Riverboat Gambler Masterpost

Lear

 

LADIES and GENTLEMEN

For crimes INCLUDING but NOT LIMITED TO  

CANNIBALISM

SLAVE TRADING

GROSS violation of the moral law in service of a PROSCRIBED DEITY

And his FAILURE to appear before this body and give account of these accusations

The GENIUS LOCI is proud to announce

(PAID FOR by generous contributions from POTION ADDICT, the WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF THE MATACHINS, the FRIENDS OF NATURAL JUSTICE, and the TOWER OF PAIN)

A bounty of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND SILVER PIECES

On the outlaw ALDRICH BRISBANE

(The VILLAIN last seen absconding to HOGMAN'S PLAIN)

DEAD

OR

ALIVE

 

BFRPG Field Guide Omnibus Test Drive: And May You Reach The Moon

Cabrera

 

Following the death of the Slave King, the resurgent Mountainhomes sent expeditions to restore the far flung fortresses of the old Dwarven civilization. HANGEDSCEPTRES wasn’t on the list. It was was remote, strategically useless, and based on the available records, poor in minerals. The Dwarves needed quick wins to show everyone the project had legs.

Early reclamations were a smash hit. The underkingdoms caught fortress fever, sparking a gold rush to reoccupy the remaining sites (and establish new ones). The first scouts to HANGESCEPTRES reported an infestation of Wyverns circling the peak, along with smoke and snowmelt indicating the site was already inhabited.

BFRPG Field Guide Omnibus Test Drive: Into the Cheese Cave

 

The Old King jealously hoarded his Wishes. He raised a head of Cow Dragons and accumulated a strategic reserve of their Wish granting cheese in hidden caves. When he wanted to make a Wish he gave precise instructions to an expendable cultist screened for absolute loyalty, then fed her bite after bite until she either got lucky or instantly died (at which point he called up the next victim in line). This proved unreliable because the cultists came from enclosed orders who revered him as a God. As much as they wanted to do what he said, they couldn’t resist wishing for what they actually wanted, which was usually “be impregnated by the King” or “be lifedrained by the King in a moment of timeless sustained ecstasy.” It took a lot of work and a lot of dead cultists and he only messed with it when there was no way to get what he wanted through cunning or brute force.

During the rebellion the Cow Dragons were slaughtered in their kraals by a strain of psychic encephalopathy brewed in the plague pits of the Goblin alchemists, bringing an end to the whole program.

Or so everyone thought.

 

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: Grand Supreme

The Entropomancers of Level Die get a letter.

To the sorcerers of Level Die

A challenge:

Come to Caesars Atlantic City and I will kill you.

I have a spectacular Roman cage cup dating approximately 100 years before the fall of the Republic. Its value is incalculable. Since I only charge using vessels I make myself, you are welcome to it. Come to the Toga Bar. I will be waiting there to take your skulls. If you survive the goblet is yours.

-Three Bear

It’s an obvious trap. That’s what makes it fun.

Fighting Fantasy Introductory RPG: Into The Nest

Enormous burrowing insects have exposed the entrance to an ancient tomb. Only a greedy fool would descend into the bug infested hole to pillage the treasure therein. 

 

PROVENDER: False Retreat

Dune predicted that any genuine discovery of the New Age would be co opted by The Man. Psychedelic drugs, tantric sex, yoga, the human potential movement, it would all serve the interests of billion dollar corporations and government conspiracies. 

 

Today instead of maintaining adequate staffing levels, companies use "mindfulness" to fight burnout. Programmers microdose LSD to make themselves more productive. And Movement Medicine instructor Edwina "Ed" Christ holds ecstatic dance retreats to help employees of billion dollar firms open their third eye.

Minidungeon: The Unquiet Tomb

In the distance, shimmering in heat haze so thick they may have been a mere illusion, a lounge of bright white lizards skated across the Plain. Their skin regulated the diffusion of heat and moisture, allowing the particles only to move one way and thereby letting them control their internal temperature in the lethal heat. By day they jogged across the dunes, legs thrashing like pistons driven by the strange energy of glowing crystals. By moonlight they climbed rock formations to sleep out of reach of the night creatures, and it was not uncommon for travelers on the plain seeking similar shelter to surprise such lizards and send them leaping out of rock fissures at top speed. Like the corpse leaping from the grave as the necromancer cast his staff in, soul returned to the place it once called home but thinking only of ruin and the necessity of flight.

The green men who called the Plain home showed the first adventurers how the skin of such a creature could be made into a heavy cloak that would protect the wearer from the heat, or a half-shelter or a tent to rest inside during the day. The adventurers built vast reeking meatcamps and slaughtered the lizards in the thousands to make garments that would permit their further expansion into the deserts of the frontier. The camps tinted the river red and blue and iridescent shades as the menu of creatures disassembled for parts expanded and the effluent from that biological pillage flowed ankle then knee deep. 

Coxinha stomped toward the jagged cliffs at the edge of the plain, wrapped in such a cloak. Her eyes were shielded by protective goggles made from the eyecaps of a Rhagodessa and smeared with a thin layer of smoke colored oil to dim the sun and stop them fogging. The cloak was wrapped around her face below the goggles to stop the superheated air from scorching her lungs. It cooled the air but the feeling of suffocation went nowhere. Slow death in a jar. A capsule confined to the airless void of space.

