I like to run a variety of games at the same time: something in the OSR/NSR vien and something more focused on narrative, typically from the Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark families.

So while my Mythic Bastionland campaign moves along quiet nicely, I want to scratch that other itch so I went through my shelf and hunted for something not ran yet. After mulling over my options, I settled on Public Access. While found footage and creepypasta isn't generally my bread and butter, I was curious to give it a shot. Also with the kickstarter launching around the same time I hoped to drum up some extra players with the buzz going around. More on that later.

I've run multiple one shots of Brindlewood Bay, and even ran one session of an early alpha of a cyberpunk variant I made called Neonwood Nights. I also played as the American in a campaign of The Between that sadly died on the cusp of the fourth layer.

What is Public Access?

Honestly, I don't think I'll do a better job than the Gauntlet itself, so let me quote them:

Public Access is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of people in 2004—the Deep Lake Latchkeys—who find themselves investigating strange mysteries in and around the town of Deep Lake, New Mexico. In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Deep Lake was the home of a notorious public access television station called TV Odyssey, the history and fate of which—the station literally disappeared—is the source of much speculation in certain corners of the internet. As the Latchkeys conduct their investigations in Deep Lake, they will become increasingly aware of the central role TV Odyssey plays in everything that’s going on, and will have to face whatever terrible truth lies at the heart of the infamous station...

Public Access is a Carved from Brindlewood game which means it is focused upon resolving mysteries without canonical answers via a list of clues that the players will find as they get involved in the world. It isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I do think anyone interested in mysteries or the supernatural should give one of the games an honest shot.

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for The House on Escondido Street lie ahead. If you're a player make a Day Move to proceed or you can back down now. Just don't whine to me about needing to turn a key to unsee what you should not have seen.

Prep

I've read my copies of Public Access and its supplement Skinny Jeans and Summer Screams months ago, but I reread them in preparation for the campaign. I decided to go with a Skinny Jeans approach to my campaign primarily in hopes of finishing a campaign in twelve or so 3 hour sessions. Another key factor was the forced turning of the keys by the players after a new layer of the TV Odyssey mystery was reached. As I mentioned earlier, I played in nearly a dozen games of OG version of The Between and I believe I only had 4 Masks checked off, with two to avoid turning into the Cursed. And I'm quite certain I was leading the pack. Which meant that even though we were getting ready to defend Hargrave House, a lot of juicy backstory was still locked away. I want to avoid that potential loss of story in my campaign, so the forced turning of the keys, even though it may result in a premature Pure-White Signal, was an added bonus.

I also scoured reddit and the Gauntlet's discord hoping to gleam recommended mysteries for the first campaign. There are many suggestions, but much like the mysteries there is no canonical answer to that question. The only firm stance taken seems to be The House on Escondido Street is the best starter for new players, particularily those new to Carved from Brindlewood games. Other frequent suggestions for first mystery were Slumber Party Summoning Circle and Deep Lake Lurker. In the end I settled on Escondido Street, but slotted *Deep Lake Lurker as the next mystery.

As I am going with the Skinny Jeans ruleset, I updated the reference sheet to reflect the changes. I also did a little bit of an overhaul on the TV Odyssey sheet. I dislike the Keeper advice and Big Man quotes being in the rulebook while the Big Man stingers and work to be done in prep for the TV Odyssey mystery were on a separate sheet of paper. Therefore I combined the two into one document, doing necessary trimming where needed. Now when I'm in a layer I can easily see the stinger I ran, and quotes available on the same page.

Next, I went through the Odyssey tapes and selected a few to be the first to offer during the campaign. The general advice seems to be that for the first tapes, select tapes that allow everyone to narrate a prompt. After much waffling, I had settled on four players for my table which limited my options a fair bit. I chose Gone to Fur and I Want My Video Beat to be the first two if all four players showed, and Astral 09 Pyramid Passage Pure-White Contact and BLAM! 03 Everybody BLAM! if only three showed.

Then I read through the free and totally aweseome Sprigs and Kindling fan-zine. In particular Volume 4, Issue #1 which is mostly devoted to Public Access, which contains among other things a handy 3d6 table for what the Latchkeys might find at the Deep Lake Library.

