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Campaign Diaries: Recap and Fabula Ultima Arc 3 Session 1

Below is to the start of an Idea I had penned this in my notebook September 05th 2025. Here it is clean up for reading. Enjoy!

It occurred to me that in order to help my notes and sessions. I might want to put session recaps, journaling the TTRPG campaigns I run and my journey through a system.

I usually recap my session in my own notes, with quick sentences in a dedicated page.  I’m also relizing at this moment as I reference it, I have not upkept it well. It was usually a quick note to remind me; “Session 05: Heroes escape prison and sneaked onto a pirate ship”.

Instead of one sentence, I’ll be writting out more flesh out notes along with any GM notes or moments that stood out. Probably a paragraph that I could read at the next session to recap the players. I’ll also place things like system troubles, flubs, or anything like the sort in thoughts at the bottom. Hopefully this will involve over time.

Now as I came late to this idea,  I will have to give a recap of the over all campaign up to this point.

Table of Content to jump around:

Characters

Our characters at the start

– Beagmund, the Naive chosen one 

– Felicia, the reckless treasure hunter trying to find a better world

– Arthur, the rival of the chosen one destined to protect me

Campaign Recap

Arc 1 – Home

The first arc dealt with the heroes’ hometown of Rimea on the night of festivities. Suddenly An evil goblin known as Knick-knack attacks their village. Facing overwhelming forces, our heroes were saved by an old mystical man with a long beard, yellow village clothing that called himself The King of the Stars. He bestows upon them the Stone of the Star which would light up when allies to be trusted were near. Though these allies may not stay for long.. They may be there for a few days, and sometimes it will feel they were there for about four hours. Maybe three. ((If we had anybody that wanted to jump in to try the game, this is the in universe reason for our characters to trust the new one)

Our heroes then fled to the capital of Rimea, Queensberg. A large city with waterfalls built over the old kingdom of Kingsberg. At the time, Games were being held to find new warriors to join the prince of Rimea, Maximillian, on a quest to face Knick-Knack. While they failed the contests, they did impress someone enough to received a quest to venture into the caves under the city. To find an artifact, known as the Iris Cube.

They entered the Kingsberg Grotto where they fought the bandits housing in the ruins of the city. They met the queen who was secretly spelunking, and fought agaisnt a giant shrimp boss known as Prawn Caw’neri. They also dealt with pirate entering the grotto also searching for the Iris Cube for their own motives. Afterwards they were able to get the Iris Cube which showed a map of the world.  Only ships equipped with the royal navy and others in shipping that were able to fund mercenaries and weaponry, could venture through the seas due to the rough waves and dense ocean fog. When the Iris Cube was discovered, the fog lifted and the waves lessen.

They headed back home to Innsville to slowly start restoring the town and after to the Blackwoods on advice from Prawn. Here they defeated evil bug bandits and more of Knick Knack’s villainous henchmen, the Paddy-whacks. More importantly, they found a wolf that they made their new friend who promptly got named “Good Boy”.The chaotic nature of the Blackwoods had caused our heroes to be separated the evil of Knick Knacks transform “Good Boy” into a new monster, the Dog-a-bone. Arthur was separated for a time to face the shadow of his past mentor. Successfully defeating the shadow, but arriving to late assist in fighting Dog-a-bone. Failing to hold their ground. All our heroes were knocked into a nearby river where they were capture by the Rose Skull Pirates and their captain, The Pirate Queen Eileen. Taken to the pirates secret hideout, taking the Iris Cube from our heroes.

 Using magic, wits, and weapons, our heroes snuck out of the prison.Then sneaking onto the Rose Skull before it headed out into the world in order to steal back the Cube. After a few hi-jinks, they eventually reach the Captain Quarters. After a tense battle, our heroes defeated the Pirate Queen Eileen who agreed to ally with the heroes if they helped her brother with a curse that keeps him alive albeit in a horrible state. With new allies in tow, the Rose Skull sails forth to Knick Knack’s evil dark tower that is slowly building power.

Climbing the tower, they found a way to quickly save their town then face Knick-Knack themselves. The final battle is intense as Knick-Knack uses all his magic and power taken from people in Innsville. Yelling that he will not stop from saving the world from the chosen one. Defeating Knick Knack the heroes clarifying they have no intention to destroy the world. Then across the horizon, Maximillian’s ship comes into view then fires on the tower as the battle finishes. The heroes grab Knick-knack and flee. 

Arc 2 – Mirage

Making a new friend in Knick-knack to try to figure out what may destroy the world, our heroes are trying to decipher rune across the Iris Cube. Knick-knack mentions an old sage known as Sarcothsis who might know how to read them. The Rose Skull ventures north to the Narra Steppes.

Entering the small deserted port town of Nigh’leon, the heroes found Sarcothis house ransacked. However they found clues to point them to the city of Mirage in the desert. A city that can not be found by those searching for it, and is only found by those that are lost. 

Eventually they arrived, where the Stone of the Star lit up as they say a new face. A lizard folk who was called SharkClaw, a templar from an organization dedicated to helping the chosen one accomplishing his faith.

Sharkclaw joins the party! A templar of the old faith duty bound to the chosen one (from about Arc 2 onward!)

