Tag Archives: tabletop role playing game

NaNoWriMo with a TTRPG Twist: Day 15

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Another ink-specific plot hook? Don’t mind if I do. This one takes some liberties with the established rules/lore, so enjoy this with a grain or two of salt.

Another Day Serving Elixirs Until…

Life—or rather, afterlife—as a Boorista has been pleasant enough, if not predictably routine. You provide a critical service for the other Spirits navigating The Ink by refining its poisonous waters into palatable brews, and you’re damn good at what you do.

But there’s always a little bit of an itch in the back of your mind that you’ve got something more you should be doing. That perhaps your time expired has…well, expired, and it’s time to seek passage to the Beyond.

It turns out you’re not the only Boorista feeling this way, and so you join up with the other Booristas who are ready to move along in their afterlives and set out in search of a Passage Beacon.

However, there are some Spirits and Shadows who are opposed to the idea of your lot moving on. Where, then, would they get their Elixirs if so many of their favorite Booristas made their way to the Afterlife?

GM Tips and Tools

This approach to ink involves some solo RP and more gradual build-up to the Journey through the Ink to find a way to the Afterlife, and will depend heavily on the players being able to take turns until the group joins up. It allows for a lot of early character growth and development prior to the combat and adventure that make ink Journeys so absolutely gripping. It’s a slower approach to a Journey with, I suspect, a lot of payoff by the time the party groups up and the real Journey begins.

Where that leads and what the Spirits and their Shadows who are trying to prevent your party’s passage entails is entirely up to you (and the table)! Above all else: stay spooky, stay caffeinated, and have fun; good luck and godspeed!

NaNoWriMo with a TTRPG Twist: Day 12

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What Slumbers Deep Beneath the Ice

Warmth and life has gradually begun to return to the realm after an especially bitter, cold, dark winter, and with the warmth your adventuring party too finds themselves returning to some of their familiar haunts that were less hospitable in the frigid days.

The scenic village of Umbraport is one of the party’s first stops. Known for its bustling marketplace, love of adventurers, and frequent feasts, your adventuring party finds themselves greeted by a very different tone than they are used to here. Shops closed early or indefinitely, and wary glances from between shutters are the closest the party receives to a greeting until finally a friendly merchant spots them and ushers them into his home.

Umbradeep Lake, he informs them, has been frozen for much of recorded history. It’s a lake so steeped in legend, largely due to its unfathomable depth. No two sources seem to agree on the specifics, but it’s commonly accepted that Umbradeep Lake’s depths are greater than the height of the highest mountains in the realm.

Other legends tell of a horrific creature from ages past that was sealed away beneath the lakes depths by the never-melting ice Umbradeep was famous for having year-round.

The ice, the merchant notes, had begun to thaw, and as it did the villagers noticed strange and worrying happenings. The dark of night seems to arrive before the sun has fully set. Odd shadows and strange sounds prowl the alleys at night, often leaving deep claw marks in walls and cobblestones.

Far beneath the melting ice, or so villagers say, something seems to have begun to awaken.

The ice is still quick dense, but your party feels a sense of incredible unease upon visiting. Will they find a way to stop the ice from melting? Are they ready to confront whatever ancient darkness lurks beneath its surface? Can Umbraport be saved, or is it doomed to be lost to shadow?

GM Tools and Tips

Ease into the adventure with emphasis on everything having warmed and woken from the especially bitter cold that has finally left the world. Give the players a trail of breadcrumbs leading them to Umbraport but allow it to happen organically. If you’re running this in a system that utilizes clocks, now’s a great time to start counting down a few regarding the lake thawing, the strange happenings in town, and so on.

While this is absolutely a more horror flavored bit of fantasy adventuring, please also remember to keep it within the parameters of what’s safe set forth during Session 0 (and this is a great time to remind myself I’ve been meaning to do a post about Session 0 at some point so maybe I’ll sprinkle that in as a bonus post one of these days).

Save the day, stop the thaw, or face the darkness in the depths of Umbradeep. Whatever happens? Good luck and godspeed!

NaNoWriMo with a TTRPG Twist: Day 11

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Lucky 11/11, or 11/11 if you type the date that way. Hope you remembered to make a wish! You’ll need it if you happen upon the item in today’s NaNoWriMo with a TTRPG Twist. This works best with games that incorporate tarot decks in them, but can be modified for just about any TTRPG. Any tarot works, but if you’re so inclined I would suggest breaking out your favorite tarot deck from a small business or indie artist (or picking up a new one for such an occasion).

Ominous Arcana

Your adventuring party is winding down from their most recent, most perilous adventure yet, when a stranger appears, bestows a gift upon them, and flees quickly. They don’t merely leave – they flee. The gift has been set down quickly and as if it could bite or claw or harm in some way.

Upon investigation, the party discovers an ornate box within layers of cloth. Within that box is a tarot deck. The backs of the card are an elaborate series of geometric shapes intersecting in curious ways, some of which accentuated with foil inlays.

It becomes apparent quickly the tarot deck cannot be explored except on its own terms. The deck, when shuffled, only showcases the back of the cards no matter how it is oriented. Until one day, surprising the party, a card can be drawn. It features one of the major arcana, but it’s numbered incorrectly. Should the party try to shuffle this back into the deck and draw another they find themselves having pulled the same card (again and again).

The next day the party awakes to discover the next card in sequence—the number of the major arcana mismatched with the card itself—drawn. It quickly apparent that the deck is counting down to something, but to what is a mystery. Can your party learn the meaning of the arcana as they present so as to learn the path this mysterious deck has set them on before it’s too late? And what awaits the party as the final card?

GM Tips and Tools

Again: this is a great chance to break out a tarot deck you love (especially if you’re playing an in-person game)!

There’s loads of room for what order you’d like to have the major arcana in. A few examples: you could lead to The Tower to signify a major catastrophe resulting in serious upheaval of the current state of things. Death could signify a major change—in the party, in the world, etc. Or you could go with off-the-beaten-path interpretations of the major arcana. The limits are your imagination (and the rigidity or flexibility of the table with regards to tarot, obviously).

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a countdown to a bad thing—it can just as easily be a shift towards good or simply just the cards counting down to change.

See what fate the cards have in store for your players, take care, and as always good luck and godspeed!