Con of the North: Mostly Great! But Some Improvements Needed!

 

Legion of the Lord of Wisdom

This weekend was virtual Con of the North. I ran three, three-hour RPGs:

• "No Small Favor", an all-Klingon Star Trek Adventures scenario using the brand new Klingon Core Book for the RPG line. The story was set during the TNG episode "Unification II", and explored what a Klingon Bird-of-Prey was really doing while Picard and Data were visiting Spock on Romulus. The PCs were an Imperial Intelligence team on special assignment for this mission. We had three Imperial Klingons (to use John M. Ford's terminology), as well as a Klingon-Romulan Fusion (another tip of the hat to Mike Ford); and one of the Imperial Klingons was one of the freaky-looking Discovery-era Klingons. The PCs decided that to complete their mission, they had to assassinate Captain K'Vada. That's what happens when you don't take Imperial Intelligence agents seriously when they "urge" you to do something important for the Empire! And so an alternate Trek universe is born! 
• "Lex Arcana: A Simple Mission for the Emperor" was my first time running a scenario for the brand new English edition of Italy's most popular homegrown RPG. This is an alternate history RPG set in 476 AD. The Empire has not fallen due to the vigilance of the Cohors Auxiliaria Arcana, Christianity is a tolerated faith but not the established state religion. The PCs are members of the Cohors Auxiliaria Arcana, a special unit of the Praetorian Guard charged with investigating and dealing with supernatural threats, magic, and monsters. A lot of the character sheet is in Latin and the game is very immersive. The mechanics make combat high stakes and quite unpredictable.  The entire game is a labor of love.
• "Servants of the Divine Daughter" was a Tekumel RPG using my own forthcoming Fate of Tekumel RPG. The PCs were members of a mostly Stability-oriented party armed with an Imperial Writ* to conduct a shakedown of Change-affiliated clans in Thraya during the reign of the Stability fanatic Empress Shaira Su. This was a really fun game to run!

I was also able to play in David Lemire's scenario "The College of the Hand of Hrugga" an EPT-based scenario in which youthful wizards in training took advantage of the absence of their teachers to do some archaeological exploration of their own to the east of Bey Su. We encountered Chnélh, and discovered a temple-tomb with a humanoid incarnation of the demon "The Beast With No Tail."

The Good Things About Con of the North 2021:

• I had great players in all my games - and that makes all the difference!
• While my scenarios are typically very player-driven, I do considerable prep in the days immediately before a convention (at least 15 hours per 3 hour game, usually for 3-4 days). That means I take PTO from work. After running the games, that really felt like that was PTO time well-spent.
• I'm getting more of the hang of using Discord. I ran all three games using that platform, and had a good experience with it. The sound quality was excellent in all but one of the four games that I GMed/played-in.
• In two of my games, I had players from across the United States! This is one of the great aspects of virtual play.
• At least one friend whom I see - and often get to game with - every year at Con of the North (and only there!) popped in to say hello right before my game. It was great to see him. 
• The technical support during game days was just great!

The Bad Things About Con of the North 2021:

• Communications by the convention organizers were too late and too infrequent.  
• Communications about the convention were not focused on the core activities of the convention experience. There were way more Facebook posts about signature characters/artwork being used to promote the convention than there were communications about what GMs or players should expect in terms of the play platform. We were all pretty much left guessing how things might happen until just a day or two before the convention started. This is no way to treat your GMs, Con of the North; we are the people who will make or break the experience, so please, please, please - tell us what's going on, and what to expect! GMs especially need clear and recurrent guidance about the technology to be used. Players want that too. People need to know where the convention server is, how the server will be organized, and how to find their games. I do get that the convention platform borrowed heavily from Gamehole Con's successful virtual game convention last Fall, but no one should have to have attended virtual Gamehole Con to have a guess at what and how things might happen at virtual Con of the North.
• The COVID-19 themed official convention dice were truly tasteless. Gamers should recognize that there is far more to life than gaming, and that having to play in a virtual convention in order to continue enjoying our hobby really has nothing to do with "rolling all 1's". That is a perfect example of why "Geek Culture" is such a First World, narcissistic turn off at times. Seriously, concom, please recognize that many people are experiencing losses and making real sacrifices. Don't trivialize that with tasteless dice jokes.
• Finally, I really miss being able to play in-person with some of my regular Con of the North buddies, as well as the special in-person things like the conversations that happen in the food vendor lines, in the dealer's room, or over meals. Hopefully that will be possible again in the next couple of years.

*I am not sure any of my players noticed that the Imperial Writ included a direct quote from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, but there you go. The document was an entertaining project for the GM.

U-Con Tékumel Events

I'm attending U-Con this year (November 17-19) for the Tékumel track. The scheduling times haven't been set yet, but here are the events I am planning to run:

Title: “The Labyrinth of Elongated Shadows”

System: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Short description: 17th Century Stargate! Servants of the Spanish Crown step through an obsidian mirror, entering a strange plane adjacent to fabled Tékumel - one filled with unearthly monsters and threats.  

Title: “Under Hmakuyál”

System: Fate of Tékumel RPG (Fate system)

Long description: In the year 176, Seal Emperor Trakonel I “the Blazing Light” laid siege to the city of Hmakuyál to put an end to the Pariah Deities. Unfortunately your relatives were in the city at the time of the siege. You’ve learned they are hostages of the Temple of the One Other. You’ve gained access to the city and must now enter the temple and rescue your kinfolk! FYI, “Under Hmakuyál” is the sequel to a scenario introduced at Con of the North 2017.

Title: “Borrowed Trouble”

System: Fate of Tékumel RPG (Fate system)

Short description: The Temple of Lord Belkhánu in Thráya has sent you to recover books and scrolls loaned to the Great Temple west of the city. But chaos lurks within this great temple of Stability!

