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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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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Five Years of Wargames - Wishlist

Now for the games I'd love to get to the table next.

Lion Rampant

Remember when I said I thought Xenos Rampant would fit better in a different era? This is what I was thinking. 

The units being a bit slow and unreliable fits much more with my vision of medieval warfare than sci-fi. I’ve got enough Vikings to cobble together an army for this, so it’s high on my list to try. 

Five Parsecs from Home

I made all that wooden modular terrain and then never managed to get this campaign started! Perhaps one for the summer. 

Five Men at Kursk/Normandy

I’ve got everything I need to run this in 15mm, but I’ve heard whispers of a new release coming, so perhaps that will give me the kick I need. 

NUTS!

Another WW2 skirmish game but this time with a focus on dynamic turn structure, cascading actions and reactions, cooperative play vs an uncertain number of enemies, and a lot of fascinating narrative stuff but... 

Look, I just don’t get this. I’ve read it, I’ve watched gameplay videos, I’ve read message boards, but I’m just a bit stumped on how this actually works in play. But still... it holds a lot of promise as a potentially interesting game with some unique ideas. 

My dream is that one day I’ll find somebody already experienced in this game to walk me through. 

Chain of Command

Now this is one where I think I’m actually likely to find an expert to run me through a game, as it seems to have a good following. 

What a Cowboy!

A very strange die activation system on top of a surprisingly granular cowboy ruleset. I’m intrigued, though, and I have the minis ready to go. 

Space Crusade

Does this count as a wargame? My partner spotted this in a charity shop and I’m very pleased she called me to ask if I wanted it. Yes. I did.

At the moment I’m paralysed with fear over the idea of painting these miniatures, as they’ve clearly been waiting in their box for a very long time. 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Yeah, I keep telling myself that this old thing could be fun to run as a GM, taking some of my GW-fan friends back to the source, but there’s also a lot of grit to the system that I’m not sure we’d enjoy. 

Age of Penda /  Arrowstorm

This is a fascinating system from Daniel Mersey, the Rampant guy, and has an almost worker-placement system for assigning orders to your army, and an abstracted grid layout for the battlefield itself. The two flavours are early and late medieval, so perhaps when I’ve got my Vikings painted up I could get a game together. 

Black Ops

This is an unassuming little Osprey blue book, but it has some nice ideas. A cool system for suppression, stealth missions, and overall seems very simple. Perhaps I could spin it over to sci-fi or WW2 to use the miniatures I already have. 

A Billion Suns

Another interesting-but-daunting game. There’s a lot of space fleet action happening at my local club, so perhaps this is something I could lure people into. 

Blood, Bilge, and Iron Balls / Galleys & Galleons

I don’t know what prompted me to buy a handful of Age of Sail ships. Painting them scares me. Fitting little sails and flags to them scares me. Rigging?? Don’t even start.

If I ever actually finish this project then I’ve got two games in mind. BB&IB goes hard on detail, down to individual crew members and cannons, and sort of reads like a Classic Battletech style game, where each ship has a big sheet of info to track. This is certainly appealing when dealing with big old ships, but G&G, based on the Song of Blades & Heroes system, might be a more realistic way in for me.

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Five Years of Wargames - Rundown

It’s been nearly five years since I plunged back into miniature wargames, like so many people did during that first 2020 lockdown. I thought it might be interesting to take stock of the games that I’ve played in that time, not counting my own, and look at the games I’d still like to get to the table.

Battletech / Alpha Strike

You know I love a great value starter set, and the Game of Armoured Combat set is pretty fantastic at providing a generous box of content, meaning you don’t really need to pick up all that much outside of it. Getting this thing on a whim, taking it home and digging into it was a real treat. 

You also know that I went and bought a load of extra stuff and pivoted into their simpler Alpha Strike game on the side. 

There’s a lot that I love about Battletech. Surprisingly, I think I prefer the clunky old classic version, managing heat, precise hit locations, and weighty hex movement. My main complaint has been that games are slooooow, but I’m told that if I play in an era with better weapons then there’s less chipping away at armour and more decisive strikes.

Of course, I’d rather play MAC Attack now. 

Blood Red Skies

That podcast ends up costing me a lot of money. I had no interest in a WW2 fighter combat game before I heard Andy talk about some of the more interesting design decisions, then I knew I had to try it out. It’s a fantastic system, one of the best examples I’ve seen of “easy to learn, hard to master”. So far I’ve humiliated myself in almost every game I’ve played, but I’d love to play some more and finally get good. 

Gaslands

Converting hot wheels and matchbox cars into post apocalyptic death machines is some of the most fun I’ve ever had with miniatures. It got me excited to hit the toy aisle in my local supermarket and find more vehicles, so much cheaper than miniatures!

