Black Sword Hack Adventure - Revising The Recipe

I submitted an early draft of my adventure last week for the next edition of The Chaos Crier by The Merry Mushmen. Even though it didn't get accepted this time around, Eric was incredibly generous with his time and gave me excellent, much needed feedback. Some of the crits include: editing for brevity while still maintaining evocative flavor; giving players more agency by telegraphing danger; not rewarding PC exploration with combat (I didn't intend this to happen, but it happened!); and some logic problems with the fictional setup of the hamlet the PCs can use as a basecamp for their adventure. 

The issue I need to resolve first, centers around the setup of Hol, its people, and its problems. The seed of the idea came from two of my favorite stories: The Pearls of the Vampire Queen, by Michael Shea, and Cugel's Saga, by Jack Vance. Both of these stories feature protagonists that take some (literal) dirt jobs which have them harvesting valuables buried deep in the muck and mire. I represented these ideas in the hook #2. I ended up with some logic problems in answering the question at the end of the hook: "...why are the hamlet's people barely surviving?" - particularly if there are valuables nearby!

        2. The PCs find themselves in Hol, a moribund fishing hamlet on briny Moodover Loch. They have heard rumors that the loch is home to rare, immensely valuable water serpents. If these rumors are indeed true, why are the hamlet’s people barely surviving? 

Let's rewind a bit. My goals for the hamlet are to 1) to provide a basecamp for the PCs to rest and resupply, and 2) to provide a new hook for the PCs to be in the area (seemingly unrelated to the other hooks), and 3) set up another faction that can interact with the two factions described in the other hooks. 

I don't know if I'm going to keep the 'dirty jobs' aspect of hook #2. I'll do some brainstorming to see if I can salvage the idea so that it makes logical sense with the fiction, but without any unneeded complexity. I might ditch that idea all together, and do something much more straightforward by putting Hol in some sort of danger (from the Thieves Guild, or the ancient site) that the PCs could either help resolve, or exacerbate. Even though the idea represented in hook #2 did relate to the ancient site described in hook #1, those ties could be much stronger.

The Fun puzzles to solve!

Black Sword Hack Adventure - Making Sausage

Here's a little sample from a draft of the adventure: some hooks, an area map for the locations, and an NPC. There are more sub-location maps and factions I will share later!

HOOKS 

1. Dasulem of Thulan, an understudy to an infamous sorcerer, has temporarily moved into an ancient site north of the hamlet of Hol. The locals of the hamlet fear the site conceals a portal to The Underworld. Dasulem knows this is true, and has written to one of the PCs to ask for help performing a ritual which will seal the portal. She promises to compensate them to the tune of 1000 coins for their help. Link Dasulem of Thulan to your PCs in any way you see fit (friend, former accomplice, or a member of your preferred Secret Society).

2. The PCs find themselves in Hol, a moribund fishing hamlet on briny Moodover Loch. They have heard rumors that the loch is home to rare, immensely valuable water serpents. If these rumors are indeed true, why are the hamlet’s people barely surviving? 

3. The PCs are hired by the Thieves Guild from your campaign's main city to collect a debt from Dasulem of Thulan, a young sorcerer who now resides near the decrepit fishing hamlet of Hol. However, the debt is not coinage, but instead an artifact called The Stygian Bell. How will the PCs react to Dasulem’s counter offer? Will they develop their own schemes for the artifact?

   
   

   
   

   
   
   

Brine Slime [LVL 3]

Violet, slug-like, aquatic hunters with a single, serpentine eye. Upon death, they dissolve to nothing. They are considered creatures of Chaos.

