EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to out table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When We Got A Games Table!

At last, my chance to go full Eddie!

Thanks to my amazing, hard-working and supportive wife, Rachel, we acquired a games table in December, 2022.

It's something I'd yearned for ever since learning they were a real 'thing; and finally it was mine... er... ours.

Rachel has long said we needed a new dining table and I managed to persuade her that she should spend her bonus on a games table, which would then double as both dining table and venue for the Tuesday Knights and I to sling dice.

I did a ton of research, we measured a lot, drew up plans, found a UK company that specialised in games tables (Geeknson), asked a lot of questions, and finally pulled the trigger on a bespoke design back in late July/early August of that year.

The table arrived, and was unwrapped, just before Christmas, but I'd kept shtum on my "secret weapon" so that the Tuesday Knights would be the first to see it, in person, at that January's session of Pete's Hollow Earth  Expedition campaign (see below).

However, that didn't stop me 'playing' with it beforehand, for an Eddie Munson-esque "photoshoot" of an imaginary game of Dungeons & Dragons featuring the characters from the '80s cartoon as the protagonists, caught between a demonic flying creature and a warband of orcs.

I have such dreams for this new addition to the house that will justify the expenditure of Rachel's hard-earned cash on my geeky dream.

Presto the magician blasts the demon, as the evil gnome sorcerer cackles

Eddie does it much better than me, but you get what I was going for!

Gamesmaster Pete goes high-tech, flipping his tablet screen over the wooden GM screen
attachment to present us with a slideshow introduction to the adventure

A lot happened as always in that night's episode of Pete's pulp Hollow Earth Expedition campaign (which, by 2026, has morphed into an OUTGUNNED game), but here's a "picture special" of The Tuesday Knights enjoying their first meeting around the new games table.

Afterwards, Clare wrote the following about the table in her daily blog (now a Substack) of positive moments, Three Beautiful Things:

"I am so astonished by Tim's new gaming table -- which he has been keeping a secret since it was ordered in the summer -- that I gasp at each new revelation. First the top lifts off; next there's a green baize playing surface... that could be lifted off to reveal a map table... and then there are extra little tables to attach for your drink and your notebook; and a special desk for the GM, too. The whole smells pleasantly of new wood and polish."

Me using the "player's side table attachment" feature for my dice and notebook

Pete, at the head of the table, liked having a wooden screen and his own tray for dice, notes etc

An impromptu shoot-out in the back streets of 1930's Rio puts Oynx (Mark's character)
and Freya (Clare's character) in the firing line.

Here's me making full use of the "cup holder" feature

The morning after and the table had transformed back into a dining table

The Twilight Sword Will Be Drawn on April 7

Way of The Blade, art by Daniela Giubellini

A beta PDF of the Twilight Sword roleplaying game, along with the starter set, will be released - to those of us who backed the crowdfunding campaign last year - on April 7, according to a recent update from publisher Two Little Mice.

The update added that the:

"...BETA will be pretty advanced, with maybe some typos left to find, and some artwork missing. But you can expect the full Twilight Sword experience, including an introductory mini-campaign ready to play."

Work is also proceeding at a pace on the Lands of Radia supplement, detailing the default setting for the game, so that is also expected to be finished soon.

The company - which is also responsible for the ever-expanding OUTGUNNED catalogue of action movie-themed games, Household, Memento Mori etc - calls Twilight Sword its "most ambitious project to date", which has me even more excited than ever for the game's arrival.

The print edition of the anime and video game-inspired, sword-and-sorcery ttrpg Twilight Sword is still on track to be shipped to backers at the beginning of August.

Lumino Inn, art by Donata Poli

EPISODE FOUR: Plane Sailing

Our heroes in their seaplane

[Unfortunately, Mark was unable to attend last night's game; his one request was that his character, our pilot Onyx, stay with our plane. However, what we couldn't have known was that almost the entire episode took place within the seaplane... and Onyx - run by committee - turned out to be our MVP!]

