Accommodation in Bastion

Electric Bastionland puts you in debt, with a failed career, and generally assumes you've left home in order to pursue your get-out-of-debt-quick scheme.

But I've certainly had players ask about whether they have a home. I usually just handwave it with the above explanation, but what if the players really want to know?

Roll 6d6 in order.

Roll 1: What type of home?
1: A forgotten hovel. 
2-3: Borough-funded dormitory room above/below/amongst a place of business
4-6: A rented bedsit, but you're out at the end of the week

Roll 2: Where is it?
1: Embarrassingly, you can't find your way back.
2-3: One Borough over. 
4-6: Right here in this Borough.

Roll 3: Who do you share it with?
1: Vermin
2-3: Someone was already there, so now you share. You don't really get on. 
4-6: d6 family or friends, wanted or not. 

Roll 4: What's the first thing people notice?
1: Well, you'd never let outsiders in.
2-3: The shamefully outdated décor. 
4-6: The inconvenient way you need to access the property. 

Roll 5: Any neighbours?
1: You can hear them but you never see them. 
2-3: They vanished recently and their place got boarded up. 
4-6: Yeah, and they're always knocking-on. 

Roll 6: Wait, what's that noise?
1: Oh yeah, it got demolished. 
2-3: The electricity/water/heat is out and you're at the end of the waitlist for a repair. 
4-6: It's just an annoying hum/drip/clicking. You got used to it. 

Landmark Sites - Hazard

The next two landmarks will be the overtly bad ones. No positive spin on this, a Hazard is just a place you want to avoid.

Unless...

Well, let’s make this one a place that you’ll want to avoid unless you’re looking for a very specific thing, which will be the Treasure point in our site map. 

EDIT: Looking back on this sentence above I can confirm that I abandoned this and just made it an awful place you wouldn’t want to go to. Enjoy!

Let’s take a prompt to get things moving. 

Hazard Prompt: Earsplitting Screams

Something leaps out at me here. We could break this prompt down into just “Ear Splitting” or “Splitting Screams”. We’ll make this place horrible one way or another. How about a weird hermit that wants to take the ears of anybody who passes through. Perhaps they’re pretending to be a seer, but they’re actually just an ear-collecting weirdo. Let’s run with that. 

We’ll roll on a few spark tables to give us a bank of ideas to pull from or discard:

Sky: Pale Streaks
Fauna: Placid Canines
Feature: Desecrated Waterfall
Wonder: Pleasure Water
Drama: Banishment Letters
Appearance: Sickly Crude
Voice: Strong Friendly
Desire: Knowledge Recognition

The description for hazards says “push through or turn back” so I’m taking that very literally here and trying out a completely linear site. 

Site - Grotto of the Ear Warlock

Key

Circle: Feature
Triangle: Danger
Diamond: Treasure
Line: Open path
Crossed Line: Closed path
Dotted Line: Hidden path
Arrow: Entrance
Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Locations

Entrance: Amid slippery crags, crude wooden barriers shelter an opening behind a waterfall. This looks to be the only way ahead without turning back. 

1: Tunnels wind down to a tight squeeze. It’s tough to fit through but somehow impossible to return back through. Only the Warlock knows the Terric Mantra required to reopen the passageway. 

2: Steam rises from vents in this crooked cavern. Breathing in the steam causes a pleasing sensation at first, then intense muscle spasms (lose d6 VIG). Breathing through a damp cloth protects against this. 

3: Amidst stalactites and foul pools, the Ear Warlock bathes. Though he appears sickly, cloaked in rags, he booms with a welcoming voice. He won’t outright say that he’s a Seer, but does everything to suggest that to the Knights. In fact, he has no power beyond knowing the tricks of this grotto. If Knights ask for guidance he offers baseless predictions in return for an ear. Cutting off an ear causes d6 VIG loss and holds no power for the Warlock, simply adding it to his collection. 

4: Two matted old dogs sleep on a bed of slimy moss. They seem utterly content, occasionally stealing an ear from their master’s collection. 