They find Sarcothes hiding from mercenaries. All led by Commander Maul, a Kreigshold commander who is trying to take over the Narra Steppes for his country, seeing potential in the beasts and magic that lies in the land. Sarcothes Informs them of an ancient tome called Egdoh-rillian. In it, contains several stories of the world, dense and dry written. It had been destroyed during the last time the world ended as its powers were used to turn it into a tome of chaos. In order to grab it, our heros would have to complete a powerful ritual that would send them temporarily to another time. They would need to gather the ingredients; the Staff of Rising Earth,  and an object that somehow survive the worlds destruction, then perform the ritual at the site of a destroyed city; E’lu’zhan

The Staff was currently held by the Mayor of Mirage as a prized for their beast catching competition. Ceremonies are held at the Moonlight Spring, however dark energies were clouding the spring making hostile to the town. Investigating this strange phenomenon, our heroes find a strong a plant beast place by Kreigshold to steal the life force from the lake and increase the water trade with Kreigshold. They defeated the plant which spewed out some sort of small baby of a plant creature which Arthur called Cabbage.

While the Mayor and his staff readied for the competition, our  heroes visit the kitsch tourist trap, the Tower of 100 Mirrors. A mirror of what had existed in E’lu’zhan. The tower was haunted by the dragon of Wind, Gus, cursed to be a spirit stuck inside in a shard at the top of the tower and terribly annoyed with the tourists. They gather the shard with Gus and took part of the beast gathering contest. With Sharkclaw’s ability to talk to beast, they were easily able to find a beast, and the Mayor, Imma En’charj, was grateful enough about clearing the moonlight springs, almost anything would work as a for the Staff. 

With the two parts in hand, they raced to the site of E’lu’zhan, dealing with a tribe that worked with Kreigshold to ruin the steppes and killed Maul’s lieutenant, who was also his fiancee. Sarcotheses sent to our heroes to the past just before the world was destroyed. Racing through the original Tower of 100 Mirrors to stop the chosen one of this cycle, D’Num Ga’eb. Beating him, they grabbed the Egdohrillian however the fight was not over. Maul entered through the portal with a sort of mech, mixing the dinosaurs of Narra Steppes and the magitech of Kriegshold.  Maul eventually stood to face our heroes himself. Once killed time froze. A giant dark purple rune hand reached out. It cried “You do not belong here”. It defeated all the heroes single handily. It reach to crush them when Sarcothes was able to spend his life force to fling them back to the present time at the cost of his life. The problem was they weren’t in the same space, our group of heroes was thrown to different areas of the world. 

Two Months Past

Now we have reached where we currently are.

Arc 3 – Death, Session 1

Characters in session: Arthur and Felicia.

On an island, there lies a small village. A village aware of the troubles that come with the sea and the rough waves. A village that for months, have not need to worry about the waves since they suddenly stopped. A village where the sun shines, and the kids play. Then it comes, at first a small black ooze. More get placed by the seas waves, leaving them on the bank of the beach. The wind stops and the waves quiet as the evening sun set. A guardsman pokes the ooze with a staff. It coils around the point, moving up to the staff slowly burning his skin, consuming him. Cries barely escape as it enters all the holes available. His remaining mouth gurgles, dissolving until the ooze solidifies to a tar. Rising from the puddle, it forms a woman in knight armor with evil eyes. She unsheates her sword and points forward to the village. The ooze lurches.

We start with revisiting our heroes.  First, we visit Arthur who is now sporting a proper cape with all black outfit (Reminisce to Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, player’s words). Hair now slick back. We find him among the streets of Teskun City. A city made of several different nationalities that search for freedom from their original homes, mainly Kreigshold. He’s spent the last two months journey and trying to find his child, Cabbage. The one thing that fell off his back on his landing. He kicks in a door.

“Where is my child” he asks. The shopkeeper has a tale, one from a recent shipment. His merchants were attacked by a pirate ship on the seas, however the strange thing that stuck in their mind was a small plant like child on board that helped rob them. Arthur tosses the shopkeeper down and heads out. He reaches out to a few smuggler friends to help him acquired a small boat and take the seas.

The Rose Skull glides across the sea. Felicia looks at her cabin, filled with string stretches from runes to papers to sketches. Knick-knack places another box on string on the ground. Tireless working, they have manage to decipher two pages of the Egdoh-rellian. The tales of a being known as Tragedia, a cosmic being whose goal is to have world meet it’s end whatever means necessary..  

While trying to set up another stringboard, they see the smoke from the kitchen below. Running down, they found Cabbage sword fighting the chef. As usual, they have to take Cabbage away and keep an eye on them. To add to Felicia troubles, is the strained relationship with the Pirate Queen Eileen. Someone she’s fancied over the time they spent on the sea,

As the two heroes get closer, their have tattoos matching the Stone of the Star which start to glow. Pointing to each other. Soon they find each  other.

Together at last they swap adventure tales and dealings.  Arthur finds that Cabbage also shares some entropy magic that he also dabbles with.

With two party member still missing, they venture to try to find Beagmund. As they travel, they come across a manta ray with a house on its back. Standing outside were three knights of Teskun city that venture out to fight evil in the world. This knight is an older man in is 70’s, on a quest to deal with the obsidian tower in the area of Rimea. Though he finds himself bored, and sees a chance to share stories with the ship.

This is when Arthur, remembering his friends telling him not to mess with the knights, decides to immediately ask for a warrant. The knight raises an eyebrow. His order were not to deal with a pirate ship. Though it is up to his discretion to disregard them if he senses a bit of evil, and Arthur has his senses. Arthur threatens him, and the knight transforms into his Mech-knight form. He had not had a fight for a good while. He toys with Arthur, keeping him at bay as his squires search the ship. 