Picking up from the end of the previous episode, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man), and Onyx (Mark's pilot) - launched our seaplane in pursuit of the giant Nazi zeppelin.

The Hindenburg-sized airship was heading towards the co-ordinates we had discovered that we believed revealed the location of the mythical island-state of Atlantis!

Our foes didn't know that we had the location as well - thanks to some clever thinking by Freya - and so I advised veering off to refuel at an airbase of Oynx's choosing, then beating the enemy to the secret location.

However, that option was quickly taken off the board when two Luftwaffe planes (launched from under the airship) came diving towards us, intent on shooting us down.

As our plane was unarmed, Buck leaned out of one of the rear doors - secured by a seat belt  and with Dick helping him steady his aim - and started to open fire with his hunting rifle.

Our plane took some hits in the attack, but I managed to take out one of the pilots so that he crashed his plane into the ground. 

The zeppelin

Evading the other, Oynx - assisted by eagle-eyed Freya - then spectacularly flew our plane up and into the aircraft hanger underneath the zeppelin... surprising the two mechanics working in there.

Still secured at the back door of our plane, Buck shot one of the technicians in the knee, taking him out of action, while Dick and Freya rushed out and assaulted the other. Dick delivered an impressive uppercut, K.O.ing the man instantly.

Pete's hasty map of the hangar underneath the zeppelin

Convinced the Nazis were unaware of our presence, we secured the hangar, tying up the two unconscious men and hiding them behind some crates. Dick barricaded the portals at either end of the large room, so no one could get in, then we set to work manoeuvring our plane so that it was ready to eject when the moment was right.

Several hours passed and we saw that the zeppelin was now sailing over the Mediterranean at night, heading towards a mysterious bank of clouds.

At this point, we could hear people banging on the doors - trying to get in - and so it was clearly time, as the airship entered the fog bank, to drop out of the hanger and see where we were.

I'm not sure we really expected to see the ancient city of Atlantis floating on the stormy sea in front of us!

ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! (it's only a model)

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark (absent)

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Twilight Sword Update

All the crowdfunded shiny goodness of Twilight Sword is on track to be shipped to backers around the beginning of August, however the PDFs of the two main books and starter set could be sent out as early as the end of March.

These nuggets dropped during the first livestream of the year, yesterday, by two of the founders of the game's Italian production company, Two Little Mice, Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola.

The game, the company's biggest project to date, is currently going through extensive playtesting to hone the mechanics.

While the land of Radia remains central to the default campaign included in Twilight Sword, the core book has been rewritten to make the game more setting agnostic, so gamemasters can easily use their own settings with the system.

The bulk of the livestream concerned the production of other current Two Little Mice projects, such as Outgunned Superheroes, the latest variant of their action movie-styled roleplaying game.

Without going into too much detail, it was revealed that the company's next crowdfunding campaign, taking place in May, would be another addition to Outgunned.

EPISODE THREE: "Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!"

Pete modelling this year's bold shirt choice for turning the tables on our player-characters

After their successful treasure hunt last time, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's former G-man), and Onyx (Mark's aviatrix) - are gathered in the ornate office of their paymaster, Professor Kasper Wieloch.

We are in Austria, in a very stately home on the banks of Lake Wolfgang (which is a real lake).

The professor was delighted that we'd found the cypher and shares with us a copy of the document he believes is the necessary element to crack it and find the co-ordinates of the lost island of Atlantis.

It's a word puzzle that eventually Onyx and Freya solve, allowing Kasper to correctly jiggle the dials on the ancient cypher we'd brought back from Greenland, revealing to him just what he wanted to know.

[Of course, we - as players - had seen massive red flags, since the start of this session, about this gathering, This started with Pete setting up miniatures on the table to show where we all were for what should have been a simple debriefing. Secondly, he dropped in that we'd all been made to surrender our weapons - by the professor's staff - on the way in, much to Mark/Onyx's chagrin].

