Flowers of Algorab - Session Zero

 

We’re underway with The Flowers of Algorab. We held a Session Zero a fortnight ago, and followed it up with the first session last night. I’m using Role as the VTT and Owlbear Rodeo for the mapping as it integrates nicely into Role. By nicely, I mean fully - you have OBR showing in the Role interface as if it was running in a browser. I’m still on a learning curve with it, but I think that I have enough understanding now to do the basics.

Session Zero

Session Zero went well, with everyone available (although one player was dangling at the end of a very dodgy 4G connection in a chalet at a gaming convention). We all met in Role, and took the time to introduce the VTT interface as several people hadn’t used it (certainly in recent times). I’d built sheets (which I shared in a previous post) and also a simple tracker. The idea behind that was that the player could use a form-filled PDF character sheet and only have essential tracking on Role. I think Role’s current sheet interface is like Marmite; it’s one long and narrow column and people either love it or hate it. The development roadmap does show a wider, pop-out-able sheet, but there have been no updates in recent months so it may never appear. 

I’m using Role as it puts the AV of the players front and centre. The OBR integration adds many of the missing native tools. I want the AV prioritised as my experience of playing other games (for example Eternal Lies) made me value that face-to-face contact above the ‘table’ part of the VTT.

I’m blessed with five players in this campaign, several of them regulars and others who I’ve met through the various gaming circles and conventions. They’re all great players so I’m certain that this should be a good experience so long as I deliver my end of this. 

Prior to the session, I shared key background information on the setting via our Discord channel, mainly drawing from the QuickStart released at the time of the crowdfunding. In effect, it was a set of teasers.

We worked our way through character, crew and bird generation during the session. 

We have:

• Arda Qamar, a Guild Surveyor and Traveller who came from the Far Colonies from a Mining Combine operation. She’s the bird handler and Scout for the team. (Played by Hattie).
• Meristo Koulas, an Esoteric Coriolite Seer who grew up in the Fog of the Haze, and has ties to the Black Toad. (Played by Paul).
• Lieto Miesma, a Scholar specialised in Builder Archeology who came from deep inside the Factory City of the Turbine Halls, with a background in the Machinist's Guild. (Played by Graham)
• Fassour Faradi, a roughneck deep miner who also came from somewhere the eternal fog of the Haze, and - like Merits - has ties to the Black Toad. (Played by Simon)
• Rashid al-Masri, a scoundrel Hull Cutter who came from among the hulks and wrecks of Hull Town, and has connections to the Gardener's Guild. (Played by Andy).

The New Seekers (Corvus, Arda, Meristo, Fassour, Rashid and Lieto)
Image by Hattie using a variety of LLM tools and more.

Together, they are The New Seekers crew. Yes, everyone liked the name when they were throwing ideas around, despite it being a late 1960s/1970s British pop group.

Their Bird is a specter called Corvus, cobalt blue, with a long beak, always observing.

The final thing covered in Session Zero was Owlbear Rodeo - I gave a quick tour of what it can do, but as I'm new to the tool, it was very superficial. I anticipate that my understanding will grow over the next few months!

19 February 2026

City of Mist - The Black Butterfly Murders - flawed but enjoyable

There shouldn’t be spoilers in this as I’m deliberately not covering the details and making this generic.

This past weekend, I ended up running ‘The Black Butterfly Murders’ from the City of Mist Local Legends book twice at Revelation. I’d only planned to do it once, but illness caused us to lose two of the GMs so I stepped in to make sure people had a game. I love City of Mist; it’s probably the game I’ve run most at conventions after Traveller. I have slowly worked my way through the various case files that are available and used them, and most of the time everything runs like clockwork.

I was a little nervous about running this scenario, because it risked being condensed down to ‘you find the murder victim’, ‘you do two chases and fights’, ‘you fight your way into a location’ and then ‘you fight the big bad’. It didn’t feel like your typical case, and there were elements about it that left me nervous about running it. However, it did have a much higher stake theme to it than a lot of the other cases that I’ve run, which made it quite attractive.

