Review: Geek and Sundry, “Sagas of Sundry: Dread”

Last week, I reviewed Ivan Van Norman’s appearance on Smosh Games. Now, I’m reviewing him on Geek and Sundry, but we’re still sticking with horror.

I was actually subscribed to Project Alpha (may it rest in peace) when Geek and Sundry had that platform back in the day. It’s where I watched Critical Role, L.A. by Night, and Sagas of Sundry, when that was in production.

But “Dread” is now available on YouTube, for those of you who are interested.

“Dread” started out as a charity stream on International Tabletop Day in 2017 to support Extra Life, a charity organization related to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. The players are huddled around a faux campfire and Jenga tower, casually dressed as their characters (that is, it seems like most of them are just wearing pieces from their closet with one additional prop – the only one who is clearly wearing a costume is Matthew Mercer). Unlike later Geek and Sundry actual play streams, this one was streamed live. There are other voices in the background, the set is clearly from another Geek and Sundry show, and a few different people walk in front of the camera during the course of the episode.

(from left to right) Ivan Van Norman, Taliesin Jaffe, Satine Phoenix, Amy Vorpahl, Amy Dallen, and Matthew Mercer on “Episode 0 (International Tabletop Day).”

I like the fact that Van Norman starts out the stream with introducing the themes of the game (which sound like he’s reading straight out of the book). It’s a great habit as a game master to remind your players before the story begins what the goals, themes, and aesthetics are of the game.

The five players are Amy Vorpahl (Darby Trellis), Amy Dallen (Raina Fuller), Satine Phoenix (Sat), Matthew Mercer (Tanner Sills), and Taliesin Jaffe (Kayden). While I don’t know much about Vorpahl and Dallen, it’s fairly clear that Phoenix, Jaffe, and Mercer’s characters are very similar to their own personalities (Phoenix’s character is just a nickname for her own name!) – a kind of dark mirror of themselves, just turned up to 11. I’m guessing that there was no plan at first to have this turn into an actual series and they just needed quick, easy characters to slip into for a few hours.

The story takes place in the 1980s, with a group of friends that “outsiders looking in could call… a family.” I like the details that Van Norman gives, such as traffic cones stolen by the group that are affectionately now called their “friendship cones.” Even though this game was supposed to only last two hours, it makes this motley crew feel real and lived in, even if we’re just meeting them and they’ve only existed for a few minutes to the audience.

That being said, these characters are awful. Not awfully played, but most of them are terrible people. Kayden (written “Cayden” in the video description for “Episode 0”) is one of the worst: irreverent, mocking, and brash, the irritation that Tanner shows to him throughout “Episode 0” is completely justified.

The way that the game Dread works is by using a Jenga tower to determine success and failure. Succeed in pulling a brick and placing it on the tower, you complete the action. But if the tower falls, the last person to touch it (even if they weren’t called upon to make a pull) is removed from the game. Whether that means killed, or corrupted by the forces attempting to destroy the protagonists, or simply disappearing into the dark. It’s supposed to be a tense, focused moment where everyone is watching the pull with stress and apprehension (and normally falls silent), but I appreciate that Van Norman continues to narrate throughout the tower pull. It adds to the tension in the moment, and he always resolves the action immediately after success or failure with a completely fluid transition from his ramp-up during the pull to the resolution.

“Episode 0” goes well, though it’s a bit rocky because of the production issues of being a live stream. However, Ivan’s narrations are on point and the ending of the stream is genuinely heartwarming.

The start of the series officially, “It’s Just a Camping Trip,” opens with a narration from Darin De Paul as Mr. Wren, a character that plays a similar role to Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone, though Mr. Wren’s monologues are far more enigmatic. De Paul’s voice is known for being deep and rich, and commands the scene for the scant minutes he appears, setting the scene for what is supposed to be a cross between LARPing and traditional tabletop games (and even has a bit of fusion with escape rooms).

Darin De Paul as Mr. Wren on Sagas of Sundry.

The opening sequence is quite good. I love the imagery and music utilized in it. It makes me think of American Horror Story opening sequences. The costumes are now much more deliberate – even Van Norman is dressed like he’s about to go camping in the woods.

There is now even a set, with the façade of a house and porch behind the players and game master. Trees and scrub grass surround the small clearing filled with dry grass, lights strung in the trees that pulse slowly to mimic fireflies, and a fire pit and logs for everyone to sit on… and the Jenga tower sits in the middle near the fire.

Episode 2, “A Jarring Discovery,” is probably my favorite episode. At certain points I actually got chills watching it. Van Norman’s descriptions, paired with the sound effects added in post-production, give the decrepit house a real wet, rotting feeling – like a corpse half-decomposed in a fetid bog.

Side note: if you want to know the part that particularly creeped me out, it starts at 12:40. Have fun!

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Remember how I said earlier that “Dread” has the feeling of an escape room? Well, that’s definitely one of it’s strengths. As play continues, there are props, puzzles, and activities to represent certain actions within the game, such as when one of the players has to hold two buckets of water straight out in front of her while the rest of the team work together to move a pile of cinder blocks from one side of the set to the other, representing her holding a door closed against an enemy while the others clear a pathway for escape. It makes the tension more palpable and adds a physicality to a game that is, on the surface, more simple than most other tabletop roleplaying games (since most other games have dice, specialized abilities, and stat blocks to make the game more complex).

Here is where we now have to talk about some drawbacks. The first thing is that “Dread” is rather unfocused in terms of it’s antagonists. It reminds me most strongly of Until Dawn, a horror video game about a group of teens who revisit the site of a tragedy for them one year later. The difference is that the disparate elements of Until Dawn (no spoilers) eventually come together. A mysterious stranger watching the teens, the mines crisscrossing the mountain, an asylum, creature cries in the dark forest, they all eventually form a coherent narrative that makes sense. Van Norman’s story in “Dread” is not so tight.

A man with horns watching from the shadows, a mysterious voice in the minds of the teens coupled with doppelgangers and hallucinations of friends that laugh and jeer creepily in the night, an ancient tragedy steeped in bloodshed, the dilapidated house in the woods… they all seem confused and disconnected. Personally, the horror of the house is the best out of all of them, but it doesn’t have as much of a mystery to it as the other elements.

Ivan Van Norman is a fantastic storyteller, but after reviewing a few different series he’s headed, I think he has trouble with keeping his stories contained.

In addition, after watching them for a few episodes, I have to admit: I really don’t like the characters. I already mentioned that Kayden is a rather insufferable character, but I don’t like Phoenix as a performer anyways (separate from the accusations against her), and Sat isn’t any better. Darby is obsessive in a way that is more irritating to watch than worrying or engaging (and to be honest I’ve never really enjoyed Vorpahl as a performer either). Raina is a bit too passive and shy (she makes me think of Fluttershy a bit). Tanner is about the only one I can stand.

Props to Geek and Sundry, though. They really let the horror bleed through on this story. It’s tense and sometimes you get a little sick to your stomach with that “eugh, that’s not right!” feeling. I appreciate a story that isn’t afraid to sicken you a bit.

