GM Session Notes
This page is where I'll be posting my notes, inspirations, and post-session reflections on each session. They'll match up with the summaries, going in the same order.
Rite of Spring introduces Corso, a city of almost infinite corruption and also the font of what little civilization exists in the Nightlands. As it was the first game, I took care to describe Corso in detail, examining the sense of despair and bleakness that permeates the city and the Nightlands in general. Delving into the horrors of legal torture, slave fights, and indulgences helped set the scene for the campaign, and helped my players feel their characters’ reactions to the world.
In the adventure a host of evil creatures attempts to attack a pregnant woman in labor, which can get boring for non-combat loving players. I dealt with this by having some of the evil characters be willing to accept bribes, or to be negotiated with. I also layered the combat, having the NPC’s deal with some challenges, or having the party split in two to deal with simultaneous combat scenarios. This also helped the pace feel more exciting and dynamic.
This adventure provided the first major plothook of the campaign. The promised child the character defend has a degree of magical protection. The forces that sought to prevent her birth are not able to continue their attacks after she draws breath. They must wait until she has reached the Age of Reason, 7 years hence. To continue the story, I had Sephoni request the character’s protection until they reached a safehold in Corso, and they all readily accepted.
Because this was our first journey into the Nightlands, we used the pregenerated characters provided with Gods of the Fall. In true pilot episode fashion, we later decided that this defense of Sephoni and Arua was conducted by the noble characters created after the fact: Datura, Frick (Yarrow) and Frack (Zinnia), and Zahir.
Session 0: Rite of Spring
This was the first game I ran in GotF, and the tester to see if a group of friends liked the system enough to embark on a campaign. It was surprisingly (to me) successful, and started the idea for the following campaign. Rite of Spring can be found in Gods of the Fall by Bruce Cordell, on p. 182-186.Rite of Spring introduces Corso, a city of almost infinite corruption and also the font of what little civilization exists in the Nightlands. As it was the first game, I took care to describe Corso in detail, examining the sense of despair and bleakness that permeates the city and the Nightlands in general. Delving into the horrors of legal torture, slave fights, and indulgences helped set the scene for the campaign, and helped my players feel their characters’ reactions to the world.
In the adventure a host of evil creatures attempts to attack a pregnant woman in labor, which can get boring for non-combat loving players. I dealt with this by having some of the evil characters be willing to accept bribes, or to be negotiated with. I also layered the combat, having the NPC’s deal with some challenges, or having the party split in two to deal with simultaneous combat scenarios. This also helped the pace feel more exciting and dynamic.
This adventure provided the first major plothook of the campaign. The promised child the character defend has a degree of magical protection. The forces that sought to prevent her birth are not able to continue their attacks after she draws breath. They must wait until she has reached the Age of Reason, 7 years hence. To continue the story, I had Sephoni request the character’s protection until they reached a safehold in Corso, and they all readily accepted.
Because this was our first journey into the Nightlands, we used the pregenerated characters provided with Gods of the Fall. In true pilot episode fashion, we later decided that this defense of Sephoni and Arua was conducted by the noble characters created after the fact: Datura, Frick (Yarrow) and Frack (Zinnia), and Zahir.
Session 1: Corso & Nightbeast Tier 1
This was my first ever time writing an adventure! I was pretty nervous about coming up with ideas all on my own, so I did a combination of ideas and inspiration. The Night Beast Awakens adventure arc can be found in the GotF corebook on p.101. It includes short descriptions that can be fleshed out and woven into a campaign for 6 tiers. The Tier 2 adventure exists as a fleshed out one-shot adventure.
I wove the Night Beast adventure in with my adventure, which started the characters on their way out of Corso. With the description from the corebook, most of the adventure was written for me, which was very helpful. I also used the Monte Cook Games NPC deck to create the characters of Valen and Levona, as well as the random guards.
Most of my writing in this session was based on getting the characters to stick with Sephoni and Arua and leave Corso. I wanted to explore the world, and Corso was too dangerous and too dismal for my style. From the corebook I knew the Book of Fate tends to pop up around gods. I also wanted an easy way for the characters to learn about progressing as divinities. So I had Lady Farran pay the party to guard Sephoni and Arua on their journey up to Somorrah (a really cool sounding city that was far away) by giving them money and rare books.
