I recently pivoted my almost-two-year OD&D open table to two different open table campaigns, this one, a sort of eldritch, dark fantasy game inspired by stuff like Averoigne, Berserk, We Are All Legends, Lovecraft, and plenty more, titled “Chronicle of the Cosmic Wound,” and a campaign of Gradient Descent. Eventually I’ll write a retrospective on the OD&D game, but for now I’ll go over Cosmic Wound’s session zero, and the hour or two we got to play before our time limit was reached.
I pitched Cosmic Wound as a dark fantasy setting I’ve been working on for some time, although “lower” magic than the OD&D game we had been playing, with a higher emphasis on stuff like Hammer Horror and some Cosmic Horror stuff. To serve this premise, as well as to hopefully address some of the open table issues I was having, I decided to turn the BRP nob on my home system WAY up, using effectively a homebrewed version of OpenQuest 3e, plus some Dark Ages Cthulhu and Mythras material in it.
My players had all voted for this game via a pitch doc where I outlined the CATS of the game – so they were at least familiar with the pitch. Here is the text of that pitch content:
In a world scarred by forgotten calamities, humanity clings to the remnants of a fading age. Crumbling castles loom over plague-ridden hovels, while in the wild places, things
that should not be stir once more. The old gods lie silent in their graves, yet their blood still seeps into the earth, twisting all it touches.
You are the descendants of a broken realm – survivors, seekers, or perhaps something darker. In your veins runs the echoes of ancient power, a curse and an ambition that sets you apart from the cowering masses. Every ruined keep may hide blasphemous secrets, every mist-shrouded forest a gateway to realms beyond mortal comprehension.
From torch-lit cities to forgotten cairns, from moonlit moors to the very edges of sanity, your choices will shape the fate of a world teetering on the brink of oblivion. Will you seek to mend this dying world, or will you embrace the chaos that seeps through its ragged edges?
GENRE: Dark Fantasy, Low Fantasy
CONTENT: Gritty, morally ambiguous adventures in a world inspired by medieval history but touched by cosmic horror. Navigate political intrigues, explore eldritch ruins, and confront both human cruelty and otherworldly threats.
AIM: Uncover the truth behind the dark places of the world, amass power both mundane and arcane, and carve your place in a world where reality itself is fraying at the seams. Also provide Justin the platform to more regularly playtest adventures he is working on (as they almost always fit this style).
TONE: Brooding, atmospheric, bleak and dark.
SUBJECT MATTER: Violence, gore, body horror, magic, possession, religious zealotry, feudalism, class inequality, corruption, grave robbing, medieval conceptions of society.
REFERENCES: Averoigne, Berserk, We Are all Legends, Lovecraft, Black Company, The First Law, Between Two Fires, The Witcher, Kane, The King in Yellow, Bloodborne, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Dragonslayer, Mythic Europe, Darkest Dungeon, Song of Ice and Fire, The Black Cauldron
Right before the session I was doing my usual hacking and waffling of stuff – which parts of which system do I use? What sort of advancement system do I want for an open table after we had two years of gold silver for XP? How can I keep the magic “low and folky” while still appealing to people who want to be known in the setting as the weird, arcane ones?
I threw together a big player doc – mostly copy-pasting out of the OpenQuest 3e SRD, and rewriting whatever material I needed from other systems into that. I sent this out to them, and it was mostly a success. Unfortunately a bunch of revisions, typos, and inconsistencies snuck in, but we caught them early and most everyone was able to make a character in not too long of time.
I made sure to highlight the differences in the general procedures and dice for this campaign vs. our OD&D one, but I told the players that largely my play style is identical.
One change I made to the open table format for this campaign, is giving people a little bonus for taking on a player role, so I was fortunate that one of the players, Tom, took the scribe role and sent me a session report. I will post that below, rewriting and correcting a few details.
Session 0 Play Report
- Our party includes:
- Osric, an Initiate into the Order of the Luminarch, a monotheistic faith centered on law, civilization, purifying flame, and the teachings of a mysterious messianic figure
- Ald Sunhelm, a thief, foreign to the isle
- Dravein, a traveling archer
- Glühbirne, a massive, club-wielding mercenary
- Maeric, a traveling folk magician
- Our story starts on the isle of Mistholm, in the Hollowbrook Vale , where our band of adventurers arrive, taken under the protection of the Thane Oswyn . The Thane asks us to do a wellness check on his nephew Eorhelm , who lives with his family in a nearby farm. Of late, people have been disappearing from local farms under mysterious circumstances, and the Thane is worried about his welfare. In return for doing the welfare check, the Thane promises that he will reward the party with silver for their troubles.
