Hellhound

On My Trail

An Agon Hack
by Nick Wedig
 I've got to keep movin', A Word On Safety
blues fallin' down like hail,
History is full of terrible stuff, including all sorts of
[...]
racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, violence,
And the day keeps on worrin' me,
injustice, and suffering. Your player characters are
there's a hellhound on my trail
likely to be the sort of people on the wrong end of
—“Hellhound on my trail”,
those sorts of problems. Sometimes it is good to tell
Robert Johnson, 1937
stories about these real world evils, to imagine heroes
fighting back against them. That story has value. But
sometimes you want to imagine a world where you
don't have to deal with those evils. That has value,
In 1929, the world ended. Some folks in Washington
too. They key thing is to know which kind of story
and Wall Street did something or other that meant
you and your fellow players want to tell. When you
no one could work no more. You don’t rightly
begin a game of Hellhound On My Trail, talk with
understand what it. All you know is that it meant
your fellow players about what content you are each
the bank foreclosed on your family farm.
comfortable with in play. If anyone has reservations
on some sort of content, then you simply never have
Now you’re penniless, wandering the country.
that appear in play. If you are playing an ongoing
You’re seeking a new home, food, jobs, anything to
campaign, checking in briefly at the start of each
get by. But the farmlands have turned into a desolate
session to see how everyone is feeling. You are always
dust bowl. Every town you come to is haunted. And
allowed to change your mind, to ask that you don't
there is a malevolent force chasing you for unknown
deal with a sensitive topic this evening. You don't
reasons. There’s evil out there in America, rotting
have to give any explanation if you don't want to.
the country to the core, and it is after your soul.
The point of a game is to entertain its players, so if
anything will hurt your enjoyment, then you should
“Hellhound on My Trail” is a hack of Agon by John
cut it from the game.
Harper and Sean Nittner. In this game, you transpose
the epic tales of ancient myth onto the lives of down
For similar reasons, every group should use emotional
on their luck drifters during the Great Depression.
safety tools that work for them. These are techniques
One core theme of the game is keeping the game
like the X-Card by John Stavropoulos or Script
ambiguously magical: folks might talk about ghosts,
Change by Beau Sheldon that you can layer on top of
hoodoo and strange powers, but it is left unresolved
existing games to give people tos for dealing with
if these things are really magical or merely
difficult topics. Find one that works for you and your
superstition and metaphor.
group, and use it as part of play, in case new
problems arise while you are playing. You never
You will need the base game of Agon to make any
know when your story will accidentally stumble into
sense of this document.
a topic that is a pain point for someone else at the
table, so you use these tos to help mitigate harm and
Inspirations deal with difficult topics.
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (dir. the Coen
Brothers), Carnivàle (TV series 2003), Lovecraft This game isn't an excuse for you to be or to pretend
Country (TV series 2020), The Ballad of Black Tom to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. If you're going to
by Victor Lavelle, The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles be a shitty person, find another game to play.
Finney, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, The
Twilight Zone (TV series 1959), etc.

Hellhound On My Trail by Nick Wedig 1

Drifters The Blues
Instead of ancient Greek heroes, you play drifters. Instead of Divine Favor, you have blues songs or folk
You could be anyone who finds themselves uprooted songs that resonate in your soul. Each drifter places
and wandering during the Depression, for any begins with 2 marks in their favorite song, and they
reason. distribute 3 marks between the other songs below (or
pick another period appropriate song and work with
Drifters can't settle down. At least, you can't. There your group to decide its meaning).
is something shadowy and evil coming for you. If you
remain more than a few days in any town, then the
it will find you. You aren't sure exactly what would Haints
happen then, but it ain't going to be good. So you
Instead of divine wrath, you have Haints, ghosts of
keep wandering town to town as you learn more and
the past that come back to haunt you. Like
more about the thing chasing you. Then when
everything else supernatural in the game, these are
you've finally found a place to call home, you can
ambiguous if they are actual ghosts or if they are just
finally choose to face this threat that is after you.
regrets and painful memories. Haints are tied to one
specific drifter, but work the same as Divine Wrath.
Nickname
Instead of an Epithet, you have a nickname.
Nicknames imply some essential part of your Bonds
character. "King" might imply authority and
Create one bond with another character. If you knew
grandeur, "Rabbit" might imply that you are jumpy
these characters before taking to the road, record
and a fast runner.
another bond with another character. If you just met
up with them while already a drifter, you mark one
more blues song.
Former Life
Instead of a Lineage, you have a Former Life. You
didn’t choose to wander the country. Your Former Glory
Life represents who you were before you became a
Glory still stays the same (but maybe means
drifter. Maybe you were a newspaper reporter
something different in a different context).
whose paper went under, or an heiress who lost her
Pathos is renamed Despair, but acts the same.
fortune. Choose a domain that your former life
Fate remains the same in name and function.
makes you good at.