The thing that most surprised me was combat. My players were more willing to kill the guards than I had expected, and Zahir’s Onslaught proved very difficult to stop. Most NPCs died with one shot, and combat didn’t even last one round. This is a difficult balance for me as a writer. Zahir’s Onslaught ability is just too good at killing. If I make characters that are hard for him to hit, it becomes impossible for anyone else to hit them. But once Onslaught hits, it does tremendous damage. My solution so far has been to make combat opponents with higher health pools, and to find situations that can’t be blasted out of the way.
This was a fun adventure, and the players really surprised me a few times. I had to do some quick improvisation! I knew I wanted at least one more adventure in Corso before leaving to explore, and I wanted the players to meet some of the big players in Corso. I also wanted to give them a way to move more quickly along the Winter Road.
Before writing this adventure I had sat down to plan out the timing of the campaign in a bit more detail, just jotting down milestones and the rough estimate of how long it would take the party to get there. I made the trek from Corso to Loreda take 2 weeks by caravan. Another 2-3 weeks walking to reach Old Nemoro, and another 2 weeks in the mountains to hit Somorrah. After planning all this out, I realized I did not want to write several sessions worth of walking along a road.
Instead, I found an artifact from the Numenera Artifact Deck that could be ‘hacked’ into a more world-appropriate vehicle. The Chronolapse is a time/ space traveling machine, good for one person. I downgraded it to a fast engine and planned to let the party figure out how to best use it once they reached Loreda and left the caravan.
I had also started thinking some long-term thoughts about the shape of the campaign, and the trail they would take to Somorrah. The cities they would hit were Loreda and Old Nemoro, so I glanced at their settings in the corebook. Old Nemoro grabbed me in a small spark of inspiration, which shaped the rest of this adventure.
The city of Old Nemoro is in political turmoil, due to infighting between all the noble houses. Unresolvable conflict is the order of the day, with many factions taking may sides. The exact nature of the conflict is left open to ideas. This multiple-sided conflict reminded me of Sweep in Peace, the second book of the Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews. It features an intergalactic peace convention using a telepathic field to ease communication and understanding. I borrowed from this idea, and found a Telepathic Interlocutor artifact that would mirror the same effect.
Then I tied all these thoughts together to create Session 2. I particularly liked my twist reveal in the warehouse, showing the Sea Knives to be secret good guys, if not particularly lawful. This seemed to fit well with the chaotic-good vibe that most of the characters were already starting to give off. It went over very well, based on comments from the players afterward.
I was not expecting my players to go clear the tunnel in Lady Farran’s house. It was getting late, and I thought things were pretty wrapped up. I only briefly mentioned the tunnel to flesh out the interaction, and then they were all running off to go clear it. We had to take a tea and dessert break while I frantically looked up some monsters and improvised the heck out of that scene. It went okay though, and I learned a valuable lesson: always have the side quest ready, even if the players might not take it!
I realized while planning this session that the party was going to be walking along a road for a really long time before reaching anywhere. Not being entirely sure how to go about making this interesting, I decided on the classic structure of 3 encounters that could be solved in a few ways. For the encounters I had a few goals in mind: I wanted to have a blend of combat and ‘other’ solutions available; Zinnia specifically needed a task suited to her abilities and temperament; the party as a whole needed a chance to develop their skills; and I wanted to make sure that no one forgot how terrible and bleak the world really is.
So, with all that in mind, I set about choosing the encounters. The Golden Bull was tailor made for Zinnia; a fierce beast shrouded in flames, but able to be spoken to or fought. I was so pleased that she chose to make friends with him; he served well as a mentor, counseling patience and teaching her to control her flames. As a GM, I find it more interesting to have in-story reasons for the character’s abilities to develop, rather than just giving out XP with no explanation. Aiden means “little fire” in Welsh; I stole the name from a fire-using child in Patricia Brigg’s Fire Touched, #9 in the Mercedes Thompson series.