The story of “Dread” is rather scattered and doesn’t hold up as well as you’d hope it would, and it can be hard to watch these unpleasant characters for a long period of time. But the production value, Ivan Van Norman’s storytelling capabilities, and the novel storytelling experience is worth watching at least a few episodes (I’d say at least watch 1-3).

Next week, I’ll be reviewing the follow up: “Madness.”

Review: Smosh Games: Board AF, “Outbreak: Undead”

Embarrassingly, I was once a fan of Smosh – back when it was a bit cringey (post Pokémon Lip Sync, during the height of the Food Battle videos). But I am not ashamed to admit that from the moment it came into being, I was subscribed to Smosh Games.

While their other series like Game Bang, Grand Theft Smosh, and What’re Those!? were certainly ones I kept up with, my favorite has always been Board AF. My first introduction to YouTube’s gaming space was Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop, so it’s no surprise I enjoyed this series as well.

Admittedly, as my favorite members left (Jovenshire, Lasercorn, Wes Johnson, Damian Haas, Sohinki, and Mari Takahashi), I have since stopped keeping up with the channel and unsubscribed. But that doesn’t mean I don’t go back and rewatch episodes of their older content pretty consistently – What’re Those!? and Board AF chief among them. That is where “Outbreak: Undead” comes in.

None of the episodes have an official title and because Smosh Games had previously played a one-shot using the system, it’s a bit hard for me to find an actual working title for this 4-episode series, so I’m sticking to calling it simply the “Outbreak: Undead” series – though the Game Master, Ivan Van Norman, does at one point call it something akin to the “Smosh Winter Apocalypse.”

Van Norman is a game master I’ve enjoyed a lot – particularly in Sagas of Sundry, but as the creator of Outbreak: Undead, he’s a great game master in this series. His descriptions of the slowly encroaching apocalypse is great; a slowly building sense of anxiety and dread as the internet goes down, friends stop responding to the players, and accidents begin to plague the area the players find themselves in.

Speaking of players, there are four that appear in this episode: Jovenshire (an old friend of Van Norman’s from the reality TV series King of the Nerds), Lasercorn, Wes, and Sohinki. You may notice that I didn’t name which characters they play. That’s because they don’t play characters – they play themselves. That’s one of the selling points of Outbreak. It’s a zombie survival game which has an online survey you can take to translate your real life experiences and skills into game terms.

(from left to right) Ivan Van Norman, Wes Johnson, and Matthew Sohinki on Board AF: “WINTER GAMES HOUSE HORROR.”

It’s also great fun to have these sort of games take place in real places. This is one of the reasons that the World of Darkness settings are so well liked, in part: seeing these real life places through the lens of urban fantasy. In the case of “Outbreak: Undead,” Van Norman utilizes a real map of Big Bear Lake, California, as he navigates the players through the beginning hours of a zombie outbreak.

The other great thing about utilizing the actual players as the characters is that you can also incorporate their friends and family into the scenario, though in this case Van Norman chooses to keep it contained to the members of the Smosh Games cast and crew. I remember when my brother ran a similar scenario of zombies attack our childhood home, he made one mistake that Van Norman doesn’t: he introduced himself as the first zombie we met. Of course, because we had no idea what was happening, we all were super concerned and trying to help my zombie brother rather than reacting to crush his head or shoot him, as my brother was hoping we would do. Van Norman avoids this situation by having some NPCs be the first zombies, and once the other members of the Smosh Games crew begin to appear, the players are already aware of the situation and react appropriately to seeing their friends act strangely and out of sorts.

(from left to right) Lasercorn, Jovenshire, and Ivan Van Norman on Board AF: “WINTER CABIN HORROR CONTINUES.”

To the players’ credit though, they seem very game to play along with what they recognize as their own dumb choices, even to the point of saying, “this is so stupid of me, but it’s what I would do.”

Thankfully, Van Norman is eager to take advantage of their misfortune or bad choices, made in the name of accuracy or ignorance or bad dice rolls. His glee at their missteps is never mean spirited, but he is clearly delighted whenever he is able to punish them with a broken limb or another zombie breaking through the window. His sound effects as the zombies and descriptions of their attacks are gory and imaginative – an especially good one was describing skin being pulled away “like string cheese.”

Speaking of editing, the Smosh Games crew has always had a fantastic editing team, but they are on point throughout “Outbreak,” with music and sound effects to illustrate Van Norman’s story even more than he already does.

The intro to each episode even helps explain the rules of the game a bit – it’s not much (and to be honest, I’ve read the rules of Outbreak: Undead and they are not exactly simple), but it does help you catch up with how and why certain things happen. The song used in the intro is fantastic as well (if you’re curious, it’s “Flamenco Boogaloo” by The Mutants).

The series doesn’t exactly resolve at all, simply with a teaser of something more going on within the world of this game. But that’s alright – the chemistry and bickering of the players with Van Norman’s skilled hand make this a pleasant way to spend two hours, and is a light hearted while still gory depiction of the undead apocalypse.

Review: The Apocalypse Players, “The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse”

Sometimes just letting your music play is the best way to stumble across something lovely. It’s how I became a fan of Two Steps From Hell (specifically “Ocean Kingdom“) and it’s how I found The Apocalypse Players.

I may have saved their podcast to listen to at some point or the other, but when I woke up from a nap and started actually listening to their story, I was hooked.

I’ve listened to the entirety of their debut series, “The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse,” and the players are charming and humorous, while still keeping in mind the setting and system they’re in. Dominic Allen is the Lore Keeper of this Call of Cthulhu actual play and his players are Joseph Chance as Rosalie, a sprightly (though slightly older) Southern Belle with enough charm and grace to weasel a meal from a starving lion; Danann McAleer as Sebastian Palmer, a Catholic and union activist; and Dan Wheeler as Dr. Johannes Bergman, a German psychologist. I wish that the podcast would list at the beginning of each episode who was playing who (or even list it in the episode description), as I had to go back to listen to the intro from the first episode to figure out who was playing whom and I still don’t know how to spell Rose’s last name (I’m just taking guesses on Palmer and Bergman!).

The story centers around the three investigators, at the behest of a crew of amusingly bumbling lawyers (all brothers by the name of Dodge), entering into the mansion of an acquaintance to uncover the mystery of his disappearance. Of course, the mansion is much more than he seems and the acquaintance… well, let’s just say that he didn’t just forget to leave the house for a few months.

Despite the use of stock sound effects and music, Allen does a masterful job of making them sound unique and fresh – and appropriate for the moments when they’re used within the show. He also chooses to have >1 minute opening dramatic sequences as a bit of a teaser of the mystery behind the scenes that the players may never see. It’s quite engaging and his acting is not half bad. Even during regular play, he has the ability to even make me, the listener, shudder with disgust or gasp in alarm. His character voices aren’t half bad either – as a native-born Texan, I especially enjoyed the sheriff’s Southern accent.

