Session 8-9 - Playlog - Corrhéo

Turn back through time with me. 

It is 7/2/25. Two sessions have passed; a third is brewing. These sessions have been interconnected. A player meetup happened, videos on.

Typically all is audio + whatever plant you are looking at when you are listening to other players.

Last session was probably the greatest session to date, broadly speaking. I walked away from it, set a time for two minutes, and tried to tell my wife everything that had happened.

I said the next day that 'whatever happened last night was unportable to reality' to one of the players. What I mean by that, and discussed with a potential player across the table from me moments ago, is that the session was SO SUBSTANTIAL and yet, when described in terms of plot, entirely banal.

But, in the interest of continued capacities as writers, thinkers, explorers of mark-making and its capacity to weave reality, let's try to capture it anyway and see if some of the magic can't be stored here, for you. Maybe I can turn it into something useful you can walk away with.

That would be a nice goal.

Here's my table of contents. Skip around as you like but it will all relate.

• / Session 8
• / Session 9
• / Retrospective: How AI will fails you
• / Party splitting vs the Cinema
• / Making imprisonment complex
• / The fear of darkness
• / Player pariahs and the unwelcome antagonism of becoming a cult leader
• / Goodbye

/ Session 8

Recall our players quickly:

• Zugg Dax, an aspiring paladin who has found fealty difficult for a leader besides himself.
• Maddeson, of Genemene, Genemene which is a hidden society whose exposure is threatened by Maddeson's employer HOOD,
• Taamog Peets, a young goblin who now makes excellent snares, loves his brittle obsidian daggers (and any loot), but who almost died
• Zahir the Half-Orc Priest of Balance, which he's discovered in the course of playing
• Godfrey, the 'ex-mercenary' with family issues

Now: we leveled at the end of Session 7. That means Session 8 had new HP.

I tasked players with using the experience points I'd been granting them to summarize what 'leveling' meant to them. Experience was written in litany format, and granted in parcels of 1's mostly. Collected they might look something like:

• +1xp for a well-stitched camp in the boonies
• +1xp for setting the stakeout
• +1xp for shielded calm under pressure
• +2 xp for solving snipped snares
• +1xp for "You are like a coypu"
• +1xp for knowing how best to dress a gibbon
• +1xp for dealing with small devils
• +1xp for keeping a bit of gravewax handy

This is the 10xp that took Godfrey the ex-Merc to Level 2. 

I appreciate Shadowdark's reduced number for experience points. I don't have to get too complex in my head, I can simply reward at least one per session, and the list I make as prep provides me an opportunity to look back over the last session and think of one thing the character did that surprised me, succeeded wildly, or failed miserably. In this way they are either proving a character they know out loud, learning new capacities, or learning from failures. To me, that's a nice simple system.

Their synopses came back from poetic to straightforward. 

I took each and thought 'in what way would Corrheo offer up its magics or infuse their bodies based on the catharsis they've had'.

For example:

"Please add bloodshield to Godfrey's abilities. For each point of armor class he wishes to give to an ally, Godfrey loses 1hp. The effect lasts until he is healed. He must be able to see them."

"Zahir: add dustskin to your spell abilities. Can be used 3x per month to harden skin to impenetrability."

Everyone got fun abilities. I don't know if I will apply the same logic to the third level, but it's a bridge I'll cross after 20xp has been gained. It did shift me into think about

Sub-head:

Classless systems: I'm very tempted by classless systems. I find Shadowdark's classes are predisposed to a very specific style of play that doesn't match what I'm interested in drawing out of my players. I want players to find how magic works in themselves. I never want to hear a priest say I cast cure light wounds when the fighter next to them has just taken a sword blow that cuts to the collarbone. I'm a snob for interesting wordplay and game as plumber to the imagination's natural tendency to clog.

This means that whatever spells Shadowdark has provided, I'm avoiding desperately and instead saying: what has this character been to the group; what have they sought to do; what have they avoided doing; what would make them more capable of doing those things that they are already doing. 

Godfrey has interceded, Peets has studied enemies, Maddeson has sought perspective, Zugg wants a friend, Zahir is scared so often.

So: accentuation happened. And as I reflect now, it wasn't before Session 8. It was before 7. But very few character abilities had come out yet on this blog, so I don't feel bad.

