Wayside Shrines

The term "Wayside Shrines" was immediately evocative when I first heard about it in Paul Muldoon's poem of the same name. As with most of Muldoon's work, it prompted extensive research. I was struck by this image of a shrine built alongside the road, a sanctuary from brutal travels. Thus, I wrote Wayside Shrines as tribute.

Cluedo, the board game, had an pitch that immediately drew me in, but was always deeply unsatisfying mechanically in its accounting-simulator nature. I wanted to create a similar murder-mystery set-up in the setting of Psychopomps, but perhaps without the need for a checklist. This would serve as the impetus for the locked-room nature, requiring the players to survive the long night in a crumbling monastery, while also looking for the killer. 

I recommend reading the adventure before looking at the design notes below. If you intend to play this, you should read nothing.  

Spoilers:

In conceptualising a locked-room mystery, I was immediately inspired by yet another locked room, no, not Murder on the Orient Express, but rather Jean Paul Satre's No Exit. It was titillating to imagine a group of unpleasant people with differing conceptions of morality (in which the classic RPG murderhobo would definitely fit) torturing each other endlessly in this single closed space. I took the idea of Hell is other people quite a bit more literally here— they would serve as each other's torturers. This, as well as my reading of the very lovely Witchburner, led to the core mechanic of this murder-mystery module. Witchburner suggests a detective game whereby there is no real killer, whereby everyone is innocent of the specific crime the player must investigate. This concept of this intrigued me, but where it fit the thematic concerns of Witchburner, it did not fit mine. I wanted these people to all be guilty in some way, to all have some culpability in the acts of violence. Thus, in Wayside Shrine, everyone is the real killer at some point.

The only death that is not caused by our main cast of suspects is the first one, the accidental suffocation of the last monk in that temple. This death is the anomaly, both to the patterns of killing to follow, as well as to the core mechanic of revival. This complicates the scenario, injecting doubt into our players as well as establishing the misconception that the monastery is haunted by a ghost hell-bent on killing. The cast will then begin using this misconception as a way to start killing off the others. 

The moment of great savouring is right after the first killing. The GM should try to have the players observe it or its immediate consequences. The method of death, victim and perpetrator is random, but there is a certain joy in watching the players' face contort in confusion as the victim comes back to life. Players with experiences in video-gaming are well accustomed to revival after death, but it is uniquely estranged to them in ttrpg form. They are now given this revival as a new mechanic by which to interact with the world. The game becomes not about the first murder, but rather, how and why they can keep resurrect, and how might that connect to the murders that keep happening.

The players will take liberties with the resurrection and this will be a limitation that has to be carefully managed. Once the game has little consequence, the players might become desensitized to their own actions and lose care in the scenario. A way to manage this is that NPCs remember what happen to them, and having them react accordingly to the actions of the PCs. You may also request that they physically track all deaths that happen (that they know of), with tally marks or even tokens. They may not know what happens, but they will behave with greater caution.

What will also be crucial is the player's interactions with the cast of characters be it who they suspect or who they befriend. There are characters that are more sympathetic, like Tara, but they are all guilty in some ways. The reason that there is a night watch is simple, to move people around the monastery, and keep them rotating around the different areas. The easiest way to "brute force" this is to ensure that everyone is trapped in the main hall, but having to guard a key defensive structure makes that impossible. Characters also have incentives to leave the main hall so that there is the possibility of a murder. Part of the game is in making all of these characters likable, empathetic, and understandable at all times, while still being flawed human beings who would want to kill for their own reasons, precisely like our own player characters.

  

 

Session 2: For the greater good

 We began the game with four members of the party: 

Jack Bird, the Human Bard (Who will largely be absent due to the limitations of his internet).

Khazix, the Asura Rogue.

 Lilith, the Ghoul Ranger. 

Virgil, the Human Warlock. 

