Return to the Maze of the Blue Medusa

Oh you all know the Maze of The Blue Medusa, right?

It's the dungeon where Andy Markham of the OSR Facebook Group said "It's definitely one of the best looking books ever published for the OSR, or for RPGs in general," (before he joined in on a giant online harassment campaign to frame me for rape.)

...and where Ben Milton from Questing Beast said "One of the biggest releases, I think, in the history of D&D publishing", (before he joined in on a giant online harassment campaign to frame me for rape.)

...and where Ken Hite of Trail of Cthulhu "Let's put it this way: it's a dungeon you actually want to read the prose in. To grown adults." (before he also joined in on a giant online harassment campaign to frame me for rape.)

...and where Tim Brannan from The Other Side blog said "After 36+ years of gaming, precious little seems 'new' to me. This feels new." (before he, too, sadly joined in on a giant online harassment campaign to frame me for rape.) 

...and where Monte Cook said "Clearly jam-packed with awesome ideas." (before he as well joined in on a giant online harassment campaign to frame me for rape.) 

I wonder if they went back to feeling that way now that I successfully sued five times about this bullshit? I recommend asking them. I recommend asking them any chance you get. Anyway, I always liked it.

So the girls were in a spot of bother

After successfully handling the giant shrikes and some adventures in the Scorned Mountains, the girls...

Caroline Pierce aka Elaria, Half-Elf Ranger

Michelle aka Jinx, Halfling thief

Kimberly Kane aka Dr Feargood, tiefling cleric

...were given an assignment by Dr Feargood's Church of the Great Maggot to clear out a fortress full of moon priestesses and werewolves.

To make a long story short, things went poorly, they lost the element of surprise and several henchmen, their pet giant turned against them and they wound up surrounded, low on hit points and in need of escape. Luckily, Jinx had a book containing a ritual that allows you to teleport away to The Maze of the Blue Medusa. They used it, the session ended.

It's been ages since any of the players were in the Maze playtests and none of these characters have been, so its fun to see how it handles after a few years...

1. In the standard Maze, you steal the painting to open a portal to this room. In this case, they were transported in an emergency by a spell so I figured the painting wasn't actually in the room. There's just a space where it use to be.

The girls decided to rest 8 hours and get back hit points, abetted by a magic lock that could lock any door. I rolled 8 hours of random encounters but the only things that could past the door was Torcul Wort, a friendly ghost, and Pellory-of-the-Walls--usually a dangerous plant monster that could've TPKd the party but luckily the ranger had read a book (The Green Opus: Leveling up with this book allows the PC to know all the stats and abilities of any plant monster on a successful Int roll of 10 or better, received as treasure in some adventure) that gave her info on plant monsters, so they made short work of Pellory.

2. After a refreshing sleep behind a barricade they came out met the artifact hoarding dragon-woman Lady Crucem Capilli.

"So she's all blue, and has like, ram-like horns on either side and..."

"Wait, is she hot?"

(The girls always ask this.)

"Yes, she's hot."

So Jinx tries to flirt the Lady into telling her where things in the Maze are but that's not The Lady's way. The party agrees to fetch her some items for some cash-as-xp because they're in need of a motivation anyway so that all works out.

They take a look through the archways:

3. The room where you can fall through shadows into a floor is always fun. The girls think to throw a lantern in their first and notice it sinks partially into the floor. They decide fuck this room.

4. They look down into the vertiginous tangle of the Escher stairs and think well probably also fuck this room.

7. Poking the floor in 7 causes Cyanoxantha, the Living Mosaic, to speak:

The first to cross these coils must dance,

The second, sing to safety reach,

The third must bleed or risk mischance,

The fourth one dies between my teeth,

The next will be the first once more,

And do not cheat, I’m keeping score.

That's an immediate 'Nope' because nothing is more fearful than poetry.

Being like "Ok, we gotta go somewhere..." they eventually pick the stairs.

4. (again) Jinx bravely sends her war terrier, Kevin, to investigate by throwing a biscuit onto the stairs. Kevin luckily rolls a Nat 20 when the stairs violently re-orient midway down which reveals their magic, and allows Kevin to avoid becoming one of the corpses at the bottom of them.