Speaking of Allen’s Lore Keeper skills, it is greatly amusing that his players are affected by his narration as well. Hearing them groan in disgust or start going “mmm, nope, don’t like that,” makes you sympathize with the players, drawing you into the play space with them. It doesn’t hurt that Allen has a gift for descriptive narrations: the dampness of the decrepit mansion, the creak of wet floorboards, it all feels tangible under his control.

I do wish we got to hear more of their cross table talk and out of character moments, but Call of Cthulhu is not normally known for its light moments, so I understand that not being included.

To speak of the players in particular, as I mentioned earlier, they do a fantastic job of marrying a bit of levity and humor into an objectively horrific game setting. Wheeler is by far the most amusing, using a stereotypical German accent and pushing the most absurd “cutting edge” psychological experiments. Chance’s accent as Rosalie is rather less convincing, but his charm and carefree air as the Southern Belle comes through strong and the performance is no less engaging. The character of Sebastian Palmer, the scarred union activist, is rather subdued and probably least “big” personality of the three, but McAleer gives him a quiet stoicism that is pleasant to listen to.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the game for the first two acts, unfortunately I do feel that it fell apart a bit at the end. Call of Cthulhu, to my understanding, is more about cosmic and eldritch horror. Existentialist stuff. The climax of “The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse” takes an approach more similar to The Cabin in the Woods: an action survival exit. It wrapped up really quickly and felt a bit like a rush to finish the story under a certain number of episodes. The horror and suspense factor rapidly decreased once the monster was finally revealed. To be fair, this is a common problem in the horror genre in general, so I’m not sure if I can totally blame The Apocalypse Players for this error.

The players also made a note that it was “the worst [they’ve] ever done,” which surprises me. I won’t spoil anything, but if that was the worst that a Call of Cthulhu game has ever gone for them, Allen seems like he is quite the permissive Keeper. As a pretty permissive game master myself, I am not upset at this scenario, but I suppose I was expecting a bit more – but there’s also the fact that I am not very familiar with the actual vibe of Call of Cthulhu. I thought I was, but I will concede that I am not an expert by a long shot.

See, my actual exposure to the system is minimal – I vaguely remember watching Critical Role’s Shadow of the Crystal Palace (which I found vague and lackluster) and have played it once. Though that was a rather disappointing experience despite having a great premise (a team of researchers in Antarctica snowed in by a blizzard – very The Thing). So while I know the rules, it’s hard for me to say on a scale of 1-10 how good The Apocalypse Players is as a specifically Call of Cthulhu actual play, but I can confidently say that their first story, “The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse,” even with the rushed ending, is well worth your time.

Review: The Film Reroll

There’s a burst of laughter and confusion, and Joz Vammer, laughing, corrects her game master: “You said we take your favorite movies and turn them into movies, but this is a podcast!”

“…We’re a podcast,” Paulo Quiros explains patiently over giggles from his players.

“What if they didn’t know until you said that?” Kara Strait asks.

“‘Ah, shit!’” She mimics the hypothetical viewer. “‘I thought this was a tandem bike! Goddammit!’”

This is how the podcast The Film Reroll‘s twentieth episode, “Jumanji,” begins. The conceit of the show is rather simple: “play[ing] through your favorite movies as RPGs and totally ruin[ing] them.” Every episode, the players are cast in the roles of various movie characters, from everything from “Memento” to “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” to ”Friday the 13th IV: The Final Chapter,” and using the mechanics of the tabletop roleplaying game system GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System) play through these movies as games, rolling dice to see if they succeed or fail and, as Quiros says, “thus the story changes.”

Most of the players in The Film Reroll are New York-based theater actors, but the podcast is nominally unconcerned with emotionally deep stories or utilizing their acting skills and more interested in the wackiest ways that they can change these stories into something different. It’s a bit like having a GM who has a rail roaded plot that they are actively rooting for you to sabotage. Without giving too much away from any particular episode, this can mean that a main character from the film never gets introduced, the universe could get destroyed, or that the main villain falls in love with the hero.

Paulo Quiros is the Game Master on a majority of episodes, with Miller, Hoover, and Vammer taking over duties from time to time.

The most common collaborators with Quiros on the podcast are Kara Strait, Joz Vammer, Andy Hoover, and Jon Miller. Tim Nolan, an infrequent on-mic member, normally helps Quiros with behind-the-scenes prep work, with Scott Aiello, Carolyn Faye Kramer, and Lisa Kopitsky filling out the cast. Not everyone is featured in every episode, but there is a healthy rotation between who is on mic and who is sitting the session out.

Jon Miller…. actually bothered to read the rules of a role playing game, once, and everyone else has decided to keep up the pretense that we aren’t just making this all up as we go along.

“Meet the Team” – The Film Reroll

Each of the main cast add a different flavor to each episode. Strait is a class clown with a ready joke at every opportunity, while Vammer is well-known to always go for the most violent option at any opportunity (a memorable moment was, as Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” Vammer asking if she could attempt to “sever the spinal column” of a combatant). Miller brings a dry wit and straight man personality (Sheriff Brody from “Jaws” becomes a hard ass who will arrest a teenager for mouthing off to him as soon as look at him) and Hoover falls comfortably into a warm, quippy persona with a quick tongue.

Scott Aiello’s day job includes audio book narrations, which lends to his performances on The Film Reroll being some of the most dramatic and exaggerated.

The other recurring cast members have their shining moments, though there are far too many episodes to review every episode. So, to give credit to where it’s due, here are some of my favorite performances:

• Tim Nolan – Scott Fuller, “From Dusk Till Dawn”
• Scott Aiello – Chunk, “Goonies” and Vern Tessio, “Stand by Me”
• Carolyn Faye Kramer – Sarah Sanderson, “Hocus Pocus”
• Lisa Kopitsky – Snoopy, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”

I suppose it’s no surprise by this far into this review that I’m a huge fan of this show (in some years on Spotify Wrapped, I’m in the top 1% of listeners!). In college, I had the opportunity to interview Quiros for a school essay, and I am very grateful that he was willing to take the time out of his day to speak with me. It’s perhaps the only comedy-first show that I enjoy and watch regularly, and it’s hard to say why.

Maybe it’s the chemistry between the players, or as a lover of film, but I genuinely enjoy seeing the way not only that movie characters are translated into TTRPG characters (I’ve had many a conversation about which D&D classes the different MCU heroes would be), but also how constructing a story based on an element of chance instead of the director’s hand ensuring success for the main characters can change the direction of a story.

Inspired by this show, I’ve actually run a FATE Core version of a film reroll twice before, and it was a lot of fun! I’ve done both “Avengers” and “Krampus,” with interesting results each time: Thor was knocked unconscious and into a coma, with the player taking over the role of Loki for the rest of the campaign and almost succeeding in the Invasion of New York, and Beth Engel was the first one taken in “Krampus,” with me then giving her player the stats for Krampus and his minions and allowing her to control the enemy combatants. Mike Engel managed to pull off an explosion, killing most of the dark elves attacking him on the staircase.

Kara Strait has long been one of my favorite cast members, with her quick comedic chops and self-deprecating humor.