The case has a number of flaws: 

a) Two of the key non-player characters who could be aiding you or fighting against you don’t have danger stat blocks. A quick search of the internet and questions on the Son of Oak Discord didn’t find any that someone else had done. I winged it and fortunately, they didn’t get into conflict.

b) The main antagonist’s danger block assumes that everything has happened in the previous plot steps. This is significant as they are invulnerable to damage of certain types if this is the case. If you encounter the character before the plot steps, there’s nothing there to guide you. Again, I winged it.

c) The two introductory (Depth 0) steps in the case iceberg don’t really mesh well with scenes that follow deeper into the case. This was the point that the case’s logic broke in both the games that I ran.

d) The big bad is effectively immune to direct attack, and the Rifts (player characters) could foreseeably take significant damage statuses finding that out. If the crew is slanted for combat, it could go sideways for them. I had one character stop.holding.back. and fail the roll, which limited their options going forward. It would have been better if there had been some hint about how dangerous the confrontation would be. 

However, in both sessions, the players had a lot of fun!

The introductory scenes in a case will usually trigger Rifts  to start digging, even in the space between the initial call or voicemail, and the conversation with the client. In both runs through this, the players dug into news and contacts at this point so they were pulling clues from the depths below. This didn’t really matter and it was helpful that they were there. But I did have to improvise a fair few answers.

The introductory scenes would more naturally take place in day time. The key scene that follows - the first murder the characters interact with directly - happens at night. This means that in most realistic timescales there will be a gap between the characters initial steps and the murder, which will likely be used for investigation. In fact, if you don't do this, the scenario collapses down to a sequence of chase/chase/fight/fight/fight which loses the investigative flavour.

How did I approach it?

I had all the murders happening every two days apart, and effectively gave the Rifts just under 24 hours to find out what was happening. They did this with legwork and conversations with key characters. The first group pursued a Pokémon style approach and collected all the key non-player characters, and convinced them to work together. The second team carried out a more traditional investigation, but by the time that the fourth murder was due, they knew roughly where and when (as usual, Flicker showed her potential to derail scenarios), so they prevented it.

Preventing the murder took the scenario off-piste completely, as the danger stats for the antagonist assume that they are in the fullness of their power and the ritual completed. However, I improvised around the stats and that led to a confrontation in their lair in the City. 

Pretty much all the material needed for the investigation is there; you just have to be more flexible as the MC than usual. I did feel that the scenario could have done with more thought on how the various non-player characters may interact (perhaps with focus on what they want from each other and what they are ready to give in return) with guidance for the MC in playing out.

I've not going to suggest a rewrite of the iceberg for the case, but if you intend to run the scenario, I suggest you get really familiar with the available clues and relationships so you improvise how they work together.

Overall, I think this is an okay scenario; the scope is exciting with a significant threat level. However, I don't think that it is always clear to the Rifts that they are getting drawn into. We certainly had fun at the table.

Iceberg below the jump, minor spoilers.

Books in January 2026

The new year got off to a good start with 12 books and 2,594 pages read. Unusually, it was quite roleplaying heavy, although I read some fantastic novels, along with perhaps the best non-fiction book that I've read in a long time. This year I've set a target of 52 books again. I hope to beat that, of course.

The roleplaying books were driven by Cairn. This is a game by Yochai Gal that I've often heard of in cross references but never read or played. One of my friends mentioned it as a possible alternative system for a return to Dolmenwood and my ears pricked enough to pick up the core second edition books (Cairn Player's Guide, Cairn Warden's Guide and Cairn Bestiary). The game is very light but, like Mausrítter with which it shares some ancestry, it's surprisingly deep. I think I'll be rereading this and considering using it at some point.

After Cairn, I read both Coriolis: The Great Dark and its campaign set, Flowers of Algorab, in preparation for a campaign that I'll start in February. The fact that I'm planning to run it should tell you everything about my opinion of the game.

As part of my Clarkesworld catch up, I read Issue 226 and Issue 229, both of which were very enjoyable.

The non-fiction book I loved was Duncan Mackay's Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica. MacKay is an archaeologist who lives in East Anglia, and the story of Boudica's revolt has long fascinated him. He tells the tale well, sharing what we know of the culture of the Iceni, their Roman overlords, the nature of the Colchester Colonia and the ongoing military operations on the island by the Legions as the rebellion erupted. There's a fascinating exploration of the likely location of the final battle and then discussion of its aftermath, likely mass starvation. I listened to the audiobook which is read by the author and highly recommend this. Of course, growing up near Chester, I've long had a fascination with the Romans in Britain, so this was like catnip for me. It also touched on places I know and have passed through with work.