The squires calls for him as Arthur tires out. The knight finds Cabbage holding a deadly darkness sword over the Iris Cube and a bucket over the Egdoh-rillian. He goes “interesting” before quickly drawing his pistol and firing a shot. 

—

Alright Thank you for reading. That’s the main story and session recap. Below are my GM Notes, and some thoughts  I scribbled as I was prepping the session and a bit after the session. Hence they may be a bit scatterbrained. I cleaned them up as much as I could:

GM Notes:

Picture of my prep notes for the session

Originally this session was going to have 3 players. As we got online to play, Beagmund’s player had internet troubles and was unable to join.  I was a tad worried as my prepped was spread between the 3 players of Felicia, Arthur, and Beagmund. Though decided to press on. I find that when I run 2 player session, the scenes get more played out and more personal. We find we have time to let scenes breathe as I don’t have to jump between a bunch of players to keep there attention and move the plot foward. Plus everyone was fine to play on with just the two players, including the absentee players.

I find myself having trouble with Fabula Ultima enemy creation system. There are two ways to create an enemy. The first to take an enemy in the bestiary and reflavor it to fit the scenario. The other is a multi-step process to create an original enemy which I find myself doing more and more as we reach higher levels. Before the game, it’s easy and I love steps. Though when it’s at the table, that’s when I get caught off guard. Both methods are a bit time-consuming for higher levels that I have to ask for a quick break in order to stat the characters out. 

Picture of my prep notes Important NPCs and Names to use

One planned for scene was when the players rolled an unexpected discovery on a travel roll. I took a second before I took inspiration Dragonball and a Mario Sunshine boss.  Instead of a giant turtle, Manta Ray. Originally the knight was to talk and be an exposition NPC. I could drop a few bits of lore here and there. Then Arthur’s player immediately was on the offensive. I had NPC say “Don’t mess with them,” which was taken as “Don’t trust them”. I think I should’ve been more clear the idea  “Don’t get on their bad side”.  I was totally fine with cause half way into the session I was sitting at the table thinking, “What can I do for the last hour or 2”. then when I saw the fight coming, “Well never mind then”

In my playthrough, I found Fabula Ultima similar to Dungeons and Dragons, where the higher level you get, the longer your turns can take. Especially the martial classes, where character are trying to figure out which moves bounce off each other in order to find out the damage an enemy can take. In game, it was probably about 3 to 5 turns between just Arthur and the NPC. It still took the rest of the session. I still jumped between the turns to Felicia’s character to make sure they were still engaged to the story. 

I had the idea of “Knights that mix Western Sheriff with power ranger transformation”  
I have to think how would these Knights from this country would deal with powerful objects. The Knights of Teskun are broken into 3 different department. Peace Keepers the ones that venture out to the world. Justice Keepers, the ones that monitor the city. Then there’s the truth keepers, the ones that run the council that also patrols the dome in Teskun city.  

Picture of my notes that I had taken over session. Players names are crossed out as I had not ask permission to place

—

Well those are all my notes, and the session recap. As I mention, this project was more to help me archive, place notes, and remind myself of what happen during sessions. If there are any questions regarding Fabula Ultima, let me know. Until next time!

j j j

R&R of November 2025

A monthly post where I talk about the things I’ve enjoyed and recommendations from the last month.

Hello Readers!

November felt like another month that came and left quick!  It weirdly felt like I had a lot of time and weirdly not enough to enjoy my hobbies. I still tried to squeeze in a few things through the month.

Blood Bowl Season 3 is now out! To prepare for my buddy running a league in the new year, I picked up the big season premiere box with the two teams, rulebook, and accessories. I’ve read through the entire book and came away excited to play in the league. I’ve played the 2nd edition, but this is the first one I’ve picked up the core book to read all the rules. The previous times a friend would just tell me how the rules worked.

As much as I want to play as Snotlings, that’s probably going to be a horrible experience for since how tough they are to play. I’ll probably stick with my chaos dwarves. 

I saw Alton Brown has been putting out some new videos! This may be the first time I talk about cooking, but his previous show “Good Eats” has a special place in my heart. One of the few shows that my parents and I actually sat around to watch whenever it was on. It has some good memories, and I genuinely enjoy his style of teaching people how to cook. 

Then on the complete unhinged side of my video watching, Caddicarus has a new video out. One of the few Video game reviewers I still keep up with.  I used to watched reviews from tons of channels to keep up with the video game zeitgeist. They all seem to pivot away to follow with things that work better for their channel. Typically, I find the content they focus on, is not for me, however Caddicarus’s pivot is one I thoroughly enjoyed and helped get through Covid times. 

One last Video game adjacent recommendation, Dan Floyd’s New Frame Plus has an entire series that goes over the animation of the Final Fantasy games. I do not know why it took me so long to watch these. The series is still going, and the latest one was on Final Fantasy 6. You can tell he loves the animation in the games and appreciates them in a way that makes me want to pick them up to play. 

With Tabletop Roleplaying games, I am taking a break from my Friday’s Fabula Ultimata campaign. I was starting to feel some burn out and told my group I needed to switch games for a bit. I wanted something that would be relatively short compared to the 25+ sessions of Fabula Ultima. I found myself suggesting one of The Gauntlet’s games. These all have a campaign end game timer along with several missions that are minimal prep. Once we finish our game of The Between, I’ll return to write more in depth about the system.  Though I have to admit, I started reading these solely due to The Silt Verses.

