Monster Island - The Black God's Fane

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I've been itching to run more RuneQuest since last year, only having had a few
one-off sessions, so I decided to put together a few short adventures set on Monster
Island for some classic Swords & Sorcery action, and see if I could entice people
from the Paris English-speaking Roleplayers MeetUp to a new system; they're all
either committed Pathfinder/D&D players (for fantasy) or more into Cthulhu/World
of Darkness, for the most part ... But I've met a few cool players, and finally launched
the first in a series of games ... I see it as an "anthology" rather than a campaign, a
sandbox where characters and players can drop in and drop out as necessary. We
just had our first session and I thought I'd share my thoughts here.

Monster Island Chronicles Chapter One : The Black God's Fane!

The set-up that I pitched was the following:

Monster Island: shrouded in mists and in murky legend. The very name sends a
chill down the back of even the most hardened bucaneer of the Hundred Isles. And
yet here you are ... After a crushing defeat at sea, your pirate ship The Red Reaver
limped into the tenuous colony on the shores of the island, Port Grimsand, a hive of
villainy and scum, where treasure-seekers and tomb-raiders rub shoulders with
exiles and refugees from all of the civilised lands. Rezartus the Reaver, your
legendary captain, has lost his damaged ship in a drunken card game; he's drunk all
the time now, and seems to have lost the will to go on. But there are riches to be won
on the island, treasures of a lost civilisation. A few of the remaining crew, your
merry band of blackguards, have banded together to seek a scheme to get rich quick
and buy the Reaver back. There are rumours of vast tombs and ancient treasures, of
rare plants, and rarer beasts, of cursed gold and native idols that could fetch
fabulous prices on the markets back in Harronia. But do you dare to follow up these
tales, whispered in the winesinks of Port Grimsand by one-eyed madmen, pursued
by the nightmares their last delvings awoke?

We discussed characters in person at the pub, and by email and Facebook in the
week leading up to the game, and all three players invested some time in coming up
with pretty cool character concepts. There were:
 Boreth Darault - The pirate ship's quartermaster,
a scruffy, greasy individual who wears strange amulets and fetishes about his
person: evidence of his initiation into a pirate-voodoo-spirit-cult (I was really
inspired in working up this character with the player by Tim Powers's On Stranger
Tides).
Little is known of the true powers of this canny individual, but he's a long-time
pirate and crony of Rezartus the Reaver, and has been known to seem to
whip up winds out of nowhere to fill the becalmed ship's sails, from his
mysterious shaggy shoulder-bag (bound Air Elemental; I was delighted to see the
actual rules for doing this in Ships & Shieldwalls, a great supplement!),
to render a raging violent captive stupefied by drinking a bottle of rum himself
(Befuddle),
to find a fleeing merchant-ship unerringly (Find [Loot], using his spirit-powered
Plunder-Compass),
to often talk to himself about bizarre matters (bound Guardian Spirit, Matafeaa,
who manifests as an invisible owl on his shoulder).

Raaf the Varanghar -

a nomad of the Jerekhan people of the Grey Plains, Raaf was captured by the
Reaver's pirate crew as a galley-slave on a merchant ship. He was offered the choice:
before the mast or along the plank, and chose to join the crew. A weakling born to a
warrior caste, Raaf had amassed power as a strategist and organiser of his tribe, the
Varanghar, supervising the camp and the supply trains. A coup left him condemned
to death, but he spread a rumour that he was to be spared; it became the truth, and
he was sold into slavery.
Now, as a pirate, he has gained the ear of the captain through his talents for
battle tactics, supply-organisation, and picking up languages incredibly quickly. He
also gained the Rivalry of Boreth Darault (I gave each character an open Passion slot
to allot to one of the other characters if they so chose. Boreth and Raaf's players
decided to be each other's Passionate Rivals!).
Raaf also seems to have preternatural powers of persuasion and assessment
(Voice, Calm, Appraise, Incognito - all of these are treated as talents rather than
spells, so there's no material component or casting time, unlike for the others, who
need to spend longer on spells, often using material and ceremonial components)
 Rastya Kor-Shekk "Red Rast" -
A Siyanese Islander, Rastya is a long-time member of the pirate crew, fiercely loyal
to Rezartus (Loyalty Passion). An outcast from his people due to his embracing of
the Shark Cult of Ravenashoor, Rastya is an Acolyte of this fearsome god, and a fury
in battle, wielding twin giant shark tooth blades (shortswords), and even known to
bite his enemies with his filed-sharp teeth! He is covered in tattoos and ritual scars
as well, and performs strange personal rituals in which he chops the bodies of fallen
foes into chunks and hurls them off the stern of the ship, attracting circling sharks.
Once he's tasted the blood of an enemy, he can track them tirelessly (Smell Blood
- Find (Tasted Enemy/Wounded combatant),
and also has murky affinities with sharks (Beastcall (Shark), Breath, Phantasm
(Shark Eyes)),
calling on the power of his god to channel their abilities (Feeding Frenzy
(Berserk),
Gift of Gills (Breathe Water),
Beast Form (Shark)).
His dual-weapon style can use the combat trait Flurry, also combined with his
bite, which, when frenzied, benefits fully from his enhanced damage modifier.