The Elle Cordova Bookclub pick this month was The Power by Naomi Alderman, which I found hard to put down. The book's caused a lot of discussion in the club Discord and has had mixed responses, but I found it compelling and read it very quickly. It talks about the overturn of the patriarchal nature of society when women start to develop the power to manipulate electrical fields. It's written from the perspective of several thousand years. Challenging but interesting.

I wanted a bit of change of tone after that, so I finally started reading James Ellroy's LA Quartet, starting with The Black Dahlia, which follows the lives of two LAPD cops, both ex-boxers, and the woman they both love as they are at the heart of the investigation of the Black Dahlia murder. Really well done, sunshine, grime, corruption and a fascinating mystery alongside.

The final book of the month was Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan, which tells the story of two friends from Scotland. The book is split into two parts, one in the 1980s around a mad trip to Manchester to see various bands over a weekend, and the second part set thirty years later when the protagonists are drawn together again by adversity. I found this sad and joyful and enjoyed it. Certainly made me feel reflective about the passing of time.

8 February 2026 

Adding custom cards on Owlbear Rodeo

This post is more a reminder for myself on how to do this. The help guidance for the Decks extension is good, but I had some key learnings to remember when I built my first custom deck of cards on Owlbear Rodeo for Flowers of Algorab. 

• Image type and size isn't too critical as long as OBR can read them. I used PNG and JPEG.
• If you want custom cards, don't bother using the upload options because they are a faff (you need the image files on a web server and it doesn't play nice with Dropbox type URLs). I also had issues with web server versions not creating images on the deck.
• Add the images to OBR as tokens (I put them in props).
• Use the custom tab.
• Drag to a scene and select the one you want, then use confirm selected for the back, then the front.
• Don't forget to add a value if the card has one.
• Click add to deck.
• Rinse and repeat.
• Use the 'create' option to drop the deck on the scene.
• Don't forget you can select the cards and group to get them back in the deck.
• Most importantly, export the deck file and save it somewhere. You'll need it if you want to add the deck in on another scene.

The chap who has written this extension is really helpful and responsive on the OBR Discord.

25 January 2026

Coriolis: The Great Dark Character, Crew, Bird, Simple Tracker & Dice Roller Sheets for the Role VTT

As part of my preparation for running Flowers of Algorab, I have created a character sheet for Coriolis: The Great Dark on the Role VTT.

You can find the Character Sheet here.

I will be adding a crew sheet and a bird sheet soon.

Why am I using Role? Mainly as I enjoy the AV first set up it has. I'm experimenting running with the Owlbear Rodeo plugin for maps etc. 

The other reason is that there's no sheet for the new edition on Roll20, of course. Fria Ligan have moved off to Foundry and Alchemy.

Edit: 

Crew Sheet

Bird Sheet

Edit 2:

Simple Tracker sheet designed for use alongside a traditional character sheet) 

Dice Roller sheet

 

24 January 2026

Traveller - A Package from a Dark, Cold Grave

I had a really satisfied feeling this week as a project that I’ve been working on returned to print as a PDF on DriveThruRPG. It’s taken quite some work to get it there, and there may be more to come if it goes into a print version.

I originally wrote Cold, Dark Grave around May 2005, setting it around 1114. The aim was to use it at conventions with BITS, and it ultimately proved popular, even though it could generate the odd TPK if things went badly. Part of the story relies on a betrayal, so there was an edge of character-vs-character friction.

Although the final book has ended up being called ‘Cold Dark Grave’, its title went through several variations as I wrote it up. The first version was ‘Out from a Dark Cold Grave’, which heads the OmniOutliner file with the scenario structure in from May 2005. I later called it ‘A Package from a Dark, Cold Grave’ when I shared the scenario out, and Andy Lilly renamed the tournament print of the scenario ‘From a Cold, Dark Grave’. Finally, it was shortened to its present name when it was released as a book at Conception 2007. As this happened just before BITS started to fall into dormancy, it was one of the rarer books we produced. 

Andy’s introduction in the recent release mentions that the scenario was originally prepared for GenCon UK 2005, which was held in Bognor Regis. This would have meant we were running it for multiple tables across the convention. I’m glad he remembered that because I completely forgot.

I wanted a scenario grounded in canon, and I was drawn to the Battle of the Two Suns, which occurred during the Fourth Frontier War in the year 1084. This was a pivotal battle in that unintended conflict, and it was first mentioned in the Classic Traveller Adventure The Kinunir, where it was mentioned as in passing as being the place that two of the ships in the class, the Allamu and the Ninkur Sagga, were both lost in action. It was a battle I recreated at one of the Hebden Bridge TravCons, the largest fleet engagement we ever played out, and one of the more extreme playtests of Power Projection: Fleet.