Wieloch's lakeside mansion

Wieloch's understated office

With a manic grin on his face, Wieloch shrugged off his lab coat to reveal a Nazi uniform underneath as he spoke into a microphone on the desk - dictating the co-ordinates.

Behind us, his butler, Hans (who Onyx had failed to seduce to persuade him to fetch her weapon back) drew a pistol, as doors on both sides of the room swung open and eight Nazi thugs burst into the room, pointing guns at us.

Buck charged the nearest thug to him, barrelling him over and subsequently hoisting him up and using his body as a shield to absorb the bullets fired in his direction. He then threw the corpse at two of the others, bringing them down and dived at the final minion on his side of the room and engaged him in a drawn-out slugfest.

Professor Kasper Wieloch (left) and Hans The Butler

Onyx dived over Wieloch's desk and proceeded to stick her fingers in his eyes, in an attempt to blind him and bring him to heel. Unfortunately their bloody tussle ended with the Nazi scientist staggering blindly out of one of the doors and clattering down stairs to find the rest of his men.

Freya and Dick took on the other four Nazis - as well as Hans the nefarious butler - in a surprisingly one-sided fight, as the thugs seemed as accurate in their shooting as Star Wars stormtroopers. 

Once we were victorious, we saw out the window that the wounded Wieloch was being helped into a small zeppelin that had docked in his garden; his escape being covered by a number of rifle-bearing soldiers who kept us pinned down as they got away.

Freya was able to get an impression of the co-ordinates off of Wieloch's desktop notepad, then we bolted down to our seaplane... only to discover it had (unsurprisingly) been sabotaged by the villains.

Onyx was quite confident her aircraft would be quicker than that of the bad guys, but we had to trust that her legendary repair skills were up to the task of undoing whatever damage the Nazis had done.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark 

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

MY NOTES: While it was great to have Mark back at the table again, the first time we'd all been together for the better part of nine months, Outgunned Adventures is currently reinforcing my long-held dislike of dice pool systems.

I know we're still getting to grips with a new system, and trying to grasp all its nuances, but for what - at first glance - appears to be a simple system (much like Hollow Earth Expedition's Ubiquity mechanics before it), seems almost randomly fiddly.

Dice pools also make everything slow - as was demonstrated by the fact that almost the entirety of this session was our fight against the bad guys.

Conversely, I would point out that I appreciated the fact that the thugs we were fighting were incredibly lousy shots. It's not exactly cinematic (and that's the style the game is seeking to emulate) for a larger-than-life pulp hero to be offed by a random goon!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: And So It Began (Again)

The first meeting of the Tuesday Knights (our gaming group) took place on August 19, 2008, when I ran the debut session of a new Castles & Crusades campaign for Nick, Pete, and Clare.

This was the first role-playing game I'd actually run for over a decade. I'd bottled out of running games several times since I'd come out of hospital in 2005 and was still very anxious about whether my health (both physically and mentally) would be up to the challenge.

In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes I made in those early days was getting distracted by the "new shiny", switching systems to Labyrinth Lord and then grinding the game into the ground, so someone else had to run something instead.

If I could travel back to 2008, I'd tell my younger self to have faith and stick with Castles & Crusades. Who knows, if that had been the case, we could still be playing that campaign now? How incredible would that be?

In the 17 years since that fateful day in the dining room of our old house, our pool of potential players has blossomed, while Pete, Clare and I remain the consistent core. We were joined by Kevin, who has become another constant around the table, Steve, Simon, Meredith, Erica, Mark and, most recently, Mark's daughter, Rebecca.

While other demands on their time have seen Nick, Steve, Simon, Meredith, and Erica step away from the group, we still manage to corral a solid four or five people for our monthly sessions.

Despite the collapse of that original campaign, I did manage to run a three year fantasy campaign using Heroes and Other Worlds (a modern reworking of the classic GURPS-adjacent Fantasy Trip system), which ended with the destruction of the world.

