Between the Seasons

Mythic Bastionland assumes that you’ll advance through the Seasons, and likely through the Ages, seeing your Knights grow old and maybe die a peaceful death. 

In terms of what happens between the end of a session and the start of a new Season or Age, it’s left quite loose. You get this table.

And of course there are Spark tables for the Referee to draw on. These ones in particular are handy.

And maybe this middle one when you become Old.

I turn 40 in a couple of weeks, so I’m studying this one carefully.

Knights also get to choose an activity between Seasons and Ages, but what if want to inject a slightly more concrete random event thing?

Let's go. We'll just do between Seasons today. These aren't really meant to be played out in full, you just discuss what happened as a group when you move to a new Season.

Some of these call for specific Spark Tables found in the book.

Between Season Events

Each Knight rolls d66:

11. An old Knight offers you their longsword (2d8) if you pledge to train their grandchild as a squire.

12. A random Seer of the Realm is dying and summoned to you ask them one last question.

13. You become ill, roll an ailment.

14. You are assigned an important role at a wedding.

15. The ruler of a nearby holding has openly spoken ill of you.

16. While camping, one of your weapons, shields, or pieces of armour was stolen.

21. A messenger from a distant realm brings news, with a loose connection to you.

22. Your steed suddenly dies.

23. Local farmers provide you with sustenance.

24. A merchant from a neighbouring realm provides you with stimulant.

25. A band of pilgrims offer you sacrament.

26. Somebody close to you becomes ill, roll an ailment.

31. You learn of a new Landmark in the Realm. Roll and place it randomly.

32. You witness a ghost from your past.

33. You meet a travelling part. Roll SPI. If you pass, they write a complimentary song about you, granting 1 Glory. If you fail they mock you, losing 1 Glory until you prove them wrong.

34. You meet a new successor, potentially more promising than your own if you have one.

35. You meet a potential romantic partner. Pass a SPI Save to see if the affection is mutual.

36. You indirectly cause a great fire, wiping out a hex of forest or other greenery.

41. A visiting Knight wishes to duel you.

42. You discover a raiding party from a neighbouring Realm.

43. You stumbled upon a wild beast. It gave you a Scar (d12) before leaving you for dead. Any Virtue loss caused by this is still active at the start of the next Season.

44. A wandering Seer from a distant Realm offers you cryptic guidance.

45. You learn the location of a legendarily powerful longsword (3d8 hefty), but it's in the most inconvenient place.

46. You encounter a Knight sworn to an enemy Realm, but they're pleading for sanctuary and passage to the Seat of Power.

51. You are called to adjudicate between a truthful but vindictive ruler and a dishonest but desperate vassal.

52. You learn of a secret Drama in court.

53. A Seer personally calls you for a Task.

54. You are at the centre of a new Conflict between two holdings.

55. You witness a Wonder in a hex near to your most significant holding.

56. You dream of an Otherworld.

61. You are accused of a crime you did not commit.

62. You are swept up within a peoples' revolt in the Realm.

63. You find a band of artisans from a distant Realm. You escort them to set up shop in a holding.

64. You offended a strange hermit and they swore a curse upon you. Seers predict grave things for you.

65. You are with a random ruler as they die suddenly.

66. A ruler abandons their holding, calling you to aid in establishing a new ruler.

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Background Mutations for Paranoia

After last week’s holiday I’m taking a little break from Mythic places, but I’ll return to that series at some point. 

Let’s go back to Alpha Complex. 

I mentioned previously that mutant powers have felt like an afterthought in the few sessions of Paranoia that I’ve run. 

So what if they weren’t a thing the player could actively use, but something that ticks along in the background? Some might be useful, but I also like the idea of them just being annoying and sparking more suspicious behaviour from players. 

Of course, that means it becomes a thing for the Referee to track, but I’m sure they can handle it.

Let’s make 12.

1. Hostile Emissions - If you are scanned for anything you always generate the worst possible result. 

2. Shocking Field - Any living thing you touch suffers a painful shock equivalent to a stun stick. 

3. Pressurised Blood - If you suffer even the smallest wound you spray blood everywhere. If you’re killed it’s extremely messy. 

4. Soft Gut - If you eat any solid food you regurgitate it instantly.

5. Rubberised Musculature - You are unarmed by falling, but bounce a lot upon landing. 

6. Inflation Bladder - If you enter a body of liquid you automatically inflate like a balloon, floating quite safely. It takes a moment of calm for you to deflate.

7. Facial Chameleosis - Each morning you wake up with a new face.

8. Bronchial Cryogenesis - When you sneeze, cough, or otherwise expel a large amount of air, it’s cold enough to freeze liquids or a bit of flesh.

9. Mortal Regeneration - When you die, as long as your body is mostly intact, you’ll regenerate in a few minutes without needing a new clone. You’re still messed up, but you’re back on your feet. This may cause multiple clones to be active at once.

10. Hyper Hearing - You can hear things happening in the next room as clear as day, but loud noises cause you physical harm. 

11. Bio Siren - When you are wounded you emit a scream so loud that it shatters glass in the nearby area.

12. Molecular Metallurgy  - Metal objects you hold gradually start to melt, without becoming hot.

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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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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.

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