- Nesting: d4 slimes appear in d4 Turns

• Slime slap (DEX): 6
• Sucking grasp (CON): Ud4 ongoing damage

Black Sword Hack Adventure - Kitchen Prep

I like to be prepared in pretty much any part of my life, so tend to take a lot of notes, and I am sharing some of them here. These are not my complete notes for my adventure, just the parts regarding tone. This is a useful step for my process, because I like to make sure I'm hitting the tone accurately. The original Appendix N references still remain my favorite stories. Black Sword Hack's Appendix IV focuses on Sword & Sorcery tales. While I have not read everything listed here, I have read many, which are listed below the break. From BSH p.96:

Appendix IV
Bibliography (in alphabetical order)

LITERATURE
The First Law and Shattered Sea trilogies by Joe Abercrombie • Three Hearts and Three Lions and The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson • The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington • Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon • Everything by Robert E. Howard. Yes, I mean everything • Elephants and Corpses by Kameron Hurley • The Gotrek & Felix series by William King • The Lankhmar series by Fritz Leiber • The Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, and Erekosë series by Michael Moorcock • The Empire of the East series by Fred Saberhagen • Disfavored Hero by Jessica Amanda Salmonson • Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea • Raum by Carl Sherrel • We are All Legends by Darrel Schweitzer • The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance • The Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner • The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

I decided to flavor this adventure with a lot of references to The Dying Earth, The Lankhmar series, and particularly, Nifft the Lean, which I'll talk more on in the next post. These notes are in the first section labelled Tone. Some game design tips, and formatting observations are near the end. Some of my notes are simply entries copied from wiki pages that I have bookmarked in the past, and collated here for ease of reference.  

Love For Black Sword Hack

I've been playing and collecting TTRPGs for so long that sometimes I have to pause and really appreciate that fact. Over the years my tastes have changed, as you would expect, but I always get drawn back to my roots - today's topic gets right at the heart of it. I'll share more details about my history with all of that some other time, but I'll just move on to what this particular post is all about. 

Black Sword Hack - Ultimate Chaos Edition, by Alexandre "Koybayashi" Jeannette, Eric Nieudan, Olivier "Nobboc" Revenu, Goran Glivovic and published by The Merry Mushmen. 

If you are someone who has an interest in TTRPGs and just stumbled across my tiny blog and don't know about this game, just stop, bookmark this blog page, and go grab a copy right now. This page alone should tell you pretty much everything you need to know why you need it, and the vibes...they are strong.

https://www.themerrymushmen.com/product/black-sword-hack-ultimate-chaos-edition/

If you came here by some other means, chances are I don't need to tell you what you already know. The game is a masterpiece. Some of these features aren't unique to BSH (after all, BSH is based on The Black Hack), but here are a few things I like about it, and why. 

The design captures the genre fiction: Sword & Sorcery. The game has a classless character creation and progression system. It's not that I don't appreciate classes in other games, but this aspect speaks to the source material very well. 

Mechanically speaking, The Doom Die, a great Push Your Luck device. Similarly, the fiction is remarkably dangerous and brutal, and the combat and magic mechanics reflect this well, too. As well as player facing rolls. I'm not lazy by a stretch, but player facing rolls to two things I enjoy. It gives the player a greater sense of agency and investment. It makes me feel like a an arbiter vs an adversary - this is an important aspect to me.

Finally, as a GM/Referee and creative person, I am head over heels in love with the worldbuilding aspect of BSH. It gives me the tools that allow me to easily create a seemingly endless number of settings that can emulate a wide range of Sword & Sorcery tales - frankly, it's astounding. 

I could go on and on and on and on, but I think you get the idea - I love the book.

I'm currently writing a serious of adventures for Black Sword Hack. If you are already interested in BSH, come on back here to learn more about what I'm up to. If this is your first time here, or with BSH, I hope I sold you on it! 

 - DOKTOR WARLOK

A WARLOK Appears

Welcome to the DOKTOR WARLOK blog. 

I am an artist, game designer, writer, and musician. I'll be using this blog to share my art and designs for my favorite TTRPGs, as well as my own games. 

Why a blog, and why now? Well, this blog will most certainly not be the only place I share my work and discus TTRPGS (and other games). The social media apps I use certainly do the trick, but they are not my favorite platforms to engage with. As many incredible creators that I discover and follow on those platforms, blogs are my preference for reading and writing about my interests. Maybe I have more affection for an earlier time, and process. We all get nostalgic, and I'm no exception. That said, check my social links below if you want to follow me there as well.

Blue Sky Social: https://bsky.app/profile/doktorwarlok.bsky.social

Twitter: https://x.com/WarlokDoktor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doktorwarlok/

Thanks for dropping by - I'll talk a bit about what I'm up to in the my next post! 

- DOKTOR WARLOK