All of these abilities and backgrounds were agreed on before play, and during
our "introductions" in which the players told the other characters what they knew of
them. Parts of their past were kept mysterious, their powers were revealed (or
hinted at) obliquely, and enmities and suspicions set up! It was lots of fun, and I
already felt I had a good game on my hands. I had worked up the characters using
Zoetrope's excellent Excel worksheets, and distributed 200 bonus skill points to
each character. Then, when I was transferring them to regular sheets, I usually
threw in some extra points. So you had Raaf, with Official background, but extra
Folk Magic "talents" and some points in "Diplomat Assassin" combat style as well as
his cultural one, Boreth with Pirate (Sailor) background, but also lots of Folk Magic
and near-Shaman talents, plus three bound spirits, and Rastya with Assassin
(Agent) background, but also Acolyte of Ravenashoor magic. I didn't feel the
characters were overpowered though, for seasoned pirate veterans. Possibly Raaf, a
blatantly social-political animal, might find himself out of his depth in more
combat/action oriented situations, but I foresaw a lot of talking one's way out of
things ... and let him be the only one to have learned the Islander Low-Speech ... I
also let the players hold in reserve one Professional Skill that I hadn't thought of.
Any time during the adventure, they could state that their characters "would totally
know how to X". I figured that we thus came up with a good compromise, for a short
adventure, between totally pre-genned characters, and going through the whole
rolling up process. The players were all new to RuneQuest, so I figured it was more
fun to jump straight to character "flavour", and then just play ....
 The adventure began in the Heartless Houri on the Street of Illicit Pleasures,
where Captain Rezartus was doing most of his drinking these days. He had
managed to keep some little amount of loot after the disastrous ambush by Siyanese
pirates posing as a merchant ship. The ship's plunder for the whole season was
gone, many of the best fighting men dead, the captain's reputation called into
question. Now more and more of the remaining crew were taking work hunting or
excavating building materials in the ruins of Kapala, or even joining other crews.
Something had to be done, and Koredoth the Apothecary, the wizened ship's doctor,
had asked the three "clever ones" who remained loyal to the captain (or did they?) to
meet him that night, to discuss a plan to make a lot of money quickly. It was a hot,
wet, steaming night out, and the bar was full of the fug of humidity from the
crowded room. Captain Rezartus was holding court at the bar, getting progressively
drunker on who knew what money. Raaf, Rastya and Boreth, down to their last
coppers, sat together talking desultorily, oozing mutual suspicion, as they waited for
Koredoth. Finally, the man appeared, dragging by the hand through the teeming
crowd of sailors and miscreants a large man with a bushy moustache and a shock of
dead-white hair, who looked as if in a dream ... (I used the excellent Encounter
Generator extensively for preparing the adventure, including to generate the
denizens of the "Monster Island Colonists' Bar", which gave me stats for a bunch of
shady types, and also for the cultists, who I made pirates and sailors in statistics too
... they'll appear shortly!). Koredoth explained that they needed to make a big score,
and soon, and that this man, Aslander, a Northman from the lands of fjords and ice-
floes far north even of Harronia, has been to a place that might answer their needs
.... The Fane of the Black God; but there wasn't much of Aslander left to answer
questions. He muttered and mumbled, and reacted with terror when they
mentioned the Black God, but Koredoth had managed to winkle some information
out of him, and to get a rough map, on goatskin, drawn in charcoal, that Aslander
himself had followed. He also showed them a small idol that he appeared to prize
beyond his life, a strange featureless, sexless humanish figure, with a hole in its
forehead where a large gem had been set. The idol awakened feelings of unease, of
obscene and deviant sexuality somehow radiating from it ... Raaf's eagle eye
(Assess) placed the value of the idol at over 2,000 silver djal, even without the stone
that had once obviously been part of it. As the map and idol sat on the table, Boreth
and Rastya noticed that there were several interested parties looking over at them, a
bunch of greasy, moustachioed Negalians with stilettos openly on the table in front
of them, two huge black tribesmen from the Savage Coast with scarred faces and
feathered spears, and a Khorosi by the door ...