Dr Feargood (played as she is by longtime barbarian Kimberly Kane) briefly considers going back into room 2 and just beating the shit out of Lady CC before accepting that the stairs are are a problem that can basically be solved with rope. They decide the locked door's not worth the trouble and head into the dark fastness of Subfoetens and his Filomel Shell.

8. Since the girls aren't carrying much treasure, the Shell is perfectly happy to let them pass while it tries to keep Subfoetens asleep. 

Jinx tries to talk to it. It goes "Sssh!", points to the sleeping baby, and keeps singing its lullaby.

Frustratedly, she mimes uselessly for a bit, then threatens "Let us pass or else!" with sword drawn at which point I remind her the Shell is not in the way and they can just walk past to the next room and they do. 

9. On the rope bridge through the next passage, I roll a random encounter and its the Decadent Waste--a valuable mechanical hummingbird that leads you into danger.

They remember they have a net, catch it in one round, and then try to figure out how to get back to Lady Crucem C to sell it.

7. (again) They prod the living mosaic again, this time from the north end. It delivers its second spiel:

You didn't listen to my rhyme

And talked amongst yourselves like fools

You’ll pay attention more next time

Now risk your death to find my rules

It's deal with this shit or go back the way they came, so they opt to deal. Jinx tosses a dust that distorts magic onto the mosaic, making the serpent only partially able to become three-dimensional. Dr Feargood using a potion of being invisible to reptiles to sneak over and deliver a Nat 20 to it while Elaria bashes it with her magic morningstar. After getting bit twice, Jinx coup-de-graces it with a silver rock hammer she picked up somewhere.

2. Back to Capelli to get paid for the hummingbird, more flirting.

1. Back to the start. Door closed. Magic lock in place.

They try to sleep but after 15 minutes there's a pounding noise--six chameleon women start trying to machete the door open. 

Dr Feargood lives up to her reputation and Causes Fear to one of them and Elaria takes the rest--luckily these were the first Chameleon Woman encounter so they were just 1HD hatchlings. 

The girls close and lock the door again. Maybe next time they'll be lucky and no more random encounters? Maybe KK won't have a migraine? Who can say? Find out in the next episode!

Starting to think 4chan's not a reliable source of information on games

The Island Formerly Known As Paradise

The players come upon an island.

It used to be this place:

1. Palace of Queen Hyppolyte. Here is located the Magic Sphere, in which past, present, and probable future can be viewed.

-Now filled with a variety of "statues" of former amazons. Kria Visthala, a Harryhausen-style medusa now resides here, where she has hoarded much of the the island's treasure

-She is served by 24 small, blinded halflings, skewers still poking from their eyes

2. Palace Gardens

-Wildly overgrown

-Several more "statues"--broken and whole

-Five murderous werecheetahs stalk the gardens now

3. Temple of Aphrodite, located at the highest point of the island

-Much decayed and partially fallen, however its magic is still potent.

-Erotic acts here heal 2d8hp if performed at midnight

4. Memory Center, location of the Memory Chair, which can stimulate or erase memories

-The chair remains, in altered form

-If a creature has lost or forgotten memories (including level drained experience), they will be restored.

-If not, then random memories will be lost

5. Forest

-Hungry dinosaurs

(pterodactyls, raptors, most harmless parasaurs, a blue t-rex)

-Some escaped kangas (descendants of giant riding kangaroos)

-Some remains of dead amazons, with some treasure

6. Pool of Monsters: Very deep, swimming forbidden here

-Largely unchanged

-Contains a plesiosaur, cannibal mermaids, ixitxachitls (manta men), and whatever other freshwater monsters you want to include.