Pete ran a number of Top Secret espionage games, Meredith presented us with a wholly homemade World of Warcraft adventure, Simon saw us right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft in his 5e D&D Curse of Strahd campaign (which went 'online' during the COVID pandemic), Clare's run some memorable indie one-shots, and the other year Mark scared the bejeebers out of us with his self-penned Call of Cthulhu rural horror adventure.

In between these I've tried to run some other games, but they've invariably crashed-and-burned because of my insecurities, self-doubt, and limited attention span.

I'm hoping that, after my two recent debacles (with Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) I've finally learned enough that when I'm next allowed to sit behind the gamesmaster's screen I'll be able to keep the train on the tracks.

However, our most enduring game has been Pete's "weird science" pulp adventure campaign that started as a 1950's "Atomic Horror" campaign using GURPS, then time-slipped to the 1930s for an epic Hollow Earth Expedition run, before, at the end of last year, switching systems again to Outgunned Adventures for more Indiana Jones-style shenanigans.

And through all this, my rock and number one cheerleader has been my wonderful non-geeky wife, Rachel, who may not get the delights of roleplaying games, but understands how important they are to me.

Every month she cooks our group pizza, serves up drinks, and joins in the pre-game banter as we all catch-up on whatever is going on in our lives.

Last year's gaming plans were largely scuppered by my back problems (osteoarthritis), but hopefully that's behind me now (see what I did there?) and 2026 will be a return to regular gaming for the foreseeable future.

TWILIGHT SWORD: One Of 2026's Most Anticipated Games

Two Little Mice's Twilight Sword has ranked tenth in EN World's recent annual community vote to find the most eagerly-awaited games of the coming year.

The Italian games company is also responsible for the Outgunned range of action film roleplaying games, of which the Tuesday Knights are currently playing the pulp iteration Outgunned Adventures.

However, Twilight Sword is a game system I have a financial interest in, having backed its crowdsourcing campaign almost entirely on vibes.

To be honest very little has been revealed about the game, besides the fact that the original games engine (the Created at Twilight system) revolves around a central mechanic involving a 1d12 "roll under" check.

During the fundraising campaign, the designers shared glimpses of  monsters, character sheets, and gaming sub-systems - all of which seemed to optimise simplicity and gorgeous design.

There's a gorgeous, free introductory PDF as well, which is primarily about evoking the desired atmosphere of Twilight Sword with a broad overview of the rules mechanics, setting and the role of player-characters (Champions) in overcoming Despair and bringing Hope back to the conquered lands of Radia.

While this alone might not have been enough to lure me in, my experience with Outgunned told me these people know how to design games, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the end of last year I was toying with some ideas for an anime-inspired fantasy setting for my next campaign - having realised that I work best as a gamesmaster when running a fantasy campaign - and was looking at Break!! and Twilight Sword.

Both are beautifully-designed games, but while Break!! feels akin with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (or even Third Edition), Twilight Sword is giving off more BECMI or B/X "vibes" with its seeming simplicity. This better suits where I am at the moment with my approach to gaming and desire to run something where the rules aren't tripping everyone up every other round.

The EN World post points out that Twilight Sword "is inspired by classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy", which makes my interest slightly perverse as I've only played Zelda once and have never played Final Fantasy. I'm just not a video gamer, but I find the worlds and mythologies created for these games fascinating.

I also love the fact that Twilight Sword is set on a world - seemingly - without humans, instead elf-like creatures are the dominant species along with anthropomorphic animals (you know I'll be bringing the ducks) and other fantastical races.

This is a million miles away from the human-centric fantasy world I have been pushing in recent years and I'm more than okay with that. I've definitely loosened up my ideas what makes a dynamic roleplaying game setting in the last 12 months or so... thanks, in large, part to watching a lot of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired anime.

Twilight Sword isn't released until the middle of 2026 (at the earliest), so that's when I'll be making my final decision on whether this is the new system I bring to the Tuesday Knights. But I'm very optimistic that this is a shoo-in.