Boreth slipped outside to smell the sultry night air, out the back where the
clients of the Houri would piss into a ravine, a yawning cleft in the ground from
some ancient earthquake. There was only a drunken couple there, both relieving
themselves with much merriment, rather close to the edge; he concentrated and
spoke the strange sing-song rhymes of incantation, and suddenly felt the presence
of Matafeaa, his mysterious Guardian Spirit, invisible claws tightening on his
shoulder, ghostly feathers brushing against his ear; he asked it about the black god.
Don't go there, cooed the spirit. Much riches, much danger. Best not to. On his way
back in, a pale hand brushed across his chest, a white and shapely arm halted him:
Ashara, known as the Moon Maiden, one of the dancer's at the Heartless Houri, and
one who had won his heart. A moon-pale northerner, she was exotic in this land of
sunburnt, racially mixed pirates and lowlives, and she was somehow the more
fascinating for the fact of her untouchable, unapproachable pure beauty. Here in the
Houri, the patrons could only look and not touch, and this enflamed their passions
more, in a way, than the multifarous tactile delights offered further down the street
... And she had heard of this Black God and his fane, remnants of the Kapalan
civilisation, and she told Boreth that he must do it for her .... Bring back the giant
fist-sized emerald eye of the Black God, and he would know rewards beyond
imagining ...

Meanwhile, the Captain was regaling the crowd of sycophants at the bar with
stories of his glory days, but Rastya knew that he had passed into that stage of
drunknness where he wouldn't even remember any of this tomorrow; looking
around, he noticed eyes that were still on them, and hovering vultures around the
captain. He caught the eye of the Negalian bravo who was watching, and suddenly
his face seemed to have the dead eyes and rows of teeth of a shark, just for a
moment (Phantasm -Shark's Eyes). The man went green and looked away. Koredoth
told the "clever boys" that they must go first thing in the morning to Joh Jung, in the
Gamari village of Puuiki, where he would be able to provide them with a native
guide to the area where the map started from (on my Monster Island, the Lowland
Savages are a group of human tribes, Polynesian in feel, who conserve most of the
features of the Savages as described in the book, including headhunting, eating of
the dead, and tattooing, skin-taking. Basically following the inspirations of the
book's savage tribes, but without the lizard-man aspect. I feel this will make the
eventual encounter with the impossibly ancient and decadent Serpent-men even
more impactful, and I prefer a slightly lower fantasy quotient. Magic and weird
creatures are very magical, and very weird, so the Savages are another type of
normal, albeit exotic, human culture). Advising them thus, he had left, but not
before giving them some healing poultices he'd prepared (Heal d3 damage on
application to a wound or burn) and three fragile flasks of Khorosi Fire (thrown at an
enemy or object, the flasks break and burn like a small fire (d6 damage), sticking to
their target. But care must be taken not to break them in one's backpack!).

Now the Captain was getting even more raucous, and Rastya moved to
intervene. Seeing that the Captain was one drink away from stupor, he cancelled the
general round the Captain had just ordered (Bodolf the barkeep always looks to him
to verify the order when the Captain offers to buy for the whole crowd!), and instead
took four cups of Kava, an Islands brew that ought to do the trick. Boreth, seeing
what he was up to, invoked under his breath some spirits of rum-drenched
drunkenness, and as soon as the drink touched the Captain's lips, he became docile
and pliable (Befuddle), and they led him away from the increasingly worked up
crowd. Mpeta was on stage now, gradually shedding her tiger-skin dress, and the
drunks were hammering on the tables for more. But in the tumult, Raaf had noticed
the Khorosi by the door slipping out just after Koredoth and Aslander left ....