Then I reread The House on Escondido Street, and taking a page out of the Quinns Quest review I decided to highlight the clues I felt I wanted to get out to the table the most. During my one shots of Brindlewood Bay, I have occassionally run into the issue of not being able to choose a good clue. Coupled with some good old anxiety this results in the clues merging into a giant wall of impenetrable text.

Lastly, I watched a few episodes of the Bad Spot actual play ran by the game creator himself, Jason Cordova. This was useful to see how the new introductions worked, and getting a feel for the flow of the game. I also loved how Jason weaved in hints at future mysteries during the current ones.

The Game Itself

I had four players arrive for game night at one of our local meetup groups. All four had previously played a Carved from Brindlewood game with me before: two co-players in The Between, the Keeper from the Between, and one as a player in a Brindlewood Bay one shot. Character creation and the first flashback as introduction went smoothly. The first four Latchkeys being:

• Sarah
• TJ
• Kelsey
• Stephanie

The arrival at 26 Rodenbecker street went less smooth. I stated my desires, and tried to lead the players into a short roleplay scene where they would learn about each other. It mostly resulted in them stating who their characters were, and little interest in learning about the others.

I called for a break after that and then went into the Dawn phase, explaining that given our 3 hour time constraint we weren't likely to resolve the mystery tonight. Then I presented the mystery, and the first Odyssey tape. I sort of flubbed it here doing a mix of roleplaying it and reading the Present the Mystery text. In hindsight I should have just read the text then move into roleplay. Then we went into the Day Phase proper. The Latchkeys split into teams of two: one going with Casey to the house, while the other two went to the Public Records office to see if they could find anything on the house. The house-exploring pair did a circle around the house, and ran into the head of the HOA, Patience Head, while looking for a way to get into the house from the backyard. They were able to send Patience off in exchange for a future complication for Kelsey and her family.

Then they went inside and began finding clues in earnest. They didn't take the bait to go to Elliot's room though so I let that part of the mystery lie. After some clues found including everyone's favorite, the weird Candyland game, the pair went home with a new Odyssey tape. This along with Stephanie's The Truth Is Out There meant they had three Odyssey tapes to choose from.

The other two did not fair as well. A series of bad rolls resulted in a couple of turned keys and conditions. TJ, in particular, earned the attention of Sheriff Handsome Hanscom. But all was not lost, the pair discovered a few clues.

So when we entered the Dusk phase they already had seven clues for the first mystery. My concern about not finishing the first mystery due to the extra time taken by the new character introduction procedures seemed to be overblown. That and I need to work on my stalling chatter, and fluff up some descriptions. And inserting a couple more obstacles before they roll. And now I'm doing the debrief before wrapping up the session. ¯(ツ)/¯

During the Dusk Phase, I prompted the group to Answer the Question and it was a hoot. The group settled on the mysterious third child was so enamored by the strange Candyland board game that he wanted to live there. In order to do so he basically attempted to "Jumanji" himself into the game. In doing so he brought along the rest of the Rappaports, but ended up wiping out the memory of his existence in the process. The roll was a mixed success so the Latchkeys turned the mystery's key to bump it up to a 10.

Next they determined that to resolve the mystery they must finish playing the bizarre Candyland with Casey inside the Rappaport's home. They chose to watch Gone to Fur during the Night Phase.

The prompts for Gone to Fur were a blast. A Nazi general reincarnated as a corgi named Elizabark Hurley? Yes, give me more. The best friend of the medium, who happened to sleep with the medium's wife, is reincarnated as a dog? Wasn't on my shopping list, but I wasn't sad about seeing it.

As for the Night Phase proper, the Latchkeys completed the game after much laughter over who would be the Ravenous Sugarpig. They stood strong and rolled well in the face of the House's desparate attempts to stop the game. Then there was the tearful reunion of Casey and ghost Elliot, before Sheriff Hanscom rolled up to see about the disturbance Patience Head called about. Now all the Latchkeys are marked by the Sheriff. We shall see how that goes.

After a quick debrief, I hit them with the first Big Man stinger. Next time we will dive into Xxagreus.