I loved the library data reference that 

“The battlefield is still posted as a dangerous area, littered with debris, and avoided by interstellar transportation.”

I wanted to give the characters a real motivation for committing a crime (carrying out a salvage operation in a war grave), so I set them up as a failing small mining company, family owned and run, suffering in the post-Fifth Frontier War recession. I ended up starting the scenario at Yres/Regina (which was pretty lightly touched by canon at that point) although I had considered Uakye/Regina as well. The scenario proper takes place at the outskirts of the Menorb system.

Work in progress in OmniOutliner (2005)

I sketched up some of the key locations - the wrecked starship, the dock at the start of the scenario, and Nick Bradbeer kindly 3D modelled them for me, both intact and battle damaged. The Tender’s design was inspired by one of Ground Zero Games’ miniatures that I’d used several times. Nick later did an incredible job with the cover too, capturing what I described to him perfectly.

Between Andy and Nick they came up with designs for the Seeker and the vessel being used by the criminal syndicate who try to muscle in. I absolutely admire what they did, as I find building deck plans hugely tedious. Nick 3D modelled the cargo ship as well.

Another aspect I was channelling as I wrote this was the boarding of the USS Discovery in the film (and book) 2010. I wanted the players to feel like they were operating in space and that there were unique challenges and dangers. I also wanted them to feel like ordinary people, trying to do their best in trying circumstances as they board a long abandoned wreck, out of their comfort zone and very much at risk.

The pregenerated characters (and everything else) was originally designed under Marc Miller’s Traveller (T4), although I have a suspicion I may have actually used the Classic Traveller High Guard rules to design the tender as T4 was pretty broken. I deliberately set the characters up so they had reason to zing off each other. This is a really useful trick for con games; give the players something to hang the character on in how they feel about other players and you’ll get some great engagement.

I’m not as certain that I would have made the scenario have such a character-vs-character moment at its core if I wrote it now, as experience has taught me that there are players out there who really dislike that happening. That’s one of the reasons that the conventions I’m involved in have a tag for scenarios that include inter-character conflict. That’s far too often called PvP - it should always be CvC. However, it did work well in play.

The print release at Conception 2007 was expanded from the original, and Andy and I kicked some ideas around, but he fleshed it out and added in some of the material about the star systems, plus how to use the scenario as a longer game. I wasn’t at the con, but a copy soon arrived in the post (around the same time that my first child was born)!

Updating the scenario for Mongoose Traveller 2e required me to convert the characters to the new edition, and then redefine all the skills. I used the Google Sheets spreadsheet to redesign the ships the players touch (and those worksheets are included in case starship combat occurs). 

Layout was a challenge; I’m long used to using Affinity Publisher (and before that InDesign) but the earlier BITS books were all in Microsoft Word. This created some interesting challenges on page breaks etc. Bizarrely, the file saved on my MacBook Pro in the current version of Word opens with different pagination in Andy’s Windows based current version of Word despite exactly the same fonts being used. Some of that is printer margins, but it was a frustration.

Discussions with Mongoose meant that we had to release as PDF only, which is a shame. It’s certainly something that we’d love to change in the future. However, for now I’m just pleased that this is back out and available and I hope folks enjoy it.

The scenario 'Delta 3 is Down' will be the next one we release.

You can pick up a copy here.

24 January 2026

That sound... mechanical keyboard delight

I previously did a short review on the Keychron K10 Max, which is the keyboard that I use when I'm not working in my home office*, but it continues to give me delight to use.

That delight comes from the sound of the keyboard as much as the feel, so I thought I'd share an audio file of the noise. There's something about it that just makes me want to type...

(*) When working, I use my Logi MX Keys S, as it's a lot quieter, which helps in Teams meetings when I'm doing two things at once!

11 January 2026

Dom Mooney · Keyboard K10 Max with Brown Switches

State of the Blog 2025

 

I posted slightly less this year than I did in 2024 (108 vs 125); had I completed #RPGaDay2025 then I suspect that overall the blog would have seen a similar level of posts. Interaction is up with 168k unique views vs 92.8k the year before (double 2023), and I see a lot of traffic from both Mastodon and the Traveller Facebook groups.

