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.

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.

Session 0

I recently began a Dungeons and Dragons campaign using the PSYCHOPOMPS setting with several of my friends. While we have played prior to this, their grasp of the rules and general concepts of 5th edition is fraught and I felt it best that I supervised character creation. Furthermore, the nature of the setting I intended to use and the changes to the rules I would make meant that some degree of explanation was in order. So we arranged a Session 0 to get together and create characters, as well as establish a basic understanding of the world they are about to play in.

Firstly, when it came to establishing the world and giving them an idea of the kind of campaign I was to be running, I found that describing it using historical culture and time periods was the most useful. Especially since we were all Singaporean, it was a lot easier for them to imagine the sort of culture that would be commonplace in PSYCHOPOMPS. The early Twentieth Century was a little more difficult to picture and I had to place it in context for a little better understanding. As PSYCHOPOMPS draws a lot from several niche interests of mine, it was difficult for me to convey the tone and aesthetic of the setting without resorting to referencing these media and leaving them lost. We did eventually get to a common understanding which set the stage for character creation.

Character creation was done separately, using Zoom breakout rooms. This was an interview of sorts, a short discussion of the types of characters that they would ultimately be playing and me providing some advice on how to functionally implement it in the mechanics of the game.

DA wanted to create a stealth assassin damage-dealing character, perhaps drawing from his understanding of MOBAs and the specific team roles. He is one of the player that is most new to the game of Dungeons and Dragons so it was interesting to see how he viewed certain character archetypes and roles. He decided on an Asura Rogue in the end. (I'm actually quite shocked that there were as many of the party that wanted to play the custom races that I had devised. As one player had mentioned, "you can play a zombie, robot, bugman or human").

A is a returning player from my previous campaign and perhaps the most invested in the lore and history of their previous characters. I had mentioned earlier that their prior campaign was set in the same world, just a few centuries ago, way before the apocalypse. This meant that she wanted to create a character that had investigative abilities and could explore the world at large to see how it changed. She decided on a Ghoul Ranger. 

S is another returning player who might be the most experienced in the game, seeing as she had played in other campaigns as well. She was most excited to role play and mentioned wanting to play a Barbarian as she had been playing wizards all this time. She felt drawn to the Deva, particularly the specifically non biological physiology that would lead to roleplaying opportunities. She settled on a Deva Barbarian and specifically requested that it be a secret. (Unfortunately, during the very communal filling in of the character sheet I had accidentally let this secret slip. S if you ever read this, I'm really sorry).

DE comes from my previous campaign as well but is still a bit unfamiliar with the game in general. He came into this character discussion with a very strong concept however, and this allowed us a lot of fruitful characterisation. He specifically wanted a character that represented a certain type of asian parent, a disapproving father-in-law. He wanted to play a Bard and reflavour all its magical abilities as his minor manipulations and scoldings spurring the party to do better, basically making his version of the Bard a purely nonmagical motivational speaker. He also wanted to explore certain elements of nationality and citizenship, so he decided to play as a human who was born outside of Liurza and then raised within it. In the end. we finally settled on his Human Bard (whom I affectionately nicknamed "Gaslight Grandpa").

E came in late to the meeting and so I had to explain the setting to him privately. He was excited by the concept and was drawn to my drawing of the Deva. He asked about the needs of the group and I mentioned that they had all picked classes that were relatively easy to kill so another melee combatant would be great. To differentiate him from S, I suggested he play a Fighter, one that could wield guns in combat like the Terminator. He was very much agreeable to this and thus he decided on a Deva Fighter.

X had actually texted me before this session 0 with his character ideas so we did those beforehand. X was definitely the most knowledgeable of all my players and specifically was interested in optimising his character. He wanted to play a specific type of magic-user and we brainstormed for a bit before finally deciding. He was an interesting person to create a character with as he focused a lot on the mechanics of the game itself, so much of our discussion was based on characterisation and flavour. He settled on a Human Warlock and we finalised elements of his backstory on that same day.

We ended with character relationships and filling in the character sheets.

A few lessons I've learnt:

1- My player were much more willing to play the more monstrous races I had created which was a bit of a shock to me. They had been such a big fan of the Elves from standard DND that it seemed like they wouldn't have been interested in my less traditionally "pretty" races. I am quite grateful that they were willing to explore what I think are really interesting races.

2- There were fewer magic-users than I expected. Among a group of 6 players, only one wanted to play a magical class. This could have something to do with the fact that managing and choosing spells was a struggle for many of them in my previous campaign and the fact that only X, who studies dice probabilities and puts his spells in a spreadsheet, picked a magical character seems to confirm this. This works well for the gritty, horror setting that I had intended and the worries I had of magic breaking immersion and the setting are slightly lessened.

3- It was particularly frustrating to coordinate the process of mechanically creating 6 characters with people who had not refreshed themselves on the rules of the game. X was the only one I could trust to do it independent of my help and the rest of them definitely did not subvert my expectations. It will now be a policy at my table that all players must be familiar with the basics of the game, the standard terms and their character abilities. I was a bit disappointed, considering that I was only running 5e on their request and they had not even taken the effort to learn it.

4- Creating character relationships was a really fun exercise. An issue I had with the previous game was that the players started to have conflicts and issues with one another as their characters wanted to do drastically different things and had no incentives towards staying together as a party. This could be said to be an issue with the players involved but I felt that by doing this, we could mitigate some of those issues. Creating character relationships allowed all of them to start tangentially related and flesh out some elements of their backstory as a prompt. The party basically centers around two figures, A and DE's characters, with the rest a combination of stalkers and drinking acquaintances.

I am excited for our first session of actual play, where I can perhaps test the setting even more.