Debrief

My prep for the game was heavy than most folks probably do, but I'm in the stage now that I like a sizeable amount of upfront prep in exchange for 30-60 minutes of prep leading up to the next session. I felt pretty good about the session except the need to rope in more of the Side Characters earlier in the mystery. For example, when the pair visited the Public Records office, I should have had Debbie working there to enable more interaction. Instead I let them search the records, and only brought in Sheriff Hanscom after an exceptionally poor roll.

So for the next session I want to focus on always having a Side Character there to interact with if it can make even the slightest sense. I think I did a good job at remembering to hand out Conditions as complications, though I need to work on the phrasing as I gave one Latchkey "Under Suspicion" and "Being Watched". Other areas I want to work on:

• More vivid descriptions
• Remembering to ask the players what Conditions they had before they roll
• Engendering more crosstalk amongst the players
• Foreshadowing/weaving in hints from future mysteries

As for the highlighting the clues, I think I'll need another session or two to see if it actually helps. I do know that I have to be a little more varied in my selections as my first few choices gave the mystery a very devil worshipy vibe from the start.

I was very happy about how I ran the Night Phase. It was very snappy, and the players only got to roll once each and I timed that to happen after the last prompt was performed.

Lastly, I said I waffled on running with three or four players and I'm going to try three players the next session. Four players was managable, but it also leads to natural pairings. I want to avoid the same two always splitting off, and dropping it down to three Latchkeys means even with two mysteries one Latchkey is likely by themselves. And I like that. It gives me more chance to dive deeper on a single PC, and also easier to make the world feel scarier. Yes, I know a Keeper reaction is to separate the Latchkeys, but that is rarely one I reach for in my previous Brindlewood Bay games.

All and all it was a good session. I am looking forward to Xxagreus (though to be truthful I'm a little scared of its key eating potential, especially in a Skinny Jeans game). After that I'm debating between Deep Lake Lurker or Starlight Kingdoms. The former is more up my alley, while the latter would tie more into Stephanie's alien fixations. From there I'm planning on running the other then Greetings, Traveler and Dog Made Me Do It. By then we should be nearing Layer 4, and I'll see if the group is wanting to do a Lost Transmission.

For my second open-table session of Mythic Bastionland for ATLRPG I ran for four knights.

The Knights:

• Roose the Reliquary Knight
• The Pigeon Knight
• The Gazer Knight
• Geiss the Hooded Knight

Session Recap

The Company began the session at Corvale, the Seat of Power, just in time for the Feast of the Sun. The Knights attend the early morning mass to catch the first rays of Spring. After listening to the monk intone a solemn blessing, a couple of the Knights shared some subtle digs targeted at Valamonte the ruler for his supposed part in the poisioning of Sir Croyle the ruler of Cragborough.

Next the Knights prepared themselves for thier part in the bloody games; a battle against some fantastical creatures. But first the Knights were spectators of Valamonte's fight against a fearsome bear. A couple of the Knights noticed something looked off between the lethargy of the bear, and Valamonte's showboating. They were able to overhear some beast tamers discussing the drugs used to slow the bear so the ruler could have his grand spectacle in relative safety.

Disgusted by this, but not above a little prepartion themselves the Hooded Knight made sure to learn what beasts they were to fight and prepare accordingly. They quickly dispatched a pair of giant tigers, maiming one, and driving the other back down its entrance tunnel. This show of mercy and restraint stood in great contrast to the theatrics of Valamonte's bout.

After the adulations of the crowd, the Knights attended the feast held by the ruler. There the Gazer Knight was able to win the good graces of Valamonte, but at the expense of earning a bitter enemy in the ruler's Marshall, Cradokke the Hive Knight. The Hooded Knight and the Pigeon Knight set about gathering information, and learned a little (but I forgot what lol). The Reliquary Knight decided to embrace the tradition of indulging during the Feast, but went too far and suffered hefty Vigor and Clarity loss.

The next day with the Reliquary Knight confined to his bed to recover his Vigor, the Hooded Knight and the Pigeon Knight visited the keep's great library in hopes of learning more about the Cudgel myth. Instead they discovered that the nearby forest was named after a mighty Boar who still roams the land. Eager for glory they later convinced the rest of the Company to seek out this mythical creature. Meanwhile the Gazer Knight decided to capitialize on his relationship with Valamonte and sought him out in hopes of securing aid for the lonely guard near Jouster's Field. He succeed, but perhaps by too much as Valamonte seized on the opportunity to send troops so close to Cragborough. Thus a warband lead by the Hive Knight was roused to be sent out to Jouster's Field.