Legendary Virtues
DOMAINS
Don't worry about it. When your story is through,
There are four domains, but they are different than
just narrate your end based on your deeds.
in default Agon.

The Left Hand Creativity and Trickery

The Right Hand Blood and Brute Force
The Head Intellect and Knowledge
The Heart Soul and Intuition

Hellhound On My Trail by Nick Wedig 2

Harm There is no Vault of Heaven to mark your travels.
The drifters keep wandering until they decide to
Work the same, but rename:
finally face the evil that is after them. When you
decide to face the evil, the Strife player creates a final
Dangerous: Mark Despair when you suffer against a
"town" to represent the confrontation with the evil
Dangerous threat.
as it has been revealed. In the final town, the Strife
Deadly: Mark Despair when you enter a contest
player can abandon ambiguity and make things
against a Deadly threat.
explicitly supernatural… or explicitly mundane.
Scary: Spend a blues song if you suffer against a Scary
threat.
After each town, the Strife player adds a Haint to
Terrifying: Spend a blues song when you enter a
one drifter, representing the worst thing any of the
contest against a Terrifying threat.
drifters did in the last town.

Towns
Between Towns Instead of islands , you wander from town to town.
Each town is still a self contained adventure, as in
Between towns, you spend some time singing songs,
regular Agon. In every town, there is something
telling tales and getting to know your traveling
strange going on. The Strife player's job is to present
companions.
the town and the troubles, but do it in a way that is
ambiguously magical in nature. Maybe the Widow
Perform Fellowship step as normal.
Cranston claims she can spin straw into gold. She
might be telling the truth, or she might be a con artist
Instead of the Sacrifice step, you tell ghost stories
of some sort.
about why you fear the evil that is chasing you.
Everyone rolls Heart, the Strife player rolls 2d6 and
One way to do this is to take stories from mythology
takes the highest die. drifters earn Glory as usual.
and literalize them. Find a way to take the themes of
The best's story is also true, and they gain an
a mythical epic and make them into down to earth
Advantage die for details from that story when they
tales of penniless wanderers. (Oh Brother Where Art
finally face the evil.
Thou? is all about this.) So maybe a mighty king with
a massive army is the small town mayor and his posse
If all drifters suffer, then the Strife player tells them a
of thuggish friends. Maybe Orpheus isn't a demigod
tale, the most terrible tale they can think of about the
who can sing so well the rocks weep, but an old blues
evil. That fear gives the evil power. The strife player
guitar master seeking his lost love in the worst places
gives a Haint to the drifter that rolled lowest.
imaginable. A mythical monster could be a ferocious
wild animal or a dangerous criminal in the run from
After the stories, you sing some blues songs. Each
the law. Supernatural effects could instead be
drifter marks 2 blues songs.
superstition or happen offscreen and be uncertain in
nature.
Determine leadership as normal.

For inspiration, you could take any story from Greek

myth, obviously. But you could also pull from other
For use with the PARAGON system, myths, folktales and fairy tales, or even from the
©2020 John Harper & Sean Nittner. AGON-RPG.COM islands made for regular Agon game play.
Hellhound On My Trail by Nick Wedig is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Hellhound On My Trail by Nick Wedig 3