The party is joined by two new players:

Enon, 23rd Saint of the 3rd Month, the Deva Barbarian

Aaron Rrest, 31st Saint of the 5th Month, the Deva Fighter

We are in a dusty outpost of the Manhunters, where State Manhunter Aaron receives his orders, to hunt down one Khazix Kinkiller. Additionally, he is told to escort a civilian party to Pala. Aaron is rocky and uncarved, left in relative untouched conditions from his crash. Enon on the other hand, has been carved to resemble an androgynous figure, as human as possible. They set off towards Pala. The party begins where they left off, in that state of confusion with the State Exorcist Mikaela. 

Virgil notices Mikaela was feigning sleep and specifically that she was attempting to grasp at her signet ring. He winks at her, alerting her to his awareness and putting her on guard. She threatens them with the summoning of State Warlocks, putting them in a tense standoff with a visibly frustrated and angry Mikaela. Lilith notices she is reluctant to actually use her ring to summon them. At this moment, the two Deva stumble into the alleyway, alerted by the clamour of their fight. Aaron attempts to defuse the situation, investigating the encounter between Mikaela and the party. Mikaela accuses them of resisting arrest, violence and the stealing of her symbol of office, a jewelled shortsword. With some clever use of Find Familiar (and some quick rulings about astral planes), the party evades suspicion from Aaron by revealing that they did not have it in their possession, calling into question Mikaela's accusations. Mikaela is entirely frustrated, storming off and handing over her investigation to Aaron. The party interacts with Enon, who has placed themself on the ground, cross-legged. Lilith is suspicious of Enon and discovers them lying about their reasons for being there. Aaron decides to take over investigation.

The party head back to the Town Chief's hut, where the party pretends to not have already broken in and investigated. Aaron heads in and discovers the chest unlocked, looking at the amulet and sketch. Khazix lies about his name after he discovers Aaron's purpose in coming to Pala. They snatch the amulet and sketch and head back to interrogate the Chief about the incriminating evidence. At the town square, a middle-aged woman cries as she begs Aaron to find her son, who has been missing for a month. Questioned further, she informs the party of rumour about a monster to the west of the river. She is left inconsolable by Enon's harsh comments and the party search for a more composed informant. They waylay an older man smoking in a wife-beater. Khazix intimidates him with the help of Virgil and they have a very confusing conversation about where the river is in a village by the river. They learn the Chief has been travelling in and out of town for a month. They decide to follow the river, hoping to trail the Chief.

They travel towards the west, with Lilith very successfully navigating them without much trouble. They discover the Chief's horse tied to a tree and tracks leading southwards. Following the tracks, they are faced with a cave entrance, pitch black and damp. They enter the cave, where Virgil secretly places the jewelled shortsword to frame Mikaela. Upon noticing it, Enon sneaks it into their robe, hiding it from Aaron but not the rest of the party. They discover four of the six missing children, trapped in a cage of rattan and rotting wood. They are informed of a man in dark robes, whom has kidnapped them and led them here to this cave. Getting closer into the cave, the water level rises to their knees. Lilith notices a scabbard for the jewelled shortsword, but relatively corroded and damaged by long-term water exposure. She also notices that the water level has actually dropped from its original level. They continue onward now, suspicious of what had happened.

A torso emerges from the water, with painfully translucently pale skin, tinged with green moss, algae and rot. Its thin, long fingers reach out, webbed and dripping. It has a painfully swollen body, burst blood vessels blackened under skin barely there. Its skin is wrinkled all over, ragged and slowly flaking off on its extremities. It pitfully moans at you, revealing a few sets of thin, sharp fangs. It still has the cherubic face of a young boy, ruined in the thick rot and swelling. The eyes are large, watery and pitch-black, bulging obscenely at you. The hair is falling off in patches. It gurgles wetly at you, a spray of frothy, dark liquid. It is then that you notice the gaping hole at the top of its head. Its crown had been painstakingly cut off, and in that hollow is a brain floating in the same dark liquid.

