One Thousand and One Nights and One Night
a role-playing game campaign design ’zine
Issue #43!
I made it to issue #43. Yay! Go me.
I hope you are getting some good
gaming in this winter. Though
traditionally, this is usually a pretty
slow time for the CMT, as holidays
and holiday activities eat up the
time. This issue, I have a write–up
on the Midnight Kingdoms
adventure I outlined in Issue #42
and also more on my efforts to turn
my nephews into gamers!
The Army Man Game, Part II
Last time in Issue #10, I mentioned my
nephews’ experiences gaming with me. Well, in
September, I had the opportunity to do so
again, with some twists. Two of my nephews,
MW and TW, came over for a Bar–B–Q, with
hot dogs and s’mores, and when I took them
home, I played the Army Man Game with them
again. I had my army of 32 figures and they
chose out 32 of their own.
Again, the rules were pretty simple. First, the
figures were put in squads of four. A roll of 5 or
6 was required to hit and a roll of 6 was needed
to survive being hit (a change from last time).
Each “round” we could move and fire one
squad, then the second “round” we had to chose
another squad to move. So a full “turn” took 8
“rounds.” Each shot could kill one figure from
the squad and all squads had to have four
members, so if two squads were each down two,
then they were combined together to form one
squad. The HQ squad could only be attacked
via melee, not distance fire.
The combat went pretty well. I continued my
tactic of moving in to wildly attack straight
away, as MW and TW hung back. For the first
part of the game, I took some heavy losses
among my Zulu–era British soldiers but I gave
back towards the end of the game. It was soon
down to the HQ squads and I was in the lead 3
to 2. In the end, I was triumphant, with 3
soldiers remaining. We all had some serious
fun and I look forward to the next match.
Content © Wooden Leg Named Smith Productions 2008
Website: 1001nightsand1night.110mb.com
Vol.: 2, Issue: 43, December 1, 2008
The Thief Kindly Spoken Of
Last month, I outlined a setting mix of
Midnight (Fantasy Flight Games) and The Iron
Kingdoms (Privateer Press). I also mentioned
the one–shot adventure that I came up with for
it. So here is one of the actual play notes from
the sessions I did.
I only had two players with the CMT. MW
played Rufus the Gun Mage and TE played
Llayenor the Elf Woodsman. They got the
premise pretty well–Creel was a bad guy who
did them wrong years ago and now they’ve got
to go into Ord to get him, now a Bandit Chief,
on the side of Cygnar against Izrador’s forces.
I started them In Media Res by being in a fight
with three Orcs. The Orcs had just attacked
them and one of them was reaching for his
signal battle horn (possibly to call more down
on them). Llayenor shot and killed the orc with
the horn, with an amazing roll that was open
ended and did an exquisite amount of damage.
Rufus blasted another using his Mage Lock
pistol to cast Bolt, without using the powder.
Pretty soon, the third Orc was dead and they
hid the bodies in a ditch and covered them with
heather. I added a flash–back sequence to
combat after each of them performed an action.
I had them briefly describe a scene that showed
why they hated Creel. It turns out that Creel
had promised to sell Rufus a new Mage Lock
but instead clubbed him. For Llayenor, he was
leading Creel into the woods and likewise got
the shaft. Both were
sold to Cryxian Slavers,
with Llayenor the first
sold. They both met in
the hold of the Cryxian
Slaver's ship and
decided that it would
be wise to escape. During the escape, Rufus
overpowered a Slaver Gun Mage, took his Mage
Lock and his Leather Duster and they managed
to get a bunch of the slaves off the ship with
them. The flashback sequence worked pretty
well interspaced with the combat.
(continued on Page 2, First Column)
published in association with the Corvis Babbage Cliological Society
’zine art is either open source or through fair use of copyrighted works
One Thousand and One Nights and One Night
a role-playing game campaign design ’zine Vol.: 2, Issue: 43, December 1, 2008
The Thief (cont.)
I did one more flashback, more recently, where
they were teleported 100 miles into Ord,
“landing” on the Orcs. After hiding the bodies,
they wandered along a high–traffic road
towards a nearby town. The town had an old
ruined castle occupied by Orcs, Undead and
(presumably) a Legate. Into the local tavern our
heroes went and were served some pretty bad
food and beer, worse even than the Cryxian
Slavers’ rations. Llayenor talked to some locals,
mentioning Creel’s name and they immediately
got up and walked away, one even going so far
as to sit near some drunk Orcs (who proceeded
to beat the crap out of him). The waitress
whispered “Creel” to Rufus and walked back to
the privies, where they both met her and found
out the following for a few coin: Creel was the
local Legate and left a year and a half ago.
Another Legate came to the village and killed
everyone in Creel’s castle and a few of the
villagers. No explanation was given and the
locals assumed that Creel went on to bigger and
better things. Oh, and the old forest nearby is
“evil.” Rufus got the feeling that the waitress
would sell them out fairly quickly, so they left
the town right then and traveled down the road,
which was next to the “evil” forest that they
were warned against.
They heard horses moving fairly quickly down
the road towards them, so they jumped off the
road and entered the forest. They saw a bunch
of riders looking for them ride past. While in
the forest, they lost the game trail they were on
and each other. At the same time, they noticed
something black and kinda deer–like following
them. It turned out to be a black unicorn and
one of them remembered that an old symbol of
Morrow was the black unicorn. The unicorn
looked at each of them in the eye and touched
each of them with its horn. Time passed
without them being aware of it and they found
themselves together again and surrounded by
woodsmen with bows pointed at them. They
were escorted by the bandits to their chief,
which turned out to be Creel, minus an arm,
(continued on Second Column)
Content © Wooden Leg Named Smith Productions 2008
Website: 1001nightsand1night.110mb.com
Page 2
Finally Meeting the Thief (cont.)
and the rest of the band, which included two
elven skeleton undead.
Creel recognized them immediately and seemed
very jovial, giving them every opportunity to
kill him by turning his back on them. It turns
out all the bandits, including Creel, had been
touched by the Black Unicorn and now they
fought against Izrador. The Black Unicorn took
Creel’s arm, the arm that held the tattoo of
Izrador which gave him the power of a Legate.
It was very painful to remove the taint of
Izrador but the PCs were not really sympathetic
to him. The Elf Woodsman was very upset at
the two elven skeleton undead and wondered
how this was possible. Was Creel still an evil
man? Who else would control undead?
Creel invited the PCs to join him on a raid,
which they questioned among themselves
whether he was really a reformed character. It
turns out that they were going to ambush an
Orc supply caravan. In the midst of the
ambush, they were caught in a trap. Creel was
mortally wounded. Many of the bandits were
killed and the PCs retreated with the two elf
skeletons and the dying Creel. He begged them
to lead the bandits in their goal of overthrowing
Izrador and they found out that the two elf
skeletons were actually willful undead with an
interesting story involving a battle with a
necromancer, holy power, a fireball, the
necromaner's troll minion and a pair of Wands
of Wonder, all mixed together with fun! (see the
Skeleton Brothers write–up in Issue #40).
All in all, the game went rather well. It gave me
some ideas of what to throw out and also what
to keep. I think I did pretty good showing Creel
as a repentant hero, trying to make up for all
the evil he did in his life. The PCs still didn’t
like him and had planned to poison him in
order to get him to work with Cygnar, but it
worked out in the end. They got what they
wanted, the bandits working with Cygnar and
they were present when Creel died but it lacked
satisfaction of actually killing him themselves,
so that was good and angsty!
published in association with the Corvis Babbage Cliological Society
’zine art is either open source or through fair use of copyrighted works