Oh the Manatee (Part 1)

First of all, credit to +Paul Fricker for this blog post title (it'll become clearer, hopefully, after reading this report). Anyway. The following is an account of our first session with World of the Lost, using the new Lamentations of the Flame Princess playtest rules. If you're interested in knowing the thoughts on the product and the rules, skip to the end.

Having been absorbed the wonderful delight that is World of the Lost by +Rafael Chandler I knew I wanted to run it. Written for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, it promises lots of fun with all manner of craziness including dinosaurs. This, I think, will essentially be a fun experience similar to The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence but with a considerably more serious tone.

On top of that I also received the new LotFP Playtest rules, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to test them out too.

The initial set up was straight forward enough: British troops had established an outpost just south-west of the city of Khirima (about 20 miles away), and the players would be doing some mild exploring.

Sir Edmund Burke (+Scott Dorward) and Audrey (+Kathryn Jenkins) were two citizens from London, famed magicians who had managed to secure travel to this unexplored land in search of Things of Interest. Sergeant Thomas (Lucy Fricker) and Corporal Lexi (+Sarah Schiff) had been assigned to the magicians to protect them, along with two privates. In addition, the outpost's Chaplain - Reverend Wright (+Paul Fricker) - had decided to accompany the group to help spread the word of God to the savages.

They agreed that the first point of exploration should be the city of Khirima itself. The outpost's captain had stated they were not to go beyond the city to the plateau - the local's were very touchy about this area, and he had no wish to set off a war in a hurry.

Travel through the forest was slow and tedious. At one point the group stumbled across a Gaboon Viper but Sergeant Tom managed to scare it away by yelling loudly at it. They got closer to a lake that was near the city and witnessed with some confusion a circle of crocodiles circling off in the distance, following a perfect circle endlessly.

They decided to set up camp for the night before pushing on to the city the next day but during the third watch Sergeant Tom became aware of a large black shape shuffling towards the camp from the lake.

Without hesitating he fired his arquebus but missed (though woke up the party and the surrounding wildlife). As the camp came to life they realised it was a loveable manatee who was now desperately trying to escape. Naturally the group killed it, chopped its head off before hauling it up over a tree to drain for the rest of the night.

The next morning while the privates butchered the carcass for steaks, the party found numerous human footsteps around their camp; it appeared they had been observed during the night.

They pushed on to Khirima, passing first through the outlying villages that surrounded the great city. They saw that the people were actively avoiding making eye contact with them, so while the chaplain made crosses out of reeds and handed them to the kids who were running around (who in turn promptly started using them as swords to hit each other) Corporal Lexi confronted a villager.

They found that the villager could speak passable English, stating that they wanted nothing to do with the players. He also mentioned that they weren't the first white humans to pass through here.

Inside the city they found a similar reception. No one was actively rude to them, but no one went out their way to engage the group. They made their way to the palace district, just in time to witness a royal procession through the streets.

They watched as the king was carried by, stopping briefly to give a merchant a present, back to his palace.

Sergeant Tom caught up with the merchant, demanding to know what he had been given. A small crowd began to form as the merchant frostily explained it was a present for him and of no concern to the sergeant. As the merchant turned to leave the sergeant grabbed him by the hem of his robe and snarled, telling the merchant that he had killed many like him and he should be a bit more respectful. The merchant held his gaze and said he had heard many threats similar before.

The sergeant shoved him, causing the merchant to stumble a few steps. By this point the crowd around the group were entirely silent, staring at the players. Sir Edmund intervened, apologising profusely to the merchant but the merchant simply shook his head sadly and walked off.

The crowd let the players leave, still not saying anything. The group decided that getting to the palace would be the best course of action.

When they got there they found a line of drummers on brass cauldrons, beating a repetitive tune while female guards watched on. The players tried to get in, wisely avoiding threats this time, but were told they certainly couldn't meet the king. After some discussion they managed to secure a meeting with a scholar.

The scholar explained that while he had no care for what the group could offer, he was happy to share his own knowledge regarding the area (and the plateau) as long as the players did a small favour for him first: a textile merchant by the name of Ewuke Afonso had some documents in his possession that he really shouldn't have, documents that'd be dangerous to retrieve by anyone with royal connection. Of course, some blundering white outsiders would be a bit more expendable.

The situation clear, the players agreed to do a bit of recovery work.

Thoughts on the Setting

World of the Lost has a lot going for it. As a group we've agreed to run through it for as long as we're happy, and I can't predict how long that will be seeing as there is so much to do. In this session, I used the city generator to create things as we went and it was pretty good - theres something quite exciting as a GM to have controlled surprises in the narrative.

Thoughts on the Playtest Rules

Everything is a lot simpler in the new rules; character creation is swift, the completed sheet is easy to reference, things work. The biggest issue I have at the moment is how combat works with the new armour modifiers (I've emailed +James Raggi for an answer, so hopefully have that cleared up before the next session!).

Unlike the original rules, skill checks are done by trying to get 6 or more on a dice roll, adding the skill modifier. This makes a bit more sense than filling in dots on a blank d6.

Please stay tuned for the next session report, two weeks today, to find out more on my thoughts on the new rules and the setting as well as to find out if the group manage to survive 24 hours in Khirima.