Core Vs. Alternate Scenes

In response to our scenario design workshop, we were asked to delve a bit further into the distinction between core and alternate scenes in a GUMSHOE adventure. TL;DR: Make sure there’s one path through a GUMSHOE scenario. Those are your core scenes. Add more paths. Those are your alternate scenes. A Core Scene provides one […]

Call of Chicago: The Carcosan Prisoner

“I told you to keep to the paths. You wandered into the Yellow Zone.” — No. 6 to Nadia, “The Chimes of Big Ben,” The Prisoner Robert W. Chambers may have invented reality horror, combining Poe’s fragility of self with Bierce’s arbitrary universe and his own artistic flair, but it arguably reached its peak, ironically […]

13th Sage: Cursed Pirate Treasure

So ye seek the lost treasure of Karrag Voraldo, do ye? There’s a tale about Voraldo told in the taverns of Shadow Port that ye should know, then. They say that during the Age of Corsairs he was a trusted lieutenant of the King of Corsairs himself, until greed overcame him. He began lying to […]

The Zone Jaune

The Zone Jaune is a region in north-eastern Europe that was deemed “inhospitable to human life” in the wake of the Continental War. The widespread deployment of Carcosan ‘yellow science’, not to mention conventional artillery and chemical weapons, rendered the region – some 2,000 square kilometres of forest and former farmland – utterly hostile and […]

Pelgranista Default N*P*C*s!

During one of the informal Pelgrane meetings, Robin asked all GMs present about their default NPC-style. The PCs start interacting with an NPC we haven’t planned something for; what style of NPC do we tend to default to? I kept notes! Gareth said he tends to introduce upper-class fops. And drunks. Maybe drunk upper-class fops. […]

A Cthulhu Almanac

April 30th rolls ‘round again, season of doors and frightful manifestations. You may know it as Walpurgisnacht, the Witches’ Sabbath – at least according to poor Walter Gilman, the ill-fated protagonist of Dreams in the Witch House. Now he was praying because the Witches’ Sabbath was drawing near. May-Eve was Walpurgis-Night, when hell’s blackest evil […]

13th Age: The Register of Foreboding Constellations

By Julian Kay As penned by Viriel Pyrolea, newly appointed Imperial Astrologer, formerly an esteemed seer of Lightwood, now doing penance service for spurring theft and piracy along the Spray. The foreboding register consists of stars seen as hostile to imperial interests. Those that adorn themselves in raiment or accessories showing the foreboding constellations make […]

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