I have a collection of ideas, names, atmospheric suggestions etc stored as notes on my phone for my, as yet undefined, Twilight Sword campaign but I won't know how applicable they are until more information about the game and its setting (the lands of Radia) comes out.

That also means I probably won't be talking much about Twilight Sword - as it is largely a mystery - either here or "in real life" until closer to the actual time it's likely to be in my hands.

OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: A Player's Perspective

The Tuesday Knights tackle our second Outgunned Adventures session

Hopefully you've already read the write-up of what went down in this week's Outgunned Adventures session for the Tuesday Knights, but I thought I'd give you a little perspective on the game from my point-of-view, as a player.

First things first, I have to say that despite my deep-rooted dislike of "dice pool" mechanics there's something about the system at the heart of Outgunned that really appeals to me.

It takes the common "ability + skill" approach to decide the size of your available d6 dice pool, but then once you roll you're not totalling the dice or looking for specific numbers over a certain value, instead you want collections of identical numbers (such as 4,4,4 on three of the six dice you rolled). The larger that collective the better.

It's a bit like Yahtzee.

However, if you don't get a big enough set (usually three identical numbers are required for a typical, heroic action), you can elect to reroll the dice from your pool that weren't counted in the matching set, to try and get more duplicates.

Unfortunately, if this reroll doesn't add to your original total you actually forfeit one of the dice already counted towards your success total. That means if you only had two matches to start with, you automatically fail.

I loved this risk/reward gambling element. There was a definite air of tension around the table when people chose to reroll - followed by elation if they succeeded and despair if they failed.

The Outgunned game engine is a seemingly simple system at first glance, but there are definite nuances and complications that we're not totally savvy with yet.

For instance, there are issues around the rerolls - and "free" rerolls that our characters' Feats/Abilities granted them - that need to be ironed out.

And, as much as I enjoy an exciting skill challenge, I couldn't help but feel that there was a LOT of dice rolls called for in our opening scenario. Surely some of these multiple checks to advance through a certain task (such as climbing a cliff wall) could have been bundled together?

That said, I already rate these mechanics way ahead of the Ubiquity dice pool system used in our previous Hollow Earth Expedition segment of Pete's on-going weird science/pulp adventure campaign.

Having championed Ubiquity for so long in theory, it was quite sad to discover what a mess it often turned out to be in actual play whenever we tried anything beyond a straight-forward test of our skills.

It should be noted, of course, that this first two-part Outgunned adventure (Frozen Legacy) only involved our heroes facing the elements, rugged terrain, and a tricky set-piece to retrieve the "mysterious artefact".

We have yet to discover how the mechanics handle combat (usually such a key part of our games) and damage.

While we lost "Grit" (the game's version of stamina and 'hit points') through failing crucial challenges (such as keeping our balance on the violently rocking Viking longship), we have no clue how this translates to gunbattles and fisticuffs.

Pete started the evening by presenting us with nicely filled in character sheets as well as small file of papers explaining both the basic rules mechanics of Outgunned and personal explanations of our character's skills, Feats (special abilities), and equipment. This was all very handy.

It was a shame Mark couldn't make last night's session. However, on the bright side it means we'll get another refresher course on the core rules again next month, which will hopefully fill in a few of the gaps in our knowledge of the system.

I think between us - as we have some pretty smart cookies around the table - we should be able to get to grips with the subtleties of Outgunned Adventures. This will let the rules slip into the background and we can be free to carve Indiana Jones-inspired roles for our characters in this brave, new world of 1936.

EPISODE TWO: Fate Hangs In The Balance

Precariously suspended between a pillar of rock and one of ice, Erik The Red's Drakkar

Picking up from the end of the last episode, our heroes were confronted by the sight of Erik The Red's two-masted longship, The Drakkar, suspended precariously between a pillar of rock and a pillar of ice.

An enormous chasm split the subterranean cavern in which we found ourselves, dropping away hundreds of feet to freezing water below and opening to the sky far above us, causing the ice to glitter with ambient light.

