Hey Gruntfuttock, good to speak to you again.

The S&S campaign (started off with Fate, got fed up with that, homebrewed various bits of it into a system that suits us).   The world is one of my own devising, a broken kingdom fallen into a number of feuding noble families.   There has been a vaguely Cthulhy tone to the whole thing since I can't stop myself some times

The heroes are a young lord from one of the northern families and his trusty and rather shy servant, wandering far from home after a fall-out with his father.      A large section of the campaign took place in one of the larger southern cities and while investigating the provenance of a forbidden book of magically charged poetry they discovered that the play "the King in Yellow" was gaining an underground following in the city, and that the author of poems and play might have been the same long dead heretical figure from dark tales etc.      The city was also a brewing cauldron of sedition and upheaval which our heroes quickly linked to the people who had seen the play performed.

The shy young servant went to see the play (it was mainly the common folk who were its audience, as it spoke of the decay and decadence of royalty) and found it affected him deeply.   From then on I had him make Will rolls to function in particular stress situations as he fell increasingly under the delusion that he was actually the Prince of Carcosa only play acting the role of being a servant in this brutal world.    The flip side of that was that when he was "being the Prince" he acted with more authority and dynamism - some wonderful roleplaying by the player.

That sequence ended at another performance of the King in Yellow this time being held for the noble court of the city who wanted to see this scandalous play.   Our heroes had realised that the King in Yellow himself was planning to manifest there and whatever the hell happened as a result would not be good.   It was a really intense session and much relied on roleplaying rather than dice based challenges (and certainly no combat) during which when it became apparent that the King in Yellow was about to appear through the poor actor playing him, and all the audience appeared much like cardboard cutouts on a stage, and the distant sound of applause and booing and weeping from the true audience in Carcosa could be heard... the young servant raced onto the stage and pushed the actor out of the way, sat down on the cardboard throne and declared HE was the true ruler of Carcosa and the King in Yellow had no place here, or anywhere.

I warned the player that directly facing the King in Yellow like that could cost the character his life.   There was a long pause and then a nod.  "I do it."

And with some suitably dramatic descriptions the King receded, gnashing its teeth and cursing, and the Prince of Carcosa triumphed.

We enjoyed the feel and sensation of it so much that we kept the "Prince/Servant" relationship going and occasional glimpses of what's happening in Carcosa.   Now that the pair have returned home the servant met again the elder brother of his master who used to treat him dreadfully... he met him while "the Prince" was uppermost and that was a fun scene.

I also knocked up some rules and an adventure specifically for those two characters in their Carcosan analogues.  If you're interested in seeing them let me know and I'll mail them to you.

Gruntfuttock wrote:

Hey, that's a great offer! I'd love to see the characters - sounds like a wonderful game.

One of the best things in playing (as a GM) is when you see players really get  into their PC roles, and so are ready to risk the ultimate sacrifice when the situation demands it. Good times.

If you want to, drop me a PM with an email address and I'll send you my ruleset and (after adding a few explanatory notes) the scenario (when writing for myself I don't bother with too much explanatory stuff, but it would make cryptic reading to anyone else)

Had session 2 of my hangouts BoL game last night, and it was a hoot! In session 2, our heroes in Urceb were chased by black druids, rescued the daughter of a distressed local merchant from being sacrificed, freed a bunch of other folk being threatened, saw a black demon, and set sail on their newly bought galley with a host of followers. A bounty hunter caught up to them and there was a harrowing battle at sea. All in two-and-a-half hours!

http://noonetoplay.blogspot.com/2018/04/myths-of-lemuria-part-2.html

The final session (if all goes to plan) of my BoL Everywhen 1964 Man From UNCLE game is scheduled for this coming Sunday. 

Since my last post, the PCs have been to Amsterdam, and then Rome and Milan; arresting Fourth Reich moneymen and shooting the odd Nazi thug or six. (There was an epic rumble in an art gallery in Milan.) Then they went to Las Vegas to abduct the 4R chief accountant - first stopping off for a shootout on the English seaside. In Las Vegas they had to steer a course between the Nazis, the FBI and the Mob before escaping into the night with their prisoner. (They have by now largely crippled all the European operations of the Nazis, by attacking their sources of cash.)

They are currently on a Royal Navy frigate steaming towards Nassau in the Bahamas to re-equip, before making their way to a shell company office Jamaica to find out what 4R have been spending vast sums of money on in the Caribbean over the last few years. (Hint: Submarines may be involved.)

My wife and I are continuing to play our BoL Hyborian Age campaign.  We took some time off to run the Red Hand of Doom using BoL rules, it was a bit of work to make it playable for us... but we enjoyed it.

I've been toying around with converting some of my Beast and Barbarians adventures to BoL... but haven't yet.  So for us, the next Hyborian Age adventure will be "The Cursed Tomb of Al'Amar" (by Eric K. Rodriguez).  Converting it to BoL during the next week or so.