-There's treasure at the bottom

7. Observatory, with early warning system for enemies of Earth or other worlds

-The telescope, orrery and other machines are in ruins

-A wizard who scrounges for an hour here can assemble 2000gp worth of useful materials and books but every ten minutes there's a 2-in-6 chance of a monster from another area nosing its way in here

8. Amazon School and College

-There are still a lot of valuable books here, if you have a random book table this is a time to use it, if not, get Cube World

-Kria Visthala spends a lot of time here (1-in-6 chance)

-Also the cheetah women occasionally hunt here (1-in-6 chance)

9. Amphitheater for entertainment and sport

-If Kria Visthala captures a creature alive she sometimes blinds them and then has them fight here for her entertainment

-The cells beneath contain 3 random blinded NPC prisoners as well as a variety of animals, dinosaurs and other monsters caught on the island, kept well-fed enough to fight in the arena

10. Swimming pool

-Kept in good knick because Kria likes to swim

-Beautiful lapis lazuli tiles and gold trim

11. Hall of Records

-Chaotic, but still has a lot of historical records--a great place to try to find information on lost artifacts, islands, etc

12. Kanga stables, where giant riding kangaroos are kept

-Still two kangas here belonging to Kria Visthala, Octhir and Tyria

13. Science complex

-This place is completely ruined and ransacked, though there are some inscrutably-labelled barrels of radioactive and high explosive material stored here that nobody here knows what to do with

14. Amazon Living Quarters

-Mostly completely dilapidated but for every hour of searching there's a 1-in-10 chance of a treasure and a 2-in-6 chance of a monster from another area showing up

15. Hospital, where the purple healing ray is now housed

-The ray is long gone

-But there are various salves, herbs, bandages, tools etc that will help with non-magic healing and surgery

16. Army barracks

-A mess, but certainly enough weapons and armor to equip a party

17. Navy barracks

-Like the army barracks

18. Dock and ships

-Kria Visthala's pleasure ship, the Sickle Moon, is moored here and guarded by a crew of blind halflings

19. Cliffs from which Princess Diana (Wonder Woman) first spotted Steve Trevor drifting on a bit fo wreckage from his plane

-This happened millennia ago. Nobody knows what a "plane" is anymore, but there is a colony of cannibal mermaids living near its wreckage down here.

20. Princess Diana's private lab, where she used the healing ray on Steve. Now operated by Paula, formerly Baroness Paula von Gunther, now an Amazon by adoption.

-Paula von Gunther was an evil Nazi that Wonder Woman reformed.

-She is long dead but the lab is now cursed by the spirits of her victims. Anyone entering will roll a 1 on their first attack, save or other check next time they're in combat or in a life-or-death situation (initiative not included).

21. Culture complex, including library, museums, etc.

-More books, as in 8

-A blind cenobite cult has taken up residence here--there are 16 of them and they worship Kria Visthala

-Each has a grotesque mutation, 50% chance they have one useful in combat (like being able to throw their head at you) and they're a fighter level 2d4, 50% they just have a cosmetically weird mutation and are a magic-user level 2d4

-The entire complex has been filled with creepy chains and S&M stuff

-They don't leave this area during the daytime

22. Fountain of Eternal Youth, the waters of which keep the Amazons from aging

-The fountain itself is brackish and cracked but the waters still work

-That's why Kira Visthala took over the island, centuries ago

-Drink from it and you will never age

23. Landing field for Amazon air- and spacecraft

-Nobody now living knows what this cracked plaza was used for

24. Hangars

-The semicollapsed remains of strange crystalline vehicles, ribbed like whales.

25. Reform Island (also called Transformation Island), where female criminals are rehabilitated

-This labyrinthine prison-island is now completely overrun with werecheetahs

-Their priestess has built a shrine here, she is a level 12 cleric and wants to sacrifice you to the cheetah gods

-A female titan named Giganta sleeps in a large chamber beneath the island unbeknownst to anyone but the priestess, who harvests her spinal fluid for her rituals.

26. Forbidden Island, home of menacing animal and plant life; here the Amazons must go for the wonderful sun-swords they use for defense. 

-The menacing plants and animals remain, including:

--A young-adult dragon, grey and fire-breathing

--Giant bats

--Vengeance trees, which ensnare explorers and trap them inside

-At any given time one Sun Sword will be growing from one of the many vengeance trees--any foe looking upon it must save or be blinded each round it is unsheathed. Its power lasts one year.

You come upon a ruined hamlet, villagers all fled or slaughtered

It's the bowl. Someone might find it in any old shop, it is earthenware mixed from the bones of the last shaman of Nilotte. 