Buck (my world-weary explorer), Dick (Kevin's former G-man), and Freya (Clare's photojournalist) stood at the foot of the rocky pillar, the words of our benefactor Professor Casper Wieloch ringing in our ears about his quest for a mysterious artefact from this site.

Clearly this dangerously balanced Viking longboat was the ideal place to hide such an item.

It was quickly decided that Buck would climb up to the ship, as climbing was one of his areas of expertise, and then Freya would follow to lend support.

Dick would stay on the rocky ledge to keep an eye on things outside of the longboat. 

[Unfortunately, this did mean that Kevin was rather side-lined for a vast portion of this session, which I felt rather bad about as Buck took the spotlight].

Carefully, we made our way onto the ship... but not carefully enough. We had barely taken a step onto its deck when it shifted and dropped dramatically at one end.

We could see a trapdoor hatch near the prow and so, roped together, Freya and Buck cautiously made their way along the central aisle, between the oarsmen's seats, as the boat groaned and shifted beneath us.

Buck made it through the hatch, and Freya followed. We found a cargo hold full of crates, rotting barrels, and frozen fish, but the beady-eyed Freya couldn't see any indication of treasure down here.

She did draw attention to the cracked and loose floorboards though, which gave Buck the idea of prying one up to see if anything was hidden underneath them.

This the two adventurers did. And the first thing they saw was the glint of gold coins!

They needed to lift up a second floorboard so Buck could get down there, but the ship lurched dangerously to one side, not only sending crates and barrels sliding about, but also dislodging a small collection of gold coins.

Once the ship had settled, Buck lowered himself down and, ignoring the few gold coins scattered around, immediately saw the skeleton of a Viking warrior laid to rest in the crawlspace under the hold. The long-dead Norseman was clutching a scrap of paper and a large metal disc.

Buck delicately removed both items, but that movement was the final straw for the ship. It started to noisily crack in half and was obviously going to plummet the great distance into the icy water below.

Witnessing this from outside, Dick took hold of the rope that was attached to his comrades, who were racing out of the crumbling relic. 

In a storm of rotting wood, Buck and Freya leapt to safety, secured by Dick.

Taking a breath on the ledge, Freya read the scrap of parchment:

She translated the Greek text as "Island of Atlantis".

Dick, on the other hand, examined the disc - which was actually three discs, joined together, with Latin letters on, and realised it was some form of ancient cypher.

Clearly this is what their paymaster had been seeking.

The ancient cypher

EPILOGUE:

After the bold trio made their way to Nuuk, and met up with aviatrix Oynx (Mark's character), they flew on to Austria where they met Professor Casper Wieloch at his home overlooking Lake Wolfgang.

He was delighted with what our heroes had achieved and admitted that he already had a lead on how he could crack the Norse code.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark (absent)

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Lights! Camera! Die Roll! Set-Piece Ideas For Gaming

By Elizabeth Thompson - Royal Collection , Public Domain, Link

Great memories - that is "magic moments" in roleplaying games - often come from the unplanned and unexpected, but that's not to say some gentle nudging and downright scheming from the Gamesmaster is inappropriate.

Browsing the deep back catalogue of Craig Oxbrow's excellent inspirational resource The Watch House (if you're into sci-fi and/or Doctor Who gaming then you need to read his Door In Time blog as well) I came across an article he'd written on Six Staples Of SF/F Series, by way of Den Of Geek.

These standards are:

• The Bodyswap
• The Time Loop
• Ascension To A Higher Plane Of Existence
• Alternate Dimensions
• The Doppelganger/Double/Duplicate
• The Dream Episode

And all are immediately applicable to the anime-inspired fantasy campaign I'm kicking around at the moment while the Tuesday Knights get all pulpy in Pete's new Outgunned Adventures game (season two of his epic weird science campaign).

Tie these "standards" into my own "wish list" of cool moments and there's plenty of meat for potentially memorable adventures, if I'm GM enough to script plots that can do these tropes justice.

