Blackwater Creek, a FLAIL game report
This weekend I got to gm FLAIL, the new game by Games Omnivorous. It felt a simple game mashup of Mausritter, ItO/Cairn, Black (Sword) Hack and some other NSR type shit.
It took an hour to create characters because of language barriers and my usual game group not really being into TTRPGs. Anyway, we went ahead with self-translated reference sheets (Spanish) and had a good time.
The adventure I planned for was a well-known Call of Cthulhu adventure but ported to a Fantasy setting. I am trying to have it written for the crossover jam, it seemed a fun thing to write to me and I have already drawn a pointcrawl map. I am unsure of what should be the right format for it: a one/two page adventure or something a little bit more fleshed out with some additional (amateur/selfmade) artwork. In any case , it will be done soon. Hopefully.
The characters felt funny (I had this character who was the son of a guy who swallowed a songbird and became a singer) and had interesting skills (transforming into a bat once a day or silencing everyone in an area). They were looking for work and coin and found a really drunken son of a noble who tasked them with finding his mother, who had been kidnapped by some townsfolk at Blackwater Creek.
The adaptation was simple, this adventure is more about finding out what is going on than having big battles with swords and maces. The enemy stats in FLAIL are so simple to use (Even simpler than Cairn) that you can invent them on the fly, although some parts require more thinking than just making numbers on the fly (spells and whatnot).
All in all, we had a really interesting investigation game, in which there wasn't a lot of combat but there was quite a bit of sneaking, sabotage and lying. Some weird folk looking for some lost wizard and some farmers hiding a dangerous secret. We are missing a session, two at most, but they already know what happened to certain character who was missing.
Here is some of the background and situations for this adventure. If you are a GM you may be interested in taking a look at it.
For now, it is a WIP but I'll have a PDF, with some name changes, at some point.
The adventure
Background
- A long time ago: In a cave, near of what Blackwater creek would be later on, a powerful wizard sealed an egg of a dangerous entity spawned from the stars.
- Few months ago: The wizard Ranmjan came to Blackwater creek looking for an huge treasure hidden here after hearing some rumours about it
- A week ago: An infection seems to be spreading around the Blackwater Creek area. Little is known about Ranmjan and some friends of his are looking for answers.
- Three days ago: Some of the wizards apprentices have camped close to the western part of the forests in the region and they are looking for him, but they also try to go unnoticed
- Now: The characters just arrive to the region. Roll in the random encounter table.
Locations - Map
- The Miskolc River
- The Town of Blackwater Creek
- The Woods
- Excavation Site
- Apprentices Camp
- The Dam
- The Creek
- The Carmona's Farm
- The Klevin's Farm
- Hidden fissure in earth
- The Cave