Clockwork and Soulsick Campaign
Introduction
The following article are player-facing game notes for the participants in my latest campaign, Clockwork and Soulsick.
The notes are intended keep my players up to date with the game, and for me enjoy a bit of creativity associated with the game.
The system used is Robert Schwalb's Shadow of the Weird Wizard / Secret of the Weird Wizard (or SWW as I call it).
The game is inspired by the following works of art:
- Brotherhood of the Wolf - a 2001 film
- Vidocq - a 2001 film, and a tremendously powerful music piece from that film, Apocalyptica - Hope Vol II- Vidocq - Soundtrack
- Shadow of Demon Lord (another fine system by Robert Schwalb) game
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game, and its spiritual successor, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound
- Bloodborne by From Software
- All products and games inspired by From Software games
- Darkest Dungeon franchise by Red Hook Studios
That said, I am reinventing, rebuilding and readjusting the setting with OSR sensibilities, which means:
- This is going to be dungeoncrawling game, with gunpowder weapons, swords
- Fast-paced action
- Hard choices
- Dark secrets
- Sustainable setting concepts (see below)
Sustainable setting concept: Ye olde Soulslike games are mostly postapocalyptic survival horrors with short duration expectancy, whereas in my game, while the game is intended to be deep in gothic levels of dark, it is still intended to take place in a world that cares about everyday stuff.
Gaming Resources
To prepare for this game, I have reached far and wide, plucked and bit down into juicy fruits of giants influencing roleplaying industry. Trying to give the credit where its due, this is the list of key gaming resources I rely on, in no particular order (aside from the first):
- Robert Schwalb: Shadow of the Weird Wizard / Secret of the Weird Wizard (or SWW as I call it)
- Luke Gearing: Swyvers - Light-on-rules OSR-style game of criminals (the swyvers) adventuring in vast urban environment. Outstanding, minimalistic and rich.
- Chris Gonnerman and various contributors: Basic Fantasy RPG, 4th edition, using mostly Charts and Tables by Simone Felli.
- Alex Coggon and Charlie Fergus-Avery, Into the Cess and Citadel (itch.io), Wet Ink Games: Into the Cess and Citadel (DriveThruRPG) - somewhat system-agnostic city-is-your-dungeon book.
- Matt Finch: City Encounters - Swords & Wizardry book, 200 daytime encounters, 200 nighttime encounters, statblocks, spells, monsters, and all of this in 114 pages.
- Robert Schwalb: Shadow of the Demon Lord (the parent of SWW)
- The Alexandrian - font of inspiration plus resources plus reviews. First place to start searching for something.
- Various others, including RPG fan efforts for Bloodborne.
The Premise
Clockwork & Soulsick, Slides presentation for the players. Contains vital information about starting situation, the setting and the mechanics. The key story points follow below.
Count Gedrich will see you presently
- You’re in an bedroom. It’s high class, exquisite, and slightly dusty.
- There are prominent clockwork designs everywhere.
- You are manacled in a semi-sitting position on a portable wooden bed.
- There are several people in the same position as you.
The Stick
- You’re ex-convicts. Your records and recent memories were purged at request of count Gedrich.
- Count Gedrich needs capable folk to deal with imminent crisis.
- Your first mission is to prove yourselves.
- You may leave, but your options are limited to an exile.
- You must sign an agreement to continue.
…and the Carrot
Immediate:
- Basic equipment
- 7 days of food
- Letters of commendation
- Keep what you earn
Satisfactory conduct:
- Employment by Gedrich Estate, salary included
- Periodical injections of Elixir of Renewed Vigor
- Legal access to city of Marnhay
The Characters at the Beginning of the Story
Adventure #1: One Bad Apple
An original adventure, with changes to accommodate the campaign. Note that the changes may mean that the story may veer far away from the original intention of the authors as I am planting seeds for several things to take place later. Also, this journal is written to provide characters with the recap summary, so things are likely to look quite different from their perspective.
WARNING! Thorough spoilers for the scenario follow.
