As it stands now, I’m nearly 100 pages in— more on that in a moment— and it doesn’t break character. It’s a collection of files, notes, journals, and ephemera detailing people’s encounters with the various nasties in this book. There’s nary a stat to be found and even the credits are at the back of the book rather than the front. Altogether, it’s 300 pages, covering 16 different phenomena. If you were to mistake this for a collection of short stories, you wouldn’t be far off the mark!

It’s definitely in a more Hunter-y context than any of the other games, a plain World of Darkness mortals game being one big possible exception. By that I mean that these stories are laid out more like mysteries than threats. So far, they’re fairly localized phenomena, though for at least a few of these horrors it’s obvious how you could increase their scope, at least to the point where they might give any of the other supernaturals cause for concern.

Anyway, it’s a real treat so far. It adds a lot to what might come to mind when you think about Hunter: the Vigil in particular and the sorts of things you’d see in World of Darkness in general.

All that said, I imagine you’ll get a bunch more more mileage out of it if you pick up Collection of Horrors. From what I can tell, it gives you something more concrete than a story, using the SAS system, various props (incl. audio) (!), and presumably statistics for some of the phenomena concerned. I’m intrigued, to the point where I’m considering buying the bundle. I like it when companies experiment like this, and I suspect these would be ideal for one-shots.

Since it’s evening when I’m writing this, I’m going to have at the rest of the book.

Finishing a campaign has freed up some amount of brain-space. I’m still into D&D, but it’s a bit easier to think about other things now that I don’t feel guilty about my game languishing. And listening to the White Wolf podcasts has allowed a lot of the World of Darkness stuff to burrow into to my brain once again. There’s also been some Geist stuff out and about, like the teaser in Epitaph. That piqued my interest.

I think this year, when Giest comes out, I’ll do something a bit different the usual. In previous years, I’ve read through the book, posted some thoughts here and there, daydreamed about games I could run, and that was more or less the end of it. This year? This year, I think I’ll run it once I’ve read it.

Yeah, all right, I’m not sure how that’ll work. The chief obstacle is that I’ll surely be the only one I know with a copy. (We had kind of a running joke back in college that one of our friends, Dan, was the guy who owned all the books. In Seattle, it appears that I’ve fallen into that role.) If the game inspires me, I’ll try to make it work. There should be a quickstart, right? Maybe that’ll be enough to get people familiar with the concept.

The point is that I need to run more games and that, in particular, I should probably run more WoD. Those books make up the vast majority of my collection. They tend to mesh well with my preferred play-style on top of being a highly enjoyable read. So what’s the freaking problem? I ain’t get my shit together, that’s what. I won’t say “No more!” because I’m well aware that thouse could be famous last words. But this sounds like a solid plan.

There’s another idea kicking around in my head that’s related.

I’m thinking about challenging myself to use every single one of the WoD books I own at least once. One-shots, open-ended campaign, limited run game— it doesn’t matter. More games means more fun for everyone (?), and more confidence for me when it comes to game-mastering, which in turn leads to more games. Everybody wins, right?

The penultimate fight was way shorter than I planned. I’d forgotten how badass the PCs were, so I had a bunch of level 3 guys which went down really, really quickly. I always underestimate the players. That said, it worked out really well in the end— the PCs took those guys down fast and hard, which left more time for the final fight and the epilogue.

The last fight went well. I had Evan take over a custom-designed monster, whom I was afraid would steamroll the PCs. Probably he could’ve been more interesting— he had a few fairly powerful encounter powers, most of which were Standard actions, meaning that he could only use them kind of slowly. One of them was a recharge power, but it probably should’ve been another one instead of his ability to reconsitute goblins into pesky zombie minions. I probably should’ve weeded out one or more attacks in order to replace them with something that could be a move or a minor. Maybe a Flaming Sphere-like ability, for example.

In terms of having a player control an NPC, I’d say it went well. I trusted Evan to do the right thing after telling him to not, say, just fly over the PCs and plink them. This group worked well enough that I don’t think Evan had a problem with being killed in the end.

In fact, let me state for the record that this was Evan’s idea originally— I didn’t just take over his PC without his consent! The jumping off point was when he said he could see himself turning into an antagonist, someone that the party would have to fight. It was such a great idea that I couldn’t resist.

Pacing went well. The pacing went relatively well. I didn’t feel too bad about not giving them in-game “stuff” for some things like the supply room, as it offered clues (read: it had been undisturbed for a long time).

Expository stuff for Rubican could’ve used work. This was fun for Evan and I and more boring for others, I suspect. I like doing one on one stuff, and that’s fine in itself. The problem was that nobody else had any idea what was happening, which was kind of a shame after all that build-up. Perhaps the party could’ve seen/heard the last set of visions. Admittedly, some of this was due to the fact that I wanted to end it, which meant I didn’t have time for more interesting expository stuff. In the future, I plan to involve multiple players in “side” plots.

Improv went well. I’m not sure how much I should reveal what was made up and what wasn’t. I don’t want to ruin the impression for any of my players that everything wasn’t prepared, but let’s be honest: I didn’t prepare everything. So if you’re a player from my game and you don’t want to know, skip this!

