Hiss is the zine-length adventure I wrote as a palate cleanser after finishing my gothic horror sandbox Bridewell. It’s a 30 page adventure, inspired by one of my favourite classic modules, Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Previous Play Report here. Ferdrek and Ursaline, played by Sandro of Fail Forward and Marcia of Traverse Fantasy, had made buddies in the Wild Weasel Inn, and decided to leave them there, and head straight for the Church of the Willowmother, under which their captive cultist had told them the cult was based.

They climbed the giant willow tree in the churchyard, which was sickly and dying, and found a swarm of snakes in a bleeding hollow in its trunk. They decided to burn the snakes alive, and in doing so, the willow itself burst into flames, shuddering and shrieking. They fled behind the church, leaving a commotion behind, and abseiled into a crater that swallowed a portion of the church.

They descended into a sandy catacomb filled with red-clay sealed niches. On the descent, they stopped to investigate a strange tapping, and found a reptilian creature making golden jewelled scales in the middle of the night. They killed it, but not before an earthquake rocked the catacombs they were in and banging and screaming began to echo throughout the area. They followed someone who lit a candle, Ferdrek knocking them out with a headbut, but more followed! Ursaline made a vow to a god with no name to bring her vengeance, and was gifted a magical wooden sword! They opened the door, unleashing savage root-animated skeleton women who attacked the cultist who had come to investigate!

Dashing past the fight, they found both a culvert through which they could escape, and the sanctified bones of a long-dead priestess. They bargained with her furious spirit, animated with the anger and pain of a tortured goddess, to not slay all the cultists until they had slain the cultists’ leaders. The priestess agreed, but only for a short while. Her rage must be satisfied.

Down the culvert, they found their way to a huge geode and an adjoining dream-wrought temple, occupied by a house-sized snake god with a bulging belly, sleeping. They doused her with oil, but Ferdrek touched her mind and was overwhelmed, his mind near breaking point. Ursaline gutted her, to pull whatever she had devoured out of her belly, but it was not food but a child: a gestating galaxy the size of a dumpster. Avoiding it, they attacked with their magical sword and flaming oil, slaying the great snake as it thrashed and burnt, almost bringing the catacomb down around them.

With her final breath, the snake-god screamed an immense psychic scream, wiping Ferdrek’s mind and leaving him dead. Same psychic scream fried the snakes that inhabited the villagers, and awoke what villagers were not already awake due to the burning willow. Ursaline carried Ferdrek’s dead body to the surface, and laid him to burial, burning, upon the shore.

Wow. I don’t mind my zine-length module running it in two sessions, but Marcia and Sandro speed-ran this dungeon! All through legal means, though, it’s a significantly jacquaysed dungeon and they took some interesting routes, and chose to raid it at 3 am, which meant there were less (awake) foes between them and their goal.

It never ceases to amaze me how consistently my expectations for what players will choose to do are upended in playtesting. I never anticipated the burning of the willow, nor the freeing of the skeletal priestesses, nor the bargain with them. I appreciate the interaction of their description with Ursaline’s vow, not something I anticipated having to deal with.

It’s also great to know that I packed enough content into 30 pages that we can run two 3 hour sessions and still completely miss two entire factions and countless characters. Writing a module that can run equally as a high-speed raid, or a slow-burn base town, is really cool. I didn’t anticipate the high-speed raid, but it worked, and the pressure I tried to work into it was clearly a success (although rests may have helped Ferdrek survive the night).

I picked up on a few minor problems with the module, but honestly, the integration of maps and key was pretty good, I added and rewrote a few lines, but largely it ran as intended. Sandro tweeted about it here and Marcia here. I’m pretty happy to revise a little art, apply my changes, do a proof read, and publish Hiss, I think.

31st August, 2023

Idle Cartulary