A horror audio drama that deals with strange faiths that kind of run the world and the people that believe in them. I am not doing it justice, but I strongly recommend the series if you are a fan of folk horror. I picked up the RPG, and while you don’t need to listen to the podcast to enjoy the RPG, it did recommend two episodes to listen in order to get an idea of the missions and world. After hearing those two, I went through the entire first season.

That’s all I got for November 2025, if there’s anything that stuck out to you or anything I should check out. Please leave it in the comments.

j j j

The Bout at the Diamond

 *An excerpt from the Mutant Year Zero Campaign I’m a player in, a writing exercise.*

The Mutants gathered in the morning to prepare for Tannis’ fight. Each of them was tired. Tannis and Lily were still badly injured from the night before. Jerry came back from his hiding spot during the gang war. Croc was somehow unscathed after killing Reggie, other than him missing his pants. But that was nothing new.

As they headed out, Croc put out his leathery arm.

“Uh…can we stop by my den first?” He asked.

“Why?” Tannis responded.

“iI got thing for you.”

“No.”

“It’s Reggie’s red coat,”

“…Fine.”

—

They made it to The Diamond on time. Audience taking their seats on the glass cabinets used as makeshift bleachers. The old jewelry store was the perfect spot to turn into an arena, even if it was on Mets turf. They had thrown as much dirt on the floor before lining it with a white chalk. The smell of sweat and blood hit the gang’s nostrils as they entered.

Croc was dealing with the catering he agreed to with his new business, La Familia Tavern. Jerry worked around the crowd trying to bet on Tannis, not noticing the odds had shifted. Lily stayed near Tannis for support. Tannis pulled the blood stained fur coat close.

The masked Commissioner took up their spot and started the processions with–of course– the hymns of the ancients. “*Take me out to the ball game*” the entire crowd sang, most wearing jerseys of some sort showing their allegiance to the commissioner, joined in. Not one of them dared disrespect the song. The caterers, however, kept asking Croc questions and getting unsatisfactory answers. He and the others were preoccupied keeping a lookout for Tannis’s opponent.

“Now, I’ve heard of a certain attack that happened last night. I would like to make it clear, I did not condone those actions. Those that took part, have been removed from the Hall of Fame,” the Commissioner spoke.

When they tapped their barbed baseball bat on the ground, their lackeys took the cue. Removing a drapery that was hiding a crude roster board hanging from the ceiling, everyone saw names in chalk had been crossed out.

The next tap had two enforcers bring out a bloody Jonats. Lily’s knife was gone from where she stabbed him, the wound wide open. They threw him to the floor, dust kicking up as he hit the ground.

“Now there will still be a fight, but first his mid-season replacement.”

Out of the crowd Jerry’s doppelganger, Jersey, stepped forward.

“Dammit, nothing good is gonna come from this,” Jerry whispered under his breath.

With the commissioner’s housekeeping taken care of, it was time to start the battle. The announcer took to the stage.

“In this corner, we have the once great and formidable MVP JOOONAATS” There was a mix of applause and boos from the crowd.

“Win this fight and you might stay on the bench!” said the commissioner from their throne.

“And in this corner, coming in wearing the coat of Reggie the Red, TANNNNNISSS”

Croc walked behind Tannis, clapping to the rhythm of an ancient hymn he knew. The crowd beam Tannis with excitement and whisper as they saw her coming up. Once in the corner Croc leaned over,

“So should I do the heist now while chronickliars not looking?” He whispered, remembering another job they had to do.

“No wait, we’ll have time after” Tannis said keeping eyes on Jonats.

“You don’t have to do everything yourself,” Lily said from the side. Croc stared. She was looking forward, eyes focused on the man that caused her so much pain. She’s been waiting for a long time. Croc hated to admit it, but she was right. Plus, he had caterers to deal with.

Once in the corner, Tannis dropped the robe to the floor. The crowd saw every inch of her naked body, including and more importantly, a slightly flustered Jonats. The announcer gathered himself before continuing.

“Remember ya’ll, this is a no weapon, no mutations bout. Break those rules and death is on the line.”

The crew doubted the commissioner would stop the fight to kill a rule breaker. They never could see past the commissioner’s black fencing mask. Never able to see if there was any truth to their words, hiding every part of themselves.

Jonats stood for a moment, standing in a pool of his own blood. It would be a long while before someone told them it was because of his severed Achilles tendon. A bell rang from somewhere.

Tannis went in first, swinging her fist at Jonats. Connecting with his forearm. Tannis swung again. This time Jontas didn’t try to block. An enforcer’s job was to fight and intimidate. He’s been doing this for a while, he knew it wouldn’t land. He saw his chance. He just had to move a tiny bit. Then he came in for a kill.

He put all he had into one punch. Only to hear his flesh tearing as Tannis’s bat-like nails sliced through his arm. The blood spewed out of the artery onto Tannis’s face, looking up at the big guy. He fell into a deep pool of his own blood.

The crowd shuffled away, it was the only bout of the day. The only event planned, full ring, full crowd. It ended in less than 30 seconds.

Before leaving, The Commissioner gave them a small prize for winning. A map of the Zone. Lily and Tannis stood above Jonats as he bled out. He had mere minutes for someone to try to find a chronicler to help him. Not a single member of the crew, the fans, or the caterers moved. They let him bleed.

Tannis and Lilly watched without moving. Six minutes of watching. Blood spurting out as he taunted them. They just watch. His mouth tried to gasp open, pooling whatever acid he could to spit on them. He sputter, choking on it and his blood more. They watched.