Speaking of FATE vs. GURPS, the one thing I have thought for a while that I would love to see from The Film Reroll is a departure from GURPS to another system for a few films. I actually asked Quiros about this, but he said that GURPS is just a system that works best, as it’s very crunchy (which allows the elements of chance that I spoke about earlier to shine through), and everyone knows how the system works already. However, at the same time I would love to see something like, say, “Crimson Peak” played on the Call of Cthulhu system. It’s a wish though, not a detractor from the actual podcast.

In my personal opinion, however, you will find the best episodes a few years ago. The episodes that I revisit over and over again are mostly from 2017 – 2018, but because each movie is a self-contained campaign you can really pick up anywhere and enjoy it (though the first few movies are a bit rough and I don’t recommend them). With that being said, here are a few movies I do recommend:

• “Jaws,” Eps. 9-10
• “Stand by Me,” Eps. 18-19
• “Jumanji,” Ep. 20
• “Home Alone,” Eps. 34-35
• “From Dusk Till Dawn,” Eps. 39-40
• “Jurassic Park,” Eps. 43-45
• “Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter,” Eps. 46-47
• “John Wick,” Eps. 51-52
• “Goonies,” Eps. 53-57
• “The Mighty Ducks,” Eps. 118-122

I started on “Friday the 13th,” which is unique in that the players did not know coming into the game which movie they were playing – the Game Master lied to the cast and gave them the name of a fake teen summer sex comedy that they would be running (because who remembers the plot or characters of a slasher movie, particularly the fourth installment?), which means that the players are, actually, meta-ing in the opposite direction. That is, they are deliberately ignoring signs of the genre and playing into the sex comedy tropes (at one point, one of the players even exclaims something to the effect of “why do I care about the murders at the hospital?! I’m trying to sleep with Sarah!”), which makes the sudden reveal halfway through the campaign that much more impactful. But “Jumanji” is probably one of the funniest campaigns and is only one episode in length, so there’s a minimal commitment.

But I’m rambling now. I hope that you all try out The Film Reroll and let me know what your favorite campaigns are!

Actual Play Content

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Review: Critical Role, “Candela Obscura: The Circle of Tide and Bone”

After finishing Candela Obscura: The Circle of Needle and Thread, I sat back and asked myself, “how are they EVER going to top that?” I’m pleased to announce that Candela Obscura: The Circle of Tide and Bone may not be to the same caliber as Needle and Thread, but it is by no means a poor entry into the eldritch horror anthology by the team behind hit Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role.

Candela Obscura, a concept developed by Chris Lockey and Critical Role cast member Taliesin Jaffe, is ostensibly about a group of occult investigators in a secret organization that works to protect the innocents of the city of Newfaire from the horrors of the world beyond. In practice, the groups of investigators, known as Circles, are horribly broken individuals who are clinging onto their last vestiges of humanity, desperately hoping that by helping others they can save themselves… and many times proven wrong.

While Needle and Thread focused on a Circle knit together by the tides of war and death, dealing with themes of grief, survivor’s guilt, and PTSD, Tide and Bone looks to follow a Circle that has been touched by otherworldly forces far before the story starts. The Circle of Tide and Bone is filled with monstrous creatures that were once human – and perhaps are still human – grappling with who they are and how they have been changed – mutated – without their permission or agreement.

The cast for Tide and Bone is as follows:

Ashly Burch – Elsie Roberts
Noshir Dalal – Rajan Savarimuthu
Gina Darling – Cordelia Glask
Liam O’Brien – Cosmo Grimm
Sam Riegel – Oscar Grimm
Aabria Iyengar – Game Master

I will say, I was disappointed upon beginning this series that Spenser Starke did not return as Game Master, as he was a breakout for me last season. But Aabria Iyengar continues to shine. As a sultry, cunning spirit leading her circle into the dark, her style of storytelling is far more elegant and seductive than the viscera and brutality of Starke.

Cover Image for “The Antiquarian,” Credit to Critical Role Productions

Liam O’Brien as Cosmo Grimm (Occultist), an old and infirm man unwilling to give up his last vestiges of choice and agency in his life, is a stand out actor – especially during a scene during the first episode, “The Antiquarian,” where he fakes far greater illness and age than even Grimm’s advanced maturity of 97 (!!!).

Another character that immediately grabbed my attention is Noshir Dalal as Rajan Savarimuthu (Professor). Haunted by a past that infests his dead eyed, traumatized gaze, he covers it with a veneer of jovial charm and brings the kind of suave swagger to a character that makes you want to punch them.

Sam Riegel as Oscar Grimm (Soldier) and Ashly Burch as Elsie Roberts (Doctor) are both touched by the occult, the strange and horrible magic that infests the world of Candela Obscura, and though by the end of the first episode they are aware of each other’s condition, they have not had time to discuss what this might mean.

The final member of the circle is the beautiful Cordelia Glask (Magician), a casino owner (which is named, amusingly, the Glass Cat Casino), glamorous face to the operation, and played by Gina Darling. While her presence is understated, she is warm and lovely to the members of her Circle, bringing kindness to a group of people who react as suspiciously as wild animals when put too close to individuals they do not know.

One of the things I immediately appreciated about this entry into Candela Obscura (as I also enjoyed in Needle & Thread) is the connection between the characters. Cosmo holds them all together, bringing them into the Circle of Tide and Bone for his last field mission before retirement: Oscar as his grandson, Roberts as his doctor, Glask as a close friend, and Savarimuthu as the odd man out. Savarimuthu knows Roberts (very early on it is revealed that they were once together), but he is brought into the circle for his knowledge of the monster they are fighting and is viewed with suspicion by Oscar and Roberts (for different reasons).

The production in this season, which trades less on music (much to my disappointment; I don’t normally say that an actual play’s score is beautiful, but Needle and Thread had a world class soundtrack), and more on understated sound effects, is not one of my favorite choices. But I do appreciate the cut-ins that the editing team does when two characters are talking with one another, pushing in to allow us to better see their faces and subtle acting choices.

I would prefer if each season had it’s own title sequence, as while I was able to make some connections between the characters and the visuals in Needle and Thread, there are some baffling choices made with the order of appearance of names in Tide and Bone (what does Oscar Grimm have to do with math, science, or academia?)

Still from “The Antiquarian,” Credit to Critical Role Productions

Iyengar’s dangers that she brings through are different than Starke’s in other ways, too. While Starke focused on bleed, the magical corruption from the other worlds (and to a lesser extent physical damage), Iyengar focuses on brain (that is, mental damage) as it relates to feelings of embarrassment, betrayal, and guilt, instead of witnessing horrors that could drive a man mad.

I’ve enjoyed Tide and Bone more than The Circle of the Vassal and the Veil (the first chapter, run by Critical Role Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer), but not as much as Needle and Thread. If you need a slightly less intense introduction into the world of Candela Obscura this would be my first choice, but for those that want a truly horrifying experience, you may find it only mildly thrilling.