Master Muscari was a delightful find in the GotF corebook. As an ousted teacher, he was perfect to incorporate as a mentor. Originally I had him request that the party escort him to Old Nemoro, so he could raise a band of fighters and take back his Chapterhouse, but that seemed tedious. It turns out I have difficulties remembering the existence of traveling PC’s, and having Sephoni and Arua was enough for my brain to handle. I devised a later situation to shunt him off. For the trip though, he served quite well as a weapons instructor. He was also good for introducing the potential plot lure of the Uroch Chapterhouse and the process of becoming divine.
The final encounter with the slavemaster served two purposes. It reminded the players that truly evil people roam the world, and it continued with the theme of slave-liberation started in Corso. In the GotF corebook there are seven prophecies that you can use to structure campaigns. Based on the chaotic good vibe most of the characters were giving off, slave liberation seemed ideal. Slavery is morally abhorrent to the characters, but it’s legal in the Nightlands, so a certain amount of ambivalence toward laws is key to the liberation plot.
This scene was very dramatic. Matthew decided that Zahir would become the God of Choices, and leveled up to Tier 2 as the confrontation started. Choosing the Dominion is a required part of leveling up; it’s what allows the character access to divine shifts, which provide the truly impressive displays of power. It was a very exciting moment for roleplay and detailed imagery.
I wove the Night Beast adventure in with my adventure, which started the characters on their way out of Corso. With the description from the corebook, most of the adventure was written for me, which was very helpful. I also used the Monte Cook Games NPC deck to create the characters of Valen and Levona, as well as the random guards.
Most of my writing in this session was based on getting the characters to stick with Sephoni and Arua and leave Corso. I wanted to explore the world, and Corso was too dangerous and too dismal for my style. From the corebook I knew the Book of Fate tends to pop up around gods. I also wanted an easy way for the characters to learn about progressing as divinities. So I had Lady Farran pay the party to guard Sephoni and Arua on their journey up to Somorrah (a really cool sounding city that was far away) by giving them money and rare books.
The thing that most surprised me was combat. My players were more willing to kill the guards than I had expected, and Zahir’s Onslaught proved very difficult to stop. Most NPCs died with one shot, and combat didn’t even last one round. This is a difficult balance for me as a writer. Zahir’s Onslaught ability is just too good at killing. If I make characters that are hard for him to hit, it becomes impossible for anyone else to hit them. But once Onslaught hits, it does tremendous damage. My solution so far has been to make combat opponents with higher health pools, and to find situations that can’t be blasted out of the way.
Session 2: A Pirate’s Life for Me
Contains small spoiler for Sweep in Peace, # 2 of the Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews.This was a fun adventure, and the players really surprised me a few times. I had to do some quick improvisation! I knew I wanted at least one more adventure in Corso before leaving to explore, and I wanted the players to meet some of the big players in Corso. I also wanted to give them a way to move more quickly along the Winter Road.
Before writing this adventure I had sat down to plan out the timing of the campaign in a bit more detail, just jotting down milestones and the rough estimate of how long it would take the party to get there. I made the trek from Corso to Loreda take 2 weeks by caravan. Another 2-3 weeks walking to reach Old Nemoro, and another 2 weeks in the mountains to hit Somorrah. After planning all this out, I realized I did not want to write several sessions worth of walking along a road.
Instead, I found an artifact from the Numenera Artifact Deck that could be ‘hacked’ into a more world-appropriate vehicle. The Chronolapse is a time/ space traveling machine, good for one person. I downgraded it to a fast engine and planned to let the party figure out how to best use it once they reached Loreda and left the caravan.
I had also started thinking some long-term thoughts about the shape of the campaign, and the trail they would take to Somorrah. The cities they would hit were Loreda and Old Nemoro, so I glanced at their settings in the corebook. Old Nemoro grabbed me in a small spark of inspiration, which shaped the rest of this adventure.
The city of Old Nemoro is in political turmoil, due to infighting between all the noble houses. Unresolvable conflict is the order of the day, with many factions taking may sides. The exact nature of the conflict is left open to ideas. This multiple-sided conflict reminded me of Sweep in Peace, the second book of the Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews. It features an intergalactic peace convention using a telepathic field to ease communication and understanding. I borrowed from this idea, and found a Telepathic Interlocutor artifact that would mirror the same effect.