After an agonizing death, people cleared ou. Tannis and Lilly looted his body. It wasn’t much, but at least they got Croc new pants.

Jerry made a pittance on the bets. He was counting the small number of bullets when he noticed a small floating disk that went up to the vents. Before going to work on the ark’s new Workshop, he nudged his friend.

“Hey, yeah so, I just saw a weird thing go into the vent.” All he needed to do was point and Croc was on it. He jumped up and quickly chased through the vents. An exhilarating feeling rushed over Croc as his nails sunk into the metal ducts. The little disc tried its best to get away.

Tannis and Lilly headed back to their respective rooms to clean up. Lilly went to check out some sort of ancient bricks that were given to her after Croc cleared out Reggie’s desk. He said he fixed one with a pencil and forced the black spool back into it. She slammed into a bigger artifact that looked like a mishapen grey brick that supposely ran on the ancient’s energy. They knew that without a generator; Lily, or as her new reputation on the ark dubbed her, “Zap Cannon”, was the only one who could shock life into it.

Before pressing play, she brought some trusted friends who were more technologically inclined. She put in what the chroniclers called tapes, and pressed play.

The ancients had some strange performers. The first tape was catchy; it was a single group of performers with all sorts of ancient technology to play something kind of catchy. The boss started to sing about their personal goals, the importance of trends, and pleasure in conformity. “Hey Osha!” she called her friend over to hear.

They listen to the second tape, “Sweet Music to Jam to Vol. 1” The ancients had a wider variety of their old performances then. Lily was bobbing her head through most of it. Particularly the ones the voice of the ancient on the tape called “Hip Hop from the 90’s”.

The third tape was some sort of recording coming through with a static, and buzz. Words barely audible through the static and buzzing. “The Red Plague…” before losing some of the message, “Alpha J20… Beta F30…Gamma E9…Delta M2…Echo Q18”

Lily looked at Osha. She continued messing with the ancient artifact. They then found the radio. The voices on it got their attention. The first, was from someone who sounded like Tannis, though more talkative and stranger. Throwing words like “Aye” and “eejit,” talking with their old enemy Gaia, through this radio. They were preparing for something. The first voice, Galatea, mentioned they had something on the way to the Ark.

Croc was chasing the metal disc to a hall. The disc turned to try to find the big reptilian mutant. Croc ducked into a closet nearby. He opened the porthole and tossed his new pants out of it to the frozen wasteland. He took a deep breath till he felt his skin change. Stepping out, he followed the disc to see it circle a room near Tannis till no one else was around it.

He went back into the vents and crawled to the grate above the room. It was a grungy room, lit only by the sun as it spewed in from the porthole. The light bounced off the bodies of the two metal inhabitants. One was built as one of the ancient’s famously worshiped edible chip products, while the other was a giant that looked like it could be a rival enforcer. Standing between the two was a feminine body with her chest open to show metal pacing. When there was a tiny knock on the door, she opened the door, and the disc entered her chest. It closed with a small hisss.

“What a strange mutant” Croc thought to himself. He put his ear to the grate to the vent, listening in on their conversation. There was some talk about running away from some people and watching what the mutants at the diamond could do. “Once we get the generator from Marlotte we can leave-“ That’s all Croc needed and left.

He passed Lily as she was running to Tannis’s room. When the Zap Cannon has work to do, Croc wasn’t going to bother her. He knocked on the beings’ door. The “mutant” one opened the door just a hair.

“What you want?” she said

“Hey look, I don’t know what you here for. I want to like, talk, ’cause you know, you know good people, so yeah let’s talk?” How Croc came to lead a small kitchen staff gang, no one knew. Not even him. No one also knew what caused this mutant looking being to allow this large reptilian naked mutant with a katana wrapped in a leather jacket into the room.

Croc had no fear even as he was outnumbered by the three beings. He looked around the room as he put on his jacket.

“Oh so, want to check, you here to destroy the ark?”

“No-“The big one started.

“Cool that’s all- “

That’s when the ones who were trying to destroy the ark attacked. Explosions hit the side of the massive ship called home. They could hear cries of alarm around their ship.

“Oh for Ancient’s sake,” Croc said as he twisted out of the porthole to find the attackers. “First Reggie, now this.”

These attackers were scrawny, laughing, leather-jacket-wearing humanoids. The ark could mistake them for mutants if it wasn’t for some mechanical part embedded into their skin. Two of them made their way to attack Croc.

“The Helldrivers!” the “mutant ” exclaimed. One of the Helldrivers took his knife and tried to slash at Croc. It drew blood. Then it was Crocs’s turn; he raised his katana and smiled.

Around the ark, each mutant had their own enemy. Tannis and Lilly were luckily together to fight off their attackers. Lily had stressed herself enough that wings started to grow out of her back. Croc had one of the metal beings join him in the fight. Jerry while alone was a menace with his guns and his own fire powers.