After everyone shared their information, the Company decided to set out the next day, but the Reliquary Knight urged them to seek the closest Seer to gain any knowledge about the myth of the Boar, and to regain their senses after the great night of revelry. A path chosen, they once again used the Gazer Knight's lantern to lead the way to the Sunlit Seer.

The Sunlit Seer told the Company that they were not the only ones hunting the Boar, and that it would be wise to join forces. She then implored them to take part in the battles that were surely to come between Corvale and Cragborough. Heeding at least the first part of the Seer's messages the Company rode north into the forest. There they met a scheming piper whose help in luring the Boar they secured for a promise of finding him a position as a court musician. Then they met three inexperienced hunters also seeking the Boar, but for revenge not glory.

An accomodation was reached and the large force set up an ambush for the Boar and quickly slew it. A goal reached the Company claimed the Boar's tusks then set out on their separate paths with a plan to rejoin in Cragborough at the beginning of Harvest.

Thoughts

This was the first time the Knights would be in Corvale. Instead of lore dumping on them, I did a light description, then used a Paint the Scene question to spread the worldbuilding load around. My question was something along the lines of:
Valamonte the Thunder Knight seized control of the throne a short while after Sceptremass last year. He quickly went about acts of goodwill and largese to win the hearts and minds of his new subjects. However as you look around you can see there are still pockets of unrest and unhappiness. What do you see?

Not the best worded question, but it proved interesting as the players were able to add in details such as the squalor and noticable increase in guards. These details were fun to work into Valamonte's entourage during his fight against the bear, and showing the haves and havenots. I'm definitely going to incorporate more paint the scene questions when the Knights visit major locations.

The Feast of the Sun was my first feast. And I'll admit I was a bit nervous. How does one make a feast and spectale fun without being a boring set of minigames?

Well first I read Chris McDowall's Mythic Feasts post to gather some more details. He breaksdown each holy day from the rulebook. Here is what he says about the Feast of the Sun:

Feast of the Sun (Sprouts, Early Spring)
Ceremony - A great toast is held at the first sight of the sun, offering thanks for the end to another winter. It’s customary not to mention those lost during the winter, lest spring feel ashamed for not coming sooner, but rulers will make a subtle tally of those absent.
Spectacle - A bloody tournament, in the belief that blood spilt on the ground will strengthen the land. This particularly attracts young knights hoping to make a name for themselves. Older, more established knights may know better than to risk their necks.
Revelry - The expectation is that this will be the biggest, most decadent feast of the year, but coming after a particularly difficult winter can leave the larders bare. Any lack of food is made up for in excessive drink, music, and dancing.

From this I decided I would hold a morning ceremony and asked each Knight where would they be during the ceremony:

1. Up front with the monk and the ruler
2. In the middle to avoid attention
3. In the back with the other lollygaggers.

For the spectacle, I offered them another set of three choices:

1. Fighting duels
2. A fight against four other knights
3. A fight against unknown beast(s)

For the revelery, I informed them they had several feasts they could attend, but Valamonte the ruler had invited them. At the feast I then offered them the three feast pursuits, Chris laid out in his blog post:

1. Mirth
2. Whispers
3. Charm

For the ceremony, the players chose all three options. The Reliquary and Gazer Knights decided to be up front and chimed in with subtle and not so subtle digs at Valamonte when the Monk asked for anyone to offer words after the light. Oh, I also used this opportunity to incorporate the sun table from the Valley of Flowers to add more weirdness to the world.

The group quickly chose the fight against the beast, and prevailed in it quite handily while once again using it a subtle dig at the ruler. I think the ruler might start dispatching some mercaneries to teach these upstart knights a lesson or two.

As for the revelery, once again all three options were chosen. I liked the chance to zoom out here (as I wanted to get back to the myths), but still give the players a taste and potential rewards.

The rest of the session went mostly smooth. I got to introduce a new Seer, the Sunlit Seer. Her desire for her precious Knights to win some battles is going to be a joy to play.