My Wife is Going to Kill Me (or, mundane themes in Scion)

Running a story in the world of Scion is normally thought of to be one where you enter the underworld looking for a lost artifact – or battle an Ōmagatoki at twilight to stop it from releasing thousands of evil spirits onto San Francisco. But this is not where the story of a Scion starts. In fact, the first book for Scion, Origin, is mostly free of such supernatural threats. Oh, there are tinges here and there of the magic bleeding through, but Origin is about characters first learning about their abilities and their strengths, and therefore is more often going to feature characters with mundane problems, with mundane antagonists. So how do you make this interesting? 

There are a few different themes that will be the most engaging to your players, and give them something dramatic to play off of. These being criminal, work, and family. All mundane sources of conflict, but ripe with possibility. It’s also important to think about when these intersect, and how two or even three themes can create conflicting priorities and loyalties that the characters will try to honor.

This setup works well in any urban fantasy game, so I recommend taking these themes and also applying them to games like Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, and the World of Darkness setting.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the first theme: criminal.

Criminal

In most cases, criminal intent within a Scion game will be considered bad news. Scion is a game generally about being heroes – being good people. So crime and those who traffic in it, for the most part, will be your enemy. 

This also means that criminal storylines are based on personal safety vs. moral integrity. Are your players willing to give up their own principles to keep themselves safe?

These are the storylines that are going to put your players in the most physical danger, which means that you need to be prepared to engage in a lot of action (and perhaps politics, for those that would like to avoid direct conflict). It’s also worth thinking about if the band is also a group of criminals or if they are victims of a crime, and working to bring it to justice. Maybe they are FBI agents or police working undercover, or they only rob from those who wouldn’t miss the money anyways. Heist, cat-and-mouse, politics, and action are going to be the most common types of storylines you’ll see in criminal-first stories.

When thinking about different combinations of mundane plot hooks, you need to think about what is going to be at the forefront. With stories featuring crime prominently, this will mean that while there may be other factors that color the illegal aspects of this story, we are going to be most heavily focusing on dangerous people and things that operate outside of the law.

The intersection between criminal and work elements could mean that the company one of your players works for is secretly funding some sort of illegal operation, such as conducting inhumane experiments or funding terrorist or gang activity. It could also mean that they are attempting to bribe politicians and other governmental authorities to deregulate their industry. Any of these will give the higher ups in the executive suite the incentive to try and kill off or silence the protagonists. In essence, a story that involves both criminal and work ties means that you have to make a decision about speaking out against corruption and immorality or keeping yourself safe – sometimes, even, choosing to stay silent has its benefits. Maybe the CEO promises to pay you a handsome amount of money to stay silent. The choice between being flung in the river with concrete shoes and taking a million dollars in hush money payments is definitely worth exploring.

The intersection between criminal and family is based on desperation. While mixing work and criminal elements is very emotionally distant, and more about personal values than personal ties, when family gets involved is when it gets rough. A younger brother who got in too far with a gang trying to look cool. Dad has gambling debts. Crime knows where the PC’s family is and how to hurt them, and is too big to be fought one on one. Now there is the possibility that your band could take out one gang or mafia or mob that’s threatening the family, but that just means that that gang’s family is now going to come after the player characters in retribution. It’s a big cycle of violence and carnage – and normally the best way to make sure that the family and the criminal element can walk away peacefully is to come to some sort of deal. This may be a heist, or a request to hand over something precious to the gang. Whatever it is, this needs to be potentially personally damaging to the band. It’s not just the act itself, but the potential loss of a family heirloom, their reputation, or their family if things do not go well.

Work

When thinking about stories that involve the band’s careers or workplaces, it’s important to determine why they would care about these places. It’s easy to say “because they need the income,” but the kind of jobs that would get that reaction are just not that fun to roleplay except under very specific circumstances.

Being a cashier in a grocery store is not the kind of job that leads to good story hooks, but being a private investigator or a firefighter might. Storylines based upon the careers of your characters normally work best as conspiracies. Because these are stories about mundane jobs, we need to think about what makes the job not the same as it’s been every other day previous to the hook being thrown out. A string of arson attacks, for instance, is unusual and gives your players some goal to strive for. In this case, to stop the arson.

You can also do drama, but generally in a game of Scion players are not looking to suck up to their unreasonable boss Jimmy. They are looking for action and adventure, which is normally going to be found in mysteries and conspiracies.

When work comes first in a work-and-criminal intersection, you will most often see this in places where the loyalty is to the job, and not some higher moral goal. You are not releasing the information about illegal puppy mills to the press, but rather standing up to the man who has been threatening your boss, sweet elderly Mrs. Robinson, for protection money on her corner store. This can also include less long-term storylines. Working as a security guard at a museum means tangling with burglars and protestors. Working as a detective means dealing with corrupt or apathetic cops and once and a while squaring up with a mafia don or a serial killer. The main thing to think about with a work-and-criminal storyline is not “how will this change the world” and more “how will this change my employment?” It can be shallow, sure, but if their job is their reason for living, this can be a powerful plothook.

Work and family is going to lead to more of a slice-of-life style game, with less physical risks but much higher emotional stakes. Work can be something dangerous physically, such as being a firefighter or a police detective, but the focus of work and family as a plot hook is the worry and fatigue of a spouse that doesn’t know if you’re going to come home that night (for less physically dangerous jobs, this is going to look more like pulling an all-nighter to get your reports in or constantly forgetting about date nights because there’s a new client that you took out to wine and dine instead). The point of this is that the work is worth it, but at what cost? A PC should love the work they do, but be torn by the toll it puts on their family.

Family

Family stories are always about drama. That’s because families are just about the only people that, like it or not, are going to be in your life for all of your life. This also refers to friends and other personal relationships, but “family” works well as an overarching title.

Trying to save Dad’s pizza shop from going under even though the player character swore they would get out of this dead-end town; finding out that the youngest brother is an affair baby; or Mom and Aunt Casey having a falling out and the cousins having to deal with the loyalties to their mothers are all storylines that you could follow. This could also be a lead-in to talking about the heritage of the family and their connection to the gods. Maybe the player characters aren’t the first ones to be born from a divine coupling. Or maybe the family has served the PC’s godly parent for generations and there is at once a sense of worship that develops after their parentage makes itself known, but also a bit jealousy from the siblings and cousins who aren’t so special.

To be honest though, family storylines don’t blend well to a Scion formula. At least as the main – and only –  ingredient. I would recommend using them only in pairings with other themes, or as a secondary theme in a story. Scion is an action game, and while family can add a good dash of emotional investment, it doesn’t have all that the recipe calls for.

Since criminal-and-family stories are about crime encroaching upon a family and threatening it, family-and-criminal stories should be about a headlong rush into illegal activities by your family. The loyalty, then, is to family in the face of crime they commit, rather than loyalty to the family that is accidentally plunged into the world of crime. Maybe the father of the player character is a well-respected member of a local gang, and has always resented the PC for rejecting “good work.” Maybe even he calls out the PC for looking down on him for doing what he had to to keep the family afloat. These kind of stories are less about thrusting the band into robbing a bank or having to pay a ransom to keep a family member safe, but are more about the toll that having family members who act in immoral ways takes on a person. 