I made up the weapons at the end on the spot. I had a dungeon tile for the corner there, forgot to do anything with it, and decided it had to be something good when people decided to explore it. Likewise, I gave them some books that I hadn’t planned originally— one of them for creating portals, and a couple of zolem manuals. I didn’t plan my descriptions for the staging area. Aaaand I didn’t plan anything past the PCs teleporting back to Er-Eret.

In the end, I’m happy with how all that went.

I finished a goddamn game. And now I can say that my game finished! It took god only knows how long. At least six months. …nine months, judging by when I put up session #1! Awesome. As I may’ve mentioned, most of my games end in neglect, either due to scheduling conflicts or my interest wanes.

What’s next?

Good question. Most likely it’s an Arcane Power game, since that book is out and Divine Power isn’t. The player roster will probably see some changes, and it will more than likely be a different format of play. I’ve also got a couple of things I might want to try and execute on in my next game (e.g., “rituals are important”).

You’re in a room

The PCs were in a room that ostensibly acted as a barracks. After examining the room, they noticed that there were runes of warding that protected the room. Since Ratha and Rubican had reasonable familiarity with the language of Bael-Turath, they were able to complete the spell and rest.

They deciphered the missives, of which there were two. One concerned a portal, and contained orders to shut down the portal in order to retreat to the Usurper’s strongpoint. There were also orders to execute any prisoners. The other missive was from an inferior officer who begged the addressee to keep the portal open.

The PCs discussed the implications of there being a portal here— questions as to whether the goblins were using this arose, whether the goblins were actually being exploited by something else— and before long they decided to rest.

Rubican had a dream, where the Usurper made him kneel. Rubican resisted and although it chagrined the Usurper, he congratulated Rubican on his persistence and strength of will. Then he disappeared. Rubican didn’t wake up; rather, he saw across the clearing a woman who radiated heat. He approached her, and offered a hand despite the scorching air around her. She cut the shard out of his hand, and showed him a vision of plains of endless fire.

The next day they explored the rest of the complex. They found a storage room, which contained little of value beyond what could be considered historical artifacts. They found the holding cells, wherein the executed prisoners had risen back to life, still locked in cells, and more or less harmless.

Finally, they found the portal room. There was a bright sphere of light and a runic circle. On the floor were ashes, which had been undisturbed. The presence of ash was conclusive proof that this place had been undisturbed.

They entered the portal and explored a bit after realizing that the portal had closed behind them and that they were stuck. The notion was that the room they arrived in was a staging area for troops. This became clearer as, once they explored, they discovered that there were other, now dormant, portal circles. They also heard voices, and chose to investigate.

The last confrontation

When they found the source of the voices, they saw a bunch of goblins, one of whom was attempting to build a new Zombie/Zolem/Zombie fat-man. The rest were gambling.

The chieftain nearly lost his wits when he saw Ratha and Rubican together, as he had some sense that Rubican was affiliated with the Usurper, and after having moved a bunch, it was evident that Ratha was of the Star Pact. The PCs tried to extract more information, and found mostly that he was struggling to rebuilt the goblin army. Evenutally the PCs convinced him that he’d been betrayed, at which point he lost all reason and ordered his goblins to attack.

It was a short fight. Once the goblins all died, though, the jeweled finery that the chief goblin had been wearing began to crack and explode. A mist formed, which took on a humanoid shape, and rushed at Rubican.

At this point, Rubican had another vision. The Usurper demanded Rubican’s full cooperation. The Mother of Embers, as she identified herself, appeared behind the Usurper. When the Usurper noticed, he flew into a rage, and offered Rubican power and wealth at his side. Rubican chose the Mother of Embers. In response, the Usurper assumed control of Rubican and the battle began.

It was a longer fight than before, but odds were against the Usurper, even though he was able to reconstitute the goblins and raise the Zolem. Once the final blow was struck, the Usurper combusted and dissipated, leaving behind a fine white ash, almost like sand.

The PCs searched the room and found a number of books preserved. This was the Usurper’s lab, perhaps one of many. One of these books had a scroll of teleportation in it, which necessitated that someone involved have an intimate connection with the teleport destination.

Another thing they found were some old Bael-Turathi weapons, obviously magical but clearly outside the bounds of what magic was available in modern times.

They cast the teleportation ritual, and appeared in Er-Eret.

Epilogue

Eventually, Sighni, Ansa, Ratha, Lexa, and Alec got together and discussed the implications of what happened, and resolved to do some more research. Ansa advised against keeping the Bael-Turathi weaponry, as it might awaken or attract evil. They were also acutely aware that this was probably not the end of the Usurper.

Lexa hung on to a couple of the daggers. They whispered to her, and with each passing day, she grew closer to understanding. We decided that, in all probability, she would go insane, especially since her beloved crime lord was in such a dangerous line of work.

Long-term, Alac’s plan was to raise money for Er-Eret from the antiquities they found in the outpost.

That night, when they were celebrating, they saw a familiar face reflected in the bonfire: Rubican, who lived on in some parallel realm of pure and scorching fire.

Done!

I’ll have more in the postmortem, but it was nice to have a not-entirely-shitty resolution to this campaign. Everyone seemed pleased enough, and I was glad I could put it to rest.