5: The Warlock’s sleeping quarters, if you can call it that. A heap of rags for a bed, a small metal chest hidden within, containing the letter of banishment he received from the ruler of the Realm. The warlock has boarded up the passageway and warns the Knights that only the worthy should pass through. 

6: One tight squeeze after another, the rocks like sandpaper. An utter dead-end, though the Warlock insists that the worthy can find passage through. In fact, there is another Terric Mantra allowing passage out into the wider world, but he would only reveal it out of true desperation or a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the Realm.

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Landmark Sites - Monument

Described as places of inspiration. Spending a phase here restores Spirit, so they’re typically one of the most straightforwardly beneficial landmarks to come across.

But what if you already have full Spirit? Dwellings and Sanctums can restore Vigour and Clarity respectively, but beyond that they at least have somebody to talk to and get some information from. What else can a monument offer? Well... not much, really, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a nice little flavourful place to encounter. 

So let’s see what happens as we turn one into a site. We’ll start with a random monument prompt from the book. 

Monument Prompt: Buried library. 

Okay, neat, well this is already feeling like it could become a useful place for the Knights to get pointed toward in search of knowledge. 

We’ll mess around with the distribution of the points and routes in there, maybe removing dangers altogether, making it more of a welcoming exploration site.

I’ll roll on a few spark tables to get some extra juice:

Landscape: Dry Bog (!) Flora: Sturdy Brambles Wonder: Temptation Plants

Dry Bog is one of those combinations that doesn’t quite make sense, but I remember rolling it previously and using it as a sort of quicksand. Yeah, it’s not technically dry but remember the point of a spark table is to spark ideas, not give you a canonical answer straight out of the box.

Instead of quicksand here I’m imagining a riverland that’s dried up, now overrun by thick brambles. As the wind blows through them it sounds like whispering voices from within. Our library is “buried” beneath this strange flora, as well as the earth itself. 

Site - The Barrow of Words

Key

Circle: Feature

Triangle: Danger

Diamond: Treasure

Line: Open path

Crossed Line: Closed path

Dotted Line: Hidden path

Arrow: Entrance

Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Overview

Amid the trenches of a dried-up riverland, thick-stemmed brambles block the way, a narrow trail cut through, but always at risk of being covered back up. Wind blowing through this tangle sounds like indistinct whispers. 

Deep within the brambles, a simple standing stone marks a mound. Those who can cut a path through find an open mound, but not for corpses. 

Locations

Entrance 1 (to 1): Requires cutting through a mass of thorns, then an open barrow entrance into the darkness. 

1: Hall of Dead Words - Vast stone tablets inscribed in a long forgotten script. Something about them is comforting, restoring the Spirit of those who look over them or touch them. 

2: The Library - Sprawling racks of tablets in stone, clay, marble, each in a different script, all completely illegible. Any Seer that learns about this urges the Knights to destroy this place. Beneath a collapsed rack a shaft leads down to 4. 

3: The Unlit Stairway - A seemingly endless spiral staircase. Only traveling in total darkness allows passage to the other side. 

4: Librarian Beetle Colony - A great nest of small blue beetles. They scutter harmlessly over any who enter here, investigating them thoroughly, before scurrying up to the Library to scratch cryptic symbols onto the tablets. 

5: Hall of Forbidden Words - A sealed sarcophagus. Opening it up reveals six tablets. Even attempting to read their forgotten script causes d10 Spirit loss. 

6: Muse Fountain - Statues of a child and a skeleton support each side of a great vase. The fountain isn’t working, and the water below sits stagnant.

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Landmark Sites - Sanctum

Each Sanctum is a sacred home to a seer. They are typically mysterious by nature, so by expanding this sanctum into a site we can make it difficult for the knights to find the seer, or perhaps not even realise that this is a sanctum at all. 

Let’s roll a seer and take the sanctum prompt for a different page.