Out on the street, they led the weaving Captain through the narrow, churned-up-
muddy streets, the hot rain still falling steadily, hissing down, the damp mists
curling in corners, occasional torches and lanterns guttering and flickering outside
other dens of vice, lending the scene a dreamlike weirdness (normally I would have
penalised everyone in the looming fight for low visibility, but it was our first
RuneQuest combat, and I didn't want to complicate things further right off the bat).
At the corner to Winding Lane, where they had their lodgings in Yurmal's Fine
Boarding House (which was anything but), there was a sudden burst of movement,
and their way was blocked by a tall blond woman unsheathing a scimitar. Fanning
out around her, and behind the group, were six figures in black, their faces swathed
leaving only their eyes visible, all bearing sickles: cultists of Zululun, god of Death
and Vengeance. Their leader shouted out a demand for the map, that it was
rightfully theirs, that the Black God was only a pagan avatar of Zululun the
Unforgetting. The characters, of course, closed ranks, except for Rastya, who, not
having been caught flat-footed in the ambush, immediately dashed to one side
down a narrow alley and then hid in a shadow. One of the cultists dashed after him,
then past him, and was taken by surprise by the Shark Acolyte's diving attack. The
cultist leader meanwhile invoked her god's power and the mist around them began
to swirl with ghostly faces (Mirage), frightening Raaf into inaction, but Boreth knew
this for a clever illusion, and responded with one of his own. Opening his Bag o' the
Winds, he left the air blast his hair around his head as he called out resounding
nonsense syllables ... The cultists hesitated, expecting some deadly curse to
materialise. But their leader sprang at Boreth, and he barely ducked her swinging
blade.

In the alley, Rastya made short work of the cultist he had surprised, slashing
about him with his twin shark-tooth blades, finding an artery in the man's groin
(Bleed), and licking at the blood that spurted in his face. Raaf and Boreth were not
faring so well. Raaf was having a hard time with his assailant, and two of the others
had now grabbed the semi-comatose Captain and were holding a sickle to his throat.
Boreth barely managed to parry the Zululun acolyte's scimitar, and then was
summarily disarmed. He took a vicious slash to the leg, and then another to the face
(that's going to leave a scar!), and lost his dagger to another disarming blow, finally
diving backwards to the muddy ground to get out of range of the swirling blade.
Luckily, by now Rastya barrelled into the combat, a whirlwind of shark's teeth, and
locked swords with the acolyte, after putting two of the other cultists out of action.
He used his Flurry special effect to lean in and bite the acolyte in the face, and in her
shock she dropped her scimitar and ran, seeing this horrific figure slashing all
around, consumed with bloodlust .... The Captain suddenly came to as well, and laid
about him with his warhammer, with a bellow of rage. A huge man, he soon shook
off the cultists holding him. The remaining enemies took flight, now outclassed, and
leaderless ... The PCs stopped to breath, Boreth on the ground, almost unconscious
with pain and blood loss, Raaf bleeding freely from a wound to his arm as well. But
the danger was past. For now ....

And that was the end of our first session. We didn't get very far, indeed, I had
imagined the adventure basically starting at Puuiki village where they would get a
guide, but in fact they got so into the introductions and the Heartless Houri scene
that we roleplayed it for all it was worth. I had decided to add the Zululun cultists as
a rival faction in Port Grimsand, competing for the map (there may even be others
who were watching them in the Houri, and have heard of this Black God's Fane,
rumoured to be full of treasure ....). Also felt like I wanted to kick off with a bit of
action, and let the players test out the combat system. We used a lot of skills in the
bar, Perception, Insight, Deceit, Influence, Folk Magic, and a little Binding of the
Guardian Spirit, and then combat worked out really well. It was a little slow, due to
lack of familiarity with the system on the part of the players, and the fact that I've
only run a few sessions previously, but the Special Effects were taken to very
quickly, and they work seamlessly. The only thing I'd change is using poker chips for
Action Points. I often couldn't remember who had spent how many. Also, all three
players used luck points to avoid getting gutted, and I feel that they really take down
the lethality of combat from RuneQuest III levels, while still making it feel absolutely
deadly. After all, you only have so many Luck Points; but I think I'll try using poker
chips for Luck Points, Action Points, and possibly Magic Points as well, as I see them
going up and down a lot in this game. And while I thought this would be a one- or
two-shot, it looks like my material will probably stretch over five or six sessions ...
and we might just want to make a campaign of it!

Comments and thoughts very welcome anyway. I've been dying to hear how
people's Monster Island games are going, and hey, thought I'd get the ball rolling a
bit myself! What have you been doing in the dangerous jungles of Monster Island?

I'll update in a couple of weeks after we have our next session ....