Whosoever eats from the bowl is possessed by the shaman, who seeks vengeance on all other faiths and gods for driving his from the Cube. The eater gains the shaman's consciousness and powers (10th level druid + any spells of any kind in the "Necromantic" family up to 5th Level + see below) then goes about: 

1) Slaying the local clergy and destroying the works of their faith, then

2) Converting the locals

3) slaying any unconvertible locals

4) having the converts march to the ruins of the Wrack Citadel deep within the forest and 

5) Kill themselves

6) Collapsing into dust, leaving only a ruined town and a bowl, which is inevitably picked up by some scavenger and moved to some other town or merchant.

Each time the population of a town sacrifices itself, the next possessee to drink or eat from the bowl is 1 druid level higher.

This Is Why D&D With Porn Stars Was Necessary

Click to enlarge

Last night I read the strangest comment I have ever seen.

But then, given all the stupid people I now know who got mad about this blog, and all the stupid things they've done since, I guess it's to be expected.

Transcript:

Joe Reiter

Men vs. Women

I never, from day one as a dungeon master did I let any female player character dress differently in armor than the men. Sure, perhaps there armor may be shaped a little different to accommodate them better, like Roman commanders had formed brest plates. But I never allowed the fantasy skimpy chain mail broads running around like they just got gang raped by rust monsters. Never liked the look 🤣

Zak Smith

Are you saying when a female player said what she was wearing you'd sometimes go "No, sorry, you can't wear that?"

41m

Joe Reiter

yes

2m

Zak Smith

That's one of the strangest things I've ever heard in my entire life.

1m

Those of you familiar with a world full of chatty gamestreaming, OnlyFansing e-girls and hot girl cosplayers bragging out what big nerds they are may not remember this but when I started this blog it was a remarkably common belief that girls don't play RPGs and all the ones that do were part of an online Indiegaming monocult of concerned mothers dedicated to stamping out boobplate.

I disagreed with that, everyone in my game was living proof it wasn't true and we said that on the internet and while a lot of people vocally agreed, all of them got called names about it until they agreed to lie about rape. Now many of them have decided they were wrong but are still scared to admit it.

This is because we live in Hell.

Meanwhile:

In our game the sea elf player formed a dreampop band called Seafoam and they played a benefit show for refugees from the war nobody knows the party itself started. 

The catgirl rogue opened on fiddle, rolled a 1, got in a fight with the crowd.

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Make Items Like This

"Here, in an alcove in the wall of the arch, had once hung the notorious Gabelline Oracle, sought out and yet dreaded by all who entered or left the city: the severed head of a child hanging from a hook, beneath which had been constructed an alchemical "body" composed of yew twigs bound together by certain waxes and fats. A lamp being lit beneath the oracle, or in more special circumstances an inscribed wooden spatula being forced under its tongue, it would give in a low but penetrating voice the fortune of the consultant or of the city itself."

-A Storm of Wings, M. John Harrison

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Stunning and Insane: New Reviews of Nebulith (and Red & Pleasant Land)

Audrey Cusack did an in-depth review of Nebulith and the recently re-released Red & Pleasant Land.

On Nebulith:
"All in all, Nebulith is a triumph, and a fantastic comeback to Lamentations for Zak. His whittling away at Cube World really paid off here, and I honestly can’t recommend the book enough. "

On Red & Pleasant Land:
"This book is batshit fucking insane."

Here is a video review of Nebulith (with flip-thru) from Foxxof RPG.
"Nebulith, which is insane."

And another video review that focuses just on the physical book. I think he said "stunning"?
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Almost Every Argument About Indie Games For Almost 20 Years

God They Loved Their Indie Games

I once got dinged by the moderators on a popular general RPG forum for saying only that Death is the New Pink--a post-apocalyptic adventure RPG--is better than Apocalypse World--a post-apocalyptic adventure RPG.

This isn't one of those situations where someone describes an internet interaction second-hand in a way such as to make the other guy seem absurd--it was literally the entire content of my one-sentence comment. "This game is better than that game". 