Session 8 the characters had decided to split ways. Maddeson had returned to BastThe town of Bast is subsidiary to the Grey Misnan. Two simple streets, regular access to harvest apothecary reagents of nearby landscapes, and the frontier quality of an orderly Western town near enough to the military to seem safe. and the Grey MisnanThe northernmost point in the Corrhéonic Stand's defense network. Has dungeon, daily training drills in the bailey, and a broad basiliskian presence to turn themselves in for the murder(s) committed at Perry'sA two-floor house of bawd and booze. Tame'ish; Zugg was heading south without explained intention and fallen in with Malehu, a pilgrim, and his tiny son Cor. Malehu believed the Penitent Oasis ('an oasis on legs') would be found, and pilgrims were gathering around a prophet at The ApertureFull description in previous entries; visual portal in the high hills at which pilgrims convene and many pray. The alien technology is also pondered by knowledge-seekers. Bandits thrive. The three others, 'The Trio', bit on a hook to save Magister Kohl and Lord Wygmy in Wygmy's Silstone Jet VeinSimilarly described fully in previous entries: Lord Wygmy owns the hill and in the hill is the vein and the vein is jet but the land is hostile to his efforts at claiming 'what's his', where miners had recently opened to a dangerous realm and been lost.

/ Party splitting vs the Cinema

My only request was that though the group was split, they had to show up to sessions together until they returned to HQ, when they could join other players if they wished.

In the role of referee, I enjoy watching the improv of a roleplaying session for cut points. We have three hours together and at some point I end the night. But there are also moments to change scene, to cut away to narration, to insert new conflict.

With players spread across three locations, these cuts come more often so as to stabilize attention. Everyone wants to play.

My effort on Session 8 was to make sure that the amount of time that passed was similar in all three settings. The problem was, one group was measuring action in rounds and others were in social play. The trio stood at the door to the mine and considered whether they wanted to go in for almost twenty minutes of real time. Maddeson, on the other hand, was feeling around with their hands for a good place in the community jail room to sleep without getting ambushed. (It turns out they got ambushed anyway, and nearly got choked to death in the dark).

What this application of split party efforts resulted in was that I hyper-condensed Zugg's play to the very end of the session. I alternated between the mine party and the prison player and then every second round of this alternation, spent some time talking with Zugg via Malehu and the camp area he was in. But it was midnight. He had no need or reason to adventure, to search around. The player was comfortable with this and enjoyed watching, but I can't say every group would feel this way. It did build my sense of obligation to Zugg to provide more profound action in Session 9. 

This, to me, is the natural gameflow of campaign play.

So I suppose this would be a moment to consider, when are cuts good and when are they not?

Good cuts so far:

