I wanted to playtest Hiss, the zine-length adventure I wrote as a palate cleanser after the huge effort that was writing Bridewell, and also as a way to reinforce some of the lessons learnt in Bridewell without putting so many of the restrictions I placed on myself in writing Bridewell. It’s a 36 page adventure, inspired by one of my favourite classic modules, Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

Ferdrek and Ursaline, played by Sandro of Fail Forward and Marcia of Traverse Fantasy (surviving characters from our playtest of Bridewell), had taken up a job as caravan guards for a quick buck on their quest to prove Ferdrek’s nobility, for a merchant named Clermont Noble. Their wagon’s axel broke just outside the village of Plum Oleander, and they, along with the merchant’s boy Salmon, dragged it to the wainwright in town for repairs. As they walked through town, they saw a strange figure staring at them from the porch of home they passed, who disappeared the moment they glanced away.

After washing off in the river, they asked if there was another inn in town aside from the one their boss was staying at, and a bypasser gave them directions, before making an off hand comment that “I don’t blame ye for not staying at the Wild Weasel”. Ferdrek inquired further as to the comment, and the bypasser made an allusion to “unsavoury and queer folk frequent there” before going on his business, nice to meet you. They decided to be sure their employer (and his associated paycheque) was safe before finding a room.

The Wild Weasel was clearly recently renovated and sterile, with an odd morose crowd, although the innkeeper was charming enough. Ferdrek pushed regarding renovations, but the Ould, the innkeeper, denied it repeatedly, getting a little worked up and hissing at Ferdrek. Meanwhile, Ursaline ventured out back, finding a tower where two men were talking about how they were going to get the new man in the fancy room – Clermont Noble. Ferdrek and Ursaline decided to take rooms here, to prevent their boss from being robbed.

In their rooms, they discovered a peep hole and a secret door, allowing unwanted access to their room. Behind the secret door was a narrow passage, with entryways to the other rooms in the inn, as well as a ladder leading to the tower. In the tower, they discovered a chest full of gold and jewels; too much to carry. Ferdrek headed to the local country store for a barrel, asked Salmon to be their watch at the price of a jeweled necklace. Ursaline drove off Humble, man who was reading an anatomy treatise disguised as the scripture book of “Mentis Chisor”, a deity she had never heard of. The three of them loaded the barrel three quarters full of treasure before the pair of men entered the passage, clearly coming to spy on them now. They quickly hid in their rooms, and acted natural for a while.

They decided to get their boss drunk to persuade him to stay in the same room as them, and their ploy worked. He passed out on their bed, and they put a bear trap in front of the secret door, smeared grease in front of the front door, and waited for the thugs to show. The first to show was Humble, whose leg was snapped by the bear trap, causing a stand off between the thugs who were bottlenecked by the secret door, and the party. After tense proceedings, the thugs retreated, but Ferdrek wanted answers, and pursued them, resulting in a combat where Ferdrek was struck by a blacksmith’s hammer in the gut, cut with a poison blade, but managed to take out two foes before the third fled. But not before he was offered to come with them to join their religion.

They bound the three unconscious foes and threw them on a bed, noticing they were hissing despite being asleep. Examining them closely, a snake leapt from the mouth of the wainwright’s wife at Ursaline’s face, narrowly missing her, and dove for the door when it missed her. It was caught up in the grease, lost speed, and was crushed by her cudgel while the wainwright’s wife began to fit uncontrollably. Ursaline healed her, and they examined the other two: One had a snake in his mouth, the other not. They extracted one snake, killed it, and awoke them both.

While the two that had snakes in their mouths knew nothing but the nights they were taken and fed the snakes, the other new that there was a secret cult in town, that threatened him and so he joined them against his will. He said that he had been secretly working against them – stealing from them even! But Ferdrek and Ursaline didn’t trust him. He also told them that not everyone in town had been taken by the snake cult. They agreed, they needed to stop this cult from doing what had been done to the blacksmith and the wainwright’s wife, to the rest of the town.

I was concerned that the first session of Hiss might be too slow a burn, but boy was I wrong! Two of the three major factions didn’t even factor into this session, and still it was full of action. I wasn’t even sure writing the module that the Wild Weasel Inn would be worth fully keying, as I didn’t expect it to be a major factor in play, but instead in this session it’s serving as a primary base and held up to a full three hours of play, and they haven’t even full explored it yet. We left off where we did because we ran out of time (we’re running early my time, but quite late Marcia and Sandro’s time), but there’s a lot of room to move.

I knew that once we were out of the initial orientation to the location this module would go off, so further playtesting will just enable me to streamline and make some specifics better; it was this initial session that was challenging. As with Bridewell, there’s a bit of flipping through the book because there are connections and characters all over the place, and it’s hard to predict where they’ll occur first. This is something that would be much easier to manage if I had the zine in my hands, as I’d dog ear or bookmark the relevant sections, and I’d be taking notes on the page. I ran it from the pdf, and so there were a few moments where I was scrolling for the page ref, which isn’t something I like to do as it slows play.

Overall a successful playtest. I think I’ve actually underestimated how much potential play is there in this module, although it is limited somewhat by the background events that tick away regardless of what the players choose to do. But with two extra factions that it doesn’t appear Ferdrek will encounter, and with them already on the trail of the cult, it will still be an action-packed second session.

I know these petered out last time I started session reports, simply because of time, and I imagine they’ll do the same this time, but I’ll do my best, and I figure occasional session reports are better than none! Regardless Sandro tweeted about the session here as well, as did Marcia both very kindly ☺️.

24th August, 2023

Idle Cartulary