Friday Fantasy: Feast of the Gobbler Witch

Nine months ago, the Player Characters set sail aboard the Mayflower to the island of Alviz as members of a fanatical religious sect led by the charismatic Captain William Bradford and his second-in-command, Samual Parris. Adherents of Klazath, God of War, their sermons persuaded the Player Characters and other members of the cult that the word and yoke Klazath should be brought to the copper miners on the distant island of Lys. Unfortunately, the voyage has been struck by disaster, not once, but twice. First, when Captain Bradford was swept overboard during a sudden freak storm, and second, with a competent navigator aboard, when the vessel, its crew and passengers, were shipwrecked on the reef of a small, uncharted island. Where everyone aboard set out believing that they were journeying to bring the faith of Klazath to a far distant land, now they had to switch their focus to surviving on an island with no war to be fought in the name of Klazath. Their travails continued when the crops in the fields suffered a rot and with supplies dwindling, tensions rose rapidly and infighting broke out. This escalated when some of colonists began exhibiting paranoid and erratic behaviour, and in response to all of this, Magistrate Parris has declared that worshippers of foul Malotoch, the Carrion Crow Goddess of Death, have infiltrated the members of congregation and that they must be found and punished. Which turned into a witch hunt, literally, since Magistrate Parris condemned those of worshipping Malotoch as witches. As the paranoia grew, and the first handful of witches found guilty as charged and subsequently executed, the resulting hysteria spread through the colony and every man, woman, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling lives in fear of being accused. Which is exactly what has happened to the Player Characters at the start of Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch is a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, published by Goodman Games. It is a Character Funnel, and a Character Funnel is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. The Character Funnel is a signature feature of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, and whilst they are challenging to play, they are also both fun and wrought with emotion as players often become highly attached to the poor four unfortunates, they are roleplaying who have found themselves in the situation. Some of the best Character Funnels really begin with the Zero Level Player Characters in desperate straits, much like the recent Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen and exactly like Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch.

As the scenario opens, the Player Characters are shackled together and condemned to death on Danver’s Green, the colony’s place of execution. After an attack by ‘Malotoch’s murder crows!’, Magistrate Parris offers them the opportunity to restore them to the bosom of the colony and Klazath’s good grace. They must locate the witch Abutit and take back the Holy Scythe of Mayflower that she has stolen. From the settlement of New Crimson and Danver’s Green, they need to explore the rest of the island, perhaps returning to the wreck of the Mayflower, examining the fields with their blighted crops, and so on. In the process, the Player Characters should discover some secrets that suggest that the situation on the colony and the true threat it faces is not as they have been told… Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch has just eleven locations, and not one, but two climaxes. The first involves brooms and flying atop a very high nest and the second, a fight at a feast alongside an unholy turkey, animated and murderous cranberry goo against a vampire!

Thematically then, what with its colonists, a ship called the Mayflower, a feast of turkey and cranberry sauce, the holiday in Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch is Thanksgiving. However, it is quite a lot more than that given its length and the fact that it is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Like a chef with a turkey baster, the author injects a squirt or two of Gothic horror to make the scenario Colonial Era Gothic Americana and another squirt or two of Arthur Miller to make it the scenario a Dungeon Crawl Classics version of The Crucible. After all, what else is a Character Funnel but a crucible for Zero Level player Characters?

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch can be played in a single session and includes a ‘DCC Holiday Placemat and Dice Drop 0 Level PC Generator’. This replaces the standard table in the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook for generating Zero Level Player Characters.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch is as decently done as you would expect for Dungeon Crawl Classics. It is well written, the artwork is good, and the map easy to use. If it is lacking anything, it is illustrations of the scenario’s NPCs and major monsters that the Judge could show her players.

The major downside to Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch is that it is a one-shot scenario. The Judge and her players are going to be left wondering what happens next to the characters who survived the ordeal on the island, and further, a Colonial Era setting for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game could be a lot of fun. Whether as a one-shot or the start of something that the Judge wants to write herself, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2021 Holiday Module: Feast of the Gobbler Witch is a highly entertaining and thematically silly Character Funnel for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which at the end of it, nobody going to look at a turkey the same way again.