The only rough patch was an inner debate with myself as the players planned their ambush of the Boar. They had only seen two omens. Yet they had a good plan and recruited aid through exchange of favors. Should I have the Boar attack and run away, or answer the ambush at all? Well the next Wilderness roll revealed the next omen for the Boar so I decided to embrace it and the primacy of action and say they planned it so they get it. Not sure if that is exactly how it was intended to be played, but it worked for the table.

Plus this gave me the perfect excuse to embrace Advancing Time. I seized the opportunity and declared we were advancing a season. I'm looking forward to the next feast: the Feast of the Stars. It is when the biggest tournaments are held. I think I'm going to riff on the Thorn Diares ideas in Running Tourneys and Jousting in Mythic Bastionland. I don't want to spend 2 hours of the 4 hours we have doing a tourney so I'll probably fast forward to the Elite Eight and see how things go.

Stats:

• Holdings Visited: 2
• Seers met: 2
• Myths resolved: 1
• Glory earned: 2

Yesterday was my first open-table session of Mythic Bastionland for ATLRPG. For the first session I planned for only 4 players, but an extra one showed up so I let them join.

The Knights:

• Roose the Reliquary Knight with his two-headed swan relic.
• The Pigeon Knight
• The Gazer Knight
• Geiss the Hooded Knight
• The Moss Knight

The Holdings:

• Corvale. The Seat of Power. Ruled by the Thunder Knight
• Cragborough. Ruled by the Seal Knight
• Mossburn. Ruled by a former knight.
• Bright Tower. Ruled by Lady Kira.

Session Recap

The Company (which we still need to name) rode in from the east and made for the closest holding, Cragborough, to quickly get a pulse on the new realm they had entered. After a few days ride they arrived at the holding. During a few days exploring the holding, the Knights were able to learn:

• The ruler of Cragborough, Sir Croyle the Seal Knight had recently taken ill during an open court session.
• There is ongoing religious strife between Cragborough and Bright Tower.
• Of ongoing negotiations between Cragborough and Mossburn over grazing rights for livestock.
• Skirmishes had taken place between Cragborough and the Seat of Power, Corvale. The conflicts sparked by debates of the legitimacy of Sir Valamonte the Thunder Knight's usurpation of the throne. Some claim the manner of his duel to seize the throne from the Crow Knight was of a duplicitous nature.

The knights immediately began speculating that the ruler of the holding's illness was an omen for a myth. Deciding to act upon it they attended an open session of court. There they saw a group of farmers, led by Jon Juan Johan, petitioning the court of the recent damage to the crops from a drought. Seizing opportunity the knights offered to assist in determining the cause of the drought. Sir Croyle suggested they head south to the nearest Seer. During this conversation with Sir Croyle there were some awkward in-game moments (but hilarious to the table) about the Reliquary Knight's relic as it was two-headed swan who had been slain for causing a drought in a distant realm, and the Knight was parading the relic around describing its signifance while in a holding suffering from drought.

After another knight spent in Cragborough the Company journeyed south. After making camping in a glade, they awoke to the pleasant sounds of a washerman singing a tune while going about his business. This tune mentioned a "knight who had defeated death." Intrigued the Company questioned the man about his doings and the way to the Seer while making sure to remind him of his station.

Following the washerman's directions while making use of the Gazer Knight's lantern and the Pigeon Knight's homing ability they made their way towards the Sanctum of the Amber Brook. However their journey was interrupted when an ashen skinned knight atop a ghostly steed challenged each of them to solo combat. The Gazer Knight boldly took up this challenge, but was swiftly slain before realizing this was a vision of what would come to pass if stepped into the circle against this ghastly knight.

Disappointed with the lack of willing challengers the ashen knight rode on, and the Company continued to the Weeping Seer's sanctum. Here they came to understand that Sir Croyle was under the effects of a curse, and the curse had intertwined the land's fate and that of its ruler. They were then enlisted to accompany the Seer to Cragborough, but that night while sleeping a substantial section of heather caught fire near the Seer's hut. Geiss the Hooded Knight leapt up and led the Company in putting out the fire. Then the group headed back north to Cragborough.

Along the way they came upon a strange tunnel which the Seer seemed to imply a way of quickly reaching a destination of their choice, but knowing danger lies ahead. They rode through and arrived within sight of Cragborough in a third of the time taken a normal journey. But danger did lurk, but they swiftly slew a group of hound-shaped creatures formed from coils of worms.