There is also the possibility that there is a sadder aspect to this: maybe instead of being a thug or a drug manufacturer or even a counterfeiter, the family members drug into this crime are simply drug addicts – or addicts of a different kind. Unable to stay away from the substances that they depend on, they are forced to interact with the criminal element and cannot stay away from it.

Family-and-work stories are going to focus more on how much your player characters are willing to give of themselves to family vs. work. While in the work-and-family stories the job should be important and the PC should be passionate about the work, in a family-and-work story the job should not be worth it, but the PC can’t get out of it. Maybe they need the money, or their boss is an absolute jerk who drives long hours and nit-picks everything the character does. Whatever the reason, the PC wants to be at home with their family, but can’t be for outside reasons. It has nothing to do with how noble the work is, and everything to do with “my family needs this money.” 

The Trifecta

When the three themes come to meet in the middle is normally the crux of a storyline: the finale. This also makes it a great place to transition from Origin to Hero, or at least awaken the Scion to the potentials of their gifts.

Because criminal themes are the most proactive and destructive of the three, they will normally take the forefront, with work being the reason for the criminal movements, and family being their bargaining chip.

Let’s say that one of your players is playing a cop – let’s call her Jenny. She’s been on the trail of a drug ring for a while. This is a work-and-criminal story. The job is Jenny’s first priority, and she is closing in on this drug ring. But the drug ring, having seen that she is not dissuaded by threats or even shootouts, kidnap her little brother Thomas. It has now become a work-criminal-family story, and Jenny must decide if her job is more important than her family when faced with conflict with the criminal element in her life.

The main purpose of these storylines is to explore who the character is before they’re special. To show their lives and what they struggle with. What they like and dislike and what their worst nightmares are. But even that’s kind of a misnomer. They’re already special. You just need to show them that they are.

Video: https://youtu.be/wzQveUoFx_0

Vampire: The Masquerade Character Questionnaire

This is something I put together for a recent VtM game I’m running, but I thought others might enjoy using it as well.

• Are you from [city of the setting] originally? If not, why did you come here?
• How did your Embrace happen?
• Tell me about one good memory from your childhood.
• Tell me about one bad memory from your childhood.
• What’s the worst accident you’ve ever been in? Were you injured? Were you injured the worst?
• Who or what was your first love? Do you still love it/them? Why or why not?
• Who are your parents? What do they do? Are they still living?
• Do you have siblings? What are their ages and what do they do?
• How far did you go in your education? Did you enjoy it?
• Did/do you have a job? Did/do you like it?
• Tell me about one thing you regret from your human life.
• Tell me about one thing you regret from your undead life.
• What is one talent you’re proud to possess?
• What is one talent you’re ashamed to possess?
• What is one talent you WANT to possess?
• Do you enjoy the Jyhad? Do you play it well?
• Do you believe in fate?
• Do you believe in a god/s?
• Is your undead existence a curse or a blessing?
• Are humans/humanity worth fighting for?
• What do you want most?
• Why can’t you get it?

Credit to Matt Stormcrow (@mattstormcrow on TikTok) for those last two questions.

Changeling: The Dreaming (20th Anniversary Edition) Chimera Stat Blocks

Click on the page links at the bottom to get plain text versions of the stat blocks. A template is included on the very last page.

Redes

Aggravated Damage — The chimera can inflict aggravated chimerical damage with its attacks. This Rede may also be used in tandem with the Wyrd Rede to inflict mundane aggravated damage.

Use Cost: None

Armor — The chimera has extra protection for its physical form. This protection can take many forms, including chitinous exoskeletons, tough skin, thick fur, dragon scales, and metal plating.

Use Cost: None

Befuddle — This Rede allows the chimera to confuse its target, clouding its mind and making it difficult to perform any action. The Storyteller rolls the chimera’s Glamour at a difficulty equal to its target’s Willpower. The target loses one die from all dice pools per success the chimera achieves. The effect lasts for one minute per success, or until the chimera leaves the vicinity of its victim.

Use Cost: 1

Dreamform — The chimera has no physical form; it is instead constructed of rarefied, pure Glamour. It is immune to normal attacks, but can still be damaged with Treasures or Arts. The chimera remains visible, however, unless it uses the Hide Rede. The chimera does not need to possess Physical Attributes, but it must still purchase health levels.

A Dreamform chimera that does not have a Stamina rating substitutes its Glamour rating instead, for the purposes of calculating health level restrictions.

Once purchased, this Rede is permanent, but the chimera is especially vulnerable to Banality. If exposed to a source of extreme Banality, such as an Autumn Person, the Storyteller immediately rolls the chimera’s Glamour (difficulty of the source’s Banality).

On a success, the chimera retains its Dreamform (and likely flees the source of Banality). On a fail, Banality forces the chimera to temporarily manifest into a more physical form for the duration of the scene, with a base of 2 in each of its Physical Attributes.

On a botch, the Banality permanently strips the chimera of its Dreamform. The chimera’s player receives 5 chimera points to distribute into Physical Attributes.

Use Cost: None

Enchantment — Enchantment allows the chimera to interact with and affect non-fae. If the chimera uses this Rede to attack a human, all damage is still chimerical and the human soon forgets the encounter (refer to the Mists chart, p. 269). In order to cause physical damage, the chimera must use the Wyrd Rede in tandem with Enchantment.
 
Use Cost: 1 Glamour per turn, or 1 per hour in a freehold or the Dreaming
 
Ensnare — The chimera has an ability to physically restrain its target. Spider chimera have webbing. Others may spit adhesive goo. Still others may manifest a rope or net. The chimera may even be powerful enough to cause the ground to liquefy and harden, trapping its target’s legs in rock or soil. The chimera must make an attack roll, or set the snare in advance. The snare itself has Strength 2 and an armor rating of 2 for every 3 dots of Glamour the chimera possesses. If the chimera possesses less than 3 dots of Glamour, their snare has a Strength and armor rating of 1.

Fear — The chimera can cause its target to flee screaming in terror, or freeze in paralytic horror. Bloodcurdling shrieks, mental domination, horrific physical appearance, and natural auras of terror are common methods of using this Rede. Fear lasts for a number of rounds equal to the chimera’s permanent Glamour. The victim may roll Willpower (difficulty 6) to reduce the duration by one turn per success.

Fester — Chimera with this Rede cause their victim to manifest symptoms of a particular disease (see Disease & Poison, p. 292). This disease progresses as fast or as slow as the Storyteller determines, but most progress far faster than their mundane counterparts. Players can counter the use of this Rede by rolling Stamina at difficulty 8, though their character must be aware of the chimera to resist Fester’s effects. This Rede may be purchased more than once. Each new purchase reflects an additional disease the chimera may inflict on their victims.

Use Cost: 1 (Toxin Rating 1–3), 2 (Toxin Rating 4–5), or
3 (Toxin Rating 6–7)

Flight — The chimera can fly at a rate of 25 feet per turn per point of Dexterity. Changelings seek out chimera with this Rede as mounts and for crafting components for brooms, magic carpets, zeppelins, and other forms of aerial transportation.