Fate of Tekumel for Free RPG Day

Art by Mahlon  Blaine

Starting at 6 PM on Saturday, June 17, I'll be running a Fate of Tékumel game for Free RPG Day at Source Comics and Games in Roseville, MN.

The game session is titled "Lords of the Latter Times". This will be a free-wheeling Barsoomian style adventure in the early days of Tékumel. If you like strange mutants, psionics, aircars, crossed swords, and battle harnesses, come on by and play the game!

No knowledge of Tékumel is necessary for this game.

Tekumel Games Played at U-Con

Brett Slocum GM's Heroic Age of Tekumel

Last weekend was U-Con, a high quality, well-organized, very friendly gaming convention based in Ypslanti, Michigan. I travelled there with my Minnesota road buddies Brett Slocum and Howard Hendrickson. It's a long trek through the Midwest to and from the con, but you have a lot of time for Tekumel-talk on a 12 hour road trip!

Here's a brief report on the games in which I was a player:

• Hlaka 2: The Way Home - T:EPT author Patrick Brady is know for his high quality military scenarios, and this one was a diceless adventure of a Hlaka mercenary flight that ended up on the losing side of the Civil War. Patrick spent a lot of time working out both the flight mechanics and social behaviors of these three-eyed, six-limbed, mammalian flyers. They flew using patagia, with behaviors and flight dynamics similar to those of bats. I played a Hlaka archer. Hlaka don't try to use bows while in flight; they're an intelligent species. Instead, you find a tree, land, and shoot from there. As always, Patrick's game was funny as hell, and provoked deeper thinking about how things work in Tekumel.

• Bethorm: A Night's Entertainment - Krista Donnelly ran two sessions using the new Bethorm ruleset. The adventure carried over a character (and storyline) from last year, and involved an Emerald Circlet (a very low clan) group of entertainers who had been summoned to a very remote island estate of the very high status Azure Cloak of Gems clan. This was a rather sinister scenario with a lot of strange things happening in and around the clanhouse. I've had a copy of Bethorm for a while, and found the system easy to learn and use.

• Heroic Age: Fresh Off The Boat - Our next game as a classic fresh-off-the-boat scenario in which a group of demon-worshipping islanders began new lives in Jakalla. We ended up taking a patronage offer from a member of a middle-clan with scholarly interests; this led to a rather deadly expedition into the Jakallan Underworld. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this demon-worshipping tribe becomes a recurrent "character" in future Foreigners' Quarter games set in Jakalla. Brett's Heroic Age of Tekumel is a retroclone of EPT. I've played it a number of times now, and I think it does a good job as an old school Tekumel game. The Heroic Age of Tekumel quickstart is a free download on RPGNow. 

• Warriors of the Red Planet: Princess Zira & the Jungle Ruins - I have run Warriors of the Red Planet a number of times; it is an old school swords & planet RPG that is very faithful to it's primary source material, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom. A Princess of Mars was one of Professor Barker's favorite books, and in many ways the world of Tekumel is a sister planet of Barsoom. WotRP perfect for Tekumel games set in periods such as the Latter Times, long before the low-tech, highly stratified Tekumel-as-we-know-it came into being. I played a member of the Mentalist Guild of Omel. The action involved the intrigues of a sinister cult in a very distant city. Great game!

• Bethorm: A Guard's Life - Krista's second Bethorm scenario featured a group of Sakbe road guards who had to deal with a BIG situation (50+ escaped slaves) way beyond their pay grade. This game was a challenging mystery in which we narrowly avoided killing or capturing the innocent. I played a guard who had been kicked out of the Temple of Sarku for failing to learn the prayers. However I had learned a few useful spells, which caught my fellow guards by surprise! Nobody expects a Sakbe road guard to cast Web of Kryag!

Ahoggya Ark - 12th Plane Encounters

The 12th Plane is a jungle level. The primary denizens are Ahoggya, Shen, Platform Builders, and Tribal humans and mutants. And other mutants.

The jungle is dense. Crossing 1 mile of jungle on foot takes four hours. If travelling by water (canoe, raft, boat), it takes 1 hour to cross a mile of jungle. Roll 1D6 per mile of jungle crossed. On a roll of 5 or 6 there is an encounter.

Consult the On Land and On or Near Water tables below as appropriate.  Standard mutant descriptions and number appearing notes start on p. 17 of MA. Distribution of Monsters (Mutations) and Treasure rules and tables are on p. 20-22. Standard encounter tables by terrain type are on p. 22.

On Land Table

1. Ahoggya party
2. Platform Builder party (1)
3. Shen party
4. Tribal party
5. Mutated human
6. Mutated animal (2)
7. Mutated plant
8. Mutated Ahoggya
9. Cyber-Ahoggya
10. Gachaya (dragon-like 10 M long lizard from Shen worlds)
11. Thief Beast (p.17)
12. Hyehoon

Notes:

(1) If at night time, substitute Qol, who often emerge from the sublevel below 12.

(2) Common forms include Atlun (spiders), Nyar or Tsi'il or Chlen, Feshenga, Hu, Giant Dri (ants), Syusyu (small Shen lizards, 4-6 cm, many edible, some poisonous), Sezhme (snakes, some segmented, some not; many poisonous).

On or Near Water Table

1. Hlu'un
2. Ghar
3. Sezhme (snakes)
4. Ahoggya party (waders)
5. Ahoggya party (raft)
6. Shen fisherfolk
7. Hisser (p.17)
8. Fern Bush (p.18)
9. Dart Weed (p.18)
10. Winged Biter (p. 17)