The Ark was in chaos. Several died from the unexpected attack. betrayed by ones they saved from Gaia. The Ark survived with some wounds. The watchtower which mutants spent days building to keep an eye for this exact sort of attack, destroyed. One day, one attack. The Ark would rebuild, the mutants had troubles before. This time, they were pissed, and for once not at each other.

j j j

Seth Skorkowsky: A channel I wish I could share

My favourite RPG Channel that I wish I could share with my players

In 2016, in the Lone Star state of Texas, one awful role-playing game session led a fantasy and horror author to create a video, published on Nov 23, 2016, titled: The Social Contract. A video that explains the social contract that is made when a group of friends get together to play a tabletop role-playing game. The unspoken contract details the responsibilities of the GM to the table. The same contract outlines the responsibilities of players; something that isn’t typically brought up due to the large amount of Tabletop RPG advice videos are geared more towards GMs. The contract is signed before the game is even played. Signed during planning stages.. Though, like all modern terms and conditions, not fully read. The video reminds both sides that gaming is a group effort where everyone has to do their part and be prepared to show up to have a fun time. The fantasy and horror author, Seth Skorkowsky, put out the video to help others. Now after years of producing (at time of writing) and a total of 332 videos later, he is still creating videos to help GMs and players in the tabletop hobby

Seth Skorkowsky found his niche in the games he enjoys and the stories he likes to tell. His main draw is reviewing adventures, going through the adventures and his experience running them successfully.  Throughout his spoiler heavy videos, he gives spots of advice regarding mechanics or criticisms of a plot hole and how to fix it.  Near the end, he typically says what could be changed to help heighten the adventure. These adventures range from a light spattering of Advance Dungeons And Dragons adventures to a few from Cyberpunk 2020 and so on. There is a handful of other systems that he has played through his gaming history.

The one he clearly loves and enjoys the most is Call of Cthulhu. At time of writing, he has 67 Call of Cthulhu adventures, 9 campaign diaries (reviewing Chaosium’s pulp campaign of The Two Headed Serpent), and 14 videos giving an overview of the game of Call of Cthulhu itself. Compared to his second most talked about system, Traveller 2e. With only 27 videos on their adventures, a 10 video campaign diary & review for Mongoose’s Secrets of the Ancients, 5 videos for the campaign Mystery of BT-SHT 365, and 12 videos on Traveller’s 2e system itself.

What makes all these videos special is his style. While he may have begun in, as he calls it,   “an in-your face style,” he evolved over time. He put his radio/tv/film degree to work, got better at editing, lining his shots, and arguably the most important thing, was the way he created his videos as if he was his own double act. In January of 2017, with a video review of Call of Cthulhu‘s adventure The Haunting, he told the story of an NPC that would help the characters but not take the limelight: a drunk detective played by Seth with his ponytail tucked into a fedora, and using what can generously can be called a 1920s Boston accent. Seth had created Jack the NPC.

Jack soon became a bigger part of his videos, giving a second imaginary person that would give the players perspective in the review. Seth had a vehicle to bounce jokes off of, help alleviate what could be boring stretches of a review, and a medium to use to allow cutaway gags that liven up his reviews. He even has a popular running joke that continues to this day of how similar some adventures force a particular situation onto a specific hero. Jack is malleable as an idea, unbound by games. Each different game could have a different version of Jack. Jack would be wearing a Conan the Barbarian  inspired costume for when Seth discusses Modiphius (now out-of-print) Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed RPG, one for modern day detective work such as Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green or the contemporary horror of Kult: Divinity Lost.

Over time, he created more characters to help him talk about more tabletop roleplaying game-related subjects. He created the imaginary players of Todd, Mike, Dweebles, and Kevin.  When he delves into videos about RPG Philosophy, running RPGs, or playing RPGs, He bounces off the array of characters he created to showcase examples and give colorful commentary. With noticeable quirks and outfits, you forget each is played by the same person.

I wish I could share such an entertaining channel with my friends and players, but it’s difficult. When it comes to his more memorable videos, they are spoiler filled adventures. When It comes to the RPG Philosophy videos, the ones I want to send are ones about great player traits or mindsets. Sending to one person feels like calling them out, telling them they are not as great at the table as they could be. Sending to a chat filled with friends and players still has a similar, albeit a less impactful, effect.

When it comes to Seth’s channel it poses a familiar question one experiences when developing an RPG: who is the intended audience? Do you market towards the players with new feats, spells classes, in doing so potentially overwhelming the GM with new additions that they may not allow? Or targeting the smaller market of GMs that take the reins and explore new worlds and adventures?

Who can I share the channel with? Well the answer is another GM. Seth contains countless GM advice tips that, while I do agree with many but not all, give a different and thoughtful viewpoint on topics. Such was the case with his video on Session 0, metagaming, and power gamers. There are still several videos I can share with players to excite them, such as the idea of themed campaigns or any from his Playing RPGs playlist. 

To answer: who would enjoy the channel the most? 

The forever GM that is not in my game and that doesn’t plan to be. The GM who would enjoy the Call of Cthulhu introduction and seeing the variety of stories that can be told within. The GM that can get excited about systems, and wants to improve their craft. A game-master that I do not know yet, but hope finds Seth Skorkowsky through this post. 

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Thoughts On – “The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying: Guidelines and Strategies for Running PC-Driven Narratives in 5E Adventures” by Jonah Fishel & Tristen Fishel

175 words or less, thoughts and feelings that I had after reading the book


After GMing for about 12 years, reading countless articles, and watching several videos to help me improve my craft; there’s always some advice that gets to me saying “I didn’t thought about it like that”. This book helped bring a new way to run TTRPGs that are character focus. While marketed to GMs, It also helps players in fleshing out a character. I was able to use for a character I’m currently playing for the better. There are a few pieces of advice near the end that I do not fully agree with, though my main issue is the last half of the book gets more complex. Building on the earlier ideas yet in a way that made it harder to parse. After multiple reads, I had realized these techniques where ones I’ve heard before in a more digestible way elsewhere. I enjoyed the book enough to order a physical copy to have as a good resource to revisit to time and time again.