Use Cost: 1 per hour of flight
Use Cost: 2

Glamour Pact — This Rede allows a chimera to protect itself from being destroyed, reshaped, sacrificed, or trapped in a Treasure against its will. Any attempt to force an unwilling chimera with this Rede into a Treasure results in an additional +2 difficulty on the crafting roll for the artisan to do so. Chimera with Glamour Pact retain their Glamour, Willpower, and Mental Attribute ratings, though their new form dictates the remainder of their traits. Some changelings believe Treasures and other items created with Glamour
Pact to be cursed, as the item has a will of its own and may not behave as its owner desires.

Use Cost: 1 permanent Glamour

Gulp — The chimera can swallow its victims whole. With five successes on an attack roll, it unhinges its jaw or engulfs a victim with its body, and gulps them down. Damage occurs automatically, inflicting the chimera’s Stamina + 1 in bashing damage per turn. Some chimera only hold their victims long enough to feast from the terror and panic before regurgitating them; others are content to consume and digest their meals in peace. Victims may attempt to dislodge or cut themselves out of the chimera’s body (resolved with
resisted rolls. See Grappling, p. 277).

Healing — The chimera may heal its own wounds, or those of another. It may even heal non-chimerical injuries, if it also has the Wyrd Rede. 

Use Cost: 1 per Health Level healed

Hide — This Rede grants a chimera invisibility, allowing it to hide from any creature of the Dreaming or, if used in conjunction with the Wyrd Rede, mundane creatures. A player may roll Perception + Kenning (difficulty of the chimera’s Glamour rating) for their character to sense the location of hiding chimera. A single success grants the chimera’s general vicinity, and three successes are enough to pinpoint the exact location. The chimera remains invisible
to the changeling’s mundane senses.

Some chimera can also cloak items or other beings from sight. This enhanced version works exactly as above.

Use Cost: 1 per being or item affected

Possession — The chimera can possess another sentient creature of the Dreaming with this Rede. The chimera must touch the target. The Storyteller makes a Glamour roll (difficulty of the target’s Willpower), resisted by the victim’s player rolling Willpower (difficulty of the chimera’s Glamour).

Use Cost: None

Scuttle — Chimera with this Rede can move at lightning speeds. For every point of Glamour spent, the chimera gains an additional action for the turn. The amount of points spent cannot exceed the chimera’s Glamour rating.

Use Cost: 1 Glamour per extra action.

Sense Banality — The chimera can tell exactly how much Banality is in a person, place or thing. This is a prized ability for chimerical companions of urban changelings especially, who appreciate an early warning for approaching Autumn People and assessments of areas where they plan on using Arts or other faerie magic.

Use Cost: 1 Willpower per scene

Shapeshift — There are two versions of this Rede. The first allows chimera to alter their size, coloration, physical beauty or monstrousness, or placement of features (moving its eyes to the back of its head, for instance). This power is largely cosmetic, does not allow the chimera to change its fundamental shape, and grants only limited benefits from this Rede (such as increased Strength from a larger size, or complete 360-degree vision from rearranging their eyes).
 
The second version of Shapeshift grants a chimera a completely new form, changing its configuration entirely and redistributing its total chimera creation points (minus the cost of Shapeshift). Shapeshift is not an exclusionary Rede: Both versions may be learned by a chimera, though the second version must be purchased separately for each alternate form. Very few chimera have more than one alternate shape.
 
Use Cost: 1 per shape change

Steal Glamour — The chimera may directly steal Glamour from another creature of the Dreaming. The chimera’s player rolls Willpower with a difficulty equal to the target’s Glamour. The number of successes rolled determine how many points of temporary Glamour the chimera can steal.

Use Cost: 1 Willpower

Traverse Dreaming — The chimera can travel back and forth between the Dreaming and the Autumn world. Chimera may only travel along established trods and through raths, some of which may be known (or accessible) only by chimera.

Use Cost: 1

Venom — The chimera makes a physical attack that delivers a potent venom to its victim. Bites, claws, tail stingers, and spitting attacks are common for animalistic chimera, whereas a humanoid chimera may use envenomed arrows or darts. The victim suffers damage from the attack, and must make a successful Stamina roll (difficulty 8) or suffer debilitating effects. In the case of the hydra, pain (one minute of wound penalties a category higher than the victim’s current health track per point of Glamour invested) is its method of torment. In addition, the venom may add direct damage to the initial attack (1 health level per point of Glamour spent in addition to any spent for debilitating effects).

Use Cost: Variable

Weaponry — The chimera manifests a physical, melee, or ranged weapon from its body. Common examples are swords, claws, horns, and spears. The manifested weapon inflicts the chimera’s Strength + 1 in base damage, but may cause more if the chimera has a more powerful version of the Rede.

Use Cost: None

Wyrd — The chimera may choose to become a solid creature, able to affect and be affected by the Autumn world.

This is among the rarest of Redes, as chimera interacting too frequently with the mundane are corroded by its Banality.

Use Cost: 1 Willpower per scene

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Anne Bonney, Daughter of Hela (or, historical settings for Scion)

You know, urban fantasy has always been a fun game to play. But I’ve been thinking a lot about other historical periods that can be fun as well!

Indiana Jones, stories using steampunk elements such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Treasure Planet is a bit TOO fantasy to count, but it is indeed steampunk), the TTRPG Call of Cthulhu and Critical Role’s recently released Candela Obscura all are based on the idea of magic and mysticism interplaying with historical fiction. So, I decided to come up with a list of settings that I think are best for a Scion game!

I am trying to avoid settings that favor one specific pantheon over another, though you should feel free to run a story set in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom, or in India pre-colonisation, but this list is to give ideas that can incorporate several different pantheons and give your players realistic options for their characters.

This will, to the best of my ability, include ideas for areas outside of the United States. But as an American, many of my ideas and knowledge are pretty American-centric. So I apologize if this has a lot of references to events that mostly affected America and not much about other areas of the world.

Historical fiction is tricky, because in a lot of ways the past was… not a good place for a lot of people. Classism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism was rampant. The World of Scion can be removed from those elements, should you so choose, but the issues of the past give your players a way to fight back against these elements in fiction. But you should always ask your players if they want these elements to be present in the game before introducing it. Using a questionnaire to determine your players’ limits is always a good thing, regardless of whether you’re playing in a historical setting or not – I’ll link to a good resource in the description.

Golden Age of Piracy

The Pirates of the Caribbean films may not be very accurate to what the actual Golden Age of Piracy was like, but it gives a great blueprint as to what a piratical fantasy game might look like.

Not only do sea monsters run wild, but the mysterious islands, cursed treasures, and other pirates who have found wondrous, dark powers plague the seas to hinder and terrify your heroes.

People like Anne Bonny, Calico Jack, and Blackbeard can be incorporated as Scions on their own quests that intersect and pit the band against other interested parties.