I guess, in part, all this comes from my passion for visual media (films, TV, and comics in particular) and thus my desire to emulate moments I see in these at our table.

The main bullet points from my "wish list" were:

• Have the players running the defence of a "hopeless situation", ridiculously outnumbered by an implacable foe, as seen at Rorke's Drift in Zulu, Dros Delnoch in David Gemmel's Legend, and Helm's Deep in The Lord of The Rings. To name but three.
  
  
• A "Horatio Holds The Bridge" moment - I'd just discovered D&D when this poem was read to us at school and the two just clicked.
  
  
• An interesting time travel story (cf. Doctor Who et al)
  
  
• The party encounters cosmic entities that threaten the world and only the heroes can stop them - every Marvel/DC comic book that features this sort of stuff inspires me to greater madness, combined with a lifelong love of the works of HP Lovecraft.
  
  
• Rescuing a trapped companion from incarceration in the pit of Hell - this came from reading the dedication pages in my original (and treasured) Arduin Grimoire Trilogy, by Dave Hargrave, where he mentions an epic campaign to free his own character.
  
  
• Having the players caught up in a war between angels and demons.

Originally my list was drawn up for a legacy D&D campaign, but the ideas are so broad, universal, and potentially over-the-top that they work just as well for anime fantasy game in the same vein as Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren, and Record of Lodoss War.

One Month In And We're Blogging Strong

    I couldn't find any free images for "monthaversary" because that's not a real thing

 Image by bise eise from Pixabay

It's a month since Cowboys, Capes, and Claws sprang to life, bringing my current views on geekdom (be it RPGs, comics, movies, and so on) to this chill corner of the Internet.

Since "Life Day", we've had a reasonably steady flow of visitors to the site. Sometimes too many for my liking, but generally a decent number of genuine readers interested in the words, pictures and videos I've posted up.

It may sound counterintuitive, but my goal would be to keep the number of hits per day to around 500 at most. I'm looking for quality over quantity. I'd rather half-a-dozen people read my blog each day and left comments, than thousands of bots hit the site and did nothing good.

First month visitors - the pulse of the blog

In this first month 35 per cent of the hits came from the United States while only 11 per cent were from the UK, with the bulk of referrals coming via Facebook.

While I'm generally settled on the design of the site, I've still been tweaking the right-hand column, moving bits up and down to see which placing I find most aesthetically pleasing. I think we're getting close to a final form.  

I'd like to applaud the founding members of my "posse", who kindly clicked on the blue Follow button (now near the top of the aforementioned right hand column of the blog), pledging their public support for my ramblings. Kudos to Jonathan, Erik, Justin, Percy, and Clare.

All new additions are welcome 😉

Heading into the New Year, my goal is to elevate the gaming coverage, while still maintaining a stream of reviews (films, TV, and comics) as well as general commentary.

When I started formulating this blog I never expected to write so much about my health again, but then the whole osteoarthritis issue was rather a bolt from the blue that - literally - took my legs from under me.

The idea for the blog was that I'd be writing about my progress with PROJECT 60 (that is, getting my Dead Man's Hand skirmish game up and running by the time I turn 60 next year, as well as the makings of a solid roleplaying campaign that would have long-term potential) interspersed with 20/20 VISION "events" where I'd tried something 'new' or stepped out of my comfort zone.

These last six months of heightened disability and constant pain have rather put the kibosh on that, but hopefully we're now coming out the other side and I can get back on track with those ambitions. And record them here on the blog.

The work on my Dead Man's Hand project will just have to be pushed back to 2026, when, all being well, I'll be able to work in our garden room on more scenery, assemble and paint up the buildings etc

As to roleplaying games, having been in a bit a funk because of my physical ailments, I'm now much more optimistic about the future and believe I've found a game that could be just right for my ideas. The trouble is, it isn't due to be published until the middle of next year. 

Of course, we still have Pete's Outgunned Adventures to look forward to every month.