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Mutant Year Zero: 27 Sessions Later

A reflection back at my MYZ campaign

Please note this is not a review, this is just a reflection of my time running a game. A live and learn journal from the past me to make it better for the future me.

I have been a fan of Free League and their Year Zero Engine for a long time. The simplicity of roll d6’s and if you get a 6 you achieve what you set out to do. It makes it easy to introduce to new players. Yet Free League seems to find new ways to expand and enhance their games with their system. Recently I was able to finish a campaign of one of their early games with Mutant Year Zero, a post apocalypse game where players play as Mutants that deal with a meta-plot throughout the game. This is actually my second campaign, but my first campaign ended fairly early due to a TPK. Afterwards, the players wanted to try something else for a while. This is important because while we didn’t finish the meta-plot on the first go around, we were able to on the second, to its detriment

All my notes out of my disc-bound journal. It is significantly lighter.


Overall I felt the campaign went just okay. I do think my overall GM-ing and the moves I made to move the story felt more to lean towards story beats to finish the meta-plot than it was to play into the player characters. All PC’s are built with NPCs they need to protect, that they hate, and big dreams that they aspire to . This helps me as GM know what kind of NPCs are in their lives and what I should challenge to have them reach their dream. I found it somewhat difficult. Each class has different dreams, which the players dived fully into. However there was a slight clash in the dreams. The player that chose the boss had more desires to stay at their commune ark to build their crew . While others had desires to leave this place and find a safe haven known as Eden. When trouble came up that was outside in the wilderness zone, the boss player almost did not join the other players. Leaving one person back while 4 others is something I try to avoid.


I had explained it’s not unusual for the bosses to leave with their crew to explore the zone. I think I should have given an option of making a character that will join the characters instead. I did that later in the session. Two player characters had to stay back. One player was unable to make the session while the other player character used an in-game reason to stay back. One picked an NPC I had, to play as during their exploration. The other got to play a character I made. This new character had goals and relationship to the place that was being explored. This worked great, and led to play of different characters, classes, and roleplaying something that usually wouldn’t have been played. Playing a different society than what was established. Even then, I ran a 2 person session for these two players to see what happened at the ark. The main Friday group ran the adventure longer in game time than I thought. So I made a secret chat with the other two players to play by post on how a few things got wrapped up. Once again this worked fantastically. The two players were super excited to see the chat and immediately start typing the future trouble, things that their characters did to further the story. This is something that I have to remember to try again in the future

Tokens and dice for Mutant Year Zero. I did try using the token for a session, but it didn’t add much for us. Hopefully I can use them in future games.


While I love the Ark, this community base players create at the start of the game. It grow throughout the game with It was difficult at the start to incorporate what they knew regarding the ark and how they ran it. Questions I had to figure out was, How does the ark make decisions? The elder is going looney, how does the rest of the ark react? How much power does the elder have? In hindsight, this should have been things I brought up in a session 0 to the players instead of them to me. This is their small community of mutants. Let them build it out.


Looking back at the game, the big thing I would have done differently is that I would try to extend or suggest moments with NPCs. At least for the first couple of sessions. Near the end of the campaign, one of the things I heard constantly is that it seems like a lot of bad things are constantly happening. There’s never a moment of calm, it’s just the world beating on the PCs. I feel like the moments to recharge Empathy are supposed to give those moments of respite. Though whenever PCs were having moments with another PC, it usually led to plans and more things being done that further the action. If I just pushed a bit by example with an NPC that the moments are supposed to be times you sit and empathize or share the trouble. Open a can of grub to share with the foreign mutant who is looking out to the river, mention how the quiet stillness reminds of the sea though the view would never be as good as the sea when the moon and stars are out over the blue waters. Or just even pushing, what is the moment you and your dog share in order to remember you both have each other in this brutal world? More leading questions, than ones that were established, to have players try to have those moments with each other.

Cheat Sheets, Character sheets, and one of the books i used to run the game


Another thing is just for me to pay attention to classes/powers. I noticed one player had chosen the dog handler class, but all the tracking was done by the stalker class as they had the mutation of a dog nose which helps in the same way. This kind of left that player being more a spectator and fighter, than actively contributing to the explorations. It, somehow, wasn’t until the last sessions that I realized this, and had to ask the player playing the stalker to let the dog handler track.

Overall, I need to work on letting go into the meta-plot and need work on NPCs with PCs in a small consistent setting. The home base relationship and my ability to use important NPCs in a character’s backstory to spin off their own hooks. To remember the GM adage to bring back an old NPC versus introducing a new one. I should also be okay with running smaller campaigns. This game took us about a year to complete, not nearly the longest we ever ran. But there was an overall feel of fatigue with the game around session 18. I felt like the general excitement got back up near the end when I started trying two new techniques. Painting-the-scene and 7-3-1 techniques from The Gauntlet. It definitely helped flesh out the world.

Our next campaign is going to be a game of Mausritter. I think i might journal the adventures and my thoughts. Might be a good way to keep a record of everything. I’ll post it here a few weeks after the adventure in case any of my players read this site.