While I’ve had fun playing the game I always forget that it’s reasonably complex, and in particular I’ve found it difficult to teach to new players. This feels rather at odds with its attention-grabbing premise, so I always tell myself I’d like to toy around with writing up an ultra-streamlined version of the rules for one-shots and new players.

Warhammer 40k 9th and 10th Editions

One of my best friends is a real GW loyalist, so we’ve reached a pretty good compromise where he’ll try out whatever new game I’m excited about and occasionally I’ll play whatever the current edition of 40k is.

It’s not really a fair review, as I feel like I spend the majority of each battle re-learning how things work. The foundations are simple enough. Moving and attacking has never been simpler, but there’s a lot happening on top of that with objectives, command points, stratagems... all stuff that I’m sure becomes second-nature if you play regularly, but for me it feels like I spend as much time digging through the rulebook as I do surveying the battlefield.

Warcry

I thoroughly enjoyed painting up the Blood Harvest starter set. Love the warbands and the terrain. Played it once aaaand... now it’s in the cupboard.

Which is strange, because I enjoyed playing it. The random scenarios are fun and games are quick enough that you can blast through a few of them in one sitting. Using dice as a metacurrency for special powers isn’t really my sort of thing, and here I found it a touch fiddly, but I suspect that would pass with experience. 

So why haven’t I played it again? I suspect it’s in a weird middle ground where my GW friends don’t play it, but neither do the non-GW players at my local club. Maybe I’ve got an unconscious bias against seeking out strangers to play a GW game, something I’ve happily done for other games. Wait... I’m getting a flashback to being 11 years old... I’m at a games workshop game night... playing against some random teenager and... no.... not the hydra sword!

Kill Team

I only played this one, but I quite enjoyed it. I liked the sort of stealth system, I thought the basics of combat worked, and while I was hoping the new edition would be more like sci-fi-warcry, I can see the appeal of the added grit here. Would happily play this if somebody else wants to buy and paint up a starter set. 

Epic 40k Third Edition

One of my holy grail games. After decades of waiting I got an old set, played it out of the box with no house rules, and it was a good time. 

Simultaneously streamlined and... a bit fiddly with  it comes to assigning hits and resolving assaults but I still love that pitch of “this single roll represents an entire 40k battle”.

Something inside me resists Armageddon, I’ve just got a lot of affection for this version of the game. I’d be keen to try out the new GW Epic system, but only if I can bring the Marines and Orks that I’ve already painted. 

Bolt Action

This is still a lot of fun. I love how fast it plays, while still bringing that feel of attritional suppressive fire and unit morale. I’ve made the classic error of only really playing pitched battles, so I’d love to try some more unusual scenarios. 

Five Parsecs from Home: Tactics/Bug Hunt

I’ve only managed one game each, and they’re my sole experiences playing wargames with a GM. If you’ve never tried it, I can’t recommend it enough.

The systems themselves are fast and solid, as you’d expect from Ivan Sorensen. 

Saga

I played this for the first time last week and naturally I’m now neck-deep in Vikings, trying to get my own warband ready for the table.

I thought I’d hate the saga dice system, as I typically avoid extra layers outside of the battlefield, and... look, I’m still undecided, but I definitely don’t hate it. 

The thing I love is how dynamic it all feels. You can activate each unit multiple times giving them these huge sweeping moves, or send them rampaging into the enemy ranks. However, this causes fatigue, which enemies can use against you. It’s a lot of fun and a very different feel to just activating each of your units in turn. 

Looking through the rules now there are lots of little quirks and exceptions to keep track of, but I’m very keen to play it again. 

Xenos Rampant

I’ve only played a handful of this game. It’s a lot of fun building a force using its super modular system but... I’m a little bit underwhelmed by the gameplay itself. Remember how I praised Saga for its fast, dynamic play? I found in Xenos Rampant I’d often have turns where it felt like I achieved very little at all, or just took obvious actions.

Now this could be down to scenario choice, or army design, but I also think this particular ruleset might just be better suited to a different flavour (more on that next week). 

Void Admiral

I’m playing this tonight! So far I’ve only had small introductory battles, but tonight I’m braving a full-sized affair. 

So far I’ve found this ruleset sits in my sweet spot in terms of rules complexity. You’ve got a few quirks and exceptions to the core rules, but they’re mostly consistent. You’ve got Saga/Warcry style powers used by spending metacurrency dice, but they operate in a much less involved way here. I glance over to my ability board now and then but otherwise my eyes are firmly on the ships drifting into battle. Factions have some unique twists but are still based on the same foundations as each other. 

The Renegade Warfleets supplement adds a few more options to customise your ship, so now you can have that surprisingly fast destroyer or a corvette that trades its armoured prow for overpowered lasers. I appreciate this extra room to make ships feel unique. 

Next week I’ll look at the games I want to get to the table this year.

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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.