The Chief emerges carrying a torch, wielding a jewelled shortsword presumed to be paired with the scabbard they just found. He explains that the village relies on a river spirit for protection, one which draws the fish in and repels other monsters. The previous Kappa was a childhood friend of the Chief's, An. When the first State Exorcist was sent, he discovered An and exorcised him, which caused the village to be in grave danger. The Chief kidnapped the children and brought them here, to enact the rituals needed to turn one of them into a Kappa and protect the village. He offers them support, and when asked about a reward by Virgil, agrees to that too. They discover that the village has not been able to get the support of a Salt Road and that they were forced to resort to this illegal process. The party decides to allow him to finish the ritual. He kills himself as part of the blood ritual, asking the party to take care of the children as his dying words. The Kappa roils and lashes, consuming the remains of the Chief and the party runs out of the cave, with the children in tow. The Kappa destroys part of the cave's infrastructure, causing its entrance to collapse. They end the session with the four kids in the swamp.

The land of many gods, great and small

As we all know, belief is ambrosial to the gods, lifeblood that reignites vitality and crucially, power. More interestingly, it works for mortals as well. The sheer power of faith means that anyone and anything accumulates divinity as it gains renown or fear. The spirits are powerful in Liurza, especially after the Shattering. Where the Théan's magocracy worships only the Arcane Songbird and her nest of lesser gods, Liurza has a wide variety of local deities, demon gods and divine landmarks. Liurza's diversity is widely-renown and this extends to choices of gods. One may just approach the middle rings of Corphaksa, the famed Temple Rows, where numerous shrines and places of worship are crammed together, clamouring for supplicants. There are a few officially sanctioned deities, ones that have contracted with the state for a steady supply of believers.

The State Government of Liurza contracts with a series of spirits, useful to their attempts at regulating clerical and warlock power. While the clergy is legally separate from government, the warlocks are under no such restriction, making them the ideal weapon of choice.

The most common patron of the State Exorcists is The Armoury. Its powers are the most easily understood and controllable and even the most average of warlocks is able to walk away with some form of magical firepower. It is the newest of the State Deities, recently mollified and contracted.

The Dictation contracts with warlocks slightly higher in the bureaucracy, specialising in managing contracts and more importantly, hunting wizards. It manages words of power, be it magical or legal. Wealn is a sore spot for it, where the traditional talismanic Wizards are allowed to freely practice their craft.

The Prejudice is a threat in itself, the nuclear option for the Liurzan State. A deity that aims for utter obliteration needs to be heavily managed and controlled, and its very few warlocks are under strict supervision. They are blindfolded, gagged and put into glass enclosures, only allowed sun in times of national emergency.

There may be other minor gods or deities that the government traffics with but any speculation of that is strictly illegal and potentially damaging to one's health.

Other than the State Deities (whom legally are bonded to the state), there are a few gods that have strong follower bases in Liurza. 

Lord Yan is the spirit of the Salt Lake from which all the White Roads spring, a ferocious dragon-faced man in minister's clothing. He governs Order and Life.

The First Saint is a Deva shaped like a wolf, with wings of pure flame. He guards the travellers as they journey and hunts evil. It governs Twilight, Nature and War.

The Gravesweeper is a shadowy figure, a pale figure dressed in dark blues and greys, faceless as they sweep the ground ahead of them. They govern Death, Peace and Knowledge.

The Arcane Songbird is a key faith of the Théans and thus has a small but devoted following in Liurza. It is an immensely jewelled bronze bird mechanism, powered by ghosts and demons. They govern the Arcane, Knowledge and Tempest.

The people are free to worship whatever they choose and gods rise and fall based on the whims of man's attentions.

Session 1: A fishy beginning

We began the game with four members of the party: 

Jack Bird, the Human Bard. 

Khazix, the Asura Rogue.

 Lilith, the Ghoul Ranger. 

Virgil, the Human Warlock. 