Happy Holideath

Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. It is designed for use with player characters of First Level, which means that it is not a Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. Rather Blessings of the Vile Brotherhood is designed for characters of Fourth Level, so each of the player characters will have a range of powers and abilities as equipment and artefacts scavenged after two or three adventures out in Terra A.D.

As its title suggests, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is something a little bit different, a festive, holiday-themed scenario suitable for playing at this time of year. It can easily be added to any Mutant Crawl Classics campaign, starting as it does with a problem that has befallen the player characters’ village. For generations, two tribes—the Mud-Walker tribe and the Violent Serpent tribe—have exchanged gifts at a given time each winter to renew the bonds of friendship and peace between their peoples. Unfortunately, before the ceremony at which this exchange takes place happens this year, it is discovered that all of the presents have been stolen! Without the gifts and the traditions of the ceremony, the acrimony between the two tribes from before the peace threatens to rear its ugly head and hostilities to break out once again. So it is up to the player characters—or Seekers—to track down the gifts and return before war breaks out!

Like many scenarios for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, the setting for Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is a dungeon of the future. In this case, it is a temple of Ancients dedicated to commerce, but also to Christmas and its cheeriness. Of course, in the time of the Ancients it was a department store, but in the centuries since the great apocalypse that brought about Terra A.D., its AI administrator, XMAS—or eXtended Mercantile Artificial Salesperson—and its facilities have degraded and been twisted by the ongoing effects of the disaster and the lack of maintenance. Thus each of the three main floors is garishly decorated in tinsel, holly wreaths, baubles, and gaudy point of sale material and all of the paraphernalia you would expect of a department store putting on a big push for Christmas sale, but now the Smartpaper wrapping station is a security station, Santa’s bio-engineered helper elves have either gone feral or woodpunk, the transport network between floors have become death traps, and what was once a winter spectacle on the top floor, is now a hardlight hell. Plus, security is provided by Miss Majorie, a grandmother robot who will not tolerate the antics of naughty boys and girls (or Manimals, Mutants, and Plantients). Which all leads to the possibility that the great disaster that struck the Ancients either took place before Christmas or that this once great temple of Christmas consumerism was actually open all year!

In amongst all of the death traps and dangerous denizens of the commercial temple of the Ancients you would expect of a module for Mutant Crawl Classics, it turns out that Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is really quite generous with its gifts. The ground floor consists of a number of merchandise stations where gifts for family and friends can still be found. Thees gifts though, are no mere gee gaws or bric-a-brac, but in many cases actually useful artefacts. Minor useful items, but useful, festively themed minor artefacts all the same. There are rechargeable sunglasses, fantastic fit-anyone skates, and holiday sweaters which light up, but are very warm and actually provide an Armour Class bonus. There are plenty of these minor artefacts to go around and certainly each of the Seekers should come away with something from the scenario (if they survive that is.) A nice touch is that if the Seekers look in the right places there whole, brightly coloured, heavily illustrated books dedicated to showcasing just what the temple has on sale and each will provide a bonus in trying to work out what each item does.

Phsyically, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is quite short, but decently illustrated with some creepy artwork. The book is well written, although the Game Master will need to give a careful read in places to make the connections in the plot and between various locations.

As a ‘dungeon crawl’, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is somewhat lacking when it comes to roleplaying and the Game Master really has the one NPC with which the player characters will interact. With her, the Game Master should really be hamming it up, as either a kindly, take-no-nonsense grandmother or school-ma’am-ish old lady to get the full weird effect. The ‘ho-ho horror’ of Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is nevertheless well done, twisting and changing the traditional elements of Christmas and its commercialism without being either too knowing or too twee in its own cleverness. Often there is a groan-inducing inevitability of a Christmas scenario and all its trappings, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath avoids much of that to provide a suitably horrifying and weird experience for the inhabitants of Terra A.D. and their players.

