Blood and Snow: Teacher Stones

[Gus]

I’ve created 4 different scenarios for my teacher stones. The idea is to use them in different adventures or maybe one pointing to the other until the players can reach the Relic. As I wanted some practical things to do with them I’m thinking in some puzzle / eureka moments for the players to have fun with them, could use some ideas if you guys have it…

1. The Secret Canyon: to reach this one they will need to traverse a labyrinthine rocky canyon (any ideas here? How to make this fun during play without relaying so much in roll WIS/INT for the next step? Ancient traps maybe?)
   

   

2. The Summer Valley: thermals and topography made this valley a special place, but the few who know of its existence believe that the rock with the ancient writings in the middle of the lake is responsible for this oasis amidst the cold world. (a map in the rock depicting that big mountain and a route from there? Maybe a glacier is just a few days from breaking the rock walls and submerging the whole valley?)
   

   

3. The Underground Lake: the ancients wanted to guarantee that only an intelligent species between all the splint branches of hominids could follow their clues. So for this one I was thinking if a player could stand still in the obvious human space in the bottom part he/she could see the inverted text reflected on the water leading to the next step on the journey
   

   

4. The Mudmen God: The simple mudmen that live near the forest believe that their hunts and livelihood are better after they found a strange stone with five holes in it some time ago during their food gathering. But this strange-shaped stone is another artifact of the ancients! When put in its correct place inside the big teacher stone in the forest, on the dawn of the right day of the year, the sun rays draw a star map on the smaller rock right in front, to help a Seeker on his way!
   

   

This last one I could think of some stuff:

• A social conflict where the player tries a friendly approach and must convince the mudmen that they are worthy of participating in their annual ritual where they reunite their god with his bride (take the small stone in the village in a procession to put it in the big stone in the forest, the connotation is pretty clear at this point ). Maybe a wedding? One of the players needs to marry someone in their tribe so they can use the ceremony where the same ritual happens to discover the map? What if the bride/groom is awful? What if he/she is a good catch? What if you need to gain his/her favor with some difficult mission like the eggs of a sky shadow or the fangs of a spear tooth? Or maybe win in a physical contest against other suitors?
• A rescue mission: a rival tribe raided the Mudmen village days ago and took the stone with them, envying their good luck and now the characters can help them to recover it. A big battle ensues, but we need the stone in the next few days or we will lose the correct time…
• An infiltration mission: let us steal this obviously sacred artifact from the tribe, what can go wrong?

So, can someone think of more shenanigans to put the player through?

[BlazingPolyhedron]

How do you usually plan your sessions?

[Gus]

It really depends on the occasion and the group. When I feel adventurous no planning at all let the dice decide what comes next. When I have something in my head that I think it will be fun to run I make a bullet point list for each “room/moment”.

When I’m thinking in run a session for the first time I go crazy with the preparations like I’m doing right now with Blood and Snow. I make and hunt for lots of maps, art, music, ask for tips in forums, prepare everything in Foundry and so on. I like to cherish this first time running something because it’s really unique for me, you will never be so excited as the first night of a setting you never run before so I try to enjoy the prep only for the sake of the prep…

[Therizinosaurus]

This is great! I love the fact many of beliefs and spirituality are mirrored by the real natural-world elements. I love the ambiguity! If I can ask, How do you suggest coming up with new cultures and laying out their customs (I am planning on a culture that dives into the Frigid waters to look for rare shells).

[Gus]

The all time, always present, never skipped ritual of trolling the new guys . Every culture has it’s small rituals of passage and sometimes they are just plain trolling for the laughs. Maybe is a really spiced food, maybe is drinking the awful fermetend giant cockroach milk that everyone inside the culture thinks it’s awful, but their mothers made their life miserable consuming this thing when they were growing up and I’ll be damned, if the new guys wanted to feel welcome they better drink the nasty thing. Then roll for CON and see who barfs, haha. Everyone cheers, real food is served, drums makes everyone dance and have fun.

Divers? Make the players go deep looking for shells, make one of the children of the tribe way better than the new comers in holding his breath, just to show them that they are not all that hot. If they drown a bit make the tribe cheer and tap then on their backs after they are brought back to the surface and be reanimated by the ugliest mofo there. If one of the players has abilities that would make them shine with the tribe give him/her the chance to show off a bit.

After the amenities and laughs, that were a bit of a test really, any tour you make around the tribe will feel more real

[The_Merlitron]

These are fun ideas. I especially like the forest one the best, in which the PCs have to get involved with another tribe, either through trial, building connections, or both.

[Gus]

Thanks! I’m trying to come up with ideas for the other ones too. I’m all in favor of having player’s agency on how they advance and make discoveries instead of relying on rolls and boring descriptions.

In line with some of the videos from Hankering: I never had the players having one of those AHA! moments with any of my “clever” reveals or descriptions. But their faces explode with excitement with the smallest things that they can solve or perceive by themselves…

[AxCrazy]

Ok, so Hankerin once detailed an amazing idea called the Mapless Maze of Molok. You start with a blank board of whatever size you want, and the goal is to navigate from one end to the other. Each time they move forward, they roll a D6, and the map generates according to the roll of the die.

You can check it out here. The part about the maze begins at about 12:45, but the whole Molok campaign is gold.

With some tinkering, you could change this from a brick-and-mortar maze with sliding walls into a confounding series of narrow canyon passages.

[Gus]

I’ve already tested the mapless idea with my group sometime ago it was an awesome session. But it never occurred to me to apply it here. Thanks for the marvelous idea! I will add it to the description. Maybe using some timers to create a sense of urgency…

I don’t wanna transform this in a Tomb Raider look a like adventure, with traps and mechanisms, I prefer the setting to be more about survival and natural wonders, but maybe if you need to run the maze at timed intervals because of stratofall, geisers or a predator approaching and/or you need to coordinate the team to be in different locations to help each other to take the next step… Yeah, I can see it as a cool session.

Thanks again for the wonderful idea!