If you want something a bit more mundane as your main antagonist, the East India Trading Company (also used in the Pirates films) is not a bad place to start, or the Dutch, French, and British navies.

Going across the sea, Zheng Yi Sao was a powerful pirate captain in the South China Sea, allowing for more of a wuxia feel to your series.

The Golden Age of Piracy is going to be your best bet for any sort of fantasy questing and leaning into more mystical elements. Just be careful to not spend too long narrating travel from place to place. It’s already difficult to keep players’ attention when traveling over land. It can be absolutely abysmal to try and narrate the long, boring, months-long adventures across the sea!

The Industrial Revolution and the Victorian Age

The year is 1838, a year into the Victorian age and two years before the end of the Industrial Revolution. In March, a combination of rain and melting snow causes the Danube River to overflow its banks, washing away villages in western Hungary. More than 150 people are drowned.

The Trail of Tears, when almost 60,000 Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and moved out West, begins in May of this year. By the end, over 7,000 are dead from disease, starvation, or exposure. 

Queen Victoria is coronated in late June of this year.

Of course, you do not have to constrain yourself to just years that overlap between these two periods – but it is easier to talk about them in the same breath when they share a lot in common.

Anything set in the Industrial Revolution or the Victorian age will deal heavily with colonialism, class, race dynamics, gender, and sexuality. It will also deal with invention, and science that has moved too quickly for the safety of the people using it. Or in certain cases, capitalism and greed winning out over informing and protecting the public. 

This is the time of the World’s Fair, where your children of Xīpe Totēc, Ptah, and Hephaestus can marvel at the creations of mankind, submit their own machinations, and battle with both the mortal and Scion crafters who have gathered to compete for the title of the most brilliant mind.

Will Kali’s daughter rise up to overthrow British rule in India, or will she overthrow the caste system that has held her and her father captive for years? 

Will Athena’s blessed chosen son fight to bring more than just housework, marriage and motherhood to his patron’s beloved women?

The things that threaten in this time frame are both mundane and magical. Innocuous and daunting. Something as small as a child’s toy can bring death to the infant. 

For more information about the (British) households’ everyday dangers, I recommend Absolute History’s series on Hidden Killers. It’s a great documentary series on the items in a normal household that could cause serious injury or death to its occupants.

The Great War

Honestly most people will choose to play in World War II if they choose to do a war-time series, but I would argue that the Great War is a better setting, particularly if you would like to do some sort of spy-centric story.

The weapons of mass destruction are just becoming popular for use in warfare, and the various spy networks of nations criss cross each other constantly. It’s an excellent setting for intrigue, deception, politics, and a few well placed poisonings. No one’s really the good guy (though there are certainly bad guys), so keep your chin up, tell yourself that this is for your country, and soldier on.

The Roaring 20s

The Great War has just ended, and everyone is celebrating the boom in economics in the United States. Egypt declares its independence in 1922, and Tutankhamun’s tomb is opened the year afterwards. Over 100,000 die in the Great Kanto earthquake in Japan, and in China 200,000 are killed in another earthquake a few years later. In 1928, both the Iron Lung and penicillin are developed, greatly improving the ability of doctors to save patients’ lives. In 1929, the stock market crashes, leading to the Great Depression.

The Roaring 20s is a time of opulence and excess. Europe was in shambles after World War I (at the time just called the Great War), but America was thriving. A ban on liquor was passed in 1920 and wasn’t lifted until 1933, but a lucrative business of alcohol smuggling came to take its place.

A game set in the Roaring 20s can focus on the differences between life for those who have vs. those who have not. It could also be a game focusing on the interplay between the gangs that began to run speakeasies and other illegal establishments that supplied booze to its occupants, or about the catty pettiness of the uber-rich. Any way you slice it, however, the 1920s is a political setting – even if you’re running a gang of rumrunners in Chicago with children of Ama-no-Uzume, Òrìshà-Oko, and Sun Wukong, they will have to navigate the shifting fealties to Al Capone or the Genna brothers – or starting up their own gang to wrest power from the others hoping to make a name for themselves.

England, 1970s – 1980s

This may seem like an odd one, but hear me out.

Kenneth O. Morgan writes that “the 1970s have gone down as the dark ages…Britain’s gloomiest period since the second world war.” (Britain in the Seventies – Our Unfinest Hour?). This is even before heading into the Thatcher era, which was rife with controversy, particularly with her focus on privatization of business and slashing social programs.

This was actually the start of punk music. And personally, I find the idea of playing a game about being an original punk quite intriguing. 

A game set in this era, with this idea, would lean into classism quite heavily. It would also have a lot of interplay between the main characters and governmental authority, such as the police and deal with themes such as political unrest and protests. 

Unlike the United States, the U.K. does not have completely protected speech, which makes it much riskier to speak your mind in those places. However, there are always those willing to say what needs to be said, and your band of Scions could also be the band with the music to lead to revolution.

If you want to learn more about the history of punk music – even through to today, I recommend watching the documentary Punk’s Not Dead (2007). It deals more with the history of punk and its evolution, but it will certainly give you the basic themes of what a story set within this culture would look like.

Futuristic

The Veil and Cyberpunk Red both have the science fiction aspects of futuristic stories covered, but what about a bit more magic in your science fiction? What about a science fantasy take on cyberpunk themes?

The main threads of cyberpunk can still remain, but instead of focusing on high levels of technology, what about high levels of magic?

If you’ve ever played Shadowrun, I’m kind of taking a page out of its book. Instead of jet packs, now wings made of crystal and enchanted with runes that glow neon in the ever present rain and reflect back off the slick cement streets. Eyes with digital implants or cumbersome visors with HUDs are replaced with glasses purified in wells of knowledge, blessed to identify key information about people and places as you walk.

Dystopian futures with massive corporations that are more the government than the actual government abound. The rich get richer and the poor are forgotten. Gangs and police are basically interchangeable – they’ll each protect or rob you for enough money.

But even in this despair, the gods have a place. The gods of knowledge such as Anansi, Thoth and Freya are powerful and worshiped widely. Gods of war have taken on patron gangs and encourage the shoot outs that take place up and down the street. Crafting and enchanting is also a way to make a lot of money, and the followers of Hephaestus are perhaps some of the best when it comes to new rune-limbs (this setting’s answer to cybernetics).

Conclusion

Whichever setting you try, do your research. Expand upon any questions you have while researching to make a unique, magic-infused world touched by the gods. If you ask yourself “what if Margaret Thatcher were actually a leprechaun?” and the answer intrigues you, follow it down the rabbit hole – it could affect Thatcher’s policies, her actions, the way that Britain is being run, and the attitudes of the other characters in the script.

If the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, is actually a place of worship for Y2K-era Scions, how does that effect the culture of Nashville? Have the other pantheons essentially been pushed out of Nashville? How do they feel about it? Are the music gods particularly upset, or do none of them really want to take over patronage of country music anyways? Is Apollo pissed off at having to be responsible for country music consequentially?

This is all an exercise for your imagination. So take your time, do your research, and have a fantastic time!

Video: https://youtu.be/D4W4T1njuRo