The mods' argument for the punishment was "Zak, you know most people here like Game 1 and it will make them mad to say it is not as good as Game 2, so upsetting them by disagreeing with their taste is bad". (Details available via request in the comments, because, unlike said forum, I do not have a formal rule against asking for proof.)

This does not encapsulate everything bad about RPG discussion on the internet, but it does encapsulate everything uniquely bad about RPG discussion on the internet. The thing that makes the internet worse than real life.

On A Review of Fair Play

We fast forward now to many years later and we move entirely out of the cloister of the online RPG scene. To this weekend in fact.

A woman wrote a review of Fair Play from her feminist POV. It's a card game designed to point out (the obvious and true fact that) the average married mom does much more domestic work than her husband. It echoes misgivings about the game written by other women on much bigger platforms.

You can just go read it, but I'll pull out a few quotes for convenience:

That’s another point I want to make. Fair Play is ideal for one particular type of husband: a guy who genuinely wants to help his wife with more things, but doesn’t know where to start (the kind of guy who says “Just tell me what to do.”) This type of guy, ideally, will not think the game or any of the cards are stupid. It’s not ideal for men who think the concept of invisible labor is stupid, or men who go into the game with skepticism.

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This game is also not ideal for men who are already aware of all the tasks in the household. This wasn’t something Mr. CHH (the reviewer's husband) and I would have bought if I wasn’t writing about it, because even though my husband was sassy throughout the process, it’s obvious that he’s already pulling his weight around the house and wasn’t shocked by the existence my tasks

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I will say I should defend Fair Play against a rumor about two particular cards. From a previous critique of Fair Play (by someone who had researched it, but hadn’t actually played it) I was under the impression that there was a card for social media and a card for tracking interior decor trends. I felt that both of these were obviously frivolous, but there’s more to the story. The “social media” card actually refers to kids’ social media and managing kids’ friendships. The “interior decor” card isn’t about scrolling Pinterest; it’s about the purchasing of furniture, but presumably the tracking of trends is part of that. Funny enough, my husband took the furniture card. But here’s where I also think male-coded labor should have been separated: what about the person assembling furniture? This takes up a lot of time and effort, and for many couples the person assembling furniture doesn’t fall to the same person who buys the furniture. I also wanted this separated for selfish reasons: I am usually the one who assembles furniture.

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Basically she's saying:

I can see the noble thing this game is claiming to do but this game is not doing what it said on the box for us (subjectively). And it is not doing it because it failed to notice some important stuff (objectively).

This is basically every critique I wrote of every Indie-scene game outside the OSR since 2009, both here on the blog and anywhere else RPG discussion was to be had.

Basically...

It made people mad. So mad they eventually decided to lie about rape in order to make it stop, which is about as bad as a reaction can be, really, not to mention illegal.

Why was the reaction so bad? For so long?

None of them have ever been able to defend their reaction in detail in real time. If placed in a position to do so, they are always immediately conciliatory and apologize. (And, of course, in the more extreme cases of freaking out, when they sue or are asked to testify in court about the more extreme expressions of their distaste, they crumble--five times and counting.)

Like Fair Play, the conversation about game design didn't matter because these games were on the right team. Apocalypse World was supposed to be good because it was by Vincent Baker and did degrees-of-success in a way indie gamers could understand and Blades in the Dark was supposed to be good because it removed the awful cognitive burden of having to think of a plan and Dungeon World was supposed to be good because it wasn't D&D and Adam Koebel was so unproblematic and Fate was supposed to be good because Evil Hat said progressive things (and definitely didn't only pay 3 cents a word) and anything Olivia Hill or Ash Kreider made was supposed to be good because they were persecuted on the internet and etc.

Broadly, like all the people who are somewhere on the internet defending Fair Play, they felt (did not think, but felt) that any game that claimed to promote progressive values probably did, and:

• That any game by a personal online internet friend should be promoted just out of chumminess and self-interest, 
• That anyone being in any way negative about their games was probably evil because from the other team,
• That there was no point in thinking deeper about any of it because there isn't a person in front of you to make it obvious you're ignoring those deeper things, and
• There would be social and perhaps financial rewards for publicly attacking anyone perceived as an enemy. 

This last idea was accurate.