Shear Horror

It is traditional for the roleplaying game publishers to release something special in time for Halloween and Goodman Games is no exception. As in years past, these take the form of scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, the Old School Renaissance Retroclone which sits somewhere between Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in terms of its complexity. Primarily, it includes Race as Class, allows for extra actions during combat, and a detailed, if often random spellcasting mechanics. It also introduced the concept of the ‘Character Creation Funnel’ in which players would each take a group of four Zero Level characters through an incredibly dangerous adventure in the hope that one or more of them might survive and gain sufficient Experience Points to attain First Level and thus a character Class. Not every scenario though for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is a ‘Character Creation Funnel’ for Zero Level characters, and Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #2: The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is an example of that.

The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is ‘A Level 6 Adventure’ by Macabre Michael Curtis, the author of Mutant Crawl Classics #3: Incursion of the Ultradimension, A Single, Small Cut, The Dungeon Alphabet: An A-Z Reference for Classic Dungeon Design, and of course, Stonehell Dungeon. Designed for characters of Sixth Level, it is a horror scenario with gothic trappings which takes place when the adventurers are out of the dungeon, perhaps staying at the same inn on their travels, or even at home. Other than that, all the scenario needs is somewhere like a closet or a drawer in which the player characters can store their clothes. Unlike most scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics, it is specifically designed to be run in a single session, which ideally, should be on the evening of Halloween.

The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress opens with the player characters abed, perhaps dreaming, perhaps not. In a nicely creepy moment, a stitched together hand, followed by arm, body, head, and more, eases itself out of a drawer or closet to revealed a doll of patchworked flesh and comes towards each of the adventurers, knife in hand… This happens in each of their bedrooms and presents a challenge in which each must face a foe relying solely upon their innate abilities and skills rather than their arms, armour, and equipment. Nevertheless, they should be able to defeat their horrifyingly strange foes and thus prepare themselves to trace them to their source—back through the closet (or drawer)...

Once the adventurers do follow their attackers back to their source, they find themselves in the ‘House of Tattered Remnants’, a sort of deconstructed Victorian Gothic mansion, constructed of offcuts, either stitched back together or discarded and forgotten. There are spiders and marionettes, toys straight out of the adventurers’ childhoods, raggedy bats, and more. The house is part-seamstress’ workshop, part-fixer-upper on the borders of the non-Euclidean, but mostly all Grand Guignol! There are just ten locations in the adventure, but all are described in some detail and so there is plenty for the adventurers to examine and explore in addition to the threats and foes they will face. 

As an adventure, The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is fairly linear in structure and so in the progress of getting to the threat and protagonist at its heart, the adventurers are highly likely to uncover what is going on and why they are attacked. Were this any other adventure, then that linear nature might be held against it as a criticism. In its defence, it should be pointed out that The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is a short adventure—physically at just sixteen pages and as a dungeon, just ten locations—and it is designed to be played in a single session, on Halloween, almost like the players and their characters are roleplaying their way through a horror movie.

To enforce the horror of the scenario and the things that the adventurers will encounter, The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress employs a Sanity-like mechanic. As they progress through the house, there is a chance that they will lose ‘Stability’, perhaps taking on more and more of the patchwork aspects of the ‘House of Tattered Remnants’ as the strange realm they find themselves in forces them to unravel...

Physically, The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is slim, but decent looking book. The artwork is good throughout and can easily be shown at the appropriate points to the players as their adventurers proceed through the adventure. The adventure is also decently written, but the level of detail means that the Judge will need to give it a careful read through despite it being fairly short.

If you were looking for a horror scenario for the fantasy roleplaying game of your choice for characters of medium Level, then Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #2: The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress is a good choice. It is in turns creepy and bloody, with a near constant theme of sewing and tailoring, and works as a one-shot—for which the Judge will need to provide pre-generated adventurers—or as a scarey interlude in an ongoing campaign. Either way, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #2: The Sinister Sutures of The Sempstress presents an evening’s worth of horror, though perhaps not if you suffer from aichmophobia or vestiophobia.