Tag Archives: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

Expanded Rituals

Ritual Magic permits a spell caster to turn one of their prepared spells into an improvised plot-bending miracle. All they need to do is have the Ritual Casting feat,  sacrifice one of their available spells, and make a skill check. The rules and Difficulty Class are simple and largely in the purview of the Gamemaster […]

Three New Trail of Cthulhu Campaign Frames

While personal hooks and drives ensure that your investigators are the ones to actually investigate the Mythos, what brings them together, as opposed to pursuing their own solitary mysteries? The Trail of Cthulhu rulebook offers several campaign frames; here are three more. Ghostly Sorcerers Against The Mythos Other ugly reports concerned my intimacy with leaders […]

The Trail to Trail

by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan At Gencon 2023, we proudly announced the advent of Trail of Cthulhu 2nd edition. We also, perhaps foolishly, intimated it would be crowdfunding in November. This is, as you have doubtless discerned already, not the case. We’re currently planning a crowdfunding campaign for March of next year. As of this writing, we’ve […]

Iconic Agents of Spireshadow Vale

The upcoming Prophet of the Pyre campaign takes the player characters from 1st to 10th level, from fresh-faced young adventures to epic heroes. The first part of the campaign takes place in a remote valley, isolated from the rest of the Empire. Most of the characters have never left this valley and so do not (yet!) have […]

Ashen Stars Station Duty – Uqbar

Uqbar Formerly military, currently militant History Uqbar’s lifeless – for the most part. Some of the planet’s spectacular ravines have been roofed over and pressurised, creating a few habitable zones. The planet’s atmosphere is thin and unbreathable – it’s mostly argon – and lights up with astounding flares and aurorae as radiation from the collapsed […]

Ashen Stars Station Duty – Themis Prime

Themis Prime Heavily Populated, Bitterly Divided History Many worlds can support life; few allow it to thrive. Themis Prime was one of the rare eden of the Bleed, a world with a biosphere requiring only minor tweaks compatible with most of the major Combine species. Humans, Balla and Tavak all settled on this world, united […]

Ashen Stars Station Duty – Goliath

Goliath Gas giant with many secrets Sullen, mighty Goliath dominates the outer reaches of the Themis System. The gas giant’s many moons are uninhabited apart from a few research, refuelling or prospecting outposts, although there are likely secret weapons dumps left by General Gatar’s forces hidden here too, concealed by the electromagnetic flux. Only Goliath-C […]

Ashen Stars Station Duty – The Campaign

The Campaign The key to any Station Duty campaign: layers. Everything  – every character, every faction, every location – should have a surface layer that’s immediately obvious, and hidden depths that must be uncovered. These don’t all have to be dark secrets or criminal schemes – it’s fine, say, to have the Lasers discover that […]

Ashen Stars Station Duty – Introduction

Ashen Stars uses the episodic ‘planet-of-the-week’ or ‘case-of-the-week’ approach to adventures – the Lasers get an assignment, show up, solve the mystery, and move on to some other part of the Bleed. It’s Have Starship, Will Travel.In a Station Duty campaign, the Lasers are on permanent assignment to a particularly troubled system or sector, a […]

Thirteen Things Tucked Into That Grimoire

A blurry photograph of the room where the investigators found the tome. Shadow shapes that might be the result of a double exposure or some damage to the photographic plate are visible, as if the room is haunted. Photography coupled with Chemistry might replicate the experiment and yield more information. The binding of the book […]

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