The Drowned Seer
VIG 3, CLA 3, SPI 5, 2GD

• Said to be at the bottom of a small but impossibly deep pond. Soggy acolytes gather at the shore to speak her intent.
• Sees from every river and body of fresh water, but utterly blind to the sea. 
• Wants to protect knights. Occasionally floats useful items to the surface

Sanctum Prompt: Raven Roost

The prompt doesn’t immediately mesh with the seer, but that’s an opportunity to get creative. Instead of ravens let’s use a black heron, the site based around its nest. A good excuse to learn a bit about Herons’ nesting behaviours and put a twist on it. I’m learning now that these usually solitary birds come together to form a treetop colony, or heronry, while nesting. 

But who cares about real nature, let’s see what the Bodleian Bestiary has to say about Herons. In summary: 

• Hates rain, flying above clouds to avoid storms, so their flight is seen as a storm omen
• It’s flight symbolises those who raise their minds above earthly things to embrace the serenity of heaven
• Its nesting symbolises finding solace in the eternal (treetops) over the transitory (river)
• White and grey herons live alongside, representing innocence and penitence respectively

That last point is interesting if we’re making a black heron. We’ll lean into what that could represent. 

Site - The Black Heronry

Key

Circle: Feature
Triangle: Danger
Diamond: Treasure
Line: Open path
Crossed Line: Closed path
Dotted Line: Hidden path
Arrow: Entrance
Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Overview
A copse of willow trees twist together, tangled in a canopy of matted branches. Water drips from above, forming winding streams that spread underfoot in all directions. 

Locations

Entrance 1 (to 2): Hanging branches form a climbable curtain of foliage. 

Entrance 2 (to 6, hidden): Beneath the roots a cramped chute is hollowed into a trunk, providing passage up to the canopy. 

1: Treetop Waterfall - Gnarled, slippery bark makes for a dangerous climb (to 1). Going up through the water (to 3) causes upsetting visions of famine and war in the Realm. 

2: Lower Branches - d6 great black herons (3gd, d8 beak) snap at intruders. In rain or thunder they’re off flying above the clouds. Clear climbable branches lead up (to 1). Squeezing through a gap in the bark leads to 5. 

3: The Heronry - A cluster of black heron nests, filled with young in spring, deserted at the rest of the year. They bow in reverence to knights who have drawn blood this season. They despise anyone else and peck and caw at them with little effect. Dangling branches shield walkways across the branches (to 1 and 6). Breaking through the thick wall of bark leads to 4.  

4: The Seer’s Pool - A pond contained with the canopy of a huge willow. See the Seer’s description. 

5: Abandoned Nest - A great nest hidden in a hollowed out trunk. Strewn with small clothes, a rag doll, a wooden spoon. Another Seer was raised here. 

6: Delicate Canopy Top - Can be crawled over only without carrying any heavy gear whatsoever, otherwise it breaks. It’s a dangerous leap down to the Seer’s Pool. A passage down to the Heronry can be broken through the branches. 

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Landmark Sites - Dwelling

Sites read like a bit of a side-dish in Mythic Bastionland. I wanted to include a simple little system to create more zoomed-in locations, but the game is generally more focused on the larger scale of hex crawling. 

Landmarks are a key part of that, so you could always pick a few in your realm to turn into sites in their own right.

I’d like to do one of each, but let’s start with the first.

Dwellings are described as “humble homes amid the wilds”, representing the people who choose to live outside of a holding. I typically place them at least a few hexes away from the nearest holding to make them feel a bit more isolated. 

Beyond that, it’s left pretty open. The intent is that these are places that, at the very least, contain a person you can probably convince to provide you with hospitality and a little local knowledge. It’s easy to imagine an isolated hut where the resident can live off the land, but the prompts in the book show that you can also make them a small settlement. Anything short of the walled towns or fortifications that typically define a holding. 