Traffic was very spiky and high in the period June to October, but overall levels have crept up. Like last year, Traveller material continues to drive a lot of the traffic. 

My highest traffic post made in 2025 was a #RPGaDay one with the keyword 'Enter'. It was quite a philosophical post on that moment before you commit, but there were references to Tolkien and more so that may have driven some interest.

The next highest was the post where I conceded that I was wrong about my thoughts about Mongoose Traveller 2e, and explained why it had drawn me back into it after a couple of years without Traveller being at the heart of what I played and ran. 

After that, there's a set of Traveller related reviews.

Four of the top ten traffic posts were actually made earlier than 2025. I think that just suggests that people visit and explore or find things on search. Google certainly ranks top on source sites, but bizarrely so does Gizmodo, and the Gaming Tavern remains a stalwart! Chrome dominates the browsers (63%) but platforms run Windows (42%) then Mac (25%) which surprised me in that the Mac is so high.

It was quite interesting that although I do post some OSR related material, I didn't make it into the web of blogs that Xaoseed shared here. Obviously, a parallel track! Then again, I do mainly post SF and reviews. I think First Age found a similar thing for his blog too.

I've kept up with the alt-text habit that Mastodon taught me. It's my main social media now, but I am bridged to Bluesky (but why put the effort into another walled garden)? I do use Facebook (mainly as it's the only social route to some friends and the centre of gravity for Traveller has moved there from the TML) but detest it and Meta as a whole. I don't generally accept Facebook requests from folks I'm not sure I know, so reach out if you're trying to link up that way so I know why!

I've migrated most of the old blog now, but just need to get some solid time on it to finish it off.

Anyway, 2025 was a fun year blogging, and I had a steady string of interaction on socials when I posted and on the blog itself. See you around, and great to talk to you!

4 January 2025

Books in 2025

StoryGraph summarised my year of reading as: You chased clues down winding paths, chased horizons and daring escapades, and wandered through tales tinged with shadow. That does seem pretty accurate.

I read a total of 119 books (up from 102 the year before) with a total of 32,181 pages (up 5%), so all in all a good improvement (although the page count was very much driven by the two Lucifer graphic novel omnibus editions I read).

I've been pretty steady though the year, although April did see quite a spike upwards.

I'm still using Goodreads, but mainly as my Kindle is linked. That only shows 84 books as it struggles with small press and roleplaying books in many cases.

Martin J Dougherty was my most read author, completely driven by the Deepnight Revelation work for Traveller. 

Martha Wells was the fiction author who I read most of, thanks to the Murderbot Diaries, which were also very short. Adrian Tchaikovsky came next, with five novels with Mick Herron (Slow Horses books and novellas), Samu Rämö (the Hildur series) and Christopher Fowler (Bryant and May) coming in next. 

I really enjoyed the Murderbot Diaries and have preordered the next instalment; I may find myself digging inti the fantasy books that Wells wrote that were also in the Humble Bundle I picked up. Likewise, I suspect that Adrian Tchaikovsky will continue to feature heavily as I picked up most of his fantasy fiction that I haven't read in a Humble bundle. I do intend to continue with Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series through 2026 as well. There were two notable series I started to re-read but have only read the first book - Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. I do intend to read more of both of these, and I think that the Pendragon RPG books that are sitting in my to-read pile can only help with the Mary Stewart books.

I joined Elle Cordova's Sci-Fi Book Club this year to try and make sure I didn't get into a rut. I've certainly read a number of books that I wouldn't have otherwise; I've not liked all of them, but they've definitely been worth the time. My favourite so far has been Klara & the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the one that I've least liked was Slaughterhouse-5 (which drew me through but wasn't really my thing).

I enjoyed William Boyd's Gabriel spy novels, and will explore more of his work next year. I've found myself reading more thrillers and literature novels than previous years, and hope to keep some of this breadth going forward.

My favourite fiction novel of the year was Derek B Miller's Radio Life, with Nick Harkaway's Sleeper Beach a close second.My favourite non-fiction was a tie between Borderlines (Lewis Baston) and Vertigo (Harald Jähner), both of which taught me new things and were well written.

Tales of the Old West was the best roleplaying game I've read this year (although The Hooded Man deserves a honourable mention). It wins as an extremely playable game set in the period of the Western. It is gritty, focuses on community and avoids the need to draw on horror or the weird. It was a delight at the table.

My reading streak hit 1,088 days at the end of the year.

2 January 2026