Mila:
There is trouble in Two Forks, an eastmost village. The villagers requested help - apparently their blacksmith lost their mind, and violently assaulted his neighbor. Get a coach, make your way there and resolve the situation. Conduct yourself with proper dignity, discern the nature of the problem, punish the guilty and provide a report. The people need help. Gather your equipment and leave.
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The heroes wake up, learn about their situation, read the agreement, sign it. GM NOTE: More info in the Slides presentation.
- They are Count Gedrich pet police project.
- Their sentences were purchased off Yardmakers, their memories wiped clean. There are no known relatives or attachments. They may have been incarcerated for a long time but they feel good and healthy. Apparently, there is something called the Elixir, and for their continued and satisfactory service, in addition to salary they may expect further infusions.
- The Elixir improves health, extends life, and is available for purchase to citizens in good standing. There are no known side effects unless one overdoses or uses a bootleg copy. GM NOTE: The Elixir is also a good in-game explanation why heroes heal at such astounding rate, and why being in count's service is a great idea.
-
Travel by the coach takes four hours. During that time, the party learns about partial abandonment of eastern quarters of Marnhay, and various speculations, as provided by the coach shotgun rider. Shayna is seasick.
-
Arrival around ten o'clock at Two Forks - a small, village on a misty morning. A local, a village chief, one Elder Myriam Shew provides a welcome and brief introduction.
- Victor the smith has violently beaten half to death his partner, Megan (Megan is an immigrant, nowhere to turn, so she lived with him despite occasional bout of violence) three days ago. Elder Myriam put a request for help to the landowner, count Gedrich.
- His two drinking cronies took a lot of damage, but eventually managed to put him in his workshop.
- Ever since Victor has been comatose during daylight, and howling like mad at night. Since his workshop is away from the village, the people live with it, however it hasn't been easy on their morale.
- Trivia: The village is famous for the ale produced in the brewery. The people employed there are allowed to have a drink per working day, and most save to have a Revelday (i.e. last working day of a week) drinking together in the evening.
-
The heroes visit Megan at Victor's house. She's in bad health.
- Hayden, as an Apothecary, examines her (GM NOTE: Natural twenty. That's all the information plus two questions) and learns that Megan's state is worsening - broken ribs, high chance of internal damage, and something else, a sickness of some kind (a greenish rash).
- Another successful medicine check (GM NOTE: against DC 14, yes, that's me being nasty) and she recalls there is a legendary disease called soulsickness that turns people into monsters. The disease eats at one's soul, and the heroes make a guess that it is spread via raw physical violence (i.e. being beaten with naked fists is a way to get it).
- Pete arrives (one of the two drinking cronies). He's also damaged, and slightly feverish. Hayden examines him, and also finds traces of the sickness.
- The party - quite scared of a zombie apocalypse outbreak at this point - examines comatose Victor (after tying him like a bacon) and find that he is now even more massive brute, with crude features.
- Elder Myriam Shaw is found to be uninfected.
- The party considers their options (GM NOTE: yes, mercy killing is on the table).
That's it for the first session.
Adventure #2
STATUS: ready; custom-made with multiple imports; multiple story dependencies (expecting changes).
GM NOTE: This is not railroading, this is me having fun. If the characters veer wildly, by dying, abandoning count's service, going rogue, I am fine with scrapping it. The adventure is sandboxy, 22 pages long, contains Adventure #1 Intro, Outro, Downtime, Marnhay FAQ, Adventure #2 Intro, Content and Out, and Downtime.
GM NOTE #2: So far I love SWW minimalistic take on adventure writing - this means I can put a lot of stuff into the game at little effort. My work so far includes also:
- Multiple in-game files (statblock excerpts)
- No fewer than five different Python random generators (with 46 resource files)
- Image files (DALL-E, SWW extracts)
- OSR assets (bought, found, made by fans, made by me)
GM NOTE #3: I find the lack of suitable city resources disturbing. Yes, there are laundry lists for city encounters, however they are quite unfitting for what I have in mind. What I have done so far, I have assembled multiple building blocks, most random generator assets, and most notably from Swyvers RPG.
Adventure #3
STATUS: being written; custom-made with multiple imports; multiple story dependencies (expecting changes).