Let’s take one of the 72 prompts in the book and work from there. I landed on “Guard’s Outpost”, which I think could be interesting to expand up to a proper site. I’ll use the other prompts from that spread “The Barbed Knight & The Wurm” and spark tables to flesh it out as needed.

Remember that hexes are pretty large, so even with larger landmarks they're still just a small portion of the hex, so don't take the map as being to scale relative to the whole hex. 

I'll be taking liberties with what counts as a hazard, treasure etc. to fit the landmark type.

Limeweed Tor Dwelling Site

Key Circle: Feature Triangle: Danger Diamond: Treasure Line: Open path Crossed Line: Closed path Dotted Line: Hidden path

Overview A jagged hill juts out from the surrounding forest, the brown rock laced in bright green creeping foliage. A sturdy wooden tower sits atop, surrounded by a small village. Make a note of the nearest holding, as it sits under their domain. All in all there are around 20 inhabitants, half of which are out hunting or gathering in the day. 

Locations

1: Smokehall - A long hall filled with smoke, preserving poultry for winter. Four older villagers sit inside gossipping, pretending the smoke doesn’t bother them. Chider, the head smoker, wants outside news from any travellers. 

2: Rampart - An abandoned wooden fortification, boarded off. Locals know it’s the only part of an old attempt to properly wall the village, abandoned by the holding. You could climb around here to get to the barracks, but it’s dangerous. There are a few vegetable patches growing here too. 

3: Medicine hut - A middle-aged man believes he knows everything and loves to correct people. He mostly offers leeches and other animal-based remedies, but will at least offer a place to rest if injured. The sage knows not to let anybody up to the watchtower, and is entrusted with a key to its door. He also has a small chicken pen. 

4: Watchtower - A sturdy tower manned by two guards taking shifts, a brother and sister, the latter’s face mangled by service in war. The view from here is impressive, seeing up to two hexes away in broad strokes. The guards know the surrounding area well and are sworn to send a rider to the nearest Holding to warn of any incoming threats. They expect a Knight from the holding to visit every few weeks. 

5: Barracks: A simple wooden hut built onto the side of the watchtower. There are a few shields and spears and a small stable for a scruffy grey horse. 

6: Crypt: A spiral staircase leads down from the base of the tower into a sprawling crypt. This was dug out in anticipation of the village growing, but it only houses a few bodies at the moment.

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If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

Lessons Learned from Paranoia

I recently ran Paranoia, my third time through a very loose scenario that I’d prepared, using my hacked version of the current edition. 

All three sessions went well, and I think the most recent attempt was the most successful. I thought it might be worth picking out a few lessons I should take from that.

Amnesia is Great

Yeah it can feel cliched to have the characters wake up in a room with no memory of how they got there, or even the world that they inhabit. Paranoia has the benefit of a setting where that sort of introduction is entirely fitting for a world full of cloning, mind control, and mandatory prescriptions.

A player realising two hours into the game “wait, the R in my name is for Red clearance!” is a much more effective way at delivering setting info than dumping it on them at the start of the session.

Of course there’s a bit of information dumping required, so I do it like this:

1. Wake up in Troubleshooter Holding Barracks. Voice on tannoy explains memory curation and congratulates you on being volunteered for Troubleshooting.

2. ID explains:

1. Name, hint at job, skills

2. Give char sheet, front side only

3. Pamphlet dispensed, explaining:

1. Computer

2. Service Groups

3. Secret Societies

4. Mutants

4. Go to the briefing room. Take a Mandatory Prescription to aid in memory recall. Make it dangerous so somebody might die, letting you explain how Clones and Wounds work. 

5. Briefing explains:

1. You can message the Computer secretly through your PocketBot

2. Test out Treason Flags (punish a volunteer)

3. Memory starts to fade back. Now peek at secret side of character sheet

4. Gear and R&D Prototype

5. Troubleshooter Task

6. MBDs 

7. Explain YOU CAN WIN THE GAME. Assessment will be based on TMSRR (TT,MBD,SM,RD,Redacted)

That looks like a lot of information, but it’s drip fed to the players as they are exploring their surroundings and interacting with NPCs and each other. 

