyone present.

Never one to turn down drinks, they tuck in while chatting up locals to find out what’s going on. A few interesting tidbits appear:

• The groundskeeper for the local cemetery hasn’t been seen in a few days.
• Someone swears they overheard some ghosts having an argument near the Old Well.
• Everyone in town has been having the same dream: the whale sized Fangwitch thrashing about in a mass of coils and spines.

The party hits the road to investigate the ghost argument rumors, despite the other townsfolk suggesting that old Bill was just drunk.

GM’s Note: There are no explicit instructions for navigating the point crawl in module. I don’t mind this, as it’s so dependent on system and group that I’d likely have ended up ignoring it anyway. For this playthrough, since the module operates on the scale of days with the calamities, I’m having it take about 6 hours to get to a new location and a similar amount of time to thoroughly explore it. This way the party can visit around two locations per in game day. I’m also rolling on the Encounters table once every 6 hours.

On the way, the party runs into a couple remarkably fat chickens pecking at worms on the road. Upon seeing these chickens, Granny Hexwhistle immediately decides she wants to catch and eat them. She captures one with magic while Pele, always willing to go with the flow, speaks through her god to turn the ground to mud and catches the second chicken.

On closer examination the chickens exude a sulfurous smell, and have a malicious look in their eyes. Granny Hexwhistle considers this, then snaps their necks but decides not to eat them.

Dead chickens in hand the party arrives at the Old Well. Mercutio approaches to drain it with some runework but finds is already drained due to a crack at the bottom, likely a result of recent tremors.

Granny snaps a chicken bone to perform the Bone Sense ritual to scout the area before flying down on her broom into a small space through the crack. Inside is a skeleton huddling beneath a blanket, a skull sitting on some armor, and a strange spectral figure dancing around the room.

The skull introduces himself as the Seer. After shaking him like a magic 8 ball and asking questions it’s discovered that that spirit is the spectral form of the Fangwitch. The party is unsure what to do with this information as the spirit seems unable or unwilling to answer questions. The skull accepts a new skeleton (one of the suspicious chicken corpses) in trade for his armor which Mercutio enhances with a set of runes to make it unyielding as stone.

GM Note: The Seer “speaks in poorly rhyming verse when able.” Super fun to try and come up with rhymes on the fly, but also quite difficult. Was made more fun by making the struggle to come up with good verse “in character”, it’s the Seer struggling! Not me!

The party continues on towards the Lake, passing some strange stone structures on the way, and arrives at a small hut set on the shore. The hut belongs to the Yamuna sisters, who are unsettling elongated fish ladies (long and tall) who invite them in for a cup of tea.

 

Over the tea they engage in a nice, not at all strange and foreboding chat, in which the party learns some local lore. After parsing the strange singsongy parlance of the sisters, the party learns:

• The Fangwitch is apparently behind the Falls that feed into the Lake
• There is an ancient Mask (possibly the source of the Runes Mercutio is looking for) at the bottom of the Lake.
• The Lake is home to a huge saurian creature by the name of Old Tago which may be an obstacle, although it apparently appreciates a good meal.

The Yamuna Sisters kindly offer the party a place to sleep, although Mercutio decides to set up a tent outside so as to not intrude on an otherwise all ladies night. After whipping up a quick dehydration rune the drizzle poses no problem.

Partway through the night Mercutio is awoken by a strange, skeletal creature approaching in the air. After rushing inside and waking the others, Granny Hexwhistle bursts outside to see who disturbed her slumber.

Turns out it’s the Seer! Now sporting a demonic skeleton! The chicken corpse they gave him was actually a demon cursed into the form, and the Seer was able to break the curse after gaining control of the body. The Seer stops in to thank the party for this wonderful gift, and heads off.

GM Note: The random encounter is demons cursed into chicken form, everything that followed was pure hilarious happenstance.

Session One Thoughts

So far, my players and I are having a blast. The module is fairly loose in structure, which some GMs may find insufficient without further prep. Personally, after just reading through it a couple times it provided me enough meat to go off of without having so much structure that I felt constrained. It gave me guidance but nothing I invented on the spot ever felt like it would contradict something else later.

The NPCs are lively, original, and very fun to play. The setting is fun and entwined enough that no matter which way my players decided to go I knew there’d be something to do, and it would connect to further locations to carry them along.

The only complaint I got was about the lack of combat, as mentioned this group leans a bit murder hobo-y, but don’t worry. In session 2 they found a way to solve that problem themselves. Read on now: https://academyofdoors.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-fangwitchs-falls-session-two-play.html

If this sounds fun, pick up the module here or alongside Try The Beetle Milk, Em’s currently kickstarting module which promises to be more fun of the same variety.

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