Paul Baldowski

The Blessing of St Agnes

Martyred somewhere around the end of the 3rd century, St. Agnes of Rome was only a young girl – around 12 or…

Project First-Quarter

In an attempt to generate some output, I’m trying to define a plan. I work better with deadlines. If I…

Dragonmeet 2012

Spent Saturday at the town hall in Kensington, London, attending Dragonmeet 2012. Under the Arion Games banner, ran a demo…

The Wheezing Winze

While the release of Stench of the Sea contains several maps, I’m always up for creating more – and they…

Stench of the Sea RELEASED!

The adventurers probably come to Brinwan not expecting a great deal, and a first encounter with a mildly insane goat…

Yesterday, after spending most of the day scribbling, scrawling, drawing and fretting, I published a one-page encounter. Voltari’s Retreat isn’t a replacement for Stench of the Sea by any means, just something to tide people over while I finish my work.

Aaron McLin made a couple of very relevant points over at Google+ about Voltari’s Retreat. Firstly, the text should say garderobe, without the ‘U’. I will correct that in the next draft along with the errant spelling of Voltari (which becomes Viltori in several spots). While I hand-wrote all the text in the left panel of the one-pager, it shouldn’t pose much of a problem to make amends. A trifle of PhotoShop magic should suffice.

Voltari’s Retreat

While I continue to work on Stench of the Sea, I have tinkered with ways to create quick and simple maps. Right now, I find I get maximum creativity and quickest results using a Sharpie and a packet of sticky notes. I have some stickies bigger than the ‘standard’ size and some smaller – and, combined, they let me outline an area on the big ones, then zoom in on the small ones.

I originally tried posting an encounter and maps drafted out on the page of an old 2010 diary – and posted it over on Google+. Not content, I scanned the page and annotated the copy with a tool called Quick Markup, because I realised I missed out some details. Then, as if I really didn’t have other fish to fry (like finishing Stench), I drafted the whole thing using my previously outlined combination of stickies.

Sense of Purpose

While I didn’t manage to run a playtest session last night, I did participate in a Cthulhu Dark (Graham Walmsley’s excellent one-page system for running uncompromising Mythos sessions) adventure. While the Keeper (probably) had a plan and a map, I don’t think the adventure had much more preparation. No, I tell a lie – a sensed a hint of a Esoterrorist adventure in there with one very specific and memorable scene.

Basically the adventure had a very vague premise and characters with an awareness of each other and no common purpose. We had a reverend, a funeral director, a lady ex-drug addict, a hostillier, and an ice cream vendor – in a run-down, has-been village. The mayor announced a plan to bring fresh blood to the area with a coach load of immigrants or students (a little confused on the details from the beginning). When they arrived, the village held a fair, but the students (definitely students) seemed to be more interested in visiting a local lighthouse. The reverend (Reverend Ginger) witnessed their visit to the lighthouse and sensed something thoroughly disquieting about the whole affair. Anyway… I digress from the point.

Purpose. That’s my point.