The Party, Khazix, Lilith, Jack Bird and Virgil, begin their journey in the north-western swamps, some lost in the physical sense, the others lost in other ways. After a tense first encounter, with a few flying daggers and some strange intimidations, they made agreements to travel together for the time being, their goal being the fishing town of Pala. Lilith’s skilled navigations of these terrible swamps mean that they traverse the area relatively quickly, stopping only for her to secretly harvest some argentleaf. They arrive in town to the eve of a big announcement, looking for the fish stew that Khazix had heard of in his numerous travels. They sit outside by the pier, the air ripe with seafood and fresh mist. With some awkward negotiations about payment, including some sleight of hand to steal from the poor old lady running the restaurant, they manage to obtain some bowls of the daily catch. Amidst the evening rush of the townsfolk, they overhear information about the harvest festival soon to be celebrated. Looking for some other patrons with deep pockets, they notice two other entities foreign to the place, a group of experienced travellers and a lady anxiously waiting for someone. 

As bards are inclined, Jack Bird attempts to put the moves on the State Exorcist Mikaela, impersonating the partner she was supposed to meet up with in this restaurant. Through some good rolls and loose lips on the Exorcist’s part, they discover that another State Exorcist had gone missing around these parts. Jack Bird frustrates the Exorcist and she tells him to leave her for the night and meet up with her to interrogate the village chief before tomorrow’s big announcement the next morning. Jack Bird’s ever curious eye then settles on the group besides them. He notices they hail from the settlement of Woodfall, far away from this part of the continent. They are suspiciously gracious and friendly, going as far as to invite him and his friends over. They want to know the source of the town’s prosperity and safety and if the party is willing, for them to fetch this source for them. The party negotiates 12 pieces of silver per head and some lodging for the next three nights. Virgil sends his familiar to the Chief’s hut for some initial scouting to portent the inevitable burglary they plan to conduct. They discover nothing much out of the ordinary and make secret plans to break in and investigate. They retire for the night, with Virgil secretly showing Jack Bird his magical abilities and Lilith consuming a ration of human flesh while Khazix is asleep. 

The party wakes to the early workday of the townsfolk, fishmongers and fishers. They head over to the Chief’s home, catching him just as he leaves. Jack Bird and Virgil distract him with some questions while Lilith and Khazix sneak off to break into the home. They discover the buried cloak of a State Exorcist as well as the fake amulet and the sketch. They return everything to its original place but take the bloodstained cloak with them. The village Chief vehemently denies any contact with the missing State Exorcist but some clever insight reveal he is lying. They meet up and reconnect as the village chief gives his big announcement, a revitalisation of the river through some magical means and the return of the harvest and the safety. They confront the State Exorcist with the bloodstained cloak but some botched interactions and the presentation of a piece of evidence of some wrongdoing. She attempts to invoke arrest but they grapple her and attempt to knock her out. Finally, Jack Bird uses the spell Command to force her asleep but does not realise it does not magically compel her to fall asleep. The session ends there, at this moment of pure chaos.

Some thoughts:

This was the first session we had and I felt that it could have gone a lot better. I rushed through a lot of setting and worldbuilding, so it felt very rudimentary and ill-constructed. Slowing down and properly providing enough information will improve a lot of the immersion issues that I have inadvertently manifested. 

Another important thing would be reinforcing how dangerous it was to use magic or to directly attack the apparatus of the state. Since this was the swampy hinterlands, the State Exorcists here would have been relatively weak and ill-prepared but I fear this might encourage them to do more to State Exorcists of a higher calibre. 

I did very much enjoy the role-play that was enacted, with Jack Bird embodying a typical bard and Virgil being overtly mischievous and chaotic.The players for Lilith and Khazix were relatively subdued and I think more can be done to help ease them into their characters.

Actions taken have led to some very difficult circumstances for our party. They have assaulted a State Official and performed some unlicensed magic in a town very much foreign to them. They will have to make some drastic action to either reverse some of the repercussions or escape them. I am excited to see how they might pry themselves out of this predicament and much of my prep for next session will be directed at the consequences of this circumstance.