Oh, and the pamphlet is a physical thing that the players can keep in front of them. 

Sometimes Too Much is Too Much

Paranoia is built on an iceberg of secrecy, a heap of things the player needs to keep in mind when trying to succeed, some more secret than others. 

Mutant Power sits at the bottom of this iceberg and I’ve noticed it’s generally the least utilised part of the character sheets. I think the Service Groups and Secret Societies are such evocative hooks that you almost don’t need the mutant element at all! Strange to say, because it feels like such a core part of the Paranoia concept, but maybe in future sessions I’ll rethink how they work, perhaps having them intrude on play even if the players aren’t actively using their power. 

Pregens Make it Work

I don’t think I’d ever play this game with randomly generated characters. The whole game just relies so heavily on that inter-player conflict, so it’s a lot more effective when you can fine-tune those tangled interests for maximum juice.

I keep the physical description down to a small hook. One character is “jacked with tiny delicate glasses”, another notes “sickly complexion, always  chewing gum” and I give them a gender neutral name. 

Failing... Forward?

Right, I get this is basic advice at this point, but Paranoia is a great game to play if you really want to hammer this point home. For those living under a rock, this is the idea that when the players fail at a task you should apply the impact of that failure in a way that keeps the gaming moving forward. Not pulling punches is especially important here. If it’s a deadly threat then apply deadly consequences and move on. 

The characters will face an unfair world full of challenges beyond their capabilities. Clever play can overcome them, but remember that you’ve also got other players working against you. Quite frankly, it’s impossible for the whole group to succeed. 

Of course, Paranoia’s famous clones soften the impact of character deaths (though I start my characters a few clones into their bank of 6), but also it’s just a fun world to fail in, and things like treason flags and XP gives a few more straightforward ways to apply failure beyond just damage. 

Tone is Everything

Yeah, this whole game is about tone. I prefer the cold, dark dystopia of “straight style” play, where the comedy comes through absurdity and satire rather than puns and slapstick. There were still some silly characters, of course, but then people are often kinda silly. 

I tweaked some of the starting skills to reflect this. Skill groups were given names like Management and Drills, with specific skills for Infrastructure, Flattery, Chores, and Wellness. This all helped with the oppressive feel of the world, and hinted at what’s expected of citizens in Alpha Complex. 

In my last game we probably used Chores and Wellness more than any other skills, with an especially funny sequence of failures related to trying to clean a corridor. Not many games where mops and bleach can lead to such a memorable encounter.

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Non-empty Rooms

As so many have said before, an “empty room” doesn’t need to be a literal empty room. Instead, it’s just a room that doesn’t (currently) contain a monster, treasure, or trap. 

When you need an empty room, roll d6 instead.

1: Safe Room

Somewhere typically safe to stop for a rest. Perhaps it can be made safe with a little work, or something in here keeps enemies at bay. 

Examples: empty vault, hidden shrine, watchtower with retractable ladder

2: Danger Room

There’s something dangerous in here, but it’s not a monster or a trap. It’s easy enough to avoid, but the danger is there if combat breaks out or the players want to set a trap. 

Examples: hazardous machinery, walkway over snake pit, geothermal vents

3: Info Room

You can get useful knowledge here, most typically about another element of the dungeon. 

Examples: scrying pool, abandoned diaries, cave paintings

4: Tone Room

This is just here to set the tone of the dungeon, or the specific area this room inhabits. 

Examples: mass grave, baroque chapel, filthy living quarters

5: Nature Room

Nature gets everywhere, and this room is especially overrun with it. Nothing too hazardous, just life getting on with its own business. 

Examples: bird colony, fungal patch, rock pools

6: Supply Room

Nothing useful or valuable enough to be considered treasure, but a room full of stuff, typically mundane things. 

Examples: ramshackle kitchen, spare parts storage, uniform wardrobe

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This post was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site the week after its original publication.

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