She couldn't see the ranger up ahead. His cloak was bright white like hers but never seemed to shimmer. Never gave up his position. Ahead of where she thought he was, the entrance. Low tide in the desert pulled the dunes away from the mouth of the cave. A tunnel without ornament but clearly artificial. Unplundered.

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: The Greggs and the Graveyard

The Fourwentways Bronze Age Cemetery, off the A11 interchange outside Cambridge. Past the roundabout where the trucks park, behind the Travelodge. A small interpretive sign explains the significance: four thousand years ago, primitive Britons inhumed their dead beneath a complex of burial mounds that once stood on this spot. Today, the site is naught but a fenced off patch of grass and a few sickly trees, littered with rubbish from the nearby combination Burger Greggs.

It’s the middle of autumn and the middle of the night. The moon’s the color of bone but you wouldn’t know it through the clouds. Everything is wet.

Monster Mash Test Drive - The Tunnel Under the Tundra

 

A Dwarven exploratory mining expedition disappears beneath the permafrost layer of the ancient tundra.

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: Black Coffee

 
1980. Skyrocketing coffee prices induce East Germany to send engineers and help the Vietnamese establish first rate coffee plantations. In exchange the GDR will receive half of Vietnam’s coffee harvest for the next twenty years.

Coffee is to Teutons like tea is to the English. Its absence is apocalyptic. It’ll take years for the Vietnamese coffee operation to bear fruit. The way things are going, there won’t be an East Germany by then. 

In the Hands of Osiris - Masterpost

Ferenc Eisenhut

 

An Unknown Armies 3e double feature set during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt.

 

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan's Unknown Armies Con Scenarios

 

 

While looking for entries to use in Tormsen's Unnatural Phenomena Jam, I found links to some of Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan's old Unknown Armies con scenarios from the early 2000s on the defunct game.eire site. The Wayback machine had captures of all the relevant .zip files. 

 

John Tynes ain't dead but he's under a noncompete at Wizards, which is basically the same thing. Meanwhile Hanrahan is the best of the Pelgrane devs, his blogposts are better than most of the other guys' published products. But was he always a scenario writing powerhouse, even twenty years ago? I uploaded his UA con adventures here for people to read. I've never heard anyone talk about any of them so hopefully you enjoy reading along.

 

This is not a full review since I haven't run/played any of the modules. I'll likely never run them regardless of quality. If I ever get enough players together for Unknown Armies again I've got a bunch of my own stuff at the top of the pile to be run.

Minidungeon: Escape From Borgo Bridge

You wake up in a bed. The last thing you remember is a delicious meal, a glowing orb and a voice laughing. Out the window, endless mountains, shrouded in mist as the sun goes down. You need to get out of here.

Minidungeon: Barbican of the Blaster Caster

A bright red beam of energy bursts out of the rock face above Hogman's Plain. You happen to witness this from the back porch of the forlorn Potion Addict in the shadow of the ridge. Looks like a magical accident, the kind that leaves arcane treasure up for grabs.

Minidungeon: Haunted Castle Doctrine

The famous Cave Elf Bard Chelicera is playing a set at the old church outside of town. Fans from all over the province have come to see her. It would be nice to figure out what happened to all those people who saw the show and never came back.

Summer Lego RPG Setting Jam: The Drakonomachy

Thousand Lakes is home to sturdy Barbarians who shun arcane magic, trusting the strength of ships and steel. It's also home to Dragons who prey on the magically deficient swamp dwellers, extorting tribute and destroying those who resist.

The coastal Jarl Kaarlo Bogiron refuses to pay the Dragons' tithe of gold and blood. He defies the power of the Drakes from his island fortress in the estuary beyond the river Sprat. The engineer Arto Shornhand, builder of ships and siege weapons, equips the Jarl's forces with weapons capable of challenging the flying beasts. Warriors flock to the Jarl's banner, while Dragon cultists fete the great Worms who oppose him.

Minidungeon: The Spring of Saint Mamacona

The Spring of Saint Mamacona was once a source of Holy Water for the people of the Sentinels, the mountains above the Highlands. Then the flow of water to the villages below was cut off. Of the scouts who ascended Red Mountain to investigate the shrine only a few returned alive, telling stories of enormous shapes moving through the mist, giving off a great heat that melted the snow around them.

Monster Overhaul Test Drive: Kidnapper's Keep

With the collapse of the City of Tontes, the Marble Cliffs have become anarchic. Petty lordlings reassert their authority, controlling the surrounding landscape from fortified keeps. An entreprenurial gang of thieves operating out of a stolen castle run a kidnapping and ransom business, grabbing anyone who looks important and imprisoning them in the dungeons beneath the fortress.

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: INSTANT LOSS

 

The z-list joshi puro promotion INSTANT LOSS Puroresu. As low as you can go in Japanese women’s professional wrestling and still be above ground. A place to see stuff the bigger promotions can’t get away with anymore. Cheap gimmicks, sleaze and disastrous fuckups. A place a woman works if she’s desperate to break into the business, or has no other options.

Monster Overhaul Test Drive: Atoll of the Shark God

A whirlpool has opened in the Atoll of Hanga, leading down to the legendary temple of the long-dead shark god. Treasure hunters salivate at the prospect of a drowned ruin to plunder. Religious authorities worry the great fish may have reawakened - a mindless hungry god that would make Mothermonster look like an HD 0 herd animal.