Then I tied all these thoughts together to create Session 2. I particularly liked my twist reveal in the warehouse, showing the Sea Knives to be secret good guys, if not particularly lawful. This seemed to fit well with the chaotic-good vibe that most of the characters were already starting to give off. It went over very well, based on comments from the players afterward.
I was not expecting my players to go clear the tunnel in Lady Farran’s house. It was getting late, and I thought things were pretty wrapped up. I only briefly mentioned the tunnel to flesh out the interaction, and then they were all running off to go clear it. We had to take a tea and dessert break while I frantically looked up some monsters and improvised the heck out of that scene. It went okay though, and I learned a valuable lesson: always have the side quest ready, even if the players might not take it!
Session 3: On the Road
In this adventure, a new player joined our group, Alex. He plays Cerena. You can meet her over on our Meet the Cast page.I realized while planning this session that the party was going to be walking along a road for a really long time before reaching anywhere. Not being entirely sure how to go about making this interesting, I decided on the classic structure of 3 encounters that could be solved in a few ways. For the encounters I had a few goals in mind: I wanted to have a blend of combat and ‘other’ solutions available; Zinnia specifically needed a task suited to her abilities and temperament; the party as a whole needed a chance to develop their skills; and I wanted to make sure that no one forgot how terrible and bleak the world really is.
So, with all that in mind, I set about choosing the encounters. The Golden Bull was tailor made for Zinnia; a fierce beast shrouded in flames, but able to be spoken to or fought. I was so pleased that she chose to make friends with him; he served well as a mentor, counseling patience and teaching her to control her flames. As a GM, I find it more interesting to have in-story reasons for the character’s abilities to develop, rather than just giving out XP with no explanation. Aiden means “little fire” in Welsh; I stole the name from a fire-using child in Patricia Brigg’s Fire Touched, #9 in the Mercedes Thompson series.
Master Muscari was a delightful find in the GotF corebook. As an ousted teacher, he was perfect to incorporate as a mentor. Originally I had him request that the party escort him to Old Nemoro, so he could raise a band of fighters and take back his Chapterhouse, but that seemed tedious. It turns out I have difficulties remembering the existence of traveling PC’s, and having Sephoni and Arua was enough for my brain to handle. I devised a later situation to shunt him off. For the trip though, he served quite well as a weapons instructor. He was also good for introducing the potential plot lure of the Uroch Chapterhouse and the process of becoming divine.
The final encounter with the slavemaster served two purposes. It reminded the players that truly evil people roam the world, and it continued with the theme of slave-liberation started in Corso. In the GotF corebook there are seven prophecies that you can use to structure campaigns. Based on the chaotic good vibe most of the characters were giving off, slave liberation seemed ideal. Slavery is morally abhorrent to the characters, but it’s legal in the Nightlands, so a certain amount of ambivalence toward laws is key to the liberation plot.
This scene was very dramatic. Matthew decided that Zahir would become the God of Choices, and leveled up to Tier 2 as the confrontation started. Choosing the Dominion is a required part of leveling up; it’s what allows the character access to divine shifts, which provide the truly impressive displays of power. It was a very exciting moment for roleplay and detailed imagery.
Session 4: On the Road & Loreda
I liked writing this session a lot. I actually wrote out a three-part session in one go, which encompassed all of Loreda. I wanted to remind the party (and myself) that the Nightlands are a pretty dark and bleak setting, something I have trouble remembering with the lighthearted banter and chaotic good that permeates our game nights. So I seized upon a hint in the GotF corebook, that suggests Nulumriel makes the golden bower lamps by imprisoning seraphs and slowly draining them dry. This knowledge presented an interesting conundrum for the party. On the one hand, slavery is bad, and torturing an innocent creature is bad. On the other hand, Loreda and the other golden bowers provide most of the food for the Nightlands. Without continued food production, thousands will starve to death. Can the greater good be served at the cost of an innocent life? The party had some really interesting talks about this during sessions 4 and 5.