With the Weeping Seer accompanying them, they returned to the ruler. There they discovered that the curse's origin was coming from Corvale, possibly from the ruler of that city himself. Determine to discover the truth they set out for Corvale. Along the way they stopped at Jouster's Field, a small set of dwellings in between the two holdings.

Before the field they came upon a curiously located tower. There they spoke to its lone guard who kept asking after the Cudgel, and declaring his need for it to protect the lady sleeping in the tower. But the knights would not relieve the man of his post. Instead they rode on to Jouster's Field and met Osric, a collector of knightly artifacts. The man begrudgingly doled on information on the tower and the Cudgel. He was quite upset that the Knights refused to part with any of their knightly possessions in exchange for his inforamtion.

Then the Company split in two to search for a vantage point and see if the Cudgel was nearby. They found little from the former, but in search for the latter they came across the ghastly knight from earlier, who rode away when he realized they found him.

The party rejoined then we ended it for the session. Nearly two weeks of travel, a duel that would have slain a knight averted, multiple omens encountered, and a quick destruction of a pack of strange beasts. When next we rejoin a few weeks will pass and the Knights will be partaking in the Feast of the Sun at Corvale, the Seat of Power.

Thoughts

I had read several suggestions of starting the knights out with a simple task to ensure they had something to do. I had one planned, and I even put it in the session pitch, but I forgot about it when we set down to play. Instead, I had them randomly determined the Company's starting location along the edge of the map by rolling a d4 for the map edge and a d12 for a hex. Luckily, I was saved by a player who had run the game previously as they insisted on the group heading to the nearby holding to gain information. For future GMs I would definitely recommend a simple task like find a named seer or present yourself to the ruler of the Seat of Power to start off with to avoid the flashes of hestitation in the players' eyes that I briefly encountered.

When they arrived at Cragborough I was able to do a mini time-skip as detailed in this post. I, however, chickened out at the end of the session on advancing to the next Season. I felt like I would be potentially robbing the players' of their momentum in seeking a resolution to the Cudgel or the conflict between Corvale and Cragborough. I called for a dice roll to determine the advancement of time, and settled for advancing time to the Feast of Sun in two weeks.

As for the mini time-skip at Cragborough, I felt I used it effectively to give them an overview of the holding. It also gave me a chance to offer them chances to gain information without playing multiple days. The first of those bits of information was the foreshadowing of a holding thread, while the other three came from pre-rolled conflicts sparks as discussed here and here. Those two pieces of prep really have made the world come alive and have sparked numerous conversations amongst the players about what they should do.

It is also helpful as it allowed me to push on two parts of their oath: "Honour the Seers" and "Protect the Realm." Who better to get to the bottom of a mysterious ailment than a Seer? How better to make the Knights question what is protecting the realm than to pit two holding against each other over devious actions?

One thing I would advise is to grab the tables from Chris McDowall's Into the Land post. It offers another set of spark tables for each terrain type. I'd also advise writing out more descriptions yourself. After revealing one of the Snail's omens I had to repeatedly detail an outcropping of rocks and I quickly ran out of ways of describing it.

As for the myths they were all a blast to describe and watch as the players interacted with them. Some of the early omens were shrugged off, while others were intermingled in their eyes. I would be curious to know how many omens and myths they think they've encountered so far. My only complaint is when I get a 2 or 3 and trying to figure out which Myth is closest. I'm very tempted to create a table so I can quit counting hexes. Okay, and I was a little disappointed that none of the Knights besides the Gazer Knight took up the challenge of the Wight. Yes, they would have likely died, but it would have been intriguing to see the outcome. Would the Knights have honored the duel? Would they have intervened?

This was also the first instance of the Gazer Knight's ability to undo one of their or another Knight of the Company's decisions each day. I thought it was a good use of the skill, but I must admit I am worried about it. I don't want to join the anti or limited Wish spell crowd, but I'm also not going to replay a substantianal part of the session. As for the other Knight's abilities they seem interesting, though I think the Pigeon Knight is going to drive me bonkers asking after the names of everyone's homes and if the current location is considered someone's home. I am debating adding a once per day limit on the ability just to limit the question.