Southeast Asia in Fantasy (or how PSYCHOPOMPS is about death)

In creating the setting of PSYCHOPOMPS, I began with thinking of the dead. When I imagine death, I recall thick yellow sheets blocking foreign eyes, void decks with white plastic chairs, the incense smoke and quiet chatter, and the taste of fried noodles, coming to us in bulk from a nearby hawker centre. I recall circling the coffin, the tiny window revealing wisps of mould and fungi that had begin to eat away at a week-old corpse. I sit there, in clothes that would be burnt with piles and piles of paper ingots. In this conception of death, all I could see was my culture and my home. This inspired the Southeast Asian setting of PSYCHOPOMPS, which fundamentally is of death.

Southeast Asia is a uniquely distinct aesthetic from the traditions of Tolkien and Lewis. Rather than rolling vistas and carpets of snow, it is a land of overgrown jungle, and a thick, humid heat that is broken by torrents of pelting rain. Monsoonal storms rage, transforming sun-baked earth into wet mud. It is cramped, a land of neighbours and rivals, all of which bear the cultural and historical marks of centuries of different colonisers. It is a patchwork land, melting together under the same ever-scorching sun. This mongrel aesthetic, a bastard amongst purebreds, is a key mark of a confluence of different influences. Being caught in between the West and East has led to a multi-faceted and at times, confused identity. An infinity of languages, pidgins, dialects and patois are spoken in the markets, stocked by the ships that rush in and out of ports. It is a land of many gods, and a necessary acceptance of this multiplicity. Trade and the availability of spices and commodities fuel its rapid growth and place in the world market. A landlocked region leads to insularity, a certain narrow-mindedness that comes with limited entry and exit. Access to the waters of the world means access to the entirety of the world.

This presents an interesting setting, one in which many different cultures and histories can be explored. Certain European media have been criticised for a lack of diversity and/or shoehorned diversity that is incongruous. This may be an unfortunate result of the relative homogeneity of certain cultures but also a moot point when we deal with the results of years of colonisation and cross-cultural pollination. The messy connections between neighbours, infinitely similar and different, create the perfect environment for conflict. The fundamental beauty of Southeast Asia is in its density, the cacophony of contrast and mild dissimilarity of an urban environment expanded to a region. We could compare this to Western Europe, where one might take a road trip and end up visiting two different countries within the day. Yet there is perhaps less of the familiarity between states, less of that shared cultural identity. As much as the British and French seem to revel in their rivalry, they are siblings born of the same family. Southeast Asia's individual countries behave more like cousins, raised apart in different environments. 

Returning to the topic of the dead, PSYCHOPOMPS's central conceit of the Resurrection is tied to the Southeast Asian fascination with death and its relative impermanency. Fundamental to the Buddhist and Hindu elements of religion is the transitionary state of death. Even more fascinating is perhaps the fact that we speak with the dead. The dead are not far away from us in Southeast Asia. Our ancestors remain fully aware of us and we are able to interact with them, via prayers, burnt offerings and curses. Some Indonesian tribes, like the Torajan, even go as far as to keep their dead mummified for years after they die, dressing and interacting with them as per normal. Monks are buried into statues or displayed in glass coffins to be given gifts and prayed to. PSYCHOPOMPS takes this to a fantastic extreme. What if they physically came back? What if  death was no longer final, merely a transitionary phase? What if we when we pray to the dead, they can physically answer?

Adding to it is the Buddhist concept of Samsara, the world and the cycle of life and death. This world is made of suffering and the cycle perpetuates this suffering. Stagnancy is thus significant, a sign of unwellness and unproductivity. Breaking the cycle is paramount, a means in which we can escape the repetition of society, the world and the self. This lent itself very well to the idea of the "punk" genre, centred around the opposition to structures and establishment. The cycle keeps everyone in their "rightful" place, distributing as a divine machination. Yet, if the mechanism is omnipotent but not omniscient, capable but not competent, then the only means of right is to rebel against the mechanism itself. Capitalism, discrimination, bureaucracy are all symptoms of this mechanism and the setting aims to discuss the opposition to this. PSYCHOPOMPS is the cyberpunk movie, with ghosts and swords rather than A.I and lasers.

The heavy, humid air that hangs almost solid in the midday sun, is perhaps the most apt representation of this stagnancy.