• The jail door closes behind Maddeson and they seek to find their way across to a place to lay and wait for interrogation. The What's Due agent who Godfrey assaultedTurin, a local breakerman of Bast. See Session four or five for his approach of the party, the potential agent of Maddeson's guilt, grabs their ankle and seeks to choke them in the dark. No one comes to their aid. They will be suffocated under the hands of a gorilla and they will have chosen to do so, as they turned themselves in without any knowledge of what justice could mean. This could be justice. The rolls fail. Then the desperate rolls succeed. They free themselves violently and crawl to the door. GUARDS! I've been assaulted. The guards look down in the dim light, peer into the cell, and close the door. Cut.
• The trio find the mine. They stare at its edges and try to gather information about conflict. They plan, and leave the priest aboveground. They find their way down in the dark to a stockade of barrels filled with mine goods behind which their guard contact crouches, scared shitless. They make contact and try to spook some information out of him. He has them quench their torch. He has them whisper. They hear the Magister crawling in a well a hundred feet laterally and twenty five feet vertically distant. He's still mind-controlled. They check the stockades for supplies and decide to make a small fire to draw the biñas, the soot beetles, out. To try to draw anything out. To ambush. The small flame is placed at the top of main stairs down. A whistling sound precedes the beetles, in a hushed moment as they watch from the stockade, the flame is snuffed out and their hiding space is cast into blackness. Cut.
• Maddeson's door is opened after two tense hours of silence and darkness. The guards plus an equipoise marshal. All of them go to a room. The marshal questions Maddeson. As a foreigner, are they aware of Corrheonic justice? That it is the victims of the justice who ascribe the punishment? This would be the boy Maddeson killed's surviving family. Also: who are you? What are you doing in our country? Maddeson reveals HOOD, casts blame on HOOD for holding a knife to their people's throat. Seeks information themselves from the Corrhéonic StandEssentially the wilting knighthood of Corrhéo who hold vestigial sway over local affairs and operate less impressively abroad and in site of the wider world. The peasants are realizing this. Who is HOOD? The Stand doesn't know. But they don't like foreign agencies who are looking to gain power domestically through subversive agents who are killing people in taverns, even if the kid was a do-no-good. Maddeson has convinced them, to a degree, that Maddeson is a person of some virtue. That they could be 'trusted', to a degree enough that the marshal places an option in front of Maddeson. Wear these simple bracers of Old Corrhéic magic. They are binding bracelets. You will swear an oath to research and report on this HOOD, return information to us, and we will let you go free with a pass of justice. If you fail, they will cinch closed and you will lose both of your hands. Or, you can face justice by the family and whatever they choose to leverage against you. Maddeson chose the family then was escorted out of the room and back to the common cell. They caught a glimpse of the marshal with a curious, maybe sad, look on his face. Cut.
• The trio realized they had no idea how to confront the beetles or the staircase. They slipped down the secondary path very cautiously, skittering rocks ahead to test for holes. They found the well. Magister Kohl was invisible in the darkness at the bottom crawling around on two broken legs with a sprig fae See the Siltstone Vein's full description for first appearance; sprig fae are waifish and black and perfect-bodied; citadel-builders among the stalagtites & —mites; touching jet in the walls warms and lights the area; focused mind control, mischievous of course (they knew it as a 'small flying devil') telling him that he loved digging, he loved digging, repeating himself that he did love digging, he did love digging, using the poor edges of his raw hands to do so. (He is perpetuating exploitation of the natural world through mining into pristine ecosystems so picture me not feeling bad about torturing my little Job with the honest truth taken into metaphorical obscenity). He was digging. They were 25' up. They kept trying to say they were doing things that were impossible without sight. I kept reminding them it was pitch-black. They had a rope. They sent the big guy down the well to rescue the Magister tying off to themselves. Their hands failed them and he fell, only just catching himself on the rock wall above. The sprig fae tapped the jet next to it and lit up the base of the well, looking up at the hanging mercenary. The charm broke. The magister just moaned, 'my legs'. Cut.

End session.

I think the big difference on these cuts is that some of the cuts leave the characters words hanging in the air, and others leave the characters themselves hanging in the air.

Most everything has to do with hanging though, or a 'ringing' sense that I think is the practice of listening for beauty.

That's a luxury many of us don't have. We're often busy with things and trying to be efficient. But a good cut, which is essentially editing on the fly, leaves a beautiful sound in the ears of those who felt it. A well struck gong that echoes through our black incapability to do anything else. I want characters to be thinking 'what the F am I going to do?'

And then also be very happy that they don't have to decide just yet.

/ Session 9

Session 9 picked up at this point, Godfrey hanging from a well-side. Maddeson being put back in jail. And Zugg in a camp. Zugg had meditated with Malehu on a number of topics. This is what Zugg's player enjoys, talking through virtues and choices. He is very exploratory of each detail, and interested in what the game generates in him. He has sent me a number of documents that will serve as appendices to all of this some day, as they have been beautiful work that has grown on the side-trail of the adventure, and deserve their own frames and treasure.

I'll share one that came up around this time, however.

/ Player pariahs and the unwelcome antagonism of becoming a cult leader

I'm leaping ahead because I've discussed Maddeson and the trio's position at length. Zugg's position was a more nuanced one. Here was a character who had taken the lead in almost every decision. They believed themselves righteous in the killing of the five members of What's Due who had confronted them and demanded that they concede their freedom. Zugg had led the party through a number of moments of stillness, demanding action or decision, shepherding the more tentative players through expression of intent.

The rest of the group had clearly indicated that this became unbearable at a point, for various reasons. This was obvious because Zugg was alone.