EPISODE ONE: Gaming Again! It's A Christmas Miracle!

It's great to be gaming with my friends again

For numerous reasons, it's been a rough year for the Tuesday Knights.

Until this week, we haven't gathered for gaming purposes since about May, but given the improvement in my mobility and stability I was determined that we get in, at least, one game before the end of the year.

Sadly, Mark wasn't able to make it due to a prior commitment, but Clare, Pete, and Kevin showed up this week for the resumption of Pete's pulpy "weird science" campaign.

We finished that campaign's first "season" in February 2024, after three years and 32 sessions of gaming.

The idea of this week's gathering was to "generate" our characters and gain an overview of Pete's new system of choice: Outgunned Adventures from Two Little Mice.

Festive bao buns, courtesy of Rachel

But, first, we had a massive Christmas feast of pizza and festive nibbles to tuck into, prepared for us by Rachel, and a lot of catching-up to do. Sure, we chat in our WhatsApp group, but it's not the same as face-to-face banter.

Once we reached the stage where we couldn't eat any more, the table was cleared and the gaming began.

Following the get-together Pete and I had the other day about transferring the group's characters from Hollow Earth Expedition to Outgunned, Pete handed out character sheets to us all and talked us through character creation.

I liked this because, at the end of the process, the characters felt like our own creations rather than just "pregens".

The game's simple dice mechanic was explained and then we were thrown into Frozen Legacy, the first episode of the Saturday morning serial (ie. campaign) called The Fate of Atlantis.

It's still the pre-war 1930's and our characters - explorer Buck Hannigan (me), photojournalist Freya Larson (Clare), and former G-man, Richard Tate (Kevin) - are now freelance adventurers.

We've been hired by Professor Casper Wieloch to find the lost tomb of Erik The Red in Greenland, and retrieve a mysterious (and unknown) artifact. To aid us, the professor loaned our group Odin's Key, an iron medallion engraved with runes and with a translucent crystal lens at its centre.

Prof Casper Wieloch (left) and sketch of Odin's Key (right)

We soon found ourselves scaling a massive ice wall in Greenland. Buck put his mountaineering experience to good use, keeping his friends safe on the tricky ascent as the wind howled and the sea crashed violently below.

At the top of the climb we found a plateau with a single, ancient, Christian memorial with the words "sicut vixi ego relinquo" carved up on it. 

Freya translated this ("as I lived, so I depart"), but raised concerns as to why someone who had rejected Christianity (ie. Erik The Red) would have a Christian memorial.

Patterned floor tiles

Spotting a groove in the side of the stone, Buck blundered on, inserting Odin's Key (while still clenching it firmly). This - unfortunately - set off the first booby trap. The ground opened up beneath us and we were all propelled down a rough slide into the freezing ocean water.

Luckily, we spotted a nearby cave and swam into it for safety. Inside we found a passageway leading deeper into the rock, which led us into a big cavern containing some Viking skeletons.

As we progressed, it became clear that the room was man-made, with Freya identifying the Viking architecture and the large statue of Odin, holding a golden spear, at the far end.

Between us and the statue, which wore an eyepatch featuring the same designs as our medallion, was a floor of finished stone, featuring tiles of different colours. 

It was clear this was some kind of puzzle trap, but when Freya looked across the floor through the lens of Odin's Key she saw "safe" routes illuminated - unfortunately a different route depending on which eye she used to peer through the Key.

With Dick and Freya staying back to guide him, Buck began to cross the floor - following their instructions.

Unfortunately, he picked the wrong path to start with, causing the statue to lower its spear at him and a tidal wave of sea water to surge through the cavern, accompanied by a strong rush of wind.

Second time lucky (now in near pitch darkness), Buck reached the statue and found a partially opened panel behind it, which he and Dick managed to force open. 

They passed through a narrow corridor into a blinding light, emanating from an enormous ice cavern where a Viking longboat was suspended from the ceiling, wedged between two pillars of ice.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark (absent)

DIRECTOR:

• Pete