I also started drawing more in these sessions. I have a really nifty dry erase notebook that allows for lots of drafts and mistakes, key for the amateur artist. It also means that I can draw the full version of a map on one page for me to look at, but have a player-knowledge version of the map on another page, which I find very convenient. As a bonus, it's environmentally friendly! The notebook was from the Letterforms Kickstarter.
I also started drawing more in these sessions. I have a really nifty dry erase notebook that allows for lots of drafts and mistakes, key for the amateur artist. It also means that I can draw the full version of a map on one page for me to look at, but have a player-knowledge version of the map on another page, which I find very convenient. As a bonus, it's environmentally friendly! The notebook was from the Letterforms Kickstarter.
For the encounters, I again pulled some random monsters from the corebook that seemed amusing. Before the session, I had players tell me about treasured memories from their pasts, which allowed me to create the bait in the Faerie Ring. This led to an interesting bit of character development for Zinnia: she has very few memories from before her meeting with Yarrow. She remembers an iron forge, and being kicked out for a display of divine power, but her childhood before then is a blur.
I felt bad for creating a hard scenario with no idea in my own mind of how to resolve it, but it challenged the players and characters in a beneficial way. The Afterworld is not a happy and easy place to live in, so it made sense to have to deal with a hard choice. People seemed quite pleased with it, and their solution was very entertaining. Stay tuned!
Drawing from a casual joke I made about Frack’s winnings (“sure, one of your mushrooms is a ‘special’ mushroom”, the party pooled their cyphers to create several strong doses of hallucinogenic mushroom juice. We then engaged in some of the most fun math I’ve ever done: How much will it cost to get the whole town drunk? We figured out there are 75 beers per keg x 3 pennies per beer (from equipment list- per glass of alcohol) x 4 kegs (enough for 300 drinks, Loreda has 400 inhabitants total, including children) + 4 hallucinogenic doses= 3 stars (100 pennies=1 star) to get the town wasted and tripping. Frack also summoned Aiden the bull to walk around and add to the hallucinogenic vibe.
With the town safely inebriated the party was able to carry out their plan and swap seraphs. Arua, the little goddess of spring and rebirth helped to heal the seraph by creating a tranquil garden of lichens, moon flowers, lotuses, and other shade-loving plants. It didn’t last long, but it was pretty.
I loved seeing the sideways thinking employed by my players. It was so much fun to properly calculate everything out and consider how to best throw a rager in a small town.
I felt bad for creating a hard scenario with no idea in my own mind of how to resolve it, but it challenged the players and characters in a beneficial way. The Afterworld is not a happy and easy place to live in, so it made sense to have to deal with a hard choice. People seemed quite pleased with it, and their solution was very entertaining. Stay tuned!
Session 5: Saving the Seraph and Drugging the Town.
This session showed some truly beautiful character interactions and creative thinking. In order to save the seraph, the party decided to swap out the imprisoned seraph with Zahir’s seraph for a brief rest and healing session. To do so, they needed to cause a distraction big enough that the town members wouldn’t notice the sun turning off.Drawing from a casual joke I made about Frack’s winnings (“sure, one of your mushrooms is a ‘special’ mushroom”, the party pooled their cyphers to create several strong doses of hallucinogenic mushroom juice. We then engaged in some of the most fun math I’ve ever done: How much will it cost to get the whole town drunk? We figured out there are 75 beers per keg x 3 pennies per beer (from equipment list- per glass of alcohol) x 4 kegs (enough for 300 drinks, Loreda has 400 inhabitants total, including children) + 4 hallucinogenic doses= 3 stars (100 pennies=1 star) to get the town wasted and tripping. Frack also summoned Aiden the bull to walk around and add to the hallucinogenic vibe.
With the town safely inebriated the party was able to carry out their plan and swap seraphs. Arua, the little goddess of spring and rebirth helped to heal the seraph by creating a tranquil garden of lichens, moon flowers, lotuses, and other shade-loving plants. It didn’t last long, but it was pretty.
I loved seeing the sideways thinking employed by my players. It was so much fun to properly calculate everything out and consider how to best throw a rager in a small town.
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