Now: Zugg chose to go off alone. As did Maddeson. Both players were bullish in this decision. I love this decision. It admits the truth of group dynamics. It also allows the players to see each other playing. I believe I've mentioned this before. But Maddeson alone in a prison is Maddeson speaking to me in the presence of 4 invisible audience members. The same is true for Zugg on the side of the mountain.

Now: Zugg promised Malehu that he would walk him and his son to the ridge of the hills in exchange for a shared camp last night. When he woke, he woke from a long session of watching other players play, so Zugg began circling camp. He found a bone whistle in the grasses, one decorated in carved wave crests. He laughed at this, and gave it a slight toot. He spied, in the distance, a caravan making its way along the major pilgrim road that he would carry Lehu's cart up when the man and his son were ready to make off for the day. I drew this caravan from previous encounter charts of the area, because having an encounter on the horizon always feels like a pressure that can be applied as needed when the present circumstances stale.

Now: Zugg and Malehu have talked at length and discovered a quiet, sure friendship. This is simply myself and Zugg talking in front of an audience of four. Malehu and his son had lost their mother/wife role to the Rot. They were giving up the family business (elixirs and scents made and transported along smaller northern trade routes) because they'd heard that someone had found the Penitent Oasis. A former member of the Prim Jae AscendancyAlso detailed elsewhere, an outdated sect of the Clinchin Fold who sought to capture / control the moving landmark via some energy-draining crystals; a local desert tragedy that changed the landscape significantly. On this morning, they were sad to know they would part with Zugg.

On taking our leave of camp, I knew a couple things.

1. Zugg was going different directions
2. Malehu and Cor were going to their doom, more or less (Corduroy is a madman and the Penitent Oasis is a high-risk myth to pursue)
3. That all three needed friendship

I had nothing in particular to address with Zugg. The caravan was no danger and was much slower. So Malehu just took a big breath in and then felt how good this felt. To be in search of the Oasis after his wife's death. To be giving up his material life to pursue something great. And Zugg said something strange that hit me: 'Lehu: are you sure you haven't already found the Oasis?'

I was very moved by this. Because:

1. Malehu thinks the Oasis is a physical thing
2. So do I

So I couldn't help but refuse, but why?

And it struck me that I had to have a reason I would be in pursuit of the Penitent Oasis, and as with many of the characters revolving in Corrhéo, the answer became self-obvious fairly quickly.

The Rot.

So Lehu peeled back his shirt quietly and showed Zugg how his chest was wasted and ruined and getting worse.

This was one of those complex moments that can't be ported out into reality. This was exclusively improv and synthesis of circumstance and felt so -right- and so perfectly confounding to the situation. It felt like rolling a 20 when I needed it, without getting to roll dice. Whatever Zugg did next wouldn't matter.

Turns out, it did.

Zugg who has wanted to play a paladin in a world without paladins did what he did the last time he saw another character he ostensibly cared for fall. He asked Malehu if he could try to help. He tried to lay on hands.

There was resistance. Zugg wanted to tie the boy into the ritual by putting him on his shoulders. 

Malehu / I felt conflicted.

But they'd built a relationship. And he rolled a single roll well. 

But it's the Rot, right? It's like, one of the major plagues of Corrhéo. There are factions dedicated to its removal. Zugg is level two.

But...

Story...

It knocked him unconscious to try. I think I said something like: 'Thank God for the strength you've given Malehu, because he catches Cor from your shoulders as you fall unconscious'.

Okay, so game logistics: I sapped 5 strength from Zugg and gave it to Malehu. Zugg had insane establishing rolls as a character and has been a dominating physical presence in all combat thus far. Just lopping heads. I want to challenge that, in part. I also want to challenge the idea of 'free gifts'. Curing a character of the Rot ... nobody does that, or tries to do that. I do want Zugg the capacity to be a hero and for heroes to do things beyond their everyday fellow's capacity, but I'm all for keeping boundaries intact.

So Zugg wakes up -5 STR. He's been propped against the wheel of the cart, and the caravan so far behind has arrived with a giant bellC-08-01 - Bellwright’s Quarry

Bellwright’s Quarry produces renowned ceremonial bells, but flawed ones shatter after ringing. Superstition claims the quarry is cursed, and sabotage threatens production.