I only got to reveal one Seer so far, and for me it felt like a dud. I'm not really sure how to play the Weeping Seer in person without being a complete time waste. The Seers were one part of the creation I did not curate, and I realize I should have. Well now I know at least which Seer will be the victim of the Mist if they ever encounter it.

In the end this was an incredibly easy first session to run. I'm looking forward to the next, but what in the world am I going to do for the Feast of the Sun.

Choices, Choices

For over the past year, I've been running games as part of an in-person ttrpg community called ATLRPG. The group runs three events each week, two of which I regularly attend, either to play or run games. I've mostly run one shots along with two short lived campaigns: one of Mausritter and the other MÖRK BORG. The former ending because of player schedules, the latter because I was done with the game after five sessions. Yet the desire to run a longer campaign still burns inside so I took a look at my shelves and tried to pick something that could make a fun open table campaign.

My choices came down to a potentially short megadungeon campaign running The Sun King's Palace, Mothership, or Mythic Bastionland. As you can guess by the title of this blog I chose the last one.

My reasoning against running the Sun King's Palace being:

1. I could not decide what system I would want to run the dungeon with. I am leaning toward's Jason Tocci's Grave to embrace the Soulslike lore that I am getting from the text.
2. To fix some glaring holes such as only two of the five geese required for an important fetch quest are detailed in the text.
3. To add more interactions and desires between the factions. Right now most of the NPCs seem to very static.
4. Add more pathways hidden and not between the major sections of the dungeon. The dungeon is quite flavorful and looks like a blast to run, but needs some work before I would be willing to bring it to the table.

Mothership is at this point a good friend whose layers I am still learning even after years of companionship. However my experience has been completely with one shots and I could not decide if I wanted to run a campaign of Gradient Descent or figure out a way to stich together a campaign from the multitude of modules that I own. Weeks later I stumbled upon this blog which would help me see how I could run the latter.

As for Mythic Bastionland, I've long been a fan of Arthurian legend, the Odd-like games, and the mythic qualities of video games like Elden Ring. Months ago, I had enjoyed my one foray as a player in an open table campaign. I wish I could have played more, but the three hour round trip drive was too much each week. Decision made, I dove into the game to get the campaign ready.

First, I voraciously reread the book, then I went about creating the realm. To save some effort I eagerly pilfered the predrawn realm from the Realm Sheets. I did make some alterations on the gm version of the sheet move landmarks and barriers around as well as reorient the sheet for portrait printing. I followed the procedure in the book along with the wonderful blog post by Among Cats and Books. I can't recommend the post enough as I am the type that needs to see how someone has written things down to better orient my own writings.

Myths

One thing I would strongly suggest is to curate your myths. While you can randomly roll them, I suggest having at least one of the following:

• A myth of a monster/beast to fight: The Wyvern, The Boar, The Eye, The Beast, etc.
• A myth of an item to quest for: The Crown, The Blade, The Cudgel, etc.
• A myth that changes the environment: The Tree, The Mist, The Sun, The Desert, etc.
• A myth that endangers a Seer or a ruler: The Eagle, The Mist, The Lion, etc.

I think I went through 3 or 4 iterations before I finally settled on my initial set of six myths for the realm: The Boar, The Mist, The Cudgel, The Inferno, The Wight, and the Snail.As you can see the Mist will be doing double duty as I had to have a dragon, and the thought of the Wight challening the Knights to duels was too juicy to pass up.

Additional Prep

In addition to the prep outlined in the book and in the Among Cats and Books's post, I also gave each holding a thread in line with Chris McDowall's blog post. I also made generous use of the Referee Companion to generate:

• descriptions of holdings and people
• warbands for each holding
• random npcs for some of the landmarks

I also snagged the Mythic Bastionland Calendar which builds upon Chris McDowall's post. I added the definitions of the days of the week to my copy of the sheet.

I also recommend reading this amazing reddit post on Why to Advance Time in Mythic Bastionland, and How to do it!. I was initially worried about advancing time in the game as it felt like potentially robbing the players of agency over their knight's story. When talking with the guy who ran the Mythic Bastionland open table I played in, he said he wanted to advance the seasons and ages, but he left it up to his players who never decided to advance time as they always wanted to deal with the current issue. So after that conversation and reading the post above I resolutely decided I was going to advance time during the game!