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Mutant Year Zero and The Lazy Dungeon Master Steps

The other day I was listening to The Lazy RPG Podcast – D&D and RPG News and GM Prep from Sly Flourish’s, A talk show and prep show hosted by Mike Shea of the popular book, Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.  A book that has eight steps that help a GM prepare for game nights. On one of his episodes, “A Digital 5e Utopia – Lazy RPG Talk Show”, a Patreon member of his ask the question about using dialogue options for an NPC. Mike’s response to it was that dialogue options were a form of step 4 from the book, Secrets and Clues. Short pieces of information that are relevant to what players would want to know or something they can discover throughout the game. Dialogue options are just tied to specific characters where Mike’s method of Secrets and clues does not rely on a character or location, they can be dropped whenever the game makes sense. I personally didn’t take much stock of this. I have read Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, which I have read several times and find it to be an excellent resource with a method that does not work for me. At least I didn’t think it did.

A heavily bookmarked copy of Sly Flourish on top of a heavily bookmarked copy of Mutant Year Zero

I found myself preparing for my weekly Friday night group where we play the post-apocalyptic game of Mutant Year Zero, published by Free League Publishing. As I was going through the setup, something clicked. I realize the game inadvertently had mechanics built into the game that go almost hand in hand with the steps of the Lazy GM. There’s a page that helps GMs prepare for session to session, I was surprised I just hadn’t noticed how much it is in line with the lazy steps and how much I’ve been using the method. I want to go over the steps and just do a quick dissection of how Mutant Year Zero does this. If you don’t have the book, you can look at The Lazy GM’s Resource Document, where Mike Shea has gratefully published the basics in creative common. Now before we start one of the big things to know about Mutant Year zero is that it has two different main areas of gameplay. The first is the ark, your home base and community that is trying to survive. The second is the zone, and unexplored wilderness that is explored on a grid. Both go hand in hand but have different gameplay style and moments of roleplaying.

The Eight Steps of Lazy RPG Prep

For a typical game session, the Lazy RPG Prep checklist looks like this:

  • Review the characters
  • Create a strong start
  • Outline potential scenes
  • Define secrets and clues
  • Develop fantastic locations
  • Outline important NPCs
  • Choose relevant monsters
  • Select magic item rewards

Here’s a brief summary of each of the steps.

https://slyflourish.com/lazy_gm_resource_document.html#eightsteps

With that out of the way, Let’s look at the first step, review the characters. This is looking at characters and what they want. This is easily the character’s Big Dream, a section filled out at character creation that tells what the character is working toward. In face it is also great for step 3 of outlining potential scenes, where the GM can help prep situations that lead to the big dream. Other parts of character sheet help a GM with other steps of the Lazy DM steps. Relations to NPCs help Step 6 with outlining important NPCS.

The character sheet inside the Mutant Year Zero Rulebook

The second step creating a strong start, is one few step that are based on the story and what has happened previous sessions.  Now when we get to step 3. Outline potential scenes, this is great when you are In the ark cause you roll or draw threat cards that show what new threat is happening at the ark. You can outline what scenes of things happening at the ark when the threat occurs. Which in turn leads to step 4. Secrets and clues, where you can prepare clues and secrets on how the ark can survive or where a resource will be needed for. Steps 5. Develop fantastic locations and step 6 outline important NPCS, are done when people are creating the ark with both creating what their ark look like, where the key factions are located, and as they work on the ark, they create more fantastic locations.

The Zone works very much like a hex crawl, as players crawl over the map exploring locations. This kind of style already works for the final four steps. The maps that come with the game already some interesting locations that you can take inspirations to develop fantastic. Then the book has a large number of tables that help a GM develop fantastic locations out in the wild. There’s a table that shows if certain terrain has threats, ruins or ancient cool artifacts of the old age in the area. There’s a table that works with steps 6. And step 7 where you roll to see if the threat in the zone is humanoid, or beast. Or the deadliest enemy to man, Nature. All the while the books says, “remember GM, this is just a guideline, you are the GM. Maybe these thick woods grew around an ancient store of the old age holding the strings of Wonderwall”

A picture of the zone, tokens, and dice for Mutant Year Zero.

Now there are times when one set of steps is more important to a session than another. If the ark isn’t growing, you are going to have the same locations each time and not really running into monsters. Doesn’t mean there’s not a crazy cannibal clown running around the naval aircraft carrier that your players pick as the ark, it just means that things like that won’t be happening all the time. But that’s kind of the point. It’s supposed to be this community and home that is slowly growing and changing. More personal problems and roleplaying between ark members. The Lazy steps important to the ark and to zone exploration are different and the lazy DM steps are supposed to be modular. I think Mike Shea put it best when he wrote

“The eight step…are intended to be modular…You may have other steps you find vital to your prep not included here or find that some of these steps don’t serve you and are easily skipped. That’s perfect. That’s how the Lazy DM style is supposed to work.“

Mike Shea via https://slyflourish.com/eight_steps_2023.html

Originally, I had chicken scratches and kind of wild notes that I’ve always used, but realizing how much it fits into the 8 steps has me using the whole 8 steps a lot more and having more consistent and easier to read perpetration notes.

Now the point of this blog was more to look between these two pieces of work. It’s not sponsored and was for me to get my thoughts out, and in a way to say how easy it is to run Mutant Year Zero. Writing this made me come to the conclusion that I would recommend it for beginner GMs if they want to start with a more roleplay focus game. If interested in Mutant Year Zero you can pick up the corebook here or the starter booklet for free here. This blog post was also my way to say I’ve come around on the Lazy DM 8 steps and whole heartily recommend the book. The reference document is here, but if you want to buy the book you can get it here. Note: I do not get money from either of these links, nor was this blog post sponsor, I genuinely love these two books Thank you to everyone who worked on Mutant Year Zero and Thank you Mike from Sly Flourish for the 8 steps.

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