The Bellwright’s Quarry is a large open expanse of gray stone cliffs where local craftsmen have carved ceremonial bells from the unique, acoustically resonant stone for hundreds of years. Nearly all of the region’s stone bells are made here and shipped to surrounding towns and cities in the North of the channel. The bells are valued for their rich artistry and penetrating tone but are known for their flaw: after being rung, the vibrations eventually cause the bell to shatter.

Deeper: The bells are not created with magic but with precise craftsmanship and tradition. Long ago, members of the Royal Family of Old Corrheo commissioned these great funeral bells, gilded in gold and adorned with jewels, at this quarry.

But in recent years, local superstition has held that the quarry is cursed due to flawed bells. Rumors abound of unexplained tremors and strange, distant sounds echoing from the cliffs at night. Workers fear staying late, believing that the tolls of shattered bells still resonate in the stone.

The Cradle of Bells is a massive, cleared section of the quarry where the carved bells are displayed before shipping - the air is always peppered with the dust of fresh-cut stone and the earthy smell of moss-covered rocks. The ground beneath feels slightly unstable. Wagons pulled by teams of oxen traverse carry newly carved bells up the old switchback road out of the quarry and up to the Cradle. Deep grooves carved into the road suggest that the bells were once transported using large, primitive sleds, leaving permanent scars on the quarry’s surface.

A local faction, angry that their town could not secure credit for a founding bell with the quarry, has begun sabotaging the bell production. The saboteurs blend in as workers and use natural quarry hazards to conceal their activities, such as causing rockfalls or tampering with scaffolding. They leave subtle marks on the stone, weakening the bells further to ensure their eventual shattering.

Bellwright Haltren Elric, son of the Foreman , is obsessed with maintaining the reputation of the quarry, desperate to complete a perfect bell that will not shatter. He tirelessly watches over the artisans, correcting even the slightest mistake. in it, drawn by great beasts of burden.

Malehu sees Zugg wake up, breaks off conversation, checks in on his friend. Shows him the tranquil skin of his chest. Looks adoringly at the resting healer. Zugg doesn't feel great, but he's proud, so proud.

And that's where we left off Session 9.

Now: that phrase echoes again. 'Are you sure you haven't already found the Oasis?'

What I want to do now is transform the relationship. Malehu was on a trajectory. So was Zugg. Opposite directions. I had always thought that pursuit of the mythology of the Oasis might inform player action. But now I'm thinking: what if instead of them pursuing the Oasis, what if they were assumed -to be- the Oasis? What if Malehu became an acolyte of Zugg's. A zealous follower. If the prophecies suggest that the evergreen life of the Oasis was the necessary component in combatting the Rot... what if Zugg was perceived as an avatar or incarnation of the thing? What would happen if others began to glom on? What if this character who had been so desperate to be alone and to pursue his own goals became an unexpected or even unwanting leader of a small group of pilgrims who wept and waited at his feet?

How challenging would that be?

I think very.

So as a thank you for reading through today's writing, I'll give you one last table effort at being generically helpful rather than asking you to interpret my playthrough for helpful things.

3d4 Reasons a Character Might Get Followers They Don't Want

•  3 — A righted log or simple environmental adjustment destroys the threat to a community. You crushed the small dictator!
• 4 — Dogged at a distance. 
  
  But you said you would do it. You promised. 
• 5 — Expected, mistaken, or perceived kinship — aren't you my brother?
• 6 — A performance creates spiritual transformation in a witness. They suspect divinity or otherworldliness.
• 7 — A seemingly miraculous healing converts the healed into zealotry
• 8 — A dangerously alluring scent
• 9 — Unnatural physique or beauty. Someone who wants to see that, be that, or become that.
• 10 — A psychosis state or gaseous release creates sense of Godhood
• 11 — 1d6 flawed dopplegangers follow in an effort to understand what they're missing. Damn spilled DNA.
• 12 — The Chosen One: by location, time, or physical appearance, its vague enough. You've finally come.

Also, clearly I didn't get to

• / Retrospective: How AI will fails you
• / Making imprisonment complex
• / The fear of darkness
• / And adding: how faeries have entered my weapons

So I'll save them for a future post.

/ Goodbye

Hope you have a good game,

- Hugh