New, improved Helter Skelter!
Helter Skelter is now in the new format. It has a nice new PDF with a table of contents. The resources file remains the same, but is more prominently linked on the adventure’s web pages.
For our group, Helter Skelter was a turning point in the sandbox. The characters had consulted an oracle—an ancient bean-si—in the mountains and decided to go to the first city. They didn’t yet know what it meant, but the oracle told them to consult Red Jack. Red Jack led them to The Road.
On their way to the Road, they went through the Song of Tranquility adventure from Fight On! #7. Song of Tranquility’s working title was Skeleton Crew. I wrote it because I realized that Expedition to the Barrier Peaks had the wrong feel for what they were doing. I’d still love to run Expedition at some point. I’ve never done that adventure, either as player or DM.
The Road led them to The City. That adventure will come next, I think. But probably after I redo the Encounter Guide and Arcane Lore.
The really cool part of this adventure turned out to be the matchbooks, which are meant to be introduced during an earlier adventure to draw the characters into the right doors. The newspaper wasn’t too bad either: it really does look real. Helter Skelter contains the coolest ephemera of any of my adventures, I think.
- Fight On! 7 is out (and I’m in)
- Fight On! issue 7 is out; look for a Gods and Monsters adventure inside.
- Helter Skelter
- In the city of sin is a gambling house that was when the world began. In a lost alley is a door behind a door and within it a deck of cards and fortune’s wheel. Upon the deck are forgotten gods; upon the wheel the world rests.
- Retrospective: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks: James Maliszewski at Grognardia
- “Nowadays, though, I have come round, perhaps not to a full bore appreciation of ‘gonzo’ settings, but a better understanding of the hows and whys of what some might see as genre mixing. It’s very hard, if you have any knowledge of the history of the RPG hobby and the fandoms from which it sprang, to get worked up about robots and aliens in Greyhawk. They’ve always been there, just as they’ve always been a part of weird fiction. The boxes we now use to categorize—and market!—our creative products are purely artificial, the result primarily of bean counters looking for ways to sell their wares more effectivel”