- Whole farmsteads have been found completely empty, with occasional signs of struggle. When the band questions the townsfolk for more details, they are told that some of the missing are seen weeks or months later, returning to their former homes as the walking dead (revenant?). These dead attempt to shamble through their former routines and, if disturbed, are known to get vicious and attack. Around these farmsteads, there have also been sightings of large, canine-esque footprints in the areas where the missing were taken.
- When the band inquires about the possible source of these attacks, they are told a number of different stories — some blame the local Ashfolk and their ways, others attribute it to werewolves in the forests, and the band is also told to be wary of goblins.
- With werewolves being a likely culprit, the band inquires about the best way to stop them (prayer and wolfsbane). They seek out the local folk person Beoth, who offers to trade them a bushel of wolfsbane in exchange for the promise of future silver. The band agrees, and sets off to the nephew’s farmstead 6 miles outside Hollowbrook Vale .
- When the band arrives at the nephew’s farm, they approach cautiously — the scene looks suspicious, and they notice the front door is ajar and hanging only partially on its hinges. There appears to be signs of struggle, which is not confirmed until they investigate the area further. Upon further investigation, they discover the following:
- The nephew’s farm dog is found nearby, dead for a few days and partially wrapped around a tree. The dog looks gored and is rotting.
- In a nearby lean-to, they discover the nephew’s thrall, who has been injured. After some cajoling, he allows the band to approach him, where they realize he has an infected leg, which the band’s priest heals. With reassurance that the band means no harm, he tells the band what transpired, or what he thinks transpired, if he did not witness all of it firsthand. The nephew and his family were attacked by two werewolves, and their child was taken by a mysterious, wizardly-looking man (backwoods pagan?) in a lopsided hat with yellow eyes, presumably for some sort of child sacrifice.
- With more of the story becoming clear, the band ventures to investigate the house. There, they discover the headless body of the nephew (torn off with evidence of canine bites), and the fallen body of the nephew’s wife, who has been gored with bite marks. There’s no sign of the child, and they also see a broken ax, which the slave says was ineffective against the werewolves.
- After some deliberation, the band considers next steps. Not wanting to let down the Thane (and also wanting his reward), they take the thrall in their care, the priest cremates the nephew and wife’s remains, and the band sets off deeper into the surrounding forest to find the attackers, following the canine and boot tracks left behind.
- As the band moves into the forest, the thief leads the way, using his stealth to his advantage… Until he accidentally steps on a fallen twig and, with a loud crack, alerts a group of wandering brigands. Two brigands threaten the group, telling them that they want their silver (of which the band has none currently), then their weapons, which they’ll use to fund the mercenary army they are building. While technically outnumbered, the brigands raise a crossbow at the thief and then the fighter, when he becomes angry and the situation escalates.
- From there, a fight erupts between the band and the brigands. Both sides take some damage, with the brigands hitting a few of the band, and the band fighting back with steel and magic. One of the brigands is near death; the other whistles during the battle to call out more of his group from the nearby trees. When the brigands take too much damage, they offer to parlay.
- After some deliberation, the band decides to accept the brigands’ parlay, with their only concession being that they must give up a weapon (a short sword?), which they give to the thrall, so that he something to which he can defend himself (and the band).
- With that, the campaign is paused for the night and the story is left to continue another day (or two weeks from now)!
Thoughts and Referee Commentary
For one – making players take on player roles was great – right now I am thinking the “reward” for doing so will be to get a free reroll in the session. If someone makes a play report (which doesn’t have to be the scribe), I’ll give them one Growth Point (OpenQuest’s advancement currency).
In terms of the session, I think it went pretty well and was both different enough from the OD&D game to be a nice break, but also familiar enough that everyone could just jump into it.
There’s a bunch of BRPisms I am still struggling with. For one – there is VERY easy access to magic. Granted, it is Folk magic, which is stuff like local charms, prayers, and stuff very in theme with the setting, but there are definitely some spells that players were able to gun for right away. For example, the Priest immediately took Heal 6 which cures mortal wounds and “cures all disease and poison,” which I think is a bit more powerful than I want in this setting.
One way I am trying to reinforce the slightly-lower magic setting is to highly limit Magic Point regeneration. Right now I tie it to Charisma, and players heal somewhere between 1-3 points a day. I might even transition that to a week, but that might be a bit too long for many players.
Another thing I am trying is to use one of those wikis for the setting, as many players had a hard time understanding what was going on in the dense lore and situations of our OD&D game. I always run into the issue that players end up not reading it, but